The three passages are Colossians 1:15-20; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6 and John 5:36-44.
Colossians 1:15-20: “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
1. In the passage in Colossians, Paul is making the most extraordinary claim both for himself as a monotheistic Jew and for us living in a pluralistic world. Jesus is not simply God compressed into a man but that man completely and fully is God and everything God is. We’ve talked about this before but it’s worth repeating: “We sometimes think of Jesus as all of God compressed into a person. The infinite God somehow managed to squeeze Himself into a man-sized and finite being. We see the same image when we look at black holes in space. Surrounding matter is captured by the gravity of a dying star and everything becomes so incredibly dense that even light cannot escape. A whole galaxy is reduced to the size of a golf ball. It is the ultimate example of the power of compression.
That is not how Jesus is described by Paul. In Philippians 2:6 we are told that Jesus was not the same size as God or was a reduced in size version of God but that he shared the very nature of God.
Such a claim was scandalous in Paul’s world. No man could claim to be God in the Jewish world because it was heresy punishable by death. No man could have an exclusive claim to Truth in the Greek and Roman world because it would be intolerant of others. Anyone who pretends to have an exclusive claim on Truth is only admitting to intolerance, bigotry, arrogance and dangerous pride. The world does not treat them well.
Look at how Joseph’s brothers treated his being special. That’s a case study for how the world treats any claim of exclusivity of relationship. It annoys and angers. It creates jealousy and then worse. We believe in equality and pluralism. Everyone has the same right to their own beliefs and no one, by definition, is absolutely right – and certainly no one can claim to be God. You will not hear a sermon or talk on Colossians at the National Prayer Breakfast or any other religious assembly because it threatens the carefully constructed peace under which we live.
In fact, one of the most influential men in the forming of our own country – Thomas Paine – was adamantly opposed to the whole notion of exclusive Truth – even Christianity itself.
“Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.”
We’ll come back to Thomas Paine later because, in some ways, he personifies what Paul talks about in the passage from 2 Corinthians.
And, in fact, people can certainly question why we would claim such a thing when we cannot even agree among ourselves about what we believe. How many denominations, schisms, off-shoots and doctrines have there been over the last two thousand years? How much infighting and counterclaims? Christ did not leave doctrinal purity as the evidence of Truth. The only evidence of our exclusive Truth is the Word became flesh and a willingness to die for a love the world cannot understand and we cannot generate ourselves. We want to be right more than we want to be obedient to Christ’s commands – love God and love one another. Until we can show the world that kind of evidence we will be just another way to God among all the rest.
2. In the passage in 2 Corinthians 4:1-6 we read: “4 Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”
The whole passage is about the nature of light, glory and blindness. Why do some see and others do not? What is this “god of this age” that has blinded so many to the glory of the Christ and the light of the gospel?
In Romans 1 Paul describes a mind that has suppressed the truth and become depraved.
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Everyone on a search for Truth begins with the idea that Truth will fit their predetermined categories. The search is on our own terms. It will be discovered and not revealed. It will be reasonable and make sense to us. It will settle our questions and resolve our doubts. The search for Truth is not a bad thing but it is impossible for us to find Truth. Truth is revealed if we will only see it. We reject it because it does not fit our desires and notions of what Truth should be. The consequences of rejection seem harmless at first but over time they are disastrous. That is what Paul is talking about in Romans and in 2 Corinthians – the long term consequences of willfully not seeing the obvious and being blinded by the god of this age. It begins innocently enough with claiming “I just cannot see it” but ends with “You will not see it either.” It begins with “I have the right to not believe” and ends with “You have no right to believe.” It begins with darkened hearts and ends with a darkened culture.
Every age has a god and in reading more of Thomas Paine this week I think he comes close to describing ours. Perhaps one of the most influential writers in America prior to and after the Revolution and the author of Common Sense, The American Crisis and the Rights of Man. Many of his quotes have shaped our national consciousness and, rightly so, we teach them in our schools:
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.”
But, as the New York Evening Post put it when he died: “He had lived long, did some good and much harm.”
Part of that harm was making Christianity and the church a false belief to a rational mind. He was not an atheist although he was accused of it. He was bright, articulate, argumentative, courageous and a free thinker. He was, in some sense, the Ayn Rand of his day. Above all else he believed in rights and reason – not revelation and faith. I think it is the spirit of Thomas Paine that has become the god of this age ever since. It is the spirit of rights, independence, only believing what can be seen and free thinking. Let me read you some quotes and I’ve tried not to take them out of context:
“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter.”
“My own mind is my own church.”
“Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.”
“The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun.”
“All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.”
“The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.”
I think Oswald Chambers is right when he says in “My Utmost For His Highest”:
“The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, “I am my own god.” This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis— my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living, moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man.”
A degraded culture does not begin always with the intent to do harm. It begins with the inability to see what is plain. Ironically, Paine’s original title for “Common Sense” was “Plain Truth” taken from this passage in Romans but an editor had him change it to have more appeal to readers. Futility begins with what seems to be right and good and the best of intentions but ends many years later in depravity.
3. Finally, Jesus reflects God’s mission. John 5:36-44: “36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38 nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life. 41 “I do not accept glory from human beings, 42 but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44 How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”
God’s mission is not to enhance our Bible studies but to make us disciples and prepare us for not only this life but our roles in the next. It is to have his word dwell in us in such a way that we no longer are interested in our own glory or recognition or even happiness but to reflect the glory of Christ. It is not to be scholars and experts but to have the love of God in our hearts. Our mission, like His, is to reconcile the world to God.
I think we have lost the distinction between reconciling and converting. There is a difference. Rather than wanting to make people change or wanting them to become Christian so they will get out of poverty, stop drinking, cheating, stealing, and generally behaving badly, we are to be reconcilers. Christ came to seek and to save and draw people to him more than to merely convert a person’s beliefs. Reconciliation is really a different process, isn’t it? We want our exclusive claim to be held universally and we end up pushing it on others rather than starting with the idea of reconciling them to God. We want to be right and to be recognized as being right. We don’t want to be martyrs. The mark of truly believing that exclusive claim is not being right but being emptied – not empty of certainty but empty of the insistence on equality.
I think Thomas Paine loved equality because he hated authority. C.S. Lewis in “Screwtape Proposes A Toast” puts it this way:
“No man who says I’m as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.”
It’s the same conflict for us. On Sunday we can sing, “O Worship The King” but on Monday we live according to the poem “Invictus”.
Invictus
BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
The true way of reconciliation is in Philippians 2:
2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Christ gave us the key principles for life in this kingdom: the way up is down. The first will be last. What is the path to ruling? It is serving. It is not a course in leadership but a lifetime of serving. It is not being chosen as one of the best and brightest but of serving. It is not choosing a place to rule but being placed to serve. That is not what the god of this age would tell us, is it?
But, and we have talked about this before, I don’t think our discipleship is for this life only. I believe Paul when he says in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to pitied more than all men.” If Christ came only to give us tips for better living or a few principles that will make us better people in this life only then we, like Paul, are pitiful. This life and all the experiences of this life are intended to prepare us for what is coming later. Christ is not just describing the principles of a better life here but he is telling us what the characteristics of life in the next adventure will be. We are being apprenticed to be rulers and not merely here to perfect our beliefs.
Luke 22:24-30:
24 A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. 25 Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. 26 But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. 27 For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. 28 You are those who have stood by me in my trials. 29 And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, 30 so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
We are being prepared for something much larger than we can imagine and we often respond like the student who questions the value of learning algebra, biology or Latin. “When am I ever going to use these things in life? They’ll never be practical.”
And it is hard to prepare for something that is unseen and far away unless we get it in our minds that is exactly what this life is about.
I read passages this week from a book on how the kings of France were prepared for being kings. At birth they were separated from their mothers and given over to governesses and tutors. Everything in their lives from that point on was directed toward preparing them for a life many years away. They were not raised to be normal but to be ready to rule in time. Their tutors “took an oath to form the prince’s spirit and prepare him for the conduct of his life, knowledge of the world and success in the affairs of state.” They were sent to war and trained with the troops. It was not easy. They were not really spoiled or coddled. They were taught through everything they did that they would one day rule. Coronation was the end of a long process and the beginning of another. This is what they had been prepared to do – even when they could not see it. In time, apprenticeship gave way to books and study. Preparing became an academic exercise and they had little contact with the realities of life and gradually lost touch with their kingdom. They became isolated and confined to a world of their own making. That was a turning point in the eventual corruption of the royalty. They lost sight of the purpose and reality of their future role. They lost sight of the their future role and the good life of being a prince became more important than preparing to be king.
I think this is the great danger facing us. We forget we are being tutored and prepared for what is next. We are apprentices still learning but with a purpose in mind far beyond this life. We are deluded into thinking that Christ came to make this life easier, better, more comfortable and sensible. We have stopped looking beyond what we can see.
Thomas Paine lived life by a set of principles that made what he could see with his eyes and understand by reason and his senses the measure of all things. He was a courageous man who helped shape the character and values of a new country but the light of the gospel was veiled to him. Paul, similar to Paine, was brilliant, articulate, rational, heretical, irascible and shaped the values of a new Truth – God was in Christ reconciling the world and all things to Himself.
I think Paul left us with the better counsel in 2 Corinthians 4: “16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Fix your eyes on what is permanent, on that for which you are being prepared.
Do not be distracted by the god of this age.
Do not be surprised when the world resists and treats you badly for claiming an exclusive truth.
Do not lose heart.