I recently read through Romans again, and it was clear to me that the letter owes much of its shape and content to the difficulties that existed in the relationship between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. It is possible to fix on almost any point in the letter and find some kind of reference to the Jew-Gentile relationship.
For example, in the first chapter, in the opening verses, we find reference to the Jewish Messiah, the descendent of David, giving Paul grace to call Gentiles to the obedience of faith. The very Jewish Paul longs for a harvest among the Gentiles. After acknowledging his debt both to Greeks and Barbarians, he shares his hope of making payments on this debt by preaching to the Gentiles in Rome.
Even the famous, theologically rich 16th and 17th verses, which speak of the power of the gospel, do so in the context of Jew and Gentile relations. It is a gospel that brings salvation to everyone who believes: to Jews first and now to Gentiles as well.
Chapter 2 specifically addresses the Jew/Gentile relationship and makes it clear that Gentiles are accepted into the people of God. In chapter 3, both at the beginning and at the end of the New Testament’s most famous passage on atonement theology, Paul brings up Jews and Gentiles. Both are sinners and both are “justified by faith apart from works.”
In chapter 4, Abraham is the example both to the circumcised (the Jew) and to the uncircumcised (the Gentile). Paul makes a point of stressing the fact that Abraham was justified before being circumcised, making the argument that Abraham was declared right with God when he was (effectively) still a Gentile!
In chapter 5, Paul traces sin’s roots back to Adam, from whom both Jews and Gentiles have inherited a sinful nature. (This is a summary statement of a more nuanced argument.) In chapters 6-8, Paul examines the role the Jewish law plays in God’s larger story. While there is no specific mention of Gentiles in these chapters, Paul does address the value of the Jewish law while stressing the limits of its power. We learn that what the Jewish law was incapable of doing, God has done by sending the Messiah.
Chapters 9-11 closely examine the question of God’s relation to the Jews in light of his acceptance of Gentiles. Paul raises the question of whether God’s promises to the Jews have failed. In this section, Paul goes to the Jewish Scriptures (see 9:23-33, 10:18-21, and 11:25-32) to address biblically and poetically the place of Gentiles and Jews in God’s salvation plans.
Chapters 12-14 focus more narrowly on how individuals and churches can live out the message of the gospel, but the relationship between Jew and Gentile has not been forgotten. Paul’s insistence that we who are many form one body in Christ may have originated in the Jew-Gentile issue, which was never far from his mind. In chapter 12, he seems to have Jews in mind when he states that “love is the fulfillment of the law,” and Gentiles in mind when he calls for an end to carousing, drunkenness, and sexual immorality.
In chapter 16, where Paul includes both Jews and Gentiles in his greetings, he lists more than a dozen people with Greek-sounding names, and celebrates their friendship, character, and hard work in the Lord. But before doing so, he relates how Jews who risked their lives (Prisca and Aquila) have served the Gentile churches.
Returning to chapter 15, we learn of Paul’s ministry-long effort to heal the rift between Jews and Gentiles. He has gone throughout Asia and Europe collecting money from Gentile believers to aid Jewish believers going through hardship in Israel. This offering was one of Paul’s greatest efforts. He spent time, thought, and energy to make it possible. He envisioned great results coming out of it: Jews and Gentiles who accept one another to the glory of God (15:7).
It seems to me that in every generation, Satan’s strategy is to divide God’s people. In Paul’s day, the division was most clearly seen between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus. In 1054, the Western and Eastern church effectively divorced, creating a millennium-long split. When Luther nailed his theses to the Wittenburg Church door in 1517, that nail cracked the Western Church wide open, leaving a centuries-long rupture between Catholics and Protestants. One can find good, and perhaps even necessary, reasons for these divisions, yet in all of them, evil was at work.
Today, we see micro and macro fractures between white and black, young and old, male and female, political left and political right, not to mention denominational rifts. (There are something like 1200 distinct Christian groups in the U.S. alone.) But, as Paul himself earlier wrote the Corinthians, we must take steps so “that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes”—schemes to divide and disable the people of Jesus.
The step Paul counseled in 2 Corinthians was forgiveness. We certainly are in need of that. Hate for hate, contempt for contempt, disregard for disregard has only advanced the enemy’s plan. Is there any action we can take in our day that might correspond with Paul’s attempt to heal division—the offering he collected from Gentile churches all over the eastern Mediterranean to relieve the suffering of Jewish believers?
In the New Testament, division in the church is always seen as a terrible thing and is unequivocally condemned. Do we feel about the divisions in today’s church (between black and white, old and young, female and male, left and right) the way Paul would, or do we regard division as something we’ll just have to live with?
Our enemy continues to stay busy, working to divide Christ’s beloved church. Are we doing anything to nullify his efforts, keep the unity of the Spirit, and thereby bring glory to God?
In this sermon, we learn that God is always working and that we are invited to join him in the family business. Watch the video or read the text below.
Karen and I were living near Youngstown, Ohio when our kids were born. After they came into the picture, we started making more frequent trips home to the Cleveland area to visit my parents. Once, while we were home, they told me that the people in the upstairs apartment across the street were selling drugs. Cars would stop, someone would run up the steps, spend (maybe) a minute at the door, and leave. Sometimes this happened during the day but mostly at night.
I don’t remember if my parents told the police what was going on but, if they did, I can imagine them watching to see if the police would raid the drug house that day, or the next, but it didn’t happen. Why didn’t the police do something? That’s what my parents wondered. Days, and weeks, and then months went by without anything happening.
Then, late one night, police surrounded the house, burst in, and caught the drug dealers red-handed. Apparently, they had informants buying drugs from those people all along. They had been building an air-tight case for many months against the dealers and their suppliers. My parents didn’t know it, but something was happening; it just wasn’t in their field of vision. The authorities were at work the entire time.
When bad things happen in our lives, we might think about God the way my parents thought about the police: Why isn’t he doing something? Someday, we’ll discover that he was. But, unlike the police, he wanted us to join him in his work.
We can’t understand why God isn’t doing something about what is important to us. It doesn’t occur to us that he might want us to do something that is important to him. Jesus understood that God is doing something right now. He’s already working in our church, in our neighborhood, in our city, and our world. He is meticulously setting the stage, step by step. He is not just preparing to act (though he is doing that); he is acting right now. There is always some God-thing going on around us. Instead of sitting around, waiting for the Creator of the Universe to make himself useful by working on our thing, we need to work on his. That’s how we seek his kingdom first.
What is most important is not what we are doing, but what he is doing. If you want to get caught up in something big, something important and life-altering, and in the process, get to know God, look for what God is doing and join him in it. I’m not talking about being a lone ranger who does something for God, but about being God’s child, who works with the Father.
Our text is John 5. Let’s read verses 17- 20. Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.”
Now, hold on. In the creation account in Genesis 2, we read: “… the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done” (Genesis 2:1-3).
Genesis tells us God finished what he was doing and “rested from all his work.” So, how can Jesus say that his “Father is always at his work to this very day”? Is he resting or is he working? Isn’t the claim that he rested from his work repeated in Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy? Isn’t it restated in the New Testament as well? Did God retire after the sixth day or didn’t he?
The idea that God created the world and then went on some kind of extended holiday has had enormous influence on religion, philosophy and everyday life, but it is based on a misunderstanding of the biblical text. The author of Genesis was not saying that God finished his big project and then went into hibernation. It is more like: he finished the house, moved in, and now he works from home.
Jesus is very clear: His Father has not retired. He still goes to work every day. The work of creation did not wear God out. He does not need a break after making the septillionth star. He doesn’t want a break. He loves to work. No one has a better work ethic than our Father in heaven.
What if God is already at work in our church? He is. We need to find out what he is doing and join him. The same is true in our workplace, our golf league, our favorite coffee shop, and the store where we buy our groceries. Find out what God is doing and do it with him.
If we don’t find out what he’s doing, we may work and fret for nothing. Years ago, Loyston, Tennessee was slated to go out of existence. When the river was dammed to produce electricity, the valley the town occupied would become a 34,000-acre lake. The little town would disappear under the water, so its residents were moved to homes on higher ground.
Now imagine one of those residents stayed away from the town meetings, threw away the flyers, and ignored all the talk about a dam – this electricity nonsense made him mad – and instead began remodeling his house. He painted the exterior and even added on a room. And just about the time he got done, the dam was completed, the waters covered the house, and all his work meant nothing.
It’s as if Noah had decided to build God a temple rather than an ark. He would have done a magnificent job, and his temple would have been one of the wonders of the world. But we would know nothing about because the waters would have washed it – not to mention him and his family – all away. That’s the kind of thing happens when we ignore what God is doing around us and do our own thing instead.
Sometimes, we not only ignore what God is doing but actually get in his way. Parents, for example, fearing that God is not doing anything, step in to save their son from the negative consequences of his choices. But God was using those consequences to bring real, lasting change in his life. Or take the parents who constantly criticize and condemn their daughter to get her to change, but only succeed in closing her heart to them and to God.
Jesus knew that the Father is working. “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). Jesus was in the family business. He did not do his own thing; he did the Father’s work. Elsewhere he says that his “food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). Getting involved in God’s work was his food: it energized him, satisfied him, and fortified him – and he knew it would do the same for us. When we are working with, rather than apart from, or in opposition to, the Father, things happen around us and in us.
Now you might be thinking, “The Father works. The Son works. We work. Sounds like ‘works salvation’ to me. But we are saved by faith, not by works! St. Paul says so.”
True. But we are saved by faith into works. Paul says that too. It is important that we understand salvation is into a vocation, not a vacation—a vocation in which we join the Father and the Son in the family business. And while we’re doing that, we not only advance their work in the world, their work in us also advances. That’s how God designed it, and it is absolutely brilliant. One of the best ways to get to know God is to start working with him.
But how do we do that? Do we all need to become pastors and evangelists? No. God’s work is not stuck in the sanctuary. Our Father is at work right now at Thor and at Forest River, in the school administration building, and the courthouse. He is at work in art studios, surgical suites, and construction sites. He is working in classrooms and on football fields, and we can join him in his work.
I ask again: how? How do we do that? Jesus can show us how. Our text grows out of a larger narrative in which Jesus had come to Jerusalem for a religious festival and, while there, had spotted a man in a difficult situation. Jesus inquired about him and learned that he had been in a bad way for a long time. So, he talked to the man. After seeing the man, asking about him, and talking to him, Jesus realized he was invited to work with the Father in the man’s life.
How did he realize that? Did he, like Sherlock Holmes, see hidden clues that we mere mortals miss? And what happens to us if we miss those clues? Or what if we think something is a clue and it isn’t? Will we waste our time and money on something that has nothing to do with God?
We can relax. We don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to join in the Father’s work. His work is not a puzzle to be solved. It’s the Family Business, and our Father takes it on himself to send us our assignments. We don’t need to worry about that.
Look at what Jesus says in verse 19: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” Let’s break that down.
First, the Son – and remember who we are talking about: this is the heir of all things, through whom the universe was made, the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, who sustains all things by his powerful word (Hebrews 1:2b-3b), the Son of God himself – says that he can do nothing by (or better, “originating from”) himself. Even the Eternal Son did not say, “What can I think of to do?” Rather, he looked to see what his Father was doing. We must learn to think this way: my Father is already working here. What is my part in the Family Business?
Jesus says he only does what he sees the Father doing and whatever he sees the Father doing he does. There lies the key, but there also lies the problem. Jesus saw the Father doing things and he joined with him in doing them. But he had extraordinary spiritual vision, and we don’t; so, how can we join in?
We’ll get to that in a moment but first notice that this wasn’t dependent upon the Son’s extraordinary spiritual vision. No, the initiative lay with the Father, not the Son. Look at verse 20: “For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” Jesus does not see what the Father is doing because he has extraordinary spiritual vision (though he does); he sees it because the Father shows himwhat he is doing. In the same way, we won’t see what God is doing because we are smart or spiritual; we’ll see it because he will show us.
Jesus’s relation to the Father is the model for our relationship to him. He said, for example, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). Jesus is our example. Like him, we are sent into the world to join in God’s work, and we can be confident that God will show us what he’s doing. And notice why the Father shows the Son his work: it’s not because he needs someone to do things for him. It’s not because there are not enough volunteers. He shows him what he is doing because heloveshim. Whenever God shows us what he is doing, it is because he loves us.
Perhaps you are afraid that you will not see what God is doing even if he shows you. And that is possible. So, is there a recipe we can follow or some kind of formula we can use for seeing what the Father is doing? Is there some kind of sign we need to be looking for?
Some people are always seeing – or think they are seeing – signs. These are puzzle-builder Christians, the mystery-solver types who are susceptible to taking any coincidence as a sign. “Right after the boss told me I was being laid off, I got a call from a California area code; that never happens! Earlier this week, there were cars with California plates parked on either side of mine at the coffee shop. I didn’t realize it at first, but those were signs that God wants us to move to California.”
Don’t look for signs, and don’t go to the Bible as if it were a coded message to tell you what you are supposed to do. Two old friends met at their 30th high school reunion. The one guy had gone to college, became a veterinarian, worked hard, earned lots of money but had recently made some bad investments and was in a serious financial bind. The other guy didn’t go to college, never held a job more than a few years, and yet he was quite prosperous. The first guy asked him how he did it.
He answered, “It’s simple, really. After my mom died, I opened my Bible, dropped my finger on a page, and the word under my finger was oil. So, I invested my inheritance in Exxon Mobil, and I made a bundle. So, I tried the same thing again. My finger stopped on the word Covenant. I had to search around for that one, but I found a company called Covenant Logistics and I invested all the money I made from oil. Over the next two years, their stock more than doubled. So, I decided to try it one more time. The Bible fell open to First Samuel, and my finger touched the word, “Eli.” The only Eli in the stock exchange is Eli Lilly. I invested everything – that was right before the Pandemic – and their stock when from $145 a share to $950. Long story short: I got rich.”
When the friend in financial trouble got back to his hotel that night, he pulled out the Gideon Bible, shut his eyes, let it fall open, and stabbed his finger onto the page. When he opened his eyes, he panicked. His finger rested on the words, “Chapter 11” (as in bankruptcy).
That’s not how God shows us what he is doing—and how he shows us isn’t the important thing anyway. He has a million ways to do that – through thoughts that come during prayer or Bible reading, through chance conversations, through circumstances, through desires, and through Christian friends. How is not important – God has a million how’s. The important thing is Who. God uses his million how’s with select who’s.
Well then, are we back to people with superior spiritual vision? No. the people who see what God is doing are not exceptionally spiritual. They see what God shows them because they, like Jesus, love God and do what he says. This is John 14:21: “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”
It is not a formula that is needed. It is a commitment. But more than that, it is a commitment of love. The people who are able to see what God is doing are people who have seen what God is like: the God who is light all the way through; the God who is Father, Rewarder, Giver, and Forgiver; and they love him for it. And they trust him.
If you have not seen what God is like, ask him to reveal himself to you. Read the Bible not for clues or puzzle pieces but to get to know your Father and his ways. If you have not seen this God, look at the Lord Jesus Christ and believe on him. He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).
One last thing: If you are always in a hurry, you are bound to miss what God is doing. Hurry is the enemy of relationship, including the relationship with God. As much as possible, eliminate hurry from your life.
God is at work all around us right now. Find out what he is working on and join him.
We once lived in a city with a furniture store that was always going out of business. Its windows were plastered with signs that said things like, “Everything Must Go,” “Drastic Markdowns,” “Liquidation Sale!” and of course, “Going Out of Business.” The odd thing was that the store didn’t go out of business. It kept selling furniture and (I suppose) buying new furniture for years.
I took a class on The Epistle to the Romans when I was in college. I remember our professor, who translated Romans for the NIV back in the seventies, telling us that this word was sometimes used to describe first century stores that had gone out of business. It might be helpful to translate Romans 6:6 that way: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might go out of business, that we should no longer be slaves to sin…”
I thought of that store a couple of days ago while reading Romans 6. In the NIV, verse 6 reads: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin…” The word translated, “Might be done away with” appears 27 times in the New Testament and is translated in a dizzying number of ways. The NIV alone renders it as “nullify,” “use up,” “is worthless,” “released,” “come to nothing,” “destroy,” “cease,” “pass away” (the latter two in the same verse!), “disappears,” “put behind,” “fading,” “taken away,” “set aside,” and “abolish.” Other versions use still more words to translate it.
“The body ruled by sin might go out of business.” What could that mean? St. Paul seems to think that the body can be used by sin as a center of production or operation. He calls it (literally) “the body of sin,” as if it belongs to sin, is under its management. This is not a necessary state of affairs; it was brought about by Adam’s rebellion (see Romans 5:11-17). Paul sees it as reversible or, better, as already being reversed.
The idea that the body can be used as a production center for sin is elaborated on in chapter 7, especially in verses 8-19. Sin, as anthropomorphized throughout chapters 6 and 7, has over eight billion production centers currently in operation—that’s even more than Dollar General! But God has a plan for shutting them all down, including the tall, aging one that goes by the name Shayne Looper.
That plan involves the creation of a transtemporal link between us and the Messiah in his death. In that way, “our old self” could be “co-crucified with him” (verse 6). Apparently, the only way to shut down the business is to do away with the local franchise operator (for example, me). That transtemporal link, which is accessed by faith, takes us into Christ’s death and makes it possible to shut down the body of sin permanently. It also takes us into Christ’s resurrection, making it possible to reopen under new management, with a different product line (righteousness instead of sin), and a happy workforce.
All of this is made possible by Jesus’s death and resurrection and is made real by our trust in him. But if it that is so, why have we not yet fully experienced the “closure” of the “body ruled by sin?” Why has the “Going Out of Business” sign been in the window so long?
The new owner has given each of us the responsibility of closing down the business of sin that has been operating in our bodies. We do this as we consider ourselves (that is, act as if we truly are) dead to sin. But this, by itself, is not enough. We must also stop presenting the parts of our body to sin, which happens when sin has become a habit. No wonder it takes so long to go out of business.
There is yet another step. We need to launch the new business even before the old has vacated the premises, or it will never leave. So, Paul tells the Romans to “offer the parts of your body to [God] as instruments of righteousness.” Think of a vast building which the previous owner sublet to hundreds of sleazy businesses—all pushing junk at exorbitant prices. But under the new owner, we are authorized to expel all these trash peddlers and replace them with makers of quality, helpful goods.
Like the furniture store in our former city, the “Going Out of Business” sign has been up for a long time in my life. But unlike the furniture store, “the body ruled by sin” really is going out of business. It has been purchased by Christ and is increasingly coming under his control. I know the day is near when the sign will come down for good.
At present, a soft launch under the leadership of the new owner is underway, and it is going well. Just think what the hard launch, the Grand Reopening, will be like, when the Lord Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:20-21)!
Recently, when I read 2 Corinthians 6 and 7, Rod Dreher’s book, The Benedict Option came to mind. In 7:1, the Apostle Paul wrote: “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”
Paul’s exhortation to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit” points back to the mashup of Scripture quotations near the end of chapter 6. (7:1 belongs to the preceding section and rounds it off.) Among the Scriptures cited, we read: “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord…” That was the line that brought Dreher to mind.
Long before the publication of The Benedict Option, the Amish were “going out from their midst and be[ing] separate from” even their fellow Anabaptists. But nearly 1400 years before the Amish, the desert fathers were separating themselves from the larger church, doing their utmost to cleanse themselves from every defilement of body and spirit. The Benedict to whom Dreher’s title refers pulled away from the larger church culture in the sixth century. In the 11th century, the Cistercians felt the need to cleanse themselves from the defilement of their Benedictine Abbey.
Following the Cistercians came the reform movement led by Bernard of Clairvaux. Later still, the Trappists attempted to purify the Cistercian movement, just as it had tried to purify the Benedictine movement. In the 19th and 20th centuries came the Restoration and fundamentalist movements. The separationist impulse continues to this day.
The promises that Paul spoke of in 2 Corinthians 7, which provide the reason for cleansing oneself from defilement, are great and precious promises. Paul listed six of these promises a few verses earlier: God promised to make his dwelling among (or to indwell) us; to walk among us (as in the Garden of Eden); to be our God, and to take us for his people. (These last two are part of the new covenant, spelled out in Jeremiah 31.) Additionally, God promises to welcome us and be a father to us, and to take us as his children.
The urge to pull back from the world (and even from the larger Christian community) in order to experience the fulfillment of these promises is understandable. Yet, time after time, the separation movements lose their initial passion and wane. Though many retain their outward form, too often the heart that once beat underneath has flatlined.
Knowing this, what are we supposed to do with the apostolic and biblical commands of 2 Corinthians 6 and 7? How are we to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit”? What does it look like to “come out from them and be separate”? Should we follow the Amish in their rejection of fashionable dress, technological advances, and the majority culture’s entertainments? But that has not separated the Amish from greed, envy, and strife—at least that is what my formerly Amish friend once told me.
Even though it must be admitted that the Amish did not succeed in purifying themselves “from everything that contaminates,” they have approached this issue more seriously than many other Christians. Their problem, it seems to me, is not that they went too far, but that they went on a tangent. That is, of course, a problem for almost all of us.
The use of the verb translated, “be separate,” might help us wrap our minds around what is involved in coming “out from them” and being “separate.” It is used elsewhere of God’s action in setting the Apostle Paul apart for his service. Though he was set apart, Paul did not stop living among worldly people. He continued to eat their food, wear their dress, and read their books (like those of Epimenides and Menander), yet he was a separated man for he was Christ’s man. He did not serve himself, but Jesus. Perhaps our separation is not about how we dress or whether we use smartphones, but about whether we see ourselves as boss (like pretty much everyone else in the world) or see Jesus that way. Or, to use biblical language, we “confess Jesus Christ Lord.”
Wearing unfashionable clothing (without a smartphone in any pocket) might readily distinguish us in other people’s eyes, but maybe the point is not to distinguish ourselves in others people’s eyes. It is what God sees that matters, and he does not judge by outward appearance but by the heart.
Yesterday, I officiated a funeral for a beloved woman from our church. I felt, as I stood to share the eulogy, that the problem with summing up a person’s life in a funeral service or an obituary is that so little of it as of yet has taken place. It’s like writing the biography of a newborn, or even an unborn, baby.
We, from our perspective, saw our friend’s life as having come to an end. We buried her body and began to tell her story in the past tense. But that does not reflect the way things really are.
Imagine three quadruplets who remain in their mother’s womb after the doctor has delivered their sister. If the fetal mind could think like us, and if they could communicate with each other, what might they be saying? “This is terrible! It is so unfair! Our sister’s life has come to an end. We’ll never see her again.”
How wrong they would be! Their sister’s life had only just begun. So, with us. When seventy or eighty years of life here are up – or even eighty-five, as was the case with our friend – we have only reached full-term, and the life that is life indeed is ready to begin.
What we must understand is that human beings have a two-stage gestation period. The first stage is in their mother’s womb. They have about nine months there in which to receive the kind of life that can continue outside the womb on earth, the life of heartbeats and brainwaves. The Greeks had a word for that: bios. (Biology is the study of that kind of life.)
Then begins the second stage, which lasts something like 70 or 80 years. That is when we receive the kind of life that can continue outside the earth in heaven, the life of the spirit. The Greeks had a word for that too: zoé. We receive bios from our mother and zoé from God’s Spirit. In the first stage of gestation, we have not developed enough to have a choice, but in the second, we are ready (and required) to choose. Biological life comes through an umbilical cord; spiritual life comes through faith. If we don’t receive the life of the spirit before the end of the second stage of our gestation, we will be spiritually stillborn.
We say that our friend has died and, from our perspective, we are right. But that kind of language belongs on this side of death, not the other. The other side, I suspect, sounds more like a maternity ward: “She’s here!” or “She has arrived!” And while on this side there is mourning (and rightly so), on that side there is rejoicing.
If we are standing on the dock as a great ship carries our son or daughter out to sea, we can rightly speak of their departure. But someone standing on a dock at that ship’s port of call would speak differently. Perspective is everything. And our perspective is severely limited.
But God’s is not. He is with us when we enter this world and he is with us when we leave it. He sends us from our point of departure only to receive us at our port of call. The universe (or multiverse, or whatever this marvelous place is where we dwell) is a ball in the hands of a skillful juggler. Its journey began with him and it will end with him. The same is true of us, though God is not playing games with us. As St. Paul so beautifully put it: “For from him and through him and to him are all things.” (Romans 11:36)
There is one more thing to be said—well, there are probably a hundred more things to say, but since I am not wise enough to say them, I will limit myself to one. The fetus is already in this world since that is where his mother’s womb is. Likewise, we are already in heaven even while we are on earth. So, St. Paul could write that “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms…”
How important is Christian baptism? Well, on the founding day of the Christian Church – the day of Pentecost – St. Peter’s hearers asked him what they must do. He answered: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”
When Samaritans first came to faith in Christ, Luke tells us that Philip the evangelist preached “the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ…[and] baptized, both men and women.” When the Gospel reached the first Gentile converts, in Acts 10, Peter commanded that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Upon St. Paul’s conversion in Acts chapter 9, “He got up and was baptized.” In chapter 16 of Acts, we have the record of the first European convert, a woman named Lydia, who came to faith at a Bible study. We read, “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message…she and the members of her house were baptized…” In Philippi, a jailer asked Paul and Silas what he should do. “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved,” they told him, and we read that, “he and all his family were baptized” that very same night.
How important is Christian baptism? One last Scripture quote (it’s the last thing Jesus said to his disciples before leaving them to return to heaven): “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Baptism is part of the commission our Lord gave to the church. In other words, baptism is not optional for anyone who is serious about following Jesus Christ.
But what difference does it make? Does baptism magically or mechanically change my position before God? Does it guarantee heaven? If it is only an outward demonstration of inward faith, why do it at all? Isn’t faith alone enough? Just what is baptism?
There are three things to know about baptism. (Well, there are probably four thousand things to know, but here are three of them.) Baptism is a Decisive Act of Faith, it is a Dramatic Act of Faith, and it is a Declarative Act of Faith.
In the early days of the church, baptism was adult, as opposed to infant, baptism. Being baptized held something of the same place that “going to the altar” held in evangelical churches for more than a century. When people were ready to make a decision to follow Christ, they were baptized. They may already have believed Jesus’ claims (and the church’s claims about him). But at baptism, they embraced Christ himself. They committed themselves to follow Jesus. Going under the water didn’t make them Christians. Faith in Jesus Christ did that; without faith, baptism would only have made them wet.
So, if baptism does not make us right with God or guarantee us heaven, what does it do? Why be baptized at all if salvation is by faith? First, baptism is a decisive act of faith. It is a decisive step away from a life centered around self and toward a Christ-centered life.
Some words just go together. Peanut butter goes with jelly. Ham goes with cheese. Rod goes with reel. Baptism goes with repentance, and repentance is a decisive word. On the day of Pentecost, Peter told his hearers to “Repent and be baptized.” To repent is to change from the inside; to change one’s mind and, as a result, one’s actions. Baptism is the announcement that we have repented.
Baptism is the demonstration that we have made the once-for-all choice to follow Christ. In the early days of the church, if a man became a Christian, he might be excommunicated from the synagogue, refused entry into the temple, and ostracized by his family. It was a costly decision to make. But when he made it, he sealed his decision by being baptized.
Paul alludes to this kind of decisiveness in Romans 6:1. “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? May it never be!” Shall we remain in sin? Shall we stay where we are, satisfied with a life we know is sinful? Or shall we go on? Those who are baptized have made their choice. They will not stay where they are. They will move forward with Christ.
The Australian coat of arms pictures two animals: the kangaroo – nature’s pogo stick with a pouch – and the graceless, flightless emu. Not a lion or a tiger. Not an eagle or a falcon. Why did Australia choose such animals? They are, of course, Australian animals, but there is more to it than that. Australians identify with these two animals because they share a common characteristic: Both the emu and the kangaroo can only move forward, not back. The emu’s three-toed foot causes it to fall if it tries to go backwards, and the kangaroo is prevented from moving backwards by its large tail.
People who are baptized have chosen the emu and the kangaroo for their coat of arms. They are going forward with Christ. They have made their decision, and by the grace of God there will be no turning back.
A young couple was married at the church of Sts. Peter and Paul in San Francisco. When the bride was asked, “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband,” she replied, “I don’t know.” People who are baptized do know. They are like the widow who had been seeing a widower regularly before he returned to his own city. (This was many decades ago.) After he left, he sent her a letter, requesting her hand in marriage, and asking her to communicate her answer by telegram. She went to the telegraph office and asked how much a telegram would cost. She was told so many spaces for so much money. She used every space she could afford. Here is what she sent. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
That is what the person being baptized has said to God. “A dozen times, yes.” And a dozen times “no” to a life without Christ. The word the church has used to describe baptism is “sacrament,” which comes from the Latin, “sacramentum,” the pledge a Roman soldier took to be obedient to death. Baptism is a decisive act.
Baptism is also a dramatic act. By that I mean that baptism dramatizes outwardly and visibly what God has done for us inwardly and invisibly. This is one reason for baptizing by immersion. (There are other ways to baptize – sprinkling and pouring – and I have no argument with those who practice them.) The Greek word “baptizo” was used of people being drowned and of ships sinking; it meant to plunge, sink, drench, or overwhelm. Immersing people in baptism dramatically portrays what God has done for them through Christ.
Faith unites a person to Jesus Christ. This is clear in Romans 6, where the “with him” phrases (in English) are emphasized. We were “buried with him” (v. 4); “united with him” (twice in v. 5); “crucified with him” (v. 6); and we “died with him” (v. 8)
But Romans 6 is hardly the only place where we see our union with Christ stressed. There is Galatians 2:20, where Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). And so: “We died with him” (2 Tim. 2:11); were “buried with him” (Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12); “made alive with him” (Colossians 2:13 and Ephesians 2:5); and “raised with him” (Ephesians 2:6). When we believe in Jesus Christ, we are united to Christ. And though we are never said to share in his birth or baptism, we do take part in his suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and some day, his reign.
This is how the picture works: when the baptismal candidate goes under the water, it is a picture of their death. The man or woman they were has died and was buried. In bringing them up out of the water, we dramatically represent their resurrection. They have been raised to new life—a life united to Jesus Christ, now and forever.
Etched into the black granite of the Viet Nam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington, visitors see the names of 58,156 American military personnel killed in the war. For many people, the sight is overwhelming. Some walk slowly and reverently down its length without pause. Others stop before certain names, remember their buddies or sweethearts, dads or sons, and wipe away the tears.
But for three vets – Robert Bedker, Willard Craig, and Darrall Lausch –visiting the memorial must be surrealistic, for their names are carved into the stone. Because of data-coding errors, each of them was incorrectly listed as killed in action. They are listed among the dead, yet they are alive. In baptism, the believer is listed as dead, and yet is alive to God through Jesus Christ.
Baptism is also declarative. The Ethiopian eunuch was baptized without many witnesses, but that was because there were not many people around; he was not trying to keep his commitment to Jesus secret. Those who choose to be baptized are doing just the opposite: they are taking their stand with Jesus. They are declaring to anyone and everyone, “I am on his side.”
Because baptism is declarative, whenever I baptize people, I encourage them to invite their friends and family to witness their baptism. These people are planting their flag, not in the sand, but in the water. They are telling their friends that Jesus is worthy of their time, their energy, and their lives. And, just maybe, they are awakening in their friends’ hearts the desire that has awakened in theirs: the desire to be with, and be like, Jesus.
The idea of calling receives considerable attention in the Bible and has had significant influence on Christian thinking. Pastors will sometimes talk about when they were “called” into the ministry, but the word “calling” is broadened to include other vocations as well. Just yesterday, I saw an advertisement from a Christian university that referred to teaching as a “sacred calling.” Missionaries have a calling. Motherhood is sometimes represented as a calling. Even athletes pursue their calling.
I was at a denominational conference last month where the subject of the role of women in ministry was addressed. In our denomination, women can be ordained and given the title “Pastor,” but women do not ordinarily serve in the role of lead pastor. I say, “ordinarily” because 26 of our churches in the U.S. and its territories are led by women pastors, and this has created dissonance. So, at the bi-annual national conference, a panel of pastors and educators spoke to the issue from a biblical perspective. Some claimed the Bible limits the lead pastor role to men, while others insisted that the lead pastor role is open to both men and women.
The arguments for and against were based on familiar passages—nothing surprising there. What caught my attention was the woman who, speaking in support of opening the role of lead pastor to women, made a heartfelt plea to allow women to fulfill their calling. One can debate how Galatians 3:28 fits into Paul’s larger argument about Gentiles and law-observance, but how can anyone argue against fulfilling a God-given calling?
Because the idea of calling impacts our thinking as Jesus’s disciples, it is important that we understand what the biblical writers meant by it. That would require a lengthy monograph devoted to the subject, for the subject is broad. Most of the time the verb “to call” (when used of God’s call to individuals) is found in the aorist tense. That is, it looks to a point in time when God called a person.
The verb is also used in the present tense, each time in a participial form, which means that God is still calling. This ongoing call, like the call of a child playing Marco Polo in the swimming pool, leads somewhere. God is calling us to himself, to “his kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:12).
The “call” word group is also used adjectively on ten occasions in the New Testament, though contemporary versions frequently obscure this by translating it as if it were a verb. As an adjective, it describes a group of people as “the called.” The word is used in this way in Romans 8:28, where the King James translated the end of the verse quite literally: “to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
One could profitably explore each aspect of God’s call, how it comes to individuals, and where it leads (for example, “to peace,” “to hope,” “to freedom,” to a kingdom, and to glory). It would also be good to think through the implications of being part of the group known as “The Called.” These folks “belong to Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:6, NIV), which is a phrase charged with meaning. They are “saints” or “holy ones,” which implies that they are different from others. They are people of purpose—particularly, God’s purpose (Romans 8:28).
Lately, it has been the use of the present tense that has stirred my thinking. We were called at some point in the past, but we are also being called in the present. St. Paul uses the present tense three times to represent God as the one who is currently calling his people. Like the shepherd who goes before his sheep and leads them with his voice (John 10:4), God is calling us.
The Voice that called us in the past has not stopped calling; it calls us still. And if we follow it, we will come … to him.
The biblical emphasis is not, it seems to me, on calling someone to be in ministry (despite the way the NIV translates many of Paul’s epistolary introductions). Though we are “called to” something, the stress is not on the call to a career, but the call that leads to God, his kingdom, and his glory.
Does that mean God does not call people to become pastors, or teachers, or missionaries? Does he not call some people to become computer programmers, TikTok evangelists, husbands, wives, CEOs, biologists, basketball players, and most other occupations that can be imagined?
I tend to think the answer is not exactly. He does not call us to such things but through such things. He calls us to himself in such a way that our path frequently leads through some kind of vocation. Following God’s ongoing call to himself led me into (and will someday lead me out of) pastoral ministry. But I don’t think my calling was to be a pastor. It was to pursue God, his kingdom, and glory. But, of course, my heavenly Father knew that following that call would lead me through the pastorate. He calls other people to himself, his kingdom, and his glory, knowing that following that call will lead them to be railroad engineers, or commercial fishermen, or graphic designers, or nurses, doctors, animal trainers—you get the idea.
God never tires of calling us. The Divine game of Marco Polo goes on. If we are not hearing his voice, it is not because he has stopped calling but because we have gone in the wrong direction. In that case, it is best for us to call to him and then become silent, waiting for his answering call. We will hear it if we listen, no matter how far we have wandered. He is still calling, and his voice carries through all of space and time.
He looks, and ten thousand of angels rejoice, And myriads wait for His word; He speaks, and eternity, filled with His voice, Re-echoes the praise of the Lord.
Dear Shepherd, I hear, and will follow Thy call, I know the sweet sound of Thy voice; Protect and defend me, for Thou art my all, And in Thee I will ever rejoice. (Joseph Swain)
Jesus once said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and preparea place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me.” The Bible is full of talk about the preparations God has made for his children. According to the Apostle Paul, God prepared in advance the good works he wants his people to do. Jesus spoke of “The kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” “God,” said the author of Hebrews, “is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” It is “The new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” “On this mountain, the Lord almighty will prepare a feast…” According to the author of Hebrews, our coming salvation is now ready to be revealed; it has already been prepared.
It’s not just preparations in general the Bible talks about, but preparations for a party. Think of the 23rd Psalm: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Isaiah 25: “The Lord almighty will prepare a feast, a banquet of aged wines. The best of meats and the finest of wines” (Isa. 25:6). We see this in the last chapters of the Bible, when the wedding reception for the Lamb of God is held. God is not only a planner; he is a party planner. He is the party planner. He loves a good party.
Is that how you think of God – that he is full of joy and loves sharing his joy with others? Or is your God more like the old, white-bearded curmudgeon in the sky you see pictured in Renaissance paintings and newspaper comics? Jesus had inside information about what God is like, and he knew his Father to be the most joyous being in all the universe.
This comes out frequently in the stories Jesus told, the parables. There is one genre of parables that is not about how things are or should be, nor about how we should act, but about what God is like. So, for example, when we read the story about the landowner who gave people the same pay whether they worked one hour or twelve, we shouldn’t think this is a prescription for Chrisitan economics. Jesus is talking about what God is like.
And since Jesus’s stories are often about what God is like, it is particularly interesting that they frequently feature a party. There is the party held at midnight in the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and the party in the Parable of the Wedding Reception. There are parties in the Parables of the Lost Coin, the Lost Sheep, and the Lost Son. It’s worth noting, too, that Jesus told many of the party parables when he was on his way to Jerusalem, where he knew he was going to be killed. It was with joy set before him that he endured the cross.
If the stories of the lost sheep and lost coin represent what God is like, as they are clearly intended to do, it seems like God is always looking for a reason to throw a party. The parable of the lost Son features a big party. This is no dinner party for a few close friends but a blowout, a shindig, a full-scale, kill-the-fatted calf gala.
To get our minds wrapped around this, we need to know that Jews in Jesus’s day divided the timeline of human history into two parts: the present evil age (which began with the fall of Adam; and the age to come (in which God will put right everything this age has put wrong). First century Jews believed the age to come would be inaugurated by a cosmic bash, the party to end all parties—the party that will end death itself.
This was the celebration Isaiah had in mind when he wrote, “… the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.” (Isaiah 25:6-8). Could there be a better reason for throwing a party?
This end of the age – better, this beginning of the new age – celebration was sometimes called “The Great Banquet” or “The Feast in the Kingdom of God.” Jesus had this feast in mind when he said, “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matthew 26:29). In the Revelation it is called “The Wedding Supper” – we’d say wedding reception – “of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9), with its laughter, dancing, and joy.
God the Father wants us to share that experience with him. His attitude is just like the attitude of his Son, who once said to him, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world” (John 17:24). “I want them to be with me where I am.” That is what God is like.
That may be hard for us to grasp because we’re not like that. In our experience, there is only so much to go around. So, if you share it, you have less. But God knows how to throw a party. When he shares, the fun is not divided; it’s multiplied. The one throwing the Great Feast knows how to multiply fish and loaves and turn water into wine, so there will be plenty for everyone. And not just quantity but quality: “the best of meats and the finest of wines.” And, as in the story of the wine at the wedding feast at Cana, he is once again saving the best for last.
In Luke 14, Jesus is at a Sabbath dinner where most of the guests are stuffed shirts, and while he’s there, he heals a man with edema – a fluid build-up in the legs and possibly around his heart. The guests are shocked – it’s Sabbath! Robert Capon compares what Jesus did to being at a formal dinner party and pulling the tablecloth off the table, putting the guy with the bad back up on the table, and doing a chiropractic adjustment on him. The guests would have thought this was outrageous.
Jesus finishes healing the guy and sends him on his way. But if people were hoping to get back to a nice, normal Sabbath Day dinner, they were disappointed. Jesus goes on to offend the guests by calling attention to their status-seeking ways and then suggesting to the host that he might want to invite a different class of folk in the future. The ones from skid-row would be an improvement, the kind who wouldn’t know a truffle from a turnip. If he will do that, Jesus tells him, he will be richly repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
At that moment, one of the stuffed shirts speaks up and piously says, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God” (Luke 14:15). Maybe he had his doubts about Jesus being numbered among those so blessed, but I’m guessing he expected to be there himself. But I don’t want to be unjust to this guy. Maybe this wasn’t false piety. Maybe this was a genuine attempt by a sensitive soul to ease the tension, which was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Whatever his motive, Jesus used his comment to introduce another of his party-themed parables. We can read it in Luke 14:16-24.
Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes (Gk., hedges) and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.'”
The scholar Kenneth Bailey says that a party for two to four guests would require butchering a chicken or two; it was duck for 5-8 guests, a kid for 10-15 guests, a sheep for 15 to 35 people, and a calf for more than that. The party Jesus describes was a two or three-calf party. This was the event of the season.
People invited to a party like this would receive two invitations: the first required an RSVP. The second was sent on the day itself to say, “Everything is ready. Come on over. The party is about to begin.”
The first invitation was sent out to all the right people and they all RSVP’d. But when the day came and the second invitation arrived, one after another said they wouldn’t be coming. One says he just got married, another that he’s just signed a major real estate deal, another is purchasing new farm equipment and has to take it for a test drive. These are big ticket excuses, but they are still excuses. The guy getting married knew when he was going to get married, so why did he RSVP in the first place? It doesn’t make sense. The land deal doesn’t hold water either: if the guy bought property sight unseen, what was the rush to see it now, when the money was already gone?
We are left to wonder why these people would back out of going to a banquet, given by an obviously important person. (Jesus describes him as the master of the house – think aristocrat – and gives him the title “Lord.”) Why refuse to go to a party that is certain to be the event of the season?
It could be these folks don’t play well with others; that they are introverts or misanthropes. Maybe they experience a lot of anxiety at parties and are afraid of looking foolish. Or maybe they just want a night to themselves. But after saying yes, they all back out, every last one of them? Something is going on here.
Jesus may have intended – and his hearers may have understood – another meaning. He may have intended the refusals to be seen as an intentional slight, a conspiracy not to attend by those invited. That kind of thing did happen in the ancient Middle East and still happens today. For example, when a ruler’s authority was being challenged, the invitees might decline his invitation as a way of distancing themselves from him or signifying to his opponent their willingness to change sides. Their refusal to attend the gala was a calculated rejection of the host.
That led the Lord Party-giver to do something entirely unexpected. Instead of saving face by cancelling the party, he went looking for other party guests. Look at verse 21, where the master tells his servant: “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”
But even after the servant brought these people to the party, there was still room. So, the Lord sends him out again, this time “to the roads and country lanes” – the hedges, under which the homeless sleep – and tells him to “make them come in, so that my house will be full.”
These are not the kind of people who got invited to swanky parties. I’m about as likely to get an invitation to a White House gala as these folks were to be invited to a party like this. Some of them were beggars, and none of them had anything to offer: no money, no influence, no political power; why, they couldn’t even vote.
Those original invitees wouldn’t come now, under any circumstances. They wouldn’t be caught dead at a party with those kinds of people. That would put them on the same footing with … losers!
Why does the master tell the servant to make people come in? Wouldn’t they jump at the chance to get the best meal they’d ever tasted? Probably not. People like the ones mentioned here never got invited to big soirees like this. And even if, by some crazy mix-up, one of them did, he’d know better than to accept. To attend a party like this put a person in a position of debt. He would be expected to reciprocate, which the people mentioned here could never do. The master says, “Make them come in,” because he knew they knew this was not their kind of party. It’s as if the master told his servant, “Tell them not to worry about repaying me. I know they can’t and I don’t even want them to. I just want them to be here. I want them to enjoy themselves.”
Let’s step back from the story a little so we can get some perspective and, perhaps, see where we fit in. First, remember that Jesus is telling us something about God in this story, and he is definitely not the cosmic killjoy that people (and the devil) make him out to be. If anyone ever loved a good party, it is the God and Father of Jesus Christ.
Neither is this God a snob. He doesn’t exclude people because of their race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. He doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, the brightest light in the sky or the dimmest bulb in the house. He doesn’t worry that his team might get stuck taking the last kid on the playground. He loves having that last kid on his team. He knows he’s going to win anyway, so why not pick her first?
Nor is he a God who is always keeping score. (This is a stumbling block for many people.) God has never said, “You own me one.” The idea is just plain silly. We don’t owe him one; we owe him everything, and he knows we can never repay him. We can be grateful or not. We can love him or not. We can be his man or woman or not. But we can’t repay him. Real estate in the new heaven and new earth is not for sale. It’s not just that no payment is necessary; no payment is allowed. If we don’t take charity, his charity, his bleeding charity, we will be left out in the dark.
This is Robert Capon again: “Grace doesn’t sell; you can hardly even give it away, because it works only for losers and no one wants to stand in their line.” Winners, he says, don’t even want “free forgiveness because that threatens to let the riffraff into the Supper of the Lamb.”[1]
But Capon was wrong. One person did want to stand in their line—in our line. That was Jesus, and he paid the entrance fee for everyone.
If we insist on paying our own way – on proving that we’re not one of the losers – we’re going to miss the party. That is terribly sad because God really wants us there.
Now, if you want to come to the Party – more than that: if you want to join the Party-Giver’s joyous family– stop trying to impress. Stop trying to repay. Don’t make excuses. Just accept the invitation. It was delivered by Jesus himself and purchased with his blood. The message the servant carried in the story is the one God’s Spirit brings to us today: “Come, for everything is now ready.”
Everything except, possibly, us. That is why God is waiting. (He “is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” 2 Peter 3:9.) He’s prepared the party for us. Now, he is preparing us for the party, which is a far more difficult and challenging work. But he is up to the job.
The word “spirit” appears in the second verse of the Bible and then appears something like 765 more times. Clearly, the idea of “spirit” is important. Jesus said that “God is spirit.” People have spirits. The gift of the Spirit is one of the most important events in salvation history and in personal experience.
But do we even understand what “spirit” is? I’m not sure that I do.
In Hebrew and Greek, the words translated as “spirit” are polysemous, that is, they have multiple (but related) meanings. So in both languages, the words can be translated as “spirit,” “breath” or “wind.” On the sixth day of creation, God “breathed” or “spirited” into the man’s nostrils the “breath” or the “spirit” of life, “and the human became a living being.” (See also Jesus’s explanation regarding the new birth to Nicodemus in John 3:8, where the word pneuma is translated as “wind” twice and “Spirit” once.)
The polysemous nature of the words is only the beginning of our difficulties. In the Bible we learn that God’s Spirit and our spirits are not the only spirits occupying (can one use that word of spirits?) our planet. “All angels,” according to the author of Hebrews, are “ministering spirits.” But there are still other spirits, and at least some of these interact with humans—sometimes disastrously.
King Saul was tormented by a “distressing spirit,” surprisingly sent from the LORD himself. A “lying spirit” deceives wicked King Ahab. (God sends this one too, and there are many other accounts of God sending an “evil” or a “harmful” spirit to people.) When Saul goes to the witch of Endor, he asks her to divine for him “by a spirit” and bring Samuel up from the dead.
The spirit world really gets crowded when Jesus arrives on the scene. There seem to be “unclean” or “evil” spirits everywhere. Some of them speak, some of them are mute, and all of them are bad company for decent people.
Occasionally, these spirits are identified as demons – another difficult word to understand. It is used 63 times in the New Testament (though, interestingly, not once in Acts, even though it occurs regularly in Luke) and always in a negative sense. But in the larger Greek and Roman culture of the Mediterranean in the first century, daemons were viewed more positively. People actually wanted to be influenced by daemons; they thought such influence inspired them and heightened their creative powers.
Dallas Willard describes “spirit” as “unbodily personal power.” However, the word “spirit” as it is used in the Bible does not always imply personhood. So, for example, God has given some people “a spirit of skill” (Ex. 28:3). Jerusalem will be given a “spirit of judgment” and “a spirit of burning” (Isa. 4:4). Egypt is under a “spirit of confusion” (Isa. 19:14). Perhaps such spirits can be personal in the sense that we understand personhood, but that is certainly not clear in the text. We read also of a “spirit of sleep,” of “justice,” and of “whoredom.”
When the disciples first see Jesus after the resurrection, they think they are seeing a “spirit” – a mistake he quickly corrects. What exactly did they think a spirit is? A “ghost,” as the NIV translates it in Luke 24:37?
Understanding the nature of spirit is difficult enough within the borders of Holy Scripture, but when we leave the Bible, we enter a befuddling world of spirits. In late medieval and early Renaissance periods, even theologians who considered themselves Christians believed that there are spirits abroad in the world (or in the air, like Shakespeare’s “airy sprite” in the Tempest) that were not exactly evil or good. They were neutrals, neither aligned with heaven nor with hell. They were among what C.S. Lewis described as the “mundana numina.”
Lewis made use of his remarkable scholarship to write That Hideous Strength. In the story, Merlin reappears in modern England and uses his familiarity with spirits (familiar spirits) to serve God and destroy the evil powers that seek to dominate England and the world. How does Lewis, an orthodox Christian, justify his character’s use of familiar spirits to achieve a good result? Rather ingeniously, I would say.
Lewis speaks through Professor Dimble, a scholar who in some ways resembles Lewis (and in other ways does not), to explain. Here is the quote at length from That Hideous Strength.
“Have you ever noticed,” said Dimble, “that the universe, and every little bit of the universe, is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?”
His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them.
“I mean this,” said Dimble, answering the question she had not asked. “If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family—anything you like—at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing.”
Dimble explained to his wife that there were still spirits in 1940s England that were neutrals, but that soon even they would need to take a side because everything is coming to a point. Perhaps that point has been reached and now all spirits are either good or bad, holy or diabolical. Perhaps that point was reached in the incarnation, when the Point-of-it-all incisively entered our world. Or perhaps there never was such a thing as neutral spirits, which seems most likely to me. (Jesus does not seem to have met any.)
My point is not that neutral spirits might exist or have existed, still less that Lewis thought or didn’t think they did. My point is that my understanding of spirit is so limited. Yet I usually skim over the word without even pausing to think about it, though it is rich in history and full of mystery.
And the whole Bible is like this. The whole of life is like this. There is so much to know and we know so little of it. Thank God, we are not saved by knowing everything, but by God’s mercy (Titus 2:5) in sending Christ.
It is clear that intellectual modesty is required of us. There is far more that we don’t know than we do know. That’s okay. Jesus would tell us to be of good cheer. Though we don’t know all these things, we do know God.
Paul would emend that last line (as he did his own line in Galatians 4:8) by adding: “Or rather, are known by God.”
Ah, yes. And that is reason enough – and more than enough – to be of good cheer.
I took a half-day of prayer today. I try (but frequently fail) to do this on the first Friday of every month. I nearly always start my half-day of prayer by praising God. I usually do this while walking a trail in some state or county park. As I walk, I go through the alphabet and find something I admire about God that begins with A, then B, C, and so on, all the way to Z.
Today, I went to Ferretti-Baugo Park in St. Joseph County, IN. The park covers 214 acres, with Baugo Creek winding through it on its way to the St. Joseph River. I’ve done my half-day of prayer at this park three or four times and have walked most of its trails.
I usually head south down the trail marked “Portage,” which leads to some pretty places along the creek. Today, however, I decided to follow the trail sign that read: To Palisades. (Maybe it’s because I’ve been back to Treasure Island in the last few weeks, and I remembered that Stevenson mentions the palisades around the pirates’ island stronghold.)
The trail was not as nice as the “Portage” trail. It ran along fences and houses, next to old cars and derelict fishing boats. Instead of hearing the river sing, as I do on the Portage Trail, I heard the repeated blasts of a freight train’s horn, less than a tenth of a mile away. But I thought it would be worth it to find the Palisades. I might even see (in my mind’s eye) young Jim Hawkins or brave Captain Smollett, holed up in the stronghold, fighting off Long John Silver’s cruel buccaneers.
But I didn’t find the Palisades. For one thing, the trail markers were nearly useless. “Does this marker point down that trail or the one that veers at a slight angle away from it? Sometimes, the trail marker would display the word “Palisades” with arrows pointing in opposite directions. It was nuts.
But I was determined. I tried one trail, then another—only to find it was all the same trail, running in a loop. Sometimes, I walked in a northerly direction. Sometimes, on a southerly course. I passed over the same trail so often that the squirrels were getting to know me, but I never saw the palisades. I began to think there is no palisades, for I noticed that most of the trail markers did not point to “Palisades” but to “Palisades Trail.” Perhaps the trail is not the way to the attraction; perhaps it is the attraction.
I, for one, did not find it particularly attractive. I walked within 75 feet of a row of houses, a dozen feet from old cars and boats, and an arm’s length from two angry dogs (Pit Bulls, I think) that barked insanely and threw themselves against the six-foot-tall fence that separated us. There was an opaque fabric that covered the dogs’ side of the fence, so I could not see them clearly, but if I am any judge of a dog’s bark, they were snarling, “I’m going to kill you” again and again.
I finally – it really was a long time – gave up on finding the Palisades. Anyway, I wasn’t there to sightsee but to pray, and I had done lots of that as I walked (with special earnestness when the dogs tried to knock down the fence). Among other things, I prayed for a friend and for the friend of a friend. Both seem to have got on a path on which they go endlessly but get nowhere. After today, I understand a little better what that is like.
Humanity walks on a ruined earth, the result of Adam’s rebellion and the long, devastating war that followed. The paths we take frequently lead nowhere. We lose ourselves and we cannot find our God.
But it will not always be so. The day will come when our long search will be over, not because we have found God by our cleverness, but because he has found us by his love. Even this ruined earth will be rescued and restored. Its circular paths will be straightened, and all paths will lead to him.
In that day, we will learn that we were never alone, even on our circular paths that led nowhere. There was always Another with us. He did not walk beside us because he was afraid for us – never that – but because (wonder of wonders) he likes us, loves us, and enjoys being near us.
The Way Home 
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