Holy Fire

This year, Anna Chegwith
Took hold of organising
Lower Banford’s Guy Fawkes Night
Beyond the boundary
Opposite the oak tree
Far from the pavilion

Anna, Catholic on a Sunday,
Firefighter by Monday,
Had two loves: order and disorder
White-shirt-buttons-neat-Chegwith
And anarchic-Anna, depatterned,
Chaotic, randomly romantic, Anna

Committee-meeting-Chegwith reigned
Precise distances to the rope
Fire station - informed
Weather reports - updated
Decision timelines – strict
Traffic lights on amber

At home, Anna put the word out:
Invite the blind, the deaf, the crippled
The autistic, anosmians, dysgeusians
And ‘Primary children to bring wood’
Written on a to do list, sat on the loo
Flushed before Chegwith could find it

The parents set to compete as ever

Anna subverting Ghegwith
Chegwith suppressing Anna

November the 5th arrives
Dusk is gathering, damp air cooling
A rope is in place, a matrix of fireworks
50 yards downwind from the pyre
Its wigwam of standard tree trunks
Chegwith’s firm foundation

Pressed into the ground by odd offerings
Old tables, bookcases, broken rocking horses
Uprooted trees, an old brown piano
Rising to meet the stars, trembling and creaking.
The crowd now hushed,
Waiting for Anna to kneel, and

Lit taper in hand to ignite the bonfire
A wild conflagration feeds the night sky
Tasted in the air, its roar heard,
The heat so real it could be held
Red raging flames compensating
The disabled, first behind the rope

Guy Fawkes Night, an enhancer, for all ages
Battling with burgers and dripping ketchup.
Yes, it had a guy, a nod to Parliament
And on Sunday Anna Chegwith,
Smelling sweet from the smoke, still,
Knelt again, as we all do before holy fire

Book Review: The Wisdom of Tenderness, Brennan Manning (2002)

The Wisdom of Tenderness caught my eye as it sat on the bottom step of a friend’s staircase four days ago.

Before I had finished the first page, I knew that it had successfully jumped the queue of books lying around the house crying out to be read next.

The opening salvo isn’t bad either: ‘In the past year, I’ve grown increasingly uneasy with the state of contemporary spirituality in the Western world. It has, to put the matter bluntly, the flat flavor of old ice cream.’

Manning is in a combative mood. But what follows is not a finger-pointing tirade, a Victor Meldrew ecclesiastical rant, but, like the wounded healer that Manning became, he offers his insights, and often at his own expense:

‘In praying for chronic alcoholics, I’m frequently overcome by a surge of compassion…perhaps because of my own struggle with alcoholism…the damnable imprisonment of not being able to quit…the harrowing fear that I’ve lost God…are quickly revived when I pray for an alcoholic’

Page after page Manning dismantles our – and his - self-aggrandisements, desperate coping mechanisms, dissatisfying quests for indispensability, our fears of being found out, and tells us, using his extraordinary gift of translating the human condition into beautifully written prose, that God is tender towards our poverty-stricken spirituality. Towards us.

‘The crux of this little book can be stated briefly and succinctly. In a moment of naked honesty, ask yourself. “Do I wholeheartedly trust that God likes me?” Not loves me because theologically God can’t do otherwise.’

There is an ‘American’ dimension to this book – for example, he deals with issues of hypocrisy within the pro-life/anti-abortion movement which is more of an issue across the pond than here – but the principles easily swim across to our shores.

But, if you’re British and tempted to dismiss anything from America as shallow, brash, and over-confident, this book will be a shock to your misplaced British superiority! In fact, unless you’re willing to be knocked off your perch, not to take yourself too seriously, and hand yourself in for a spiritual MOT, this book is not for you…yet.

‘The crux of this little book can be stated briefly and succinctly. In a moment of naked honesty, ask yourself. “Do I wholeheartedly trust that God likes me?” Not loves me because theologically God can’t do otherwise.’

It is my contention, however, that The Wisdom of Tenderness is for everyone: British, American, Mongolian, Chilean, Russian, French, and all comers. It is shot through with love, tenderness, mercy, and kindness in the face of human failure and spiritual poverty.

It’s not a self-help book, but it is one for those who like John Lennon who wrote ‘Help!’ in response to his out-of-control lifestyle and fame: "I was eating and drinking like a pig, and I was…dissatisfied with myself...I was crying out for help.” I can’t comment on what John Lennon did to self-medicate, but Manning unreservedly points us to Jesus as the ultimate source of the help we all need.

The Wisdom of Tenderness is not a biography, but I add Manning’s Wikipedia page if you wish to know more about the author. He died in 2013.

Brennan Manning - Wikipedia

In Christ: Article 3: New Testament Greek: ἐν Χριστῷ translated as ‘In Christ’ Milk or meat?

‘I could not write to you as spiritually mature but as fleshly, as babes in Christ…I fed you with milk not solid food…you are still fleshly…and are behaving like mere men.’ 1 Cor 3v1-4

‘Though by this time you should be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary lessons…you need milk, not solid food…solid food belongs to the mature…let us go on to maturity’ Heb 5v12-14; 6 v1

It is late August. Apples are almost ripe. Blackberries are softening, a little sour and hard, plums are turning deep purple, and the ripe ones taste sweet.

Babies are born with perfectly formed organs. The heart beats and the kidneys are hard at work. The parents, of course, hope that, in time, the baby will learn to walk, talk, eat from a spoon, run, and become literate, numerate, and physically coordinated. Into teens, and particular abilities, personality traits, likes, and dislikes become strong features, all developing into adulthood. By the late teens and early twenties, the teenager has become an adult, able to live independently of parents.

The process is invisible. It is a mystery. All we know is, that given the right food and growing conditions, all living organisms mature. We also know that abuse, trauma, various medical conditions, and poverty can severely disrupt, halt, or prevent the process from reaching the end goal.

In the New Testament, there is a similar expectation for believers to reach spiritual maturity in Christ; and warnings that the process is not automatic and spiritual growth can be halted.

The process towards spiritual maturity may be a mystery but, just as the observable symptoms of physical, mental, and emotional immaturity are sometimes plain to see, the New Testament writers – Peter, John, and Paul – all write to churches where they have detected developmental problems.

Birth

In Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, he says:

‘Unless one is born again…of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven’ John 3v1f

Jesus was repackaging the message of the New Covenant as prophesied by Jeremiah and Ezekiel that God would remove our stony hearts and replace them with new fleshy hearts, a new spirit, and His Holy Spirit.

Babies are born with perfectly formed organs. The heart beats and the kidneys are hard at work

When someone is ‘born again’ they are a babe in Christ. Everything is fully formed. The new heart and spirit are fully functioning. On day one as a believer the communion between the Holy Spirit and the person’s new spirit has begun. Radical changes can take place from day one. But moving on to maturity is another matter!

New Testament illustrations

• Discipleship – a disciple is like an apprentice, learning various skills, ways of thinking; it’s an information and formation process. The disciple becomes like the master.

• Little children, young men, fathers.

‘I have written to you, little children because your sins are forgiven…I have written to you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one, I write to you fathers because you have known Him who is from the beginning’ 1 John 2v12-14

• Mere men, fleshly, spiritually mature

‘I could not write to you as spiritually mature but as fleshly, as babies in Christ…you are still fleshly…and are behaving like mere men.’ 1 Cor 3v1-4

• Foundations – ‘let us move on to maturity not laying again the foundation’ Heb 6v2

Point 1: Mere men, fleshly, spiritually mature

The apostolic letters from Peter, John, and Paul all address ongoing problems occurring in the churches. In Romans, Paul addresses the division between Gentile and Jewish believers. In both letters to the Corinthians, he highlights the factions and particular sexual sins as evidence of immaturity. In Galatians, he warns of the dire consequences of retreating from faith to legalism.

John is tackling a sensitive church issue where there has been a breakdown in the relationship between John and Diotrophes, a leader who ‘loves to have the pre-eminence’ 2 John 9 and has barred the apostle John, the close friend of Jesus, from the church!

Peter’s two epistles end with a charge to ‘grow in the grace of our Lord’

It is Paul’s response to the church in Corinth suffering with factions following certain personalities and preachers that sheds some light on spiritual maturity. The church situation is not unlike our own day with the body of Christ divided denominationally.

Mere men/Natural man – Paul is writing to believers reminding them that they are not mere men. You were, he says, but now you are ‘born again not just of water (natural birth) but of the Spirit (spiritual birth)’

Fleshly believers, babies in Christ – flesh here doesn’t refer to ‘skin’ but to human abilities intricately woven into our souls: our ability to reason, to be sensitive emotionally, and to make decisions; summarised as mind, emotions, and will. These are believers, but who have either never learnt, or forgotten, or are wilfully ignoring the Spirit, relying on their own abilities to live, love, and find liberty. Their decisions over money, sex, and associations are based on preference rather than the voice of the Spirit of Christ. Such believers are mimicking their pre-Christian state and are acting like ‘mere men’.

flesh here doesn’t refer to ‘skin’ but to human abilities intricately woven into our souls

To summarise: these believers are ‘soulish’ living from their own abilities and preferences, the symptoms are division, factions, and sexual immorality, rather than ‘spiritual’ living from the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Spiritually mature – in the New Covenant the relationship between the believer and the living God is restored and underway from day one. Progress is entirely by grace – a free gift, freely given – and via the communion between the believer’s new spirit and the Holy Spirit.

Learning to ‘walk in the Spirit’ is the way ahead. Jesus likened this to a fountain: ‘If you knew the gift of God…He would have given you living water…whoever drinks of the water I give will never thirst…it will become in Him a fountain of living water…’ John 4 v 10-14

The soul may be a good servant but it’s a lousy master. Our minds, emotions, and wills, are amazing; they are not inherently evil or inferior to our spirit, nor are our bodies – but we become spiritually mature when led by the Spirit in every aspect of life, not just Christian meetings!

The church in Corinth had begun to switch from the Spirit to ‘wisdom’:

‘We speak wisdom to the mature, yet not the wisdom of this age…not in words which man teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual with spiritual but the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned’ 1 Cor 2 whole chapter

Point 2: Not laying again the foundations

There is some humour in these illustrations!

It’s easy to forget with the seriousness of the subject matter, but the sight of a teenager or adult still suckling milk only from his or her mother’s breast is as shocking – and funny – as watching a homeowner, periodically, dismantling a perfectly good house, digging up the foundations and starting all over again. Madness! It’s the stuff of comedy.

And yet, whoever wrote the epistle to the Hebrews was saying just that! He was watching a church reexamining the foundations and never building on the foundations. The point is twofold: firstly the foundations are perfectly adequate, they don’t need digging up and relaying - but if you insist on relaying them, remember what they are.

The foundations are perfectly good – they pass the builder’s regs and the surveyor’s report. And they are ‘living foundations’ in operation 24/7 in the life of the believer. They are neither consigned to the past (e.g. conversion to Christ) nor to the future (e.g. the day of resurrection or judgement) but are eternal and, therefore, to be in operation continually.

1. Repentance from dead works and faith towards God

This is not the repentance and faith required to become a believer, it is a living word, a description of what it is like to be spiritually discerning. In this case the ability – from the Holy Spirit – to discern between dead works and living works. Dead works are not necessarily ‘sinful’ (e.g. adultery, murder, theft) but anything that your new spirit does not ‘witness’ with the Holy Spirit.

2. Doctrines of baptisms

Those in Christ should have been plunged into the Messiah (baptised into Christ), baptised in the Holy Spirit, and baptised into the body of Christ. Our water baptism symbolising these baptisms but spiritually these three baptisms are one drama being seen in three dimensions and serve as living foundations upon which to build.

The believer should be operating 24/7 out from Christ Himself, the power of the Spirit, and their living place as a living stone in the body of Christ.

3. Resurrection of the dead

Paul says of God: ‘God, who gives life to the dead’ Rom 4v17. This is a general statement but its application in this instance is the birth of Isaac, the ‘son of promise’ from Abraham and Sarah in their old age: ‘Abraham did not consider his own body, already dead as he was about 100 years old and the deadness of Sarah’s womb…being fully convinced that God was able to perform what He had promised’ v19-21.

When Jesus spoke of the resurrection he said: ‘Truly I say to you the hour is coming and now is when the, dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live…do not be shocked, the hour is coming when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth – those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation’ John 5v25-29

‘Abraham did not consider his own body, already dead as he was about 100 years old and the deadness of Sarah’s womb…being fully convinced that God was able to perform what He had promised’

The New Testament is a radical message. It says that before we are placed ‘in Christ’ we are dead, in a grave, and unable to lift ourselves up, into life. But that, in this state, when we hear the gospel – the voice of the Son of God – if we have the same faith in the word of God as Abraham, we are raised to life. Now. It is the story of every person who finds faith in Christ.

There is also the promise of resurrection at the end, on the last day. And that Jesus’s bodily resurrection was a ‘first fruit’. That day is coming, but these foundation stones are living stones, they refer to the 24/7 experience of being led by the Spirit. In different circumstances we are faced with the voice of the Spirit saying ‘x’ whilst our mind looks at the ‘facts’ and concludes ‘x is impossible,’ Abraham looked at his impotent body and his post-menopausal wife’s body but believed the word of God even though it contradicted the facts.

4. Eternal judgement

Again it is important not to consign this foundation stone to the past ‘He who believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgement but has passed from death into life’ John 5 v 24,25 or entirely to the future day of judgement ‘the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ’ Rom 2 v 16.

This is a living word that each believer builds on – his or her ability to ‘compare spiritual with spiritual’ and to grow in the ability to live a life full of spiritual discernment in every circumstance.

Conclusions – and solid food?

None of us who are ‘in Christ’ can avoid the call to maturity. How the Holy Spirit brings about our maturity in Christ is an even deeper mystery than scientists trying to unpick the various stages of physical maturity. Spiritual maturity is an invisible process – invisible to others but known to God who looks on the heart.

There is a time element; the natural world shows us this with plants and animals reaching physical maturity along fairly predictable timelines, but mental and emotional maturity doesn’t always coincide with reaching physical maturity. Many enter adult life with a mature physical body but a sense of mental or emotional incompleteness or limitations.

Spiritually, those in Christ who have received the Holy Spirit are born into a new trajectory towards spiritual maturity. The spirit-Spirit communion with the promised ‘fountain of living water’ affects our souls and bodies and, therefore, every part of life: family, friends, work, interests, money, sex, and associations – our neighbours.

What is the ‘solid food’ that Paul and the writer of the letter to Hebrews call us to eat?

A cursory look at the letters to the churches whether written by Paul, Peter, or John can be divided into two halves.

The first half is devoted to doctrine – substitutionary and inclusive atonement for example -whereas, in the second half, the authors are usually saying, ‘OK now you know what God has done for you through the death and resurrection of Christ, now that you know that you are forgiven and a child of God, in Christ and Christ is in you, now you know that you were crucified with Christ and have been raised as a new creation in Him, now that you have received the gift of the Spirit…now that you know the A,B,C of the gospel, out you go into the world.’

What is the ‘solid food’ that Paul and the writer of the letter to Hebrews call us to eat?

The second half says: back to your families, your friends, your workplaces, your churches, and into your callings, gifts and ministries from the Spirit…overcome here, get some victories in the world under your belt as John’s ‘young men’ who overcome the evil one being strong in the word.

Then you are on the path towards being a ‘father’ who knows God who is from the beginning, living in the world with an eternal perspective, abiding in the ‘I am’, like Jesus.

The final ‘I am’ statement in John’s gospel Jesus states ‘I am the vine; you are the branches’. We’re back to the mystery of watching apples ripen on the tree, or here in John 15, to grapes maturing on the vine. As long as we as branches are in Christ, our destiny of maturity is inevitable…as long as we let the Father the gardener approach us with His two knives.

‘My father is the gardener, He cuts off every branch in Me that does not bear fruit and prunes every branch that does bear fruit so that it can bear more fruit’ John 15v1,2

The cutting out of dead branches is ‘repentance of dead works and faith towards God’ in operation: something that may have born fruit in the past is now ‘dead’ and needs to be excised; the knife is out. Similarly, if we are bearing fruit, the wisdom of the Father is to prune, to cut back fruit-bearing branches for the sake of producing better quality fruit.

Babies and infants in Christ are prone to getting very upset at this discipline of the Father just as natural small children get upset because they cannot see the bigger picture. Equally young men will fight and resist the Father as the gardener, wielding the knife. ‘Can’t you see the fruit, Father?’ or ‘With your life within me, I know this can live and bear fruit!’. But a father in Christ understands the whole picture, understands the Father’s wisdom, and has faith that, no matter how the Father wields His knife, it will be to produce more fruit.

In Christ: Article 2 New Testament Greek: ἐν Χριστῷ translated as ‘In Christ’ – ‘Christ in us’ or ‘Christ as us?’

‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I know live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who love men and gave His life for me’ Gal 2v20

In this verse, Paul summarises the substitutionary and the inclusive nature of the sacrifice of Christ and combines them with Christ in us.

But Christ as us?

A friend of mine, Chris Welch, has used this ‘as Christ’ variation on ἐν Χριστῷ, for some years.

My initial reaction to ‘as Christ’ was to question its basis, after all, the Greek doesn’t support the translation! Worse, it felt arrogant…a horrible feeling…particularly if you’re steeped in British culture of needing to appear modest at all costs.

On reflection though, ‘as Christ’ might not appeal to the literalist in me but it does to my poetic, interpretative side, so, in Article 2, I want to explore the doublet ‘as Christ’ and its corollary ‘Christ in our form’ without departing from the biblical text.

Point 1. Paul’s two-step revelation

Paul’s dramatic encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus is well known. What is less well appreciated, is that there is an undisclosed time delay between the risen Jesus Christ being revealed TO Paul and the later revelation of Christ IN Paul:

‘When it pleased God…to reveal His Son in me…’ Galatians 1 v 16

Paul’s ministry as an apostle and his many letters refer to ‘Christ in you’ or ‘in Christ’. This revelation profoundly affected his life and sense of calling: in one letter, to the church in Ephesus, Paul writes ‘in Christ’ 35 times and in his letter to the church in Colossae, Paul writes:

‘I became a minister…to preach the word of God, the mystery…hidden for ages…but now revealed…Christ in you, the hope of glory’ Col 1v24-27

Point 3. The body of Christ

Our biological bodies are made from trillions of microscopic cells. Each one of those cells is alive and each has a different function.

My name is John Stevens. All my cells are alive with my life, all my cells are ‘in John Stevens’ and ‘John Stevens is in’ every cell. So each cell is exhibiting life as ‘as John Stevens’ i.e. the life of John Stevens in its own form, functioning according to its calling and design as a liver cell, or colour receptor cell in the retina, or a humble skin cell.

We all have our specific functions in Christ.

The life of each cell is not independent of John Stevens, but part of John Stevens. It is not the full John Stevens, but it has no other identity than John Stevens, so, to say we are in Christ, and we live ‘as Christ’ is not saying we are the Christ, that would be blasphemous, as well as ridiculous, but that, by virtue of being ‘in Christ’, we participate in and exhibit Christ’s life. We do all things ‘in His name’ just as all my cells do everything ‘in my name’.

‘…the church…is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all’ Ephesians 1v22,23

Therefore, it is perfectly correct to say that, since we are in Christ, and Christ is in me, we are ‘as Christ’ in the world; Christ is incarnated in all who are in Christ. C.T. Studd, a missionary to Africa in the late 1800s and early 1900s, famously said: ‘I want to see Jesus running about in thousands of black bodies and purified hearts.’

As a child, I learnt how to sink in water. I couldn’t swim. Much as I tried to copy the arm movements of others my body headed down not along

Christ in our form, ‘as us’ is how the New Testament sees us individually in the world and corporately in His body, the church, the body of Christ.

In the first century, not long after the resurrection, believers earned the nickname ‘Christians’ meaning ‘little Christs’; meant, at best, as a nickname and, at worse, a derogatory insult but it is a profound truth.

Point 3 Going on to maturity

As a child, I learnt how to sink in water. I couldn’t swim. Much as I tried to copy the arm movements of others my body headed down not along.

What was wrong? The water? Had I lost my buoyancy? No.

Somewhere along the line, I learnt to trust that the water would hold me up. It was a shift from fear to faith. Moving on from fear to faith in various areas of life is transforming. No more so than with Christ.

Many do not believe they can live the Christian life, riddled as we are with imperfections, weaknesses, fears, ambitions, and sin. But when we shift to ‘seeing’ that it is Christ who holds us up, and that, for His life to manifest itself in our experience, is not dependent on our efforts but His life alone, we can make progress.

Now, I can swim. If you threw me into the sea, I would not sink but float. Am I an Olympic standard swimmer? No. In fact, I am a very limited swimmer, but I can swim, and if I had lessons and practiced, I would undoubtedly improve.

It is the same in the Christian life.

We have to learn to switch from relying on our inner resources as if we can live independently of Christ and learn to ‘walk in the Spirit’ as the New Testament calls it. In other words, we live life from the starting point of communion between our new spirits and the Holy Spirit (see Article 1).

When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth it had several moral faults: sexual immorality, social class distinctions, and competing factions are mentioned in his letters. In his analysis of how this could have occurred, amongst believers, he wrote:

‘I could not write to you as spiritually mature but as fleshly, as babies in Christ…you are still fleshly…and are behaving like mere men.’ 1 Cor 3v1-4

Fleshly, or carnal, as in some translations, here means they were genuine believers, but imitating ‘mere men’ i.e. those without Christ living in them; living according to their soulish abilities to think, feel, and act. He compared this to being like a baby, they hadn’t learnt to live and grow by a spirit-Spirit communion, to be led by the Holy Spirit.

To the Hebrews, the same problem is encountered:

‘Though by this time you should be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary lessons…you need milk, not solid food…solid food belongs to the mature…let us go on to maturity’ Heb 5v12-14; 6 v1

We are all disciples and learners. We all have L-plates.

Conclusion

Christ as us, Christ in our form?

Just as it requires faith in water to hold you up before you can swim, we must believe Christ is living His life in us and therefore ‘as us’.

We are all disciples and learners. We all have L-plates.

If the Apostle Paul needed time for God to reveal the mystery of ‘His Son in me’ or ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’, maybe we do? But once it has been revealed – for example take Galatians 2v20 – we can begin to ‘swim’ and become more accustomed to thinking of ourselves as ‘little Christs’ not relying on our ability to mimic Christ’s life, but for Christ Himself to live out his life as us, in our form.

Next and final Article: Milk or solid food?

In Christ: Article 1 - New Testament Greek: ἐν Χριστῷ translated as ‘In Christ’ – what does ‘in Christ’ mean?

In April 2016, you may remember, Archbishop Justin Welby, revealed that he had recently discovered that his biological father was not Gavin Welby, his mother’s husband.

In his press statement, he explained that, although the news came as a great surprise, ‘I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.’

As I listened to his steady voice and calm manner as he read out his statement, I wondered what those listening made of the phrases ‘who I am in Jesus Christ’ and ‘my identity in him.’ Christian poetic jargon? Ecclesiastical psychobabble? An awkward way of simply saying ‘as a Christian’?

‘I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.’

And, maybe, for those whose church-attending ears are more attuned to New Testament phraseology, ‘in Christ’ is a familiar phrase often quoted by St Paul and inferred by Jesus. ‘In Christ’ or ‘in Jesus Christ’ is mentioned over 160 times in the New Testament. But, even among churchgoers, is this simply a phrase devoid of any greater meaning than ‘a Christian believer?’

Two hymns ‘In Christ Alone’ (written in 2001) and Charles Wesley’s ‘And Can It Be?’ (1738) repeat the phrase and are popular still in churches today.

But what does the two-word phrase ‘in Christ’ mean? What picture does it paint?’

Jesus also used very similar phraseology:

‘Abide in me and I in you’ John 15v4; ‘The Spirit dwells with you, and will be in you’ John 14 v 17, ‘As You, Father, are in me, and I in you…may they be one just as we are one: I in them and You in me’ John 17 v 22,23

Paul also talks of the Israelites being ‘baptised into Moses’ (1 Cor 10v2) and of Christian believers being ‘baptised into Christ Jesus’ (Rom 6v3) and believers former state of being ‘in Adam’ (1 Cor 15v21)

To explore the phrase ‘in Christ’ I am using three pictures (i) the container (ii) the inheritor (iii) blotting paper.

Picture 1 The Container

Tools in a box, passengers on a bus, members of a team

The tools are contained in the toolbox and go where the box goes, as do the passengers and the members of the team. So, this picture ‘works’ in the sense that the Israelites, having chosen to follow Moses into the desert, or believers having chosen to follow Christ go where Moses in the Old Testament or Christ leads. Or, if a more static picture is envisaged believers in Christ are positioned where He is, spiritually speaking, contained ‘in Him’.

This picture works quite well for ‘in Christ’ but not so well for ‘Christ in you’. If Jesus is Lord then we follow, He doesn’t follow us, so ‘Christ in you’ could suggest He goes where you lead.

More doctrinally, this phrase is impossible to marry with ‘substitutionary’ atonement.

Jesus died on the cross for us, in our place. The sinless died for sinners. It was a sacrifice that cost everything, the price was paid in His blood to reconcile us to God. God’s wrath was poured out on Christ, not us. He was a substitute. A simple illustration that is often used is of a law court. The guilty person in the dock is awaiting the judge and the sentence. The sentence is the death penalty. All looks lost until we find the judge acquitting the guilty, someone else having died in their place.

Paul summarises this in Romans 5v8,9

‘God demonstrates His own love for us – while were sinners Christ died for us…and acquitted (or justified) us by His blood’

The problem with ‘substitutionary’ atonement isn’t that it is untrue. It is true. We can say that Chrost’s death and his blood atoned for our sins. Wonderfully true. Once you ‘see it’, that Christ took all our sins and died in our place, and can say ‘Christ died for me’, you know you are forgiven and have been reconciled to God. A relationship of love has begun.

The problem isn’t that it isn’t true, the problem is that it is incomplete.

The guilty defendant is released. He has no criminal record. It’s all been wiped, a clean slate. But the defendant’s nature has not changed. We are left with, as many say, ‘we are sinners saved by grace’ but how can Christ have sinners contained ‘in Hm’ and how can sinners have ‘Christ’ living in them? It doesn’t fit, it doesn’t marry.

Many square the circle by saying ‘Christ in me, the hope of glory’ (Col 1v27) gives me faith that I can be changed, transformed, sanctified, and become more like Christ. Changed from the inside-out. Or even, to quote John the Baptist, ‘I must decrease, that He may increase’.

This is the logical conclusion of the gospel being viewed through substitutionary atonement alone.

The sinner may be ‘covered over with a robe of righteousness’ (Is 61v10) so that when God looks at me, He doesn’t see me but Christ’s righteousness covering me, but the sinner is still a sinner, he or she has not had their essential sinful nature changed.

The problem with ‘substitutionary’ atonement isn’t that it is untrue. It is. But it is incomplete. It is half the story.

Lastly, the limitation of this picture, of tools in a box, is either that there is ‘Christ in me’ a small Christ, contained in a large me, or ‘in Christ’ a small me contained in a large Christ. The tool is not organically joined to the toolbox or the passengers on the bus to the bus. And yet the New Testament speaks of us ‘abiding in Christ’ or being ‘one with Christ’. This picture, therefore is of limited usefulness, it helps us in terms of destiny but not relationship.

Conclusion: Picture 1 The Container is an inadequate interpretation of being ‘in Christ’ or ‘Christ in me’ and cannot be married to substitutionary atonement’ because substitutionary atonement is an incomplete gospel.

Picture 2 The Inheritor

This, I would argue is far closer to what Jesus, Paul and other NT writers meant by the phrase ‘in Christ’ or ‘Christ in you’.

If we were ‘in Adam’, we inherit Adam’s sinful nature, we are ‘sinners’ by nature and so we sin, if the Israelites are ‘in Moses’ they inherit everything that was given by God to Moses i.e. the Law, and the spiritual food and drink referred to in 1 Cor 10. Similarly, if believers are now ‘in Christ’ they stand to inherit everything in Christ: His holiness, His righteousness, His eternal life, His limitless power over sin, His riches.

This inheritance, it can be argued, is part and parcel of the New Covenant inaugurated by Jesus’ death on the cross and His blood. Another translation for ‘covenant’ is ‘testament’ as in a person’s Last Will and Testament.

After the last supper with his disciples, Jesus raised a cup and said: ‘this cup is the New Covenant in My blood, shed for you’ Luke 22v20.

To quote the last verse of Charles Wesley’s great hymn, And Can It Be:

No condemnation now I dread
Jesus, and all in Him is mine!
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach the eternal throne

Conclusion: Picture 2 is an improvement on Picture 1 but ignores the underlying issue – the incomplete nature of the gospel viewed through substitutionary atonement which fails to explain how we can ‘move house’ from Adam to Christ.

Picture 3 Blotting Paper

Before we look at the blotting paper picture it is important to see how scripture solves the conundrum of moving from Adam to Christ.

This can be done in two steps. Firstly to take a look at the details of the New Covenant and find out what is promised as our inheritance once we’re in Christ. And, secondly, to complete the gospel, to go further in our appreciation of what God achieved for us through Christ’s death on the cross.

(i) The New Covenant

The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all prophesied that God would bring in a New Covenant (New Testament) to replace the Old Covenant (Old Testament). The old covenant formed by God initially with Abraham (see Genesis 12 and 15) and built on through Moses needed to be replaced:

‘See, the day is coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Judah and the house of Judah not like the covenant…which they broke even though I was like a husband to them…this is the covenant I will make…I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts…’ Jeremiah 31 v 31-34 / Hebrews 8 v 7-12

‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My ways’ Ezekiel 36 v 26-27 / Ezekiel 11v19

When Jesus took the cup and announced that the New Covenant would be inaugurated through the shedding of His blood not many hours after the Last Supper, He was referring to these prophetic announcements made hundreds of years before the events of that Passover meal with His disciples.

No longer were the people of God, Israel, bound to God through their attempt to keep the Law of Moses as inscribed on tablets of stone. Now God will come as a heart surgeon:

1. Remove our stony hearts
2. Replace our hearts with a new fleshy heart
3. Give us a new spirit
4. Come and live in us by His Spirit

And this was all to be achieved through Christ on the cross that Jesus knew lay ahead of Him not many hours after raising the cup after supper and saying: ‘this is the new covenant in My blood’.

(ii) Substitutionary and Inclusive

We have seen how Christ died for us, in our place, and taking the punishment we deserved on the cross. The debt paid at the cost of His own life, through His blood. This is substitutionary atonement.

But the New Testament goes further than this in its disclosure of what God achieved for us through the cross.

‘Do you not know that as many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death…knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him…now if we died with Christ we shall, also live with Him…’ Romans 6 v 3-8

‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I know live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who love men and gave His life for me’ Gal 2v20

‘You died and your life is hidden with Christ in God…Christ is your life’ Col 3 v 2,3

Paul makes it abundantly clear that on the cross, it wasn’t just our sins that were laid on Jesus, but us. Not just sins but sinners.

Jesus took that old Adamic you and I to the cross and nailed it there. Dead. Crucified. God achieved the death of that old Adamic nature, the old Adam, through the death of His Son.

And that through the resurrection we have been raised ‘in Him’, ‘in Christ’ with a new nature. In terms of the promised new covenant, the old Adamic stony heart is removed, replaced with a new Christ-fleshy heart, a new human spirit AND His Spirit to come and dwell in us to cause us to walk in His ways.

‘If anyone thirsts let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’. This he said concerning the Spirit whom those believing would receive, for the Holy Spirit had not yet been given’ John 7v37-39

As Paul put it elsewhere: ‘Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come’ 2 Cor 5v17

And it is ‘of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’ 1 Cor 1v30

So, Galatians 2v20 shows us that the death of Christ on the cross was not only ‘substitutionary’ – ‘He gave His life for me’ but ‘inclusive’ ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ - it includes you and me, we died on the cross with Christ.

Now we can begin to understand what the phrase ‘in Christ’ or ‘Christ in me’ meant to Paul and similar phrases meant to Jesus looking ahead to His relationship with us post-cross and resurrection.

What is the relationship between the new creation-I, the ‘in Christ-I-Christ-in me’ new creation and Christ Himself - and therefore with the Father and the Spirit? And what about how this affects my daily experience of life, my struggles with sin, temptation, the world and the devil – the forces arrayed against us? How does this affect my view of discipleship or spiritual growth?

Often what we need to do is remind ourselves of the terms of the new covenant. We are beneficiaries of the covenant or testament.

Under the old covenant, the Israelites and Gentiles beyond the covenants in their Adamic nature could not keep the commandments written on stone. Now, in the new covenant, His Spirit writes those laws on our new hearts. ‘True Christianity’ is a Spirit-spirit operation. It is more like an eruption than a life of self-regulation. The life of the Spirit erupts from within.

Jesus put it like this:

‘If anyone thirsts let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’. This he said concerning the Spirit whom those believing would receive, for the Holy Spirit had not yet been given’ John 7v37-39

The heart of the matter is a communion, between the Holy Spirit and our new spirit.

‘The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God’ Romans 8 v 16

‘If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he is not His’ Romans 8 v 9

‘The love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us’ Romans 5 v 14

‘As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God’ Romans 8 v 1

In many passages, especially in the Acts of the Apostles, we see how believers are spoken to, guided, warned, and empowered by the Spirit.

One example:

‘As they ministered to the Lord and fasted the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart Barnabus and Saul to Me for the work to which I have called them’’ Acts 13v2

This is solid reality. This is the new covenant in operation. This is the relationship, the communion, of God with His new creations in Christ Jesus.

Blotting Paper?

Put blotting paper on ink or pour ink on blotting paper and the result is the same, the ink is absorbed by the paper and if you magnify the fibres of the botting paper you’ll see the ink has soaked into the fibres themselves. It is not possible to say where one starts and the other begins. They are in a state of intimate union.

But this union can only be achieved if the paper is plunged into the ink. This is the meaning of ‘baptism’ or ‘bapteizo’ in Greek. To plunge under. Clothes are dyed by plunging them under the liquid dye.

In the New Testament there are three main baptisms. None mention water. They are baptisms into a person.

Firstly, God plunges us into Christ and, as we have seen therefore into Christ’s death, then to be raised in Christ as a new creation. But first the crucifixion of the old man, and the burial.

‘Do you not know that as many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death…knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him…now if we died with Christ we shall, also live with Him…’ Romans 6 v 3-8

Those of us who are more church-familiar have a problem. It’s the ticking clock you cannot hear, consigned to the background. It is the same with the familiarity of biblical vocabulary. We have been plunged into Christ. This is a radical statement.

We have been plunged into Christ. This is a radical statement.

Firstly ‘Christ’ means ‘Messiah’ which in turn means ‘the anointed one’ so rewriting this we find that we – mostly Gentile believers – have been plunged into the Messiah, the one promised to the Jews. We often refer to Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, he was born a Jew. But Isaiah and other prophets were constantly reminding the Jews of their ultimate purpose ‘I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness…and as a light to the Gentiles’ Is 42v6.

There is no mention of water in this passage.

Secondly, Jesus baptises us in the Spirit. Plunges us into the Holy Spirit.

John the Baptist prophesied: ‘I baptise you with water, but One mightier than I is coming…He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit’ Luke 3v16

Jesus referred to this after the resurrection when speaking to the disciples:

‘John truly baptised with water, but you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’ Acts 1 v 5

This was fulfilled 10 days later, on the Day of Pentecost:

‘When the day of Pentecost had fully come…they were all filled with the Holy Spirit…’ Acts 2v 1-4

The New Covenant had dawned but notice that Jesus plunged them into the Holy Spirit, there is no mention of water in this passage.

Lastly, thirdly, the Holy Spirit baptises us into the body of Christ:

‘By one Spirit we were all baptised into one body…and been made to drink one Spirit…the body of Christ…’ 1 Cor 12v 12-27

Again, there is no mention of water.

The picture is now complete. There is a union between God and the believer. It turns out that we are ‘containers’ of Christ in us. But the ‘us’ has been redefined through the death and resurrection of Christ. The new ‘Christ-in-me’ creation is fused; the new spirit with the Holy Spirit. As new creations in Christ, we inherit all that God has done in and through Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification. And, lastly, we are not only fused as one with Christ but with all other believers in what the New Testament calls the body of Christ: ‘now you are the body of Christ and members individually’ 1 Cor 12 v 27. That union isn’t like two magnets joined together, distinct yet attracted. Whilst Christ has indeed ascended to glory, and we are on the earth the union is via the spirit-Spirit communion. A little like a portal, joining heaven and earth.

Now it makes sense to pray ‘thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven’ as the Spirit in communion with our spirits can reveal His will which can then be accomplished on the Earth…through us.

Two points to close. Water baptism. And spiritual growth or discipleship.

Water baptism is a necessary symbolic act. Dead bodies need to be buried. When Peter stood up to preach on the day of Pentecost, the crowd that listened while others scoffed (nothing new there!) asked:

‘What shall we do?’ Then Peter said, ‘Repent and let every one of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ…and you will receive the gift of the Spirit’…then those who gladly received his word were baptised…about three thousand’ Acts 2 v 37-41

Water baptism symbolises the above three baptisms.

Discipleship and spiritual growth in Christ is not a smooth, continually upward, glorious experience of unending joy and victory for many if not all believers.

As new creations with the Holy Spirit in communion with our new spirits and new hearts the potential is there for us to exhibit the new life, the life of Christ, in this world, in the context of our families, friends, work colleagues, many others we meet, and in the context of all the ways we have lived life before the invasion of Christ. In the West, for example, there is a greater emphasis on rational thought and establishing truth via empirical evidence than in the more spiritual East. We have to unlearn the ways of our culture and learn the new ways of the kingdom of God. During Jesus’s childhood, adolescence, and as a young man he ‘grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and men’ Luke 2v52 We, now, as sons of the Father in Christ, are being called to grow in wisdom in exactly the same way. To learn to be led by the Holy Spirit not the flesh – flesh meaning our natural abilities such as our thinking, our understanding, or our emotions, or our wills, or bodily appetites. None of these things are wrong, evil, or sinful in themselves, but we have to learn who’s boss, the Holy Spirit or our flesh.

In a car, we can ignore the SatNav, but as new creations in Christ, we have to learn to hear our in-built SatNav, the voice of the Spirit, and obey His directions.

When I was 6, a friend let me borrow his bike. I didn’t have a bike and couldn’t ride one. But I was determined to learn. So, as dusk was falling, I rode his bike around and around his back garden, falling off, getting back on, falling off getting back on. By the time I had conquered it and could ride his bike, I was covered in grass stains, my legs were hurting and my wrists bruised from falling off, but I learnt.

God will never give up teaching us to live just like Jesus

God will never give up teaching us to live just like Jesus so that we, like Him, only do what we see the Father doing or speak what we hear. We may suffer all kinds of setbacks, but He is faithful. It’s all there in the New Covenant:

‘I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My ways’

End.

Next Article: ‘Christ in us’ or ‘Christ as us’?

The Emptying

At number 4, grass grew from June to August
The solid oak front door obscuring
Bills unpaid, takeaway vouchers,
And a postcard from the Sun.
The body was well-dressed and mostly absent
A monocle, a mould-infested bow tie
Dark brown shoe polish, can open,
Brush gripped tight in his bent
Rigor mortis fist, bones only.
He’d choked, it would seem

Long-distant family members
Attracted by duty and pecuniary matters
Like flies to the body
Sifted, binned, sold, and removed
Nearly a century of accumulated
Memories needed no more.
Every object passed through
Their executor-digestive system
And eliminated as is the way
Along the legal path

Across the road at number 13
The front lawn is mown regularly
And a new door affixed last week
The old one, also oak, broken up
Stored in the shed,
Ready, one day, to feed the fire-pit
Its red flame energy
To be faced one last time
Its ashes to be taken by the wind
To the wild north

To the wild north

The emptying
A peristalsis of sorrow
An unavoidable appointment
With life in its fulness
A compulsory education
One that Christ knew
Emptying Himself
Of all that got in the way
Of Him touching rotten flesh
Or healing the broken-hearted

Friday’s Irregular Poetry Corner: The Song of the Bow

I woke up this morning aware at some point that I didn’t have a poem to share for Friday’s Irregular Poetry Corner. That’s OK as it has always wanted to live up to its name – Irregular.

So, to my breakfast routine: Malted wheats + homemade muesli + cuppa tea, milk no sugar, and a bible reading. This morning’s reading was 2 Samuel chapter 1 which includes David’s lament, The Song of the Bow, a poem, a pouring out of grief over the death of King Saul and his son Jonathan in battle.

I offer selected verses from The Song of the Bow in the form of tercets. The phrase How the Mighty have Fallen is often attributed to Shakespeare or Churchill but borrowed, in fact, from David shortly before he became King David.

The battle has extraordinary resonance today. The Philistines, victorious in this battle with Israel in which their archers wounded Saul and Jonathan, occupied the same region we know today as the Gaza Strip: the ancient rivalry continues.

Maybe let this poem open our ears to hear the laments poured out by Jews and Gazans as the days of suffering continue nearly 10 months after the despicable attack against unarmed Jews by Hamas in October 2023 and the hostages taken.

The Song of the Bow

The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places
How the mighty have fallen
Tell it not in Gath

O mountains of Gilboa
Let there be no dew nor rain upon you
For the shield of the mighty is defiled

Saul and Jonathan were beloved and pleasant in their lives
And in their death they were not divided
They were swifter than eagles and stronger than lions

O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul
Who clothed you in scarlet with luxury
Who put ornaments of gold on your apparel

How the mighty have fallen in the midst of battle
I am distressed for you, my brother, Jonathan
Your love to me…surpassing the love of women

How the mighty have fallen
And the weapons of war
Perished!

In some unknown way, a lament can do what victory and/or defeat in battle cannot. There is an unseen limit to suffering, a Stop sign, and a lament is a prelude, I suggest, to the deep cry of Enough! uttered in the final seconds before peace reigns.

Book Review: Jesus and the Powers, Tom Wright and Michael F. Bird (SPCK)

If the unenforceable pub ban on Sex, Politics, or Religion, as topics of conversation to ensure that tempers do not get too frayed, then clearly Wright and Bird are skating on thin ice in tackling two out of the three volatile subjects.

Tom Wright is well-known for an intellectual and theological approach to New Testament interpretation in its historical setting without somehow losing the common touch. It’s a skill he possesses and has brought once again to this book on Politics and Christianity.

In summary, he and Bird not only argue that for Christians to retreat from politics with either a small p or capital P is as much a terrible mistake as interpreting Christianity and the call of Christ entirely within the bounds of social reform and justice for all. I particularly like this sentence:

‘The gospel cannot be reduced to a this-world project of social betterment. But neither is the gospel an escapist drama for the soul pining for the angelic door of heaven’.

Is the book sufficiently punchy? Yes, ‘I’d say so. It’s not a ‘tome’ at 178 paperback pages. It’s more a collection of well-argued and sometimes entertaining articles stitched together culminating in defence of liberal democracy as the best, or maybe the ‘least worst’, form of government to date, better than the tyrannical reign of totalitarian regimes whether religious like the Taliban, or political like Communist, or fascist dictatorships, or kings and queens.

Is the book timely? Definitely. With Trump versus Harris, our recent electoral swing to Labour, and hotly contested social and political issues like gender fluidity, sexuality, cancel-culture, Israel and Gaza, Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan, and the worldwide trades in human trafficking and the millions on the move as refugees (almost exclusively away from totalitarian regimes to liberal democracies), this is a very timely book.

If you’ve never really stepped back as a Christian to consider issues of conscience, and where the limits of obedience to the state should lie, this is a great read. And the limits of fought-for civil liberties such as free speech, freedom of belief, association, and assembly, that we’re in danger of taking for granted, read on!

And, if you are not a Christian but find yourself living in a society shaped, at least historically, by biblical morality and the teaching of Jesus, this is a book for you, if only to consider in a fresh light how we have reached this point in our political evolution in 2024.

This is one of those Stop and Think books.

Is it light-hearted? No, but I did enjoy the authors’ brief foray into the mind and political thinking of JRR Tolkien and the Lord of The Rings and made a mental note to re-watch the DVD set when winter draws in!

This is one of those Stop and Think books

Only one thing irritated me. At first, I thought it was a typo, but as the error is repeated throughout the book, it must have been an editorial decision, an error of judgement maybe, but not a careless mistake. I’m referring to lowercase ‘h’ and ‘s’ when referring to the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. But I’ll leave that for you to judge!

I feel I haven’t done the content of the book justice, but to do so would add too many words. Best to beg, borrow, or buy a copy.

Jesus was cross…a strange place to find hope!

Despite all the political turmoil, scandals, coarseness, and the polarisation of recent years threatening to drown out all hope, I see hope.

In part, what gives me hope is the public reaction towards hypocrisy, double standards, false promises, and dishonesty whenever these moral failures come to light e.g. Boris Johnson and others who set the Lockdown rules only to break them, or the Post Office scandal, or antisemitism in a Labour party espousing non-racism, or the bullying of young athletes by coaches striving at all costs to meet success criteria.

In other words, as a culture and a nation, we haven’t completely lost sight of what is right and good even if our leaders cannot reproduce the qualities we long to see in the world in their own lives.

And if we dare to look closer to home – nor do we reproduce those standards. We are all tainted with a tendency towards imperfection.

In recent years, anger, disappointment, and frustration have built up towards our political and religious leaders, so it might be a good moment and instructive to stop and listen to Jesus’ red-hot verbal attack on the leaders of his day.

Matthew recorded many of Jesus’ verbal assaults in one chapter – chapter 23. Even as a child, I can remember the profound impact this chapter and others had in forming my moral compass. Sometimes my reaction was simple, more like a pantomime – booing the Pharisees and cheering Jesus – but, I would argue, something of inestimable value has been laid in the ‘Christian’ nations by being marinaded in the Scriptures over many centuries – despite our shocking failures to steer clear of moral failure.

At least we know from what heights we have fallen.

A sample:

‘The Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat, therefore do what they say but not what they do, for they say but do not do’

‘Woe to you, Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves nor allow those who are entering to go in’

‘Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup, that the outside may be clean also…you are like whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful outwardly but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so, you appear righteous but are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness’

How can there be hope if we are all flawed?

St Paul, a former Pharisee of course, and a target for Jesus’ criticisms, later spoke out in like manner after his conversion to Christ, and in doing so shed light on his former life as a committed Pharisee:

‘Men will…have a form of godliness but deny its power’ 2 Tim 3 v 1-5

And there, in one short verse, is the hope. Paul, formerly Saul who dragged Christians off to prison or stood by as they were, like Stephen, murdered and martyred, had discovered the secret of hope. He had abandoned the outward form of godliness in favour of the power of godliness.

What was this power that Paul had found? And can we? Can our culture find its way back from the hypocrisy of recent years? Can we as churches? Or as individuals? What was the ‘gospel’ (which simply means ‘good news’) of the kingdom that Jesus, the apostles, and Paul proclaimed?

Before we pursue the answer to those questions we need to take one step back.

Had we been alive in Jesus’ day we would have known that the ‘Pharisees-party’ was very popular, as were the Sadducees, their rivals.

Here’s a summary of their message:

1. Israel existed but only under Roman rule

2. Israel, due to her disobedience to the Law, had lost her sovereignty to the Romans

3. Therefore to earn God’s favour once again, and be restored to full sovereignty, complete obedience to the Law of Moses is required

4. In addition to the Law, traditions that ensured obedience to the Law must be observed

It’s an appealing message and offers hope: the hope of self-determination, the overthrow of Roman rule, and the recovery of Israel as a theocracy under the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Paul, and many others, were caught up in the religious-political zeal and joined the Pharisees who set about enforcing the Law of Moses with as much mercy as the present-day Taliban exhibit imposing Sharia Law on their communities. It’s comparable.

As a result of his conversion to Christ Paul had abandoned this approach.

‘But now the righteousness of God apart from the Law has been revealed’ Romans 3 v 21

Apart from the Law! Paul argues that the Law, although good in itself, cannot reproduce its goodness in us, and that ’goodness’, ‘godliness’, or ‘righteousness’ that was in Jesus is available to us, not by human effort, but faith.

‘..the righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all’ 3 v 22

It’s the difference between watching a non-swimmer trying to stay afloat in water through effort and a swimmer believing the water will hold them up. It’s the difference between human effort and faith.

When Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome he declared his aim, his purpose:

‘We have received apostleship for the obedience of faith among all nations’ 1 v 5

Not obedience to man-made Pharisee-like efforts to obey the Law but the ‘obedience of faith’. A father stands at the bottom of a wall on which he has placed his 5-year-old son telling him to ‘jump and I’ll catch you’. If he trusts that his father will catch him, he’ll jump and it’ll be the obedience of faith.

So…back to the question What was this power that Paul had discovered?

‘I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; it is the power of God for salvation for everyone’ Rom 1 v 16

Christianity is not an externally imposed set of rules and commandments and our attempt to live by them, good though they are. True Christianity is not a religious duty participating in outward forms e.g. taking communion, being baptised, lifting hands in worship, kneeling to pray, or helping our neighbours – all of these things we may do, once we have become Christians, but, attempting to reproduce this righteousness without the ‘power’, we fall headlong into the Pharisaical ‘holier than thou’ trap of establishing a self-righteousness.

Christianity is not an externally imposed set of rules and commandments

True Christianity is inward not outward. We need the power inside us, like the water we need to believe in the water to hold us up to become a swimmer, we need Christ Himself in us, not just his teaching, or Moses’ Law.

This is the ‘gospel’ the good news that is utterly surprising to so many of us in England surrounded by so many churches and immersed as we have been for centuries in Christian culture and tradition.

In the hours before Jesus’ arrest he spoke to the disciples about this remarkable future in front of them:

‘I will pray to the Father, and he will give you the Spirit of truth who dwells with you but will be in you…then you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me and I am in you…if anyone loves me…my Father will love him and we will come and make our home with him’

John 14 v 16f

When I heard this, and particularly when I read this for myself, I was astonished; I had thought Christianity was a religion to be adhered to, a set of (good) commandments to follow, an external set of rules, and the teachings of Jesus to obey.

By the time I had reached my teens, I had serious doubts about the reliability of the New Testament, whether Jesus had existed, and, in particular the resurrection. This is not the place to tackle all those questions, but I did find convincing answers to these questions but that still left me with a decision.

I could see that if Christ – in fact, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit - could take up residence in me – then I could be changed from the inside out. But like the non-swimmer struggling to believe the water will hold him/her up, I struggled to come to that point of faith and to ‘take the plunge’, ‘the leap of faith’, or to be more accurate to the New Testament receive the gift of righteousness freely given

Eventually, I did take the plunge and receive the gift.

And that is my source of hope. Not only do I retain hope within a world beset with political and social ills, flaws, and failings, I have hope for myself and all who have stumbled across this secret, the secret that Paul discovered, and many millions of others have since the resurrection of Christ…that He isn’t far off in heaven demanding our obedience but living out His life in us and through us in this world.

I like Paul’s phrase ‘…to all who believe…’. It’s not just Paul’s, it’s the ‘note’ or the music throughout the New Testament.

I could see that if Christ – in fact, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit - could take up residence in me – then I could be changed from the inside out

I wasn’t sure whether to use the title Jesus was cross. The risk is that we think Jesus is cross with ‘me’. Nothing could be further from the truth. Think of Nicodemus the Pharisee who was too scared of his peers, so he came to Jesus at night. Jesus treated him with respect and welcomed him. Or what about St Paul, who had participated in violence and murder against believers? When Christ appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, he said: ‘Why do you persecute me?’ He came to Paul to choose him to be an apostle to Europe. None of us are unloved.

Or, to counter the double negative: All of us are loved.

From its opening pages, the bible is full of this curious love in the face of our sin. When Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves to cover their sense of shame having failed by eating the forbidden fruit, God came to them – He didn’t remain offended and aloof - and provided for what they needed. He came with love.

When Jesus came, he was criticised by the Pharisees:

‘The Pharisees complained saying, ‘Why do you eat with…sinners?’ Jesus answered and said ‘Those who are well do not need a physician, only those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.’ Luke 5v31,31

So, I have hope, the same hope of any doctor.

Diagnosis complete, we can move on to healing and wholeness, to forgiveness and being filled with God Himself, and therefore…hope.

POSTSCRIPT: Try saying these words as a prayer if you are serious about abandoning everything to follow Christ: ‘Heavenly Father, I abandon all my useless efforts to be righteous. Please forgive me for all my failures. I come to you now with my hands open to receive You and all you want to give me from this point on. Amen.

Thank You

Descending from Tryfan
In an early morning autumnal mist
Three nights of hill-bound
Body odour to prove our ordeal
The welcome end in sight
And my joy is eclipsed
By sudden uncalled-for
Patella pain

A decade passes
And I, unable to run
And reduced often to
Less than a child’s pace
A young man no longer young
Stoic I, sad at heart
But head held high
Push on with private prayers

After-dawn rituals continue
There’s cereal, toast, tea
Bible readings, and tie-tying
All with variable success
A pre-work regularity but
Interrupted on this day
By one unbidden word:

‘Run!’

A command from Beyond
Authoritative, inescapable
Unharsh, inaudible
More than a word

So, crippled I
Locate my battered trainers
Old from lack of use
And find a gravel path
And obey, for a quarter of a mile
Then a mile the next day
Half-marathons follow on
Patella pain consigned
To the past

I run now on new fuel
Offerings of thanksgiving
To the One
Who interrupted my prayers
And made me an
Implausible parable
On two legs:

Therefore strengthen the hands
That hang down
And the feeble knees
And make straight paths for your feet
So that what is lame
May not be dislocated
But rather be healed…
…let us run the race

Still small voice

Beer beach. Almost July.
Even with the sun skulking
Behind lumpy grey clouds
And an onshore breeze
To cool the pebbles
It is warm enough

Warm enough to sit,
Read, remove a layer
And later, sandals on
Wander over to the beach café
For a flat white and a brie
And cranberry panini

 Lunch, and to listen
Until time itself disappears
And the world of thoughts
Recedes
And some aural centre
Draws you in

Not gravity, not to-do lists
Not worries, nor plans
Neither angels nor demons
Only the sound of the beach
Filling all, upholding all, as if
One can swim at any depth

Suspended inside sound:
Breaking waves crashing
Like thousands of crisps
Trodden underfoot
Forlorn seagulls crying
Searching for scraps

An irritating Pekinese angry
In its over-stretched skin
Hull grunts of a fishing smack
Hauled over the pebbles
And much silence, the silence
Of an uncrowded beach

Into which I hear
All I need to hear

Polished Arrows, Jenny Sanders

Polished Arrows is a non-fiction departure from Jenny Sanders’ recent Children’s books Charlie Peach and The Magnificent Moustache and other stories.

Polished Arrows is more than an extended bible study on discipleship, or a manual on how to grow towards spiritual maturity, it is a comprehensive look at various aspects of real life as a believer – for example, past hurts and forgiveness, dealing with regret, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And, although the author is not self-indulgent in using personal illustrations, the theory is clearly anchored in her own experience.

I found the historical Arrowsmith technology – selection of the wood, smoothing the shaft, and dealing with knots for example fascinating. It serves as a clear and powerful metaphor of God’s purposes for us – to be fashioned as arrows and fired into the world - throughout each of the twelve chapters

At the end of each chapter is a study section where Jenny has listed a few questions to allow for group discussion or individual reflection.

It serves as a clear and powerful metaphor of God’s purposes for us – to be fashioned as arrows and fired into the world

I particularly enjoyed Chapter 4 Abrasive Grace, using Elijah as an example, and Chapter 6 Knotty Issues illustrated via Naaman’s miraculous healing. I am certain that anyone reading Polished Arrows will find several chapters that stand out as personally relevant. One of the strengths of Polished Arrows is that each chapter can be read as a ‘stand-alone’ study but also as part of the overall process of being formed into a polished arrow and fired into the world.

Polished Arrows is thoroughly biblical, quoting extensively from the Old and New Testaments but the language is conversational in style rather than theological and so will appeal to those who love the word of God but are put off by unnecessary use of technical jargon.

A weekend diary ramble, London

It’s Saturday, 1st of June. There’s no excuse for the British summer not to take to the stage now. It was so promising at 7.10 standing in the cool air and warm sun on the platform at Sea Mills waiting for the two-carriage train on the first leg to Paddington.

Temple Meads is bustling but quiet. Few are managing speech, preferring to sup at their black Americanos like babies on the teat and consult their mobiles for news that maybe could wait.

I’m no better. I look once, no twice, to check my reserved window seat number on the Paddington train. The London-bound herd has to migrate to Platform 11 and the immense beast arrives, loads its passengers, and is gone, slithering snake-like round the bends exiting the station after the briefest of hesitations.

I have my window seat and a table from which to watch the oncoming clouds and the disappearance of summer.

Fussing with available networks I navigate to a poem on Word written in 2020 when I was feeling rough, maybe with Covid. Reading it again, and fleeting fragments begin to coalesce. It’s called 20kg to highlight how administrative errors by computers are just as racist as humans.

Did I mention clouds? How dull the countryside looks compared to when it’s bathed in the summer sun.

The hubbub of conversation fills the carriage. I hear random words: pig, dry-cleaning, rugby, steak, Treacle (someone’s nickname!)…

I am in a curious bubble cut off from the world cocooned in tiredness – it was a long day yesterday and, with five hours sleep, I feel as if I’m in a tunnel of impenetrable cotton wool.

Reading. Last stop before London. No seats left around the table. I’m waking up, I think. Maybe it’s writing this that’s keeping me conscious. Poor daughter 1, who’s meeting me and will be full of words to pour out, may have to suffer Pa, whose capacity to listen is greatly diminished and needs the nap that he cannot have.

Here’s that poem:

20kg

No words flowing in my veins

No lift of consciousness

To see things small and great

Knowing they are one of the same.

I am unwell.

Corona alarm bells are ringing

Medical professionals pass me

From one number to the next

From one Covid screen to the next

On-line I yield my NI number, my NHS number, my mobile number,

My DOB, my postcode and

Although, when ill, humour is suppressed,

I laugh as the United Kingdom’s database

Cannot identify me!

Have I slid between a crack in the binary?

Could there be an unknown portal between 0 and 1 and 1 and 0?

That algorithm, that App, that whirring computer,

That overheated, CO2 polluting, electricity sapping,

Power-consuming mega, giga, terra server

Cannot identify me!

It required a human to pull strings,

An agent with a pulse

A simple kind woman on a telephone

To put Kasparov ahead of Blue once more

To identify a fellow human, a citizen, a real

Flesh and blood tax-payer, Portsmouth supporter,

Whisky-loving, cigar-smoking, God-arrested, retired Chemistry teacher

And father of five.

Did a whiff of Windrush just slide by?

Of being denied

Though the truth, standing at 38 degrees and not quite well

Had walked upon Jerusalem for six decades and more?

I had smelt the it.

The officials who, unlike the woman, denied rights

Denied existence, denied certain proof, denied humanity

And, hiding behind endless forms

Couldn’t identify…

…Jocelyn John and many others

Jocelyn John with her 20kg bag allowance uprooted and deported

On Christmas Day

Jocelyn John who, unlike me, didn’t find a woman to defeat Goliath

But who fell between the 0s and the 1s

With more documents than needed to build a bridge to Grenada

Was sent away, deported, unidentified, an innocent branded a criminal

On Christmas Day.

It took 10 minutes to find me

The lost, unidentifiable, me

For those moments I was no-one

Applying for a Covid test, feeling unwell

But otherwise fine.

Birth certificate? Check.

But for Jocelyn five years passed,

Three million contested minutes later

An official apology emerged

A repatriation, a restoration, a righting of wrongs,

And JJ’s name is back where it always belonged - in the computer.

Jocelyn John. UK citizen. British.

Bring out the fatted calf.

Put rings on her fingers and

Buy her a new pair of dancing shoes

Let us eat and be merry

For that which was lost has been found.

End of diary entry #1.

Diary entry #2

Monday. On carriage A seat 16 from Paddington heading home. Reserved. Window seat. Facing forwards. Table. Quiet coach. Perfect. A rather peaceful-looking golden-haired dog across the aisle from me. I hope he/she understands the word Quiet.

Two days on tubes, buses, shags pony have taken me to Surbiton, down by the river and the first of numerous flat whites. Thence to The Telegraph open plan offices with sleek black laptops forlornly looking for their operators on a Saturday morning. It’s like a beehive with the queen bee in the easily accessible centre – the Editors’ oval holy of holies.

Across to a street market for an eclectic and international choice of hot food. Jerk chicken consumed; we head back to number one’s flat to zonk out watching a film.

Pre-church flat white on Sunday with number three, then St John’s, or ‘Saint’ as it’s known colloquially. There is an emphasis an immediate ethos - a ‘cool’ and contemporary vibe. Great music, good sermon on the equal need we have as humans for communion with God and community with each other. Can’t knock it. A far far cry from the stiff and formal CofE of my upbringing, ancient stone floors, musty, green-edged hymn books and the all-important black prayer book that only the regulars knew how to navigate…and much silence. Switch that to noisy, rock concert, and emotion and you’ll understand the difference. Could be summed up as the gap between religion and relationship but the truth is that both can easily become a tradition that binds its adherents into a self-perpetuating pattern, empty of meaning. So…ignoring the style…one needs to dig deeper to see if it’s a case of style over substance or substance exhibited in a more exuberant style. For example, the previous Sunday, a lady preached who had been miraculously healed from paralysis, a wheelchair to walking miracle following prayer. If accounts like that don’t stir the blood and justify the feet dancing and hands waving what will!

After church, we move on to lunch at a bar/restaurant offering food from Tel Aviv, Sicily, and Lebanon. Bit later we’re in a lift hurtling into the sky and landing up in a rooftop bar looking down on the Gurkin. 40 floors in just few seconds. St Paul’s looks like a squat little house far below.

…the previous Sunday, a lady preached who had been miraculously healed from paralysis…

Of course, in between all these places are serious and humorous conversations, and ‘impossible to hear’ moments on noisy tubes, people watching, eye-catching buildings, tall and modern, and historically recognisable districts. At one point, for example, we’re near Spitalfields, which figures strongly in the novel I’m trying to write, located in the summer of 1796.

I’ve frequented numerous bathrooms; all clean, with an array of soap dispensers, hand driers, and flushing techniques. One has to be mentally agile these days. I’ve ascended and descended I don’t know how many escalators, stairs, and ramps and passed by the 2012 Olympic stadium, now home to the Hammers, as if it’s normal to do so.

And now, all is done. Just the return journey with the still silent dog to my left and the dull green countryside on a dry, cool, and cloudy day. Saturday and Sunday, by contrast, were very sunny and warm.

You’ll have noticed I have restricted this diary entry mainly to activities and places – an external rather than an internal account. The distinction between private and public, facts and feelings, is interpreted differently by different individuals but the footballers’ refrain ‘what’s said in the dressing room remains in the dressing room’ isn’t a bad adage.

Over and out.

Jumping from the sea wall

I think I was four
When my tongue wrapped itself
Round a new word:
Subtract
It may, of course, have been
Take away, or minus
But I added it to my arsenal
Of ideas of having less

At four, I knew
I had less height, less strength
Less girth, less stamina
Than the grown-ups
The urge to close the gap
A burning fire: how oddly
We strive for the things
That will overtake us

But even at four, or five, or six
Our secret comparisons
Invisible and inward,
Bristle with life:
Elizabeth is beautiful
Somehow Carol is not
Love, added and subtracted
Rushes in like the tide, and away

My friend, arms raised, yelling
Jumped off the sea wall
Into the waves…I held back
Washington never lied…but I?
Whoever dealt the cards
Gave some to all, not all to one
What we lack others have
That’s the arithmetic

Freely you have received
Freely give
Oh! this somersaulting universe
Under a tutelage of grace!
Having less is a baptism,
A plunging into a vast ocean
I lack courage…but only in me
It comes as a gift…to share

Not Just Mud - a trilogy

Not just mud i

It all started with pulling my

Fingers free from the mud

Abandoned at low-tide

Dark, tacky, sweet-smelling

Mud to sink toes and feet in

But at my age then,

I wanted to be a crab

So, immersing toes and fingers

Side-slipping, I chased the

Outgoing tide until…

…it was the sight of a

Real, live, salty red crab

That stopped me:

Curiosity pulled at my fingers

Until, with a thwook,

Out of the mud they came

I took hold of the hard edges

Of the crab’s crusty shell

And let its flailing legs

Make patterns in the mud-ripples

Before baptising it

In a pool and letting it

Get clean away, then it was back

To plunging my fingers in then out

I wondered even then:

What could I make with mud?

Mud: the impotent left-overs

The detritus of decay

Washed here and there

By forces too strong to resist

Wind, tidal surges, estuary madness

Mud: weak, wet, and worthless

But my fingers went to work

First a handful, squeezed

Until the sea stopped draining free

I looked at the grey-brown sphere

Formed between my palms until

It was a scoop of ice cream…

Next? Something like a cone

Squeezed and rolled, emerged

It all ended with Mother

Picking me up

Mud still in my hands

And between my toes until

I was bath-baptised and got

Clean away…to bed, dreaming

Of mud-men and mud-women

Majestic and mighty

Not just mud ii

The years passed by

And mud had turned to clay

And clay had turned to stone

And the stone had turned

Into sculptures

Of tall men and tall women

Striding across long grass

Leaving behind an evolution

If not an evolution

Then a metamorphosis

My gnarly fingers

And swollen joints testifying

Of a lifetime sculpting

Making a fading dream

Become impervious

A vision taking on solid forms

Of a people, a stone race

Of magnificence rising up

From all that’s unseen

Beneath the soles

Of our shoes. Sixty years it took

Before halted again,

Not by a crab but

At my god-likeness

Not just mud iii

My brother was a doctor

My sister a warrior

In low moments I thought

I had wasted my life-clock

Felt like grey-brown mud

Squeezed dry by the world

Just a scoop of nothing much

A sculptor barely scraping by

It was not a voice I heard

But something

Not an angelic visitation

But each cell of my body

Began to exult - I saw

The loving hand of God

Reaching down into the poor

And broken mud-people we are

And yielding, if we will, to the

Divine finger-moulding-pressing

We rise, like wet clay on a wheel

Into the mud-men, and

The mud-women

Of a four-year-old’s dream

The weak, wet, and worthless

Now tall, mighty, and magnificent

Nazareth, Israel

2022 census
Pop: 78,000
The inhabitants are predominantly Arab citizens of Israel,
of whom 69% are Muslim Arabs and 31% Christian Arabs

Shall I explore Nazareth?
Travel there will bleed £300
From my bank account
But barely nine hours later
And I’d be eating falafels
At Bayat’s, outside, soaking
In the late afternoon sun

But like the two disciples
On the road to Emmaus,
Nine hours elapsing
After the resurrection,
Imagine, if you will,
Sitting across from me, Jesus,
Asking for more hummus

Our meal washed down with
Cups of Baladi, orangey tea
Or a glass of Shafaya
Blood red wine from Galilee
And he asks me:
Can you make wine
Without crushing the grapes?

My eyes meet his
There’s a cool breeze
To alleviate the afternoon heat
But I look at this man
If that is what he is
He stands up, smiles
A tear in his eye, and is gone

I look around with his eyes
My ears growing accustomed
To the poetic cadence
Of Arabic and Hebrew tongues
I wonder if he, so unwelcome
Once, at the synagogue,
Was sitting easily or uneasily?

Are they ready for you in Nazareth?
It seemed his one question
Spawned more questions in me
Rather than answering his with a No.
Are they ready for the wine
Or would they crush you once more?

Is that why you left?
But his smile more than
The tear has not left me
He sat down at my table
And, later when I went to pay
The restaurant owner said
‘Bill paid. By your friend’.
Slowly, I closed my wallet

And left, knowing he is ready
Ready to welcome those
Who are unwelcome
Displaced Palestinians
Ejected from house and home
Post-holocaust Jews
Diasporans in their own land

Can my heart be so hard
To leave him outside myself
Standing in the Bristol rain?
No. Now I understand
It took a crushing, not just
A bill paid by a stranger
To savour the new wine.

______________________________________________________

Luke 4

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown”.

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They drove him out, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

9pm: My triste:

The back garden slatted bench
Two ice cubes and a
Cut glass swill of American whiskey
In my cold right-hand
And in my other
A warming medium-sized
Henri Winterman’s

Welcome

It’s quiet and best taken in
With eyes closed
A crow with a single squark
Has made his journey from the moon
Hiding behind the wood
And the river of cars
Add to the whisper of the trees

I wonder if hidden Russian or Ukrainian
Or Israeli or Hamas fighters
Are listening also to chattering leaves
It’s too early for cats to squeal
Radiators and fires
In my neighbours’ houses
Prove irresistible

It’s too early also for constellations
Just three pin-point stars
Watching over the Earth
All the skylarks, blackbirds, sparrows
Are down; it’s the time
For bats to break the speed limit
Of the encroaching night

Welcome

I exhale a cloud of sweet-smelling
Incense my conversational
Prayers ascending
Carried into the trees
By the Spirit
To heaven all around us
So close

Pause

Warmed internally as I am
By the golden whiskey
My tongue on fire
I feel the God of the bible is close
God who makes all wars to cease
And I wonder how?
Maybe I should only wonder when?

These sensory minutes
Slowed by thoughts and longings
Lead me to feel
Yes, the hard bench, but far more:
Peace, tangible goodness
Pressing down into us all
If we would stop and look up

Discerning the present call of God

Prophets in the Old Testament had a dual role.

Firstly, they call the people back to obedience to the Law of Moses (Gal3v17) and faith in the Old Covenant promises given to Abraham (Gen 12v1-3).

Secondly, they announced the word of God to their generation, or individuals, and this often included divinely revealed knowledge of the future so that they could move the people into a greater revelation of God’s purposes, in particular, pointing towards the time when God would inaugurate a New Covenant era through the sufferings of the Messiah and the pouring out of the Spirit.

prophets continue to call the people back to the gospel

We are now living in that New Covenant era and prophets continue to call the people back to the gospel, back to faith in the promises of God contained in the New Covenant (e.g. Jer 31 v 31-34 /Hebrews 10v16 and Ez 11v19/36v26-27) and to call the people forward into the purposes of God.

This article aims to follow on in this vein.

…and to call the people forward into the purposes of God

In England, the battle to establish true Christianity free from State control and interference is described very well in E.H. Broadbent’s book The Pilgrim Church.

John Wesley and George Whitfield were such prophets, calling the people back to the gospel and forward in the purposes of God, and playing their role, along with many other preachers, in establishing many churches.

It is a gross simplification to look back at John Wesley and George Whitfield as the sole pioneers of a recovery of genuine Christianity in England, but something was stirring as a small group of students began to meet at Oxford University in 1729. Wesley and Whitfield rediscovered that salvation is by grace – a free gift – and through faith in what Christ has done on the cross rather than attempting to produce a Christlike life through good works and religious observance.

Preaching salvation by faith, and the need to be born again, caused an uproar and many churches closed their doors to Wesley and Whitfield and others preaching the same message…hence the thousands that came to hear them preach in the open air.

As their numbers grew, ‘evangelical Christianity’ found greater degrees of toleration in England through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many well-known denominations are now either completely ‘evangelical’ in their theology or have significant proportions of their members who sail under that banner: Methodists, Baptists, Brethren, Pentecostals, and many Presbyterian churches to name a few.

Prophets such as Wesley, Whitfield, Seymour, and the pioneers of the Charismatic Renewal churches in our day fulfilled their mission to call the people back to the New Covenant and call the people forward in the purposes of God.

Then, in 1906, William J Seymour, a one-eyed black preacher in Los Angeles started preaching that, subsequent to receiving the gift of salvation, there is a baptism in the Spirit and that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are part and parcel of the New Covenant and should be operating in the church today. Meetings in Azusa Street became almost a re-run of Acts 2 at Pentecost. As a result, Seymour and others were regularly banned from preaching in many evangelical churches and were forced to form their own denomination – called the Pentecostal church. From that starting point, the movement of the Holy Spirit began to spawn revivals such as the Welsh revival of 1904 and affect historic denominations through Fountain Trust Meetings in England in the 1960s.

As a result, what became known as ‘Charismatic Renewal’ was born with thousands of believers in hundreds of denominational churches experiencing the baptism of the Spirit and receiving gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, and words of knowledge. As a result, when those preaching the message of Charismatic Renewal were rejected, as many were, new churches were formed such as New Frontiers, Salt and Light, Kingdom Faith, Vineyard and so on. Some churches in the more historic denominations also welcomed the renewal and restoration of the gifts of the Spirit.

The above two major rediscoveries had always been contained in the New Covenant as prophesied by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel and embodied in Jesus. It was Jesus who preached that we must be born again by the Spirit of God and commanded the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Prophets such as Wesley, Whitfield, Seymour, and the pioneers of the Charismatic Renewal churches in our day fulfilled their mission to call the people back to the New Covenant and call the people forward in the purposes of God.

What about now? Where are we?

The following three short articles will look at:

1. The three feasts of Israel – Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles

2. Who died on the cross?

3. Rachel dying in childbirth

Firstly, Tabernacles.

Jews celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles by gathering under ‘booths’ to break bread and drink wine, to remember their journey through the wilderness living in tents (tabernacles). These days it will often be small family groups that meet under a roof made from the overlapping branches of four types of palm trees. There are gaps between the branches to let the light in…open to the heavens. The feast is prophetic – pointing to the New Testament era i.e. not only for the ‘sojourning’ aspect of our time here on Earth before Resurrection and glory – but of the reality of the New Covenant in the present age. There is a ‘here and now’ dimension that has not previously been seen or taught as integral to the new covenant in the same way that Passover and Pentecost have been rediscovered.

As with Passover and Pentecost, the first fulfilment of Tabernacles is located in Jesus. He was the Lamb of God (Passover) and the Spirit was upon Him (Pentecost). But in John’s gospel we read ‘the Word became flesh and tabernacled (Tabernacles)among us and we beheld His glory’ John 1 v 14.

The church, in Christ, is therefore to be an expression of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.

When the church gathers, the body of Christ, we teach that Christ as the Passover Lamb has dealt with our sins and set us free, and that Jesus will baptise us with the Spirit as at Pentecost, and the Spirit manifests His presence in gifts and ministries, but we also gather together under a roof that lets the light and the glory in; Tabernacles is fulfilled in the church. Denominational barriers boundaries and cannot stand in the glory and the light as the body of Christ comes together and lives and moves in His light and glory, just as Jesus lived.

Secondly, moving on from Romans 1-5 churches

Romans 1-5 is a wonderful series of logical arguments that describe the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross, i.e. Christ died in my place, He died for me, taking the punishment I deserved and so securing salvation by grace not by my works, through faith. Once I ‘see’ or believe that Christ took my sins on the cross, I can believe in God’s love for me and His forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, salvation that is all offered to all as a free gift to be received. We ‘repent’ of trying to live the Christian life under our own government and we receive the gifts of salvation, righteousness and eternal life and are restored to a relationship with God our Heavenly Father. This is, of course, wonderful ‘good news’ (the meaning of the word ‘gospel’) and many lives have been transformed simply by that revelation and encounter.

Romans 5 starts with ‘Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ and ends with ‘so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’. There is only one reference to the Holy Spirit, He is introduced more fully in Romans 8.

And so, evangelical churches preach Romans 1-5 with faith and charismatic churches go further and incorporate the teaching in Romans 8 and elsewhere on the present ministry of the Holy Spirit as a consequence of receiving the baptism in the Spirit.

But in Romans 6 Paul poses a question to which many evangelical and charismatic believers would have to answer with a ‘No’.

‘Do you not know that as many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death…knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him…now if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him’

Similarly in Galatians 2 v 20

‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me; 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’

Or Colossians 3 v 3

‘For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God…’

The clear teaching of the New Testament is that the death of Christ was not only substitutionary but inclusive…it included you and me.

Lastly, let us consider Rachel.

‘When they were very close to Ephrath, Rachel laboured in childbirth, and she had hard labour…the midwife told her ‘Do not be afraid; you will have this son’ and so it was that as her soul was departing (for she died) that she called his name Ben-Oni, but his father called him Benjamin’

Ben-oni means ‘son of my sorrow’ whereas Benjamin means ‘son of my right hand’.

Isaiah prophesied that the coming Messiah would be a ‘Man of sorrows acquainted with grief’ Is 53 v 3 but now ‘is exalted at the right hand of God’ Acts 2v33. These twin attributes of Benjamin, Christ-like suffering and glory, serve as a prophetic sign and description of Christ and therefore of His body, the church. But for Benjamin to be born into the world Rachel – who had previously cried out to Jacob, ‘Give me children or I die’ (Gen 30v1) - had to die in childbirth. As much as Benjamin can be thought of as a prophetic image of the church to come, the preceding Rachel generation has to die. It is her calling. Rachel suffered a physical death so that physical Benjamin could be born, for the ‘Benjamin-church’ to emerge we must be willing to ‘die to’ our present pattern when it is time to move on:

Jesus said ‘Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain’ John 12 v 24

For Abram to become the father of many nations, for his descendants to become as the sand on the seashore or as the stars in the sky he had, first of all, to leave his father’s house. The call of God upon us is the same. Not to settle. We should be thankful and honouring to all those that pioneered before, nevertheless, we must press on from Passover and Pentecost to Tabernacles, where the ‘Word became flesh and tabernacled among us and we beheld His glory’, as in Christ, now in the church-in-union-with-Christ.

Our Rachel-like call is summed up in St Paul’s words to the Galatians: ‘My little children, for whom I labour in childbirth again until Christ is formed in you’.

Specific answers to questions on matters like church government are not within the scope of this article, except to say that just as our heads coordinate everything our bodies do, Jesus as the head of the body of Christ, isn’t disconnected from His body, but coordinates everything His body does. The Spirit of God is in labour in us bringing to birth what may be called a Benjamin-generation-church, one that knows sorrow and glory in a different way than Pentecostal and Charismatic churches have known, or their predecessors in Evangelical churches.

These churches will preach Passover - the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from slavery of sin - and Pentecost - the baptism and power of the Spirit. And Tabernacles. They will know what it is to meet and function in the light and glory of God fellowshipping in Christ’s sufferings and His glory. The leaders and those born again under their ministry will know that when Christ died, they died, they were crucified with Christ and are now raised in Him as new creations. ‘Christ is your life’ is a fact not the statement of a particularly enthusiastic Christian but the New Testament norm.

Prophets call the people back to covenant promises and obedience to the word when they stray. They also carry the present and future work of God stirring in their hearts, like a pregnant woman carrying a baby yet to be born.

In this article, I have tried to follow suit. I hear that call to press on to Tabernacles. To call the church back to her pioneering Abrahamic faith; to leave our father’s house and be led by God to a place He will show us. And to be willing to die in childbirth, like Rachel, to suffer in childbirth like the apostle Paul, or to go into the ground like the seed, in order for a Passover-Pentecostal-Tabernacles church to be born in which the twin attributes of Ben-omi and Benjamin, suffering and glory, are evident.

The Case for renaming Easter Saturday

Easter Saturday needs a facelift. It’s the forgotten day. The quiet day between Good Friday, a holiday for many, and Easter Sunday.

If we look past Good Friday, Easter eggs, egg hunts, and the like, we know what is there: the crucifixion of the Messiah, Jesus, and on Easter Sunday, an empty tomb and the appearances of the resurrected Jesus, first as a gardener to Mary Magdalene, then to his disciples, and then to the two disciples on their forlorn, hope-shattered walk, to Emmaus.

My story is that I abandoned the agnosticism of my teenage years for faith in Christ. For me, the moment of belief was a moment, an instant of time, as I intoned the Creed ‘I believe in God…’ which, up until that point I had stopped repeating as I did not believe. But my arguments against Christianity had been eroded over a period of a year or two having carefully considered the compelling evidence supporting the historicity of the New Testament and for the resurrection.

I had accepted that Jesus was a true historical figure and that the New Testament was a reliable document and was certain that the disciples were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ crucifixion and were convinced that He had risen from the dead. But there is still an immense gulf between believing historical facts and making a personal commitment to follow Christ.

As a young child, I was always struck by the simplicity of Jesus’ invitation to the disciples: ‘Come, follow Me. And they left their nets and followed Him’. Now, I was faced with the same choice.

As I said those words ‘I believe…’ I found to my astonishment that I did.

On Easter Sundays, I am reminded that Jesus overcame death, as He said He would, appeared to His disbelieving disciples, and ate fish to prove that He wasn’t a ghost, or a figment of their imagination. That they took some convincing was further evidence to me that the New Testament was an honest account of the events of that day. None of the apostles are shown in a flattering light; they all abandoned Him when He was arrested, and none believed in the resurrection without a fight!

But all this leaves Easter Saturday.

The Jewish day starts and finishes at sunset, so to be true to the New Testament, Jesus died at 3pm on Good Friday, and His body was placed in the tomb in the evening. The Sabbath, Saturday, started at sunset and lasted through to the following sunset. On Sunday, just after dawn, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other women went to the tomb and found it empty, followed by Peter and John. Jesus then appeared to the women, the men, and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The third day.

None of the apostles are shown in a flattering light; they all abandoned Him when He was arrested, and none believed in the resurrection without a fight!

What happened on the Sabbath? Was Jesus ‘asleep’?

When I said the Creed, there was one line that mystified me:

was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;

Descended into hell? Really? What does this mean? Is there any evidence in the New Testament to support this? How was this phrase included in the Creed? Why do various more modern versions either delete this sentence or retranslate it as ‘descended to the dead’? Is this descent referring to Good Friday i.e. experienced by Jesus on the cross as part of His suffering, or after His death and before His resurrection – i.e. during the Saturday? Questions. Questions.

There are interpretations aplenty. Look at the following article for a detailed biblical analysis  (e.g. 102-04_303.pdf (biblicalstudies.org.uk) )

One of the issues for us is the use of metaphor and spiritual language alongside the more familiar vocabulary of our three-dimensional material world. Good Friday and, to some extent, Easter Sunday, can be analysed ‘materially’, on Friday Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. On Sunday, he appeared albeit differently, but physically to the disciples. For Easter Saturday, however, the normal material tools at our disposal, are of no use. The body is in the tomb, hidden from view – the New Testament clearly states that Jesus rose on the third day, that is after sunset on the Sabbath, Saturday, and before dawn on Sunday.

For the materialist, then, relevant questions about ‘descending into hell’ include what is meant by the term ‘hell’, where is it located, and when exactly did Jesus descend there?

Spiritual thinkers, on the other hand, look beyond the physical events e.g. the arrest, the nails, the blood, the death, and the physical suffering, to consider the significance of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God in heavenly realms.

·        Material interpretation – ‘hell’ refers to the realm of the dead i.e. Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek rather than Gehenna – the place of judgement and fire. This explains why many modern versions of the Apostles’ Creed replace the rather ambiguous word ‘hell’ with ‘the dead’.

·        Spiritual interpretation – the spiritual agonies Jesus suffered on the cross were as real as the physical. When He cried out ‘My God! My God! Why have you forsaken/abandoned me?’ He suffered the ultimate darkness of separation from His heavenly Father, taking our sins upon Himself, and descending into hell, for us.

So…if called upon to recite the Apostles’ Creed, I can still repeat ‘he descended into hell’. Had he not descended into hell, He would have avoided taking upon Himself the fulness of the spiritual suffering in the human race, infected, as we all are, with sin, so that we may be forgiven. And there is a more profound truth to be found in the crucifixion, we are included and taken into the death of Christ as Paul states ‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me’. Christ not only took our sins so that we could be forgiven, but took us on the cross, so we could be delivered and made into new creations, replicas of Christ.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty…

In doing so, He opened up the way for God to raise us up, just as God raised Jesus from the dead. Not something we can achieve by ourselves, by any ‘religious’ or moral efforts of our own.

Two criminals were crucified with Jesus, on either side. Initially they both ‘reviled Him’ but the thief later changed his tune and said to Jesus: ‘Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise’. The destiny of the other criminal is less certain. Like with the early disciples, Jesus says ‘Come, follow Me’. It will never become more complicated than this. Leave everything and follow Him.

Physically Jesus died and descended into hell (the place of the dead) but, spiritually, He turned hell into paradise (a beautiful garden) for Himself and the thief. Perhaps we should rename Easter Saturday ‘Paradise Saturday’?

I’ll leave the last word on this to St Paul:

‘Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God…made Himself of no reputation…and being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of the earth, and under the earth, that every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.’  Philippians 2 v 6-11

Book Review: Home by Marilynne Robinson

This may as well serve as a double review; Home is the sequel to Gilead and so the setting, a fictional small town in Iowa, Gilead, and the principal characters remain the same.

In Home, the outlier of family, Jack Boughton, returns to live with his aging father, the retired church pastor, Reverend Robert Boughton, and his younger sister, Gloria.

Whereas Gilead’s narrator is Reverend John Ames, a lifelong friend of Reverend Boughton, and revolves around a series of letters written to his godson, Jack Boughton, Home is written in the third person and the action takes place almost entirely within the four walls of the Boughton’s house.

In some ways, this is a re-telling of the parable of the prodigal son. Like Gilead, Home is steeped in scripture and faith-related issues. Jack as a wayward youth, often in trouble with the law, now returns, his battles with alcohol unresolved, as is his family life, and faith. Will he, like the prodigal of Luke’s gospel ‘come to his senses’ and return home in a deeper way than merely geographically?

But the impact of Home for me was one of extraordinary attention to the minute detail of moods, tensions, fear of precedents, hope and disappointments, and moral dilemmas that the author, Marilynne Robinson brings to bear in Home page after page.

It’s a slow burn. Its major emotion is sadness

There are no chapter divisions – it is one long dive into the tension between old Reverend Boughton and his son Jack as they co-exist with Gloria, under one roof. In one sense they are deeply united and tender with each other, and yet there is a constant struggle to close the gap between father and son.

It’s a slow burn. Its major emotion is sadness.

So, why read Home? Why not read a good detective novel where, even if the detective is gravely flawed, you know the crime will be solved? Or a spy novel full of action and courage? Home is a blues novel, left, largely, on persistently unresolved blues notes. It does contain courage but its examination of brokenness includes failure as well as degrees of success.

So, why read it? Because it is brilliantly written.