Preach Jesus Christ

Two weeks before Easter, on Sunday, April 14, 1991, I felt the Holy Spirit’s invitation for me to repent and accept Jesus Christ, the risen Son of God as my personal Lord and Savior.  A year later I began experiencing the call to preach God's Word.  Surrendering to that call was not easy.  For over a year I struggled.  I knew nothing about the Bible and was not raised in church.  That was my argument and it was totally focused on my works and not God’s power.  In 1993, I did surrender, accepted the call to preach and began my studies at Emmanuel College in Franklin Springs, Georgia.  Since 1993, I have come to know the One that I call Savior better each day as I have follow Him through the pages of the Bible.  During my studies at Emmanuel I ran across a small paperback book written by the late Bishop Joseph A. Synan.  Each year around Easter I pull Synan’s book from my bookshelf and reread a section that helps keep my focus on Him.  I hope that you will be blessed as I have been by these words...

 

I trust that all of us have had experiences similar to what I am going to speak of briefly, and I’m sure that we have.  I have followed Him from His manger in Bethlehem to His cross on Calvary, and to the tomb in the garden, and to the morning of resurrection, and to the tomb in the garden, and to the morning of ascension, and have loved and admired and appreciated Him all the way.  I have seen Him seized by lawless men after having been betrayed by a friend.  I have seen Him spit upon, blindfolded and smitten by slaves.  I have seen Him scourged with cruel thongs until His back was a maze of bruises and stripes and blood.  I’ve seen Him crowned with thorns and mocked by the soldiers.  I’ve seen Him driven along the cobble-stone streets of Jerusalem, out through the gray stone gate and up the hill of Calvary.  I’ve seen Him lifted up on the cross, and mocked and jeered by the passing throng.  I’ve seen Him when the sun was draped in darkness and the mountain trembled and the graves were opened, and the veil in the temple was rent in twain from top to bottom.  I’ve seen Him forsaken of men and outcast by the world, and I’ve heard His lonely agonizing cry in the dark: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”’

And as I’ve seen Him, the embodiment of absolute purity, innocence, holiness and goodness, thus treated by men, I have felt in my heart drawn in an affinity of love and loyalty that made me feel as I followed Him through all those scenes of suffering that I wanted to love Him and be loyal to Him forever.  And I reached this conclusion that, if this life were all, if the grave marked the end of Jesus of Nazareth, and if it should mark the end of me, I would still rather be indentified with a man like Him than anybody else that I have ever met or read or heard or known of in this world.

 

But I’m thankful that the grave didn’t mark the end for Him, and that it will not be the end for us; but that He has gone through and come out on the side of immortal glory, and that He will lead us through and bring us out into worlds of life and strength.  And that, in the meantime, having been here and gone away, He is just as truly our friend and our Savior yonder in glory as when He was here, and He will be coming back again.  We can’t preach anything greater; we can’t preach anything more fascinating, anything more winning, than to preach Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

 

Synan, Bishop Joseph A. The Good Minister of Jesus Christ, (The Publishing House Pentecostal Holiness Church: Franklin Springs, Georgia), 1950, 49-50.

More Alive!

“Someday you will read in the papers that Moody is dead. Don't you believe a word of it. At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I was born of the flesh in 1837, I was born of the spirit in 1855. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit shall live forever.”
- Dwight L. Moody

Les Miserables and the Gospel

What if the film shows us a beautiful picture of law
as well as gospel?
(Written by Jason B. Hood)     

 

Cosper, Dalrymple, and Strachan rightly see a beautiful depiction of the gospel in this film. Dalrymple began his post: "I cannot think of any work of fiction that conveys the contrast between Law and Grace as vividly and profoundly as Les Miserables." All three authors cite the distinction between law and grace in the titles of their posts, and this has been a common theme in analysis of Les Mis.

But what if the film also shows us a beautiful picture of law?

In a famous scene at the beginning of the story, we encounter a thief named Valjean, newly released from prison named. After being turned away for being a convict he is finally welcomed by a priest. He repays the priest by stealing sliver at night and running away. When he is caught with the silver and dragged back to the priest, the priest forgives him for stealing and even gives him more than he had stolen. In the musical version, the priest sings, "By the Passion and the Blood, God has raised you out of darkness; I have bought your soul for God!"

Through this encounter with grace, which is far more beautiful than I can portray in this summary, Valjean is reformed and transformed. Meanwhile, the antagonist, a policeman named Javert, hunts Valjean down ruthlessly, convinced of his own righteousness.

The common approach to the story is that we see in this story a sharp contrast between the law (Javert) and the gospel (the priest and Valjean), and there's certainly a sharp distinction between the two approaches.

But there's another way to look at the narrative. When the priest and Valjean depict grace, they are in fact keeping the law. The priest is obeying the commands of Jesus: loving his neighbor, turning the other cheek, doing mercy, and forgiving freely as he has been freely forgiven by God.

In other words, we're not just seeing a beautiful portrait of grace and gospel in Les Miserables. We're seeing a beautiful portrait of law and commands.

What's more, when Javert ruthlessly pursues Valjean and sings, "Mine is the way of the Lord," he's wrong. His desire for justice and order is right, but his practice doesn't represent law in any sort of biblical sense. Javert didn't need to ditch the pursuit of law and justice; he needed grace and redemption that led to new law, a godly law that wouldn't imprison a man for five years for stealing bread. He needed to discover merciful justice that wouldn't imprison people inhumanely or treat widows or orphans with contempt. He needed a law more like Moses' law.

Rather than seeing Javert as a law-riddled villain and Valjean an anti-law or post-law hero, we should see two different approaches to law: one fueled by God's grace and the pursuit of mercy and true righteousness, the other fueled by anger and self-righteousness.

One of those approaches reflects the law in the Bible. When Moses gave Israel laws, he began by stressing God's gracious redemption of his people. When Jesus commanded others to lay down their lives, he only did so on the basis of the fact that he was doing the same for them. As Old Testament scholar Jay Sklar puts it, biblical laws "are windows into the heart of the lawgiver."

Many contemporary Christians see law primarily in negative terms, wrongly taking Paul's relegation of Old Testament Law—Torah—in Romans 6-7 as a rejection of any sort of command or law. But in Hugo's story, obeying Jesus' commands becomes a vehicle for grace or mercy in the case of Hugo's priest and, consequently, Valjean.

Or again, what if a healthy approach to law--an approach infused with beauty and grace--is possible, and contributes to the creation of a more merciful world? James K. A. Smith, philosophy professor at Calvin College, tweeted, "I must be a terrible person because I have remarkable sympathy for Javert. #LesMis". In conversation with Cosper, Alissa Wilkinson of The King's College, Makoto Fujimura and others on Twitter, Smith pointed out that some celebrations of the story seemed to reject law wholesale, leaving little room for the vital cultural task of lawmaking and the pursuit of justice. A radical dichotomy between law and grace can be unhelpful and culturally damaging, if uncritically accepted.

Joe Rigney, a professor at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, rightly inquires why we aren't using the label "legalism" (a ruthless, unbiblical application of constraints) instead of "law" to describe Javert. In today's climate, where law and constraint are dirty words and "freedom" and "liberty" are feted and glorified to the point of idolatry, it's all too easy for law to become a derogatory label.

Finally, consider the irony of trying to pit mercy against biblical law. Rigney observes that Jesus' critique of the Pharisees (Matt 23:23) fits Javert: by neglecting mercy and perpetuating injustice, he was showing his disregard for God's law, neglecting what Jesus called "the weightier maters of the law."

It's the law informed by grace and mercy, not pitted against it. We find that law in the Bible; I also think we can see it in Les Miserables.

Jason B. Hood is author of Imitating God in Christ: Recapturing a Biblical Pattern (InterVarsity Press 2013).

WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM (Questions 1-15)

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Q. 2. What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?
A. The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.

Q. 3. What do the Scriptures principally teach?
A. The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

Q. 4. What is God?
A. God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

Q. 5. Are there more Gods than one?
A. There is but one only, the living and true God.

Q. 6. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A. There are three persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

Q. 7. What are the decrees of God?
A. The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

Q. 8. How doth God execute his decrees?
A. God executeth his decrees in the works of creation and providence.

Q. 9. What is the work of creation?
A. The work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.

Q. 10. How did God create man?
A. God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.

Q. 11. What are God’s works of providence?
A. God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.

Q. 12. What special act of providence did God exercise towards man in the estate wherein he was created?
A. When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death.

Q. 13. Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?
A. Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.

Q. 14. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.

Q. 15. What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created?
A. The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created, was their eating the forbidden fruit.

Ministering to Broken People

 

As ministers, we work with people who have broken lives.   Sometimes this brokenness is caused by a person's own sin or sins.  Sometimes this brokenness is cause by the sin or sins of other people.   Sometimes the brokenness is caused by the fact that we live in a world that has sickness and weakness – things which are the general effects of the fall into sin of Adam and Eve.   Many times it is a combination of these things.   Sin is the problem.  We have Jesus Christ who came into this world to save sinners.   We have Jesus Christ who not only saves people from the curse of sin but also saves people from the power of sin.  He can help!  So, when we minister we need to think carefully about where Jesus Christ fits in every situation.   How can we present the gospel as good news for the person who asks for our help?   How can that good news become even better good news as Jesus Christ continues to do His work in that person and in us?