10. Christ our Ressurected Lord

The work of Christ 10 / Resurrection and the Church

For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.’

(Acts 17:31)

Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped round Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.).

(John 20:6-9)

If you were to read theology from across the years, you would soon notice a strange phenomenon.  There is a huge amount of space and time given to the reflecting on Jesus’ death, but remarkably little given to any consideration of His resurrection (and still less to His Ascension, which will be the subject of this term’s Deep Church).  By way of illustration: John Flavel’s 17th century classic, The Fountain of Life, devotes 240 pp to exploring the death of Christ, and a mere 14 to His resurrection.  The mighty Heidelberg Catechism gives 11 Questions and Answers, spread over 3 Lord’s Days to the death of Christ, and has only one short paragraph asking about the resurrection (Q:45, LD 17).  More recent works are more balanced, but generally because less time is given to the death, rather than more to the resurrection, of Jesus (Grudem deals with the Atonement in 40pp, and the resurrection in 7pp in his popular Systematic Theology).  Our own JCL series spends broadly 7 studies on the cross; 3 on the resurrection (and an evening on the Ascension).

One scholar, commenting on the imbalance in the Heidelberg Catechism laments, ‘this brevity is a weakness … the brief discussion that dismisses the resurrection of Christ from the dead is disproportionate to the great significance Scripture attaches to this glorious wonder, and the central place given to it in the economy of Christ’ (The Triple Knowledge, 2:3-4).  Without the resurrection, the cross remains  a defeat, our  faith is in vain and there is no way  out of death  (I Cor.15:17-19), which explains the Apostles’ focus on it in their preaching (Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15, 26; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30, 34 etc.).  The Resurrection was not Jesus returning to us (as e.g. Lazarus, Jn.11:43), but it was His advancing through death to His exaltation and His glorification.  In His Resurrection He has burst through into New Creation life, no longer overshadowed by the possibility of death.  He has entered a qualitatively different mode of being, no longer the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom.8:3).  Only in His resurrection does Jesus become fully and truly the heavenly Man (I Cor.15:49).  His glorified humanity finally fit for His place at the right hand of Majesty.  In a way it is rather strange that when we envisage Jesus, we tend to do so in His earthly, pre-resurrection state.  This is no longer what Jesus is.  He is the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things He might have the supremacy’ (Col.1:18, I Cor.15:20).  He is risen indeed, Hallelujah! 

Here in the Resurrection of Christ the wisdom of God is finally resolved, His sovereignty demonstrated (I Pet.1:11), and His power is awesomely displayed (Eph.1:20).  In raising His Son from the dead, the Father has removed the offense of the cross; proved His Messiahship; proclaimed His magnificence to the world; rewarded His obedience (Phil.2:8-9); endorsed His Mediatorial work; instigated a New Creation, of which Christ’s physical body is the first sample and specimen.  His enemies are defeated and are being put ‘under His feet’ (I Cor.15:25-27); death no longer has dominion over Him (or us, Jn.11:25-26, I Cor.15:56; II Tim.1:10); God’s justice has been satisfied; the resurrection future of the Church and the New Creation is guaranteed (I Cor.15:23); His promises and claims are vindicated; and Christ is shown to be the foundation and fulfilment of all reality. In sum, He ‘was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead’ (Rom.1:4). 

For these and a host of other reasons, our belief about the resurrection of Jesus is considered as ‘of first importance’ (I Cor.15:3-7).  It is Creedal, one of the borders of our faith.  We may not understand the physics or biology of the New Creation, but neither can we retreat into scepticism.  We may not understand how bodies of martyrs, maimed and tortured, or of saints long since decomposed can be resurrected to glory.  We may not understand what happened in the tomb in which Jesus’ body was laid, but we do know that when the angel rolled away, it was to show us that tomb was empty, and that God had rolled away all reproach.  And so with the faithful through the ages we worship and proclaim: ‘By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also’ (I Cor.6:14).

Questions

How does Christ’s death and resurrection redeem my experience of death?  How would you use this to comfort someone who was grieving?

Could you still be a Christian if you didn’t believe in the historical, physical resurrection of Jesus?

How would you go about convincing a sceptic of the resurrection of Jesus?

Read Luke 24:1-49

Why do you think angels declare the resurrection first, rather than Jesus?

Why do you think Jesus only appears to those who were already His disciples?  Would it have been more effective to appear to those who had been sceptical of His claims, and dismissive of His message?

What is good, and what is inadequate / defective about the disciples’ account of Jesus (vv.19-24)? 

Read Jesus’ response to the disciples in v.25.  Do you think he is frustrated?  Should they (Could they?)  have had a better understanding of the Scriptures?   How do you think He explained from ‘Moses and all the prophets’ what the Scriptures taught about Him (see also vv.44-45)?

What is significant about Jesus ‘breaking bread’ that allows the disciples to recognise who Jesus is (v.30-31)?  Why does He disappear as soon as they recognise Him?

Do you think the commission of vv.46-48 were for the original apostles only, or for the whole Church?  What is v.49 referring to?  Is there any contemporary equivalent we should anticipate?

Memory Passage:

I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.  I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Phil.3:8-11

For further reflection:

We often think of the resurrection in terms of what it means with reference to the history of Jesus’ death.  In these studies we have tried to balance that with a focus on what it means for the future.  Bavink poignantly wrote, ‘the pangs of death are the labour pains of the New Creation’ (3:438).  But despite our tendency to think of the Resurrection in terms of what it achieved for us, or indeed the creation, it is first and foremost the joyous realisation of the majesty of Christ.  It is the first step in reversing the humiliation and concealing of Jesus, and in advancing to His exaltation and coronation. We struggle to picture Jesus as He is now (resurrected and glorified, e.g. Rev.1:12-18) because He is so different from what we are - though not from what we shall become (I Cor.15:42-44 & 53-54).  His Resurrection body is suited to Life in the glory-saturated atmosphere of heaven.  It is appropriate to His state and status, seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven (Heb.1:3).  It was part of the joy set before Him that enabled Him to endure the cross (Heb.12:2). 

But in the final analysis it is artificial to separate His exaltation from the act of New Creation and the future of the Church.  His exaltation is not merely His returning to the state He previously enjoyed (It is that, but it is more, Jn.17:5).  He was immortal before His incarnation, but now, through the resurrection of His humanity He has immortalised creation.  The whole point of His earthly life and ministry has been not to claim for Himself a status He did not have previously, but to elevate us to share that status with Him (Heb.2:9-11).  

9. Christ our Example

The work of Christ 9 / Example

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God – even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

(I Cor.10:31-11:1)

‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them.  ‘You call me “Teacher” and “Lord”, and rightly so, for that is what I am.  Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.  I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.

(John 13:12-15)

We saw in an earlier study (4, Christ our Revelation) that suffering is a given for Christian living and thinking.  Our culture seek to avoid suffering at all costs, regarding it as an unwelcome intruder, trespassing illegitimately in our lives.  Tragically, some distortions of the Christian faith, shaped by this assumption, surmise that God will always seek to protect us from suffering.  Should it cast its shadow over our life, we should expect Him to do all He can to remove it from our experience as quickly as possible.  Such triumphalism, with its expectation of (usually miraculous) deliverance from suffering in all its forms has little resonance with the life of Jesus, who is lead into testing, suffering and death (Matt.4:1-2; Heb.9:14).  The Spirit-filled life is a cross-centred life.

We follow a ‘crucified God’, and the life of discipleship in this present evil age remains ‘cross-shaped’ (Gal.1:4; I Cor.1:23-24).  We live in a cursed world (Rom.8:20-21), and becoming a Christian generally increases, rather than diminishes the reality of our suffering.   The question facing the Christian is not: how can I avoid suffering (or worse: How can I get God to make sure I avoid suffering)?  It is rather: How in the midst of suffering can I honour my Lord who suffered for me?  I can only do this because Christ has redeemed (like everything else) our suffering.  But in that redemption, we recognise both God’s involvement and purpose (Heb.12:5-13; Job 1-2).  So how do we suffer in a way that is faithful to Christ rather than succumbing to sin and temptation?  How will we suffer …injustice? …physical and spiritual pain? …hardship and loss? …temptation and testing? Our response in those moments of our greatest suffering reveals the truth of what we are (Lk.6:45).  We choose how to respond to suffering.  How can we choose to suffer in a way shaped by the example of Jesus?

Part of the answer is found in the realisation that in Christ God is not only suffering for us, but with us, as one of us.  Both aspects are critical.  In one sense His suffering takes Him beyond anything we are capable of experiencing.  We cannot suffer on behalf of another to redeem them; their sin cannot be credited to my account, nor my suffering to theirs (Ps.49:7-9).  But in His humanity, and in His suffering as one of us, Christ leaves us an example to follow (I Pet.2:21).  To suffer as Christ does cannot be merely an external act.  We must learn to ‘have the mind of Christ’ (I Cor.2:16; Phil.2:5).  Staggering concept thought it is, we are able to learn how to - in certain respects - think as Christ thought.  My own conviction is that the ‘internal dialogue’ of Christ is found predominantly in the Books of Psalms (see most obviously Ps.22, where the whole Psalm, and not just the opening verses, reveal His mind) and Proverbs. Jesus remains our greatest example of humanity - in suffering as in all else.  He is always more than that, but never less.

It is not only that our suffering gives us an arena in which we can imitate Him; but also that suffering can be the place where we meet with Christ by His Spirit.  In that encounter is our transformation.  But Christ is revealed even before our transformation.  His presence with us, enabling us to follow His example, becomes apparent to the world in our suffering as His disciples.  

This is at least part of what Paul is driving at in II Cor.4:7-12.  Our fragility and vulnerability is exposed in the reality of suffering.  The Apostle lists out the many agonising facets of his affliction in the cause of Christ: ‘hard pressed … perplexed … persecuted … struck down … carrying around in our body the death of Jesus’.  All these have their counterpoint in Christ’s sustaining power, but that is not to say that the suffering does not take its toll.  The ‘jar of clay’, brittle and breakable, is shattered in the process.  And it is that very act of breaking that seemingly allows the glory of Christ’s presence to shine forth.  ‘The life of Jesus is revealed … in our mortal body’ (v.10-11).  Hence Paul’s ability to ‘glory in [his] sufferings (Rom.5:3, see also Acts 5:41).

Questions

Does seeing Christ as an example in suffering legitimise a masochistic spirituality such as we see in Flagellants and Ascetics?  Why / why not??  Does it mean suffering is (or can be) a good thing in itself?

Under what circumstances should a Christian seek to avoid suffering, and when, if ever, should they embrace it?

Can you think of times in the Bible when God uses suffering for His own ends?

Read I Peter 2:18-25

Do you agree with Peter’s teaching in v.18, that ‘slaves [should] submit themselves to their masters…’?

Why are bearing up ‘under the pain unjust suffering’ (v.19), and enduring suffering for doing good (v.20) both considered ‘commendable’?

What exactly is Peter saying these slaves are ‘called’ to (v.21)?  Does this calling extend to all Christians?

In what ways does Jesus provide an example for us to follow? … and in what ways are we unable to follow in His footsteps?

Is Peter calling us to passivity in the face of suffering?  

What does it mean to ‘die to sin and live to righteousness’ (v.24)?’ 

In what sense can I speak about being healed (v.24)?

Am I a failure if I still feel angry or bitter when I suffer injustice? Driscoll, Reconciliation

What does it mean to speak of Jesus as ‘the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls’ (v.25)?  How does speaking of Jesus this way strengthen Peter’s teaching?

Memory Passage:

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Eph.4:21-24

For further reflection:

There is a deep vein of reflection on following the example of Christ that believes martyrdom to be highest expression of emulation.  Whilst Christ’s death is never explicitly described as ‘martyrdom’ in the Bible (though see use of ‘marturion’ in I Tim.2:6, and ‘martus’ in Rev.1:5), many have seen in His willingness to surrender Himself to the Father’s will, even when that will took Him to the cross, the ultimate pattern and goal for Christian sacrifice.  Many have longed, like Peter, to die a death that glorified God (John 21:18-19).

So, as early as 108 AD, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch wrote to Churches whilst en route to his trial in Rome, pleading with them not to interfere with, let alone avert, his anticipated martyrdom.  His desire to literally follow the example of Christ comes out forcefully in his letter to the Romans (4:1-5:3):

I write to all the churches, and I bid all men know, that of my own free will I die for God, unless ye should hinder me …  Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my sepulchre and may leave no part of my body behind ... Then shall I be truly a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world shall not so much as see my body. Supplicate the Lord for me, that through these instruments I may be found a sacrifice to God. May I have the joy of the beasts that has been prepared for me; and I pray that I may find them prompt; nay I will entice them that they may devour me promptly, not as they have done to some, refusing to touch them through fear. Yea though of themselves they should not be willing while I am ready, I myself will force them to it.  Bear with me. I know what is expedient for me. Now am I beginning to be a disciple … Come fire and cross and grapplings with wild beasts … crushings of my whole body, come cruel tortures of the devil to assail me. Only be it mine to attain unto Jesus Christ.

8. Christ our Redemption

The work of Christ 8 / Redemption

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

(I Cor.1:30)

He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, so obtaining eternal redemption.

(Heb.9:12)

We are often told that the idea of ‘redemption’ is born from Paul’s witnessing the Roman slave markets.  More likely it is born out of Paul’s intimacy with the book of Exodus.  This is where the theology of redemption is forged (though see Jacob’s amazing prayer anticipating it in Gen.48:16).  To be redeemed is to be delivered from slavery, judgement and destruction (Dt.7:8; 15:15; Mic.6:4 etc.).  It is the people of God, enslaved, oppressed and captive to death who are redeemed ‘with great acts of judgement’ (Ex.6:6).  What is often forgotten is that such deliverance can only come at a price.  In the book of Exodus, that price is the first-born son (prefiguring of course, THE first-born Son who would redeem His people).  It is these first-born sons for whom the Passover Lamb is substituted (Ex.12) and who are thereby delivered from the Death of the Firstborn.  In later years, the first-born continued to be redeemed either by the substitution of an animal or by the payment of a fixed sum (Num.18:16); and in due course, the Levites constitute a ransom for the firstborn of Israel (Num.3:44-45).

All such substitution is of course symbolic and prophetic (Jn.1:29).  The death of an animal, or giving of cash, could hardly be equivalent to the value of a human life (Heb.10:4).  With characteristic frankness, the Bible underlines the fact that ‘…no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on for ever and never see the pit’ (Ps.49:-7-9, contra Ps.111:9).  That background makes Jesus’ claim that He had come to ‘give his life as a ransom for many’ all the more remarkable (Mk.10:45, see also Eph.1:7).  The reality of redemption is so deeply embedded in the meaning of the cross that it has always featured by Divine mandate in Christian worship.  In the OT it was captured in the Passover (Ex.12:1-13:16, with I Cor.5:7).  And it was a Passover meal that Jesus re-cast as the Lord’s Supper (Matt.26:17-30).

It is little surprise to find the idea of redemption featuring prominently in the writings of the Apostle Paul.  Perhaps one of the more enigmatic references is found in Gal.3:13.  ‘Christ’, he tells us, ‘redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”’.  Three elements come to the fore in this simple assertion. 

The First is that we are redeemed from ‘the curse of the Law’.  What is that?  Deut.27 & 28 (though see also Lev.26, which in many ways charts prophetically the history of the OT Church) give us a fairly clear outline not just of what invokes the curse of the Law, but also the parabolic form the curse takes within the archetypal drama that is the Old Testament.  It is dynamic, correlating to disobedience, and ranging from confusion (28:20) to destruction and exile and the slavery from which God redeemed Israel through the Exodus in the first place (28:68). 

Secondly, what does it mean to become that curse?  Older writers help us here.  John Flavel reflects on the physicality of becoming the curse: Jesus remains fully human, His senses operating at greatest possible capacity while onto Him converge a suffering ‘equivalent to all the pains of the damned’ (1:323).  This from John Owen, ‘To see Christ, the wisdom and power of God, always beloved of the Father, fear and tremble, bow and sweat, pray and die; to see Him lifted up on the cross, the earth trembling beneath Him as if unable to bear His weight; to see the heavens darkened over Him as if shut against His cry, and Himself hanging between both as if refused by each; and to see that all this is because of our sins, is to see clearly the holy justice and wrath of God against sin.  Supremely in Christ do we learn this great truth that God hates sin and judges it with a dreadful and fearful judgement’ (Communion with God, 83).

The third question centres on how Christ could become that curse, when He had never disobeyed the Law?  There is a way, embedded in the Law to be cursed without having sinned: to be hung on a ‘tree’ (Acts 5:30, 10:39, 13:29 etc.).  But Christ’s becoming the curse is not merely a passive thing, with His taking a judgement that should have been ours…  From His curse flows our blessing: ‘in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith’ (Gal.3:14, see also adoption in 4:5). 

Questions

What are we redeemed from as Christians?  …and what are we redeemed to?

What is the ‘cup’ Jesus refers to in Gethsemane (Matt.26:39, 42)?

Who do you think Jesus pays a ‘ransom’ to?

Read I Peter 1:13-25

What does it mean to say that our minds are ‘alert and fully sober’ (v.13)?  How can we help one another to ensure that they are? 

How does setting our hope on the grace we will receive at Christ’s return inspire our pursuit of holiness (vv.13-17)?

Do you think Christians will experience judgement?  If so, how will it be different from the judgement experienced by those who aren’t Christians?  How does our anticipation of judgement shape our attitude to life?  Is this your experience?

What is it about our life before we came to Christ that made it empty (v.18)?  Can the same be said for the lives of others who haven’t come to Christ?  what do you think they would say if you showed them this verse?

What OT images is Peter conjuring up by describing Jesus as ‘a lamb without blemish or defect’ (v.19)?  What is Peter wanting to get across by reminding us that ‘He was chosen before the creation of the world…’ (v.20)?

What does Peter mean by our being ‘born again [of imperishable seed]’ (v.23)?  How does this remind you of the teaching of Jesus (see John 3:3-8, and perhaps lying behind John 1:12-13)? 

What is the role of the ‘Word of God’ in our redemption?  How does this affect your attitude to it? …and to its being preached (v.25)?

Memory Passage:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!  O Lord, hear my voice!  Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.  I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning … O Israel, hope in the Lord!  For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Ps.130:1-8

For further reflection:

We are probably familiar enough with the idea of Jesus becoming a curse to redeem us from the Law.  Often our thinking about redemption focuses on a past act, or indeed a present experience.  But as with other aspects of our salvation there is a future dimension to be considered if we want a full picture.  This surfaces a number of times in Paul’s writings: Rom.8:23; Eph.1:14 & 4:30.  In Christ, we already enjoy ‘the forgiveness of sins’ (Col.1:14).  But the briefest moment of reflection is enough to remind us that we remain immersed in a world of sin and death.  The Apostle is not naïve about the reality of living in a cursed world, and is careful to nuance the aspects of our redemption we enjoy now, and those aspects for which we must wait until the Age to come.

Whilst we enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit, we also ‘groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for … the redemption of our bodies’ (Rom.8:23).  Our resurrection is deeply rooted in the cross of Christ.  Only when we are resurrected into the life of the New Creation will we enjoy the fullness of our redemption.   Only then will we fully and finally freed from this cursed world.  Only then will we be fully human.  Until then we have received both the Spirit of Christ as a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance (Eph.1:14), and the call not to grieve that Spirit while waiting for that Day (Eph.4:30).  We are to live as Christ did, conscious both of our coming judgement and our new identity in Christ (Eph.4:20-5:11), as the Day of Resurrection approaches (5:13-14).   On that day the ancient hymn will once again be heard: ‘In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling’ (Ex.15:13).

7. Christ our Cleansing

The work of Christ 7 / Cleansing

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

(I John 1:7)

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

(Eph.5:25-27)

Peter’s warning about forgetting that we have ‘been cleansed from [our] past sins’ (II Pet.1:9), takes us to the pastoral heart of the cross.  The fact of the matter is that sin - whether committed by us or by others against us - spiritually stains us, corrupts, contaminates, distorts and defiles us (Ps.106:39; Prov.30:11-12).  We are used to thinking about our sin as moral debt to God; we owe Him an obedience that sin withholds.  But sin isn’t merely something that affects our relationship with God; it affects us as well, chronically undermining our ability to live as God calls us.  We do what we do because of what we are (e.g. Prov.4:23, Matt.7:18).  If we are unclean, then what we think, say and do will be unclean.  This is the tragedy of our being born such that we inherit sin and its corruption and impurity (Job 14:4).  This is only exacerbated by our own actual sin.  To be made holy, we need to be both forgiven and purified (I Jn.1:9).  And so an aspect of the death of Jesus deals with our cleansing (Heb.9:14; 10:22 etc.).  By dealing with the full reality of our sin in its many dimensions, the cross deals with the sense of (appropriate) shame and guilt, defilement and dirtiness that we can / should feel in the wake of sin.  We are in profound spiritual danger when we can sin without any sense of shame or guilt.  By contrast, our spiritual maturing is often characterised by a growing sensitivity to the depth and impact of sin.

One of the most strident explorations of this aspect of the cross is found in the prophecies of Zechariah (c.530s BC, after the return from exile).  We are familiar with Zechariah’s prediction of Jesus’ crucifixion (12:10, cited Jn.19:37); but perhaps we are not so aware that the prophecy runs on to explain that: ‘On that day a fountain will be opened … to cleanse them from sin and impurity’ (13:1).  Much of this is, of course, captured in the promises conveyed through the Church’s rite of baptism (e.g. Acts 22:16; I Pet.3:21).  This has long been the hope of the Church.  So Ezekiel prophecies, ‘I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses … And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules’ (36:25-27). 

This cleansing of us is part of Christ’s ‘priestly’ work (this work continues in His heavenly work of intercession, in which Christ prays for the benefits of His sacrifice to be applied to us).  And His work extends not just to the principle of sin, but to our being cleansed of specific expressions of that sin - patterns of thought, speech and behaviour that are sinful.  We are not just cleansed in some objective sense, but that cleansing will increasingly become part of our actual lived experience.  The goal of our salvation is not merely legal acquittal, or even relational forgiveness.  It is the total recalibration of our humanity.  We will be changed, utterly transformed, and conformed to the Image of Christ.  And that is not merely a future to be anticipated; it is the experience of Christians here and now (II Cor.3:18; Phi.3:21; I Jn.3:2-3).  We are not just forgiven, but purified (Jer.33:8; I Jn.1:9).

In a healthy Christian, this commitment by God to our cleansing becomes the foundation and motivation for our own commitment to cleansing.  Paul speaks of ‘[t]hose who cleanse themselves’ (II Tim.2:20-21); James commands: ‘purify your hearts’ (4:8); Peter assumes we’ve already done so (I Pet.1:22).  Such language is not a lapse into moralism, or worse, legalism.  It is a call for us to appropriate the work of Christ.  As we will see in future studies, His satisfaction for our sin is the grounds of sanctification from our sin.  Without holiness, no-one will see the Lord (Heb.12:14).  God’s work for us in Christ and by the Holy Spirit, gives us great confidence in our own work.  God is at work through our work, giving a sense of inevitability about our growth in purity.  Jesus, we are told, ‘gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good’ (Titus 2:14).  Our holiness is the point of the cross.  Like all aspects of our salvation, we must wait till the New Creation to enter fully into it, but that is never a reason not to pursue it here and now.

Questions

Why is it so important for Jesus to be buried?  Would anything be lost if His body had been left on the cross, or simply left in the open?

What did Jesus do between His burial and His resurrection (see I Peter.3:18-20)?

Read Psalm 51

The background to this Psalm can be found in II Sam.11-12.

How do you think David expected his prayer in vv.1-2 & 7-9 to be answered?  Do you think David understood that ‘[i]t is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins’ (Heb.10:4)?

Do you think David is right in v.4 when he says, ‘Against you, you only, have I sinned’?  Hasn’t he also sinned against Bathsheba & Uriah?

Do you agree with David’s idea that ‘I was sinful at birth … from the time my mother conceived me’ (v.5)?  Why / Why not?  What do you think he means?  Is God unfair to expect holiness from sinners?

Ps.51:8 is probably re-visiting Ps.32:1-5.  Have you ever experienced God’s dealing with you in this way?  What do you think it means for God’s hand to be heavy on us (32:4)?

What is David asking for in v.10?  What difference would it make in David’s experience if God granted these requests?

Read v.11.  Could God take His Holy Spirit away from a Christian?  Could He cast a Christian from His presence?

What does David anticipate to be his response to experiencing God’s forgiveness and cleansing?  Would you expect those to be the responses of everyone who receives God’s grace like this?  If so, what conclusions would you draw if someone wasn’t reacting in these ways?

Does God delight in sacrifice or not (vv.16-17 & 19)?

Memory Passage:

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!  For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

Heb.9:14-15

For further reflection:

On the cross, Jesus declares that everything is finished, but will still not bow to death (Jn.19:28-30).  Redemption is accomplished; but Christ will not exercise the authority to lay down His life until all Scripture has been fulfilled.  There is one last act.  He must drink the wine from the stalk of the hyssop plant (v.29). 

Throughout the OT, hyssop is used as a brush to dip into the blood of a sacrifice and then to sprinkle it in application.  So it is hyssop that is used to apply the blood of the Lamb to the doorframe in the Passover (Ex.12:22).  And within the sacrificial system it is to do with purification and cleansing (see Lev.14:4-6; 49-52 etc.).  Hence David’s prayer ‘Cleanse me with hyssop and I shall be clean’ (Ps.51:7).

So who needs to be cleansed at the cross?  It is Jesus who is given the wine (blood) using hyssop?  Does He need to be cleansed?  Jesus has cleansed His people (everything had now been finished, v.28).  But in the process, He has been rendered unclean Himself.  As He bears the sin of the world, He is horrifically ravaged, contaminated, violated, polluted by the act of taking that sin to himself (II Cor.5:21).  The Redeemer is rendered unclean as He bears our sin to make us pure.  And now it is Christ Himself who needs to be expiated, cleansed with hyssop so that He will be clean.  It is Christ Himself who must be the first to enjoy the benefits of His suffering; He is the first to be cleansed by the cross.

That is why John is careful to tell us that Jesus is laid in ‘a new tomb’ (Jn.19:41).  If He was placed in a tomb in which other corpses had already been laid, He would be rendered unclean again (Lev.22:4; Num.19:13)!  Death would have a legitimate hold on Him, and Christ would be lost to the Father.  That could never be!

6. Christ and our Righteousness

The work of Christ 6 /Resurrection & Righteousness

You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.  And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

(Rom.8:9-11)

So it is written: ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

(I Cor.15:45)

Does the resurrection of Jesus only have meaning for our future?  Does it have any impact on us today?  Paul wants us to understand that the impact of the resurrection is not just historical (an event that happened to Jesus), nor is it consigned to the future (an event that will happen to us).  Between these two poles it remains a profound spiritual reality that shapes life for those who are in Christ. 

Paul explains how - through our baptism - we are so united to Christ that His history (a life of righteousness) becomes our history and His future (a life of resurrection) becomes our future.  We are perhaps used to thinking about our history (a life of sin) becoming His history, and our future (death and condemnation) becoming His future on the cross.  But the converse is equally and gloriously true.  We become so identified with Christ that we are ‘baptised into His death’ (Rom.6:3).   This huge consequences: ‘We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life … For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin may be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin’ (Rom.6:4-5).

Christ’s death on the cross doesn’t just free us from the guilt of sin; but also from its power.  Christianity is not just the same old me caught an endless cycle between sin and forgiveness.  It is our inclusion and participation in a totally different kind of human life - a resurrection, new creation humanity (Col.2:12). 

Clearly there is a sense in which this isn’t the case!  When I became a Christian, there was no observable change in my humanity.  It is still the same old body, connected inexorably to this same old cursed world.   It remains what Paul will call ‘this body that is subject to death’ (Rom.7:24).  This part of what I am will remain unchanged throughout my pilgrimage through this age.  It will only be discarded at death (unless Christ returns first) to be taken again in resurrection glory (I Cor.15:26-28 & 42-44.  If Christ does return first, then I will be transformed without experiencing death, I Cor.15:51-52).  So if this cursed, sinful body hasn’t ‘died with Christ’, nor been buried with Him in baptism (Col.2:12 & 3:3), then in what sense have I been ‘baptised into His death’ (Rom.6:3)?  Paul is talking about what has happened to us spiritually.  Our bodies may be lagging behind, tied to this passing age, but our spirit has already gone through death with Christ, and into the reality of resurrection (and Ascension, Rom.8:30; Eph.2:6).

This puts us in the painful and complex position of living simultaneously in two realities at two different levels of our being.  That is why Christian living feels conflicted, as it we are being pulled in two directions at once.  We are living in two natures: our sinful nature, like the age it is a part of, is already dying, whilst our new creation humanity is already enjoying everlasting life.  We are creatures in transition, passing from one reality to another, living in the midst of a clash between old and new creations.  This devastating tension will only be resolved when we throw off this mortal coil; and we will only be completely human when we receive our resurrection bodies - bodies of life, rather than death.

This is what makes the Spirit’s work of transforming us slowly into the image of Christ an inevitability (I Cor.15:49, note it is the resurrected Jesus whose image we shall bear).  Righteousness is a possibility because I live in a resurrection humanity; sin is still a reality because I live in a fallen and cursed humanity.  But the direction of travel is towards our resurrection future, which means this body of death will be done away with (Rom.6:6), and it should be increasingly possible to live in obedience to Christ!  Is it any wonder that Paul exclaims, ‘[T]hanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance (Rom.6:17).  May this be true throughout the life of MIE.

Questions

In our last study looking at Jesus’ Resurrection we noted that there is continuity between our bodies here and our bodies in the New Creation.  How does that affect our thinking about our physicality, and our bodies and how we use them?

If our future is physical, then why does Paul speak of our resurrection bodies as ‘spiritual’ in I Cor. 15:44?

Given the continuity between our bodies now and then, do you think we will we - like Jesus (John 20:27; Rev.5:6) - retain scars, injuries, disabilities in in the New Creation?  Why / why not?

Read Rom.6:1-14:

If a Christian asked you why it mattered how they lived, what would you say?  What arguments would you use to explain why it is essential for Christians to grow in holiness? 

Why is our sense of conflict and struggle in the Christian life an encouragement rather than a discouragement?

How does the prospect of resurrection make you feel (if anything)?  Is it something you contemplate regularly?  Why do you think that is?

Does Paul’s teaching here inspire you in your pursuit of holiness, and in your battling against sin? 

In Rom.6:11, Paul tells us to think of ourselves as (or count ourselves) ‘dead to sin, but alive to God…’.  Is this simply the power of positive thinking?  How can we become more consistent and effective in putting this into practise?

Why does Paul - in Rom.6 -  think we no longer need to obey sin?  Does this tally with the reality of your experience?  How do you think you could strengthen this dynamic in you Christian living?

Memory Passage:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Col.3:1-4

For further reflection:

Peter rejoices that we have been born - through the resurrection of Jesus - into a living hope … an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade (I Pet.1:3).  It is important that as Christians we meditate deeply and regularly on that hope, otherwise it fades from view and loses its ability to motivate and inspire us in our pursuit of holiness.  But in our meditation we must strike a Biblical balance between two opposite but equally deadly errors.

On the one hand we must remember that we are still subject to weakness, sickness and death.  We still live in these bodies of death, in which sin (potentially) reigns (Rom.6:6 & 12).  This guards us against over-optimism about what our experience of Christian living can be in this age.  Periodically the Church has lost balance in this direction, and made extraordinary claims about the possibility of living without sinning and being able to eschew sickness.  We begin to think we should appropriate other aspects of life in the New Creation here and now (Mk.12:25 & I Tim.4:3).  When we lose balance in this direction it is catastrophic and often leads to incredulity, cynicism, disillusionment and pain.

On the other hand, our sense of already participating in the New Creation humanity can become so vague, and its focus so distant, that it has no meaningful impact on our discipleship.  We give up hope of transformation, and slide into a spiritual inertia in which we expect nothing to change.  We assume what we have been is what we will always be; we bow to the inevitability of our ongoing sin; we consign ourselves to spiritual immaturity and boredom.

Neither option honours Christ and the cosmic work He has wrought in His life, death and resurrection.  Let us hold true to a full vision of the Bible’s teaching.

5. Christ our Reconciliation

The Work of Christ 5 / Reconciliation

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation...

(Col.1:21-23)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

(II Cor.5:17-19)

One of the Bible’s great aids to our understanding the work of Jesus is the Tabernacle, and the structures of worship that composed its life.  It is assumed throughout Scripture that the sacrifices routinely offered at the Tabernacle chart the Cross of Christ; and when people want to explain the death of Jesus, they simply evoke the language of Leviticus (see e.g. Rom.8:3).  These sacrifices mark the road that a sinful humanity must walk if it would be reconciled to God.

Obviously enough, the first step on such a pilgrimage is the Burnt Offering (Lev.1:1-17, though the order taken here reflects 6:1-7:21).  As we begin our journey home the first thing we confront is the fire of the altar.  To proceed is to be consumed.  And so, an offering is provided that symbolically bears our sin (Lev.1:4, see also Heb.10:4), that goes into the fire in our place, and that endures our destruction.  ‘It will’, the worshipper is told, ‘be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you’.  Here is the purpose and reason for sacrifice: Atonement.  It is a word invented by the great Bible translator, William Tyndale early in the 16th Century: ‘At-one-ment’ - this is how we will be reconciled to the Lord. This burnt offering was the foundation on which all other offerings were to be made.

Then the Grain Offering (or as it is known in Lev.2:2, the memorial portion), a ‘memorial’ of the firstfruits (Lev.2:12).  Moses gives us the liturgy of this offering in Deut.26, as the ancient Church remembered God’s goodness, His deliverance, and their commitment to live according to His Law (Dt.26:13) - which is where things rang hollow.  Could any Christian in any age have said, ‘I have not transgressed any of your commandments, nor have I forgotten them’.  The memory of our obligation, and thus of our failure, marks the way of reconciliation.  It is an acknowledgement that we have sinned (and that we need the righteousness of another).  Interestingly, the old Scottish preacher-theologian, Andrew Bonar speaks of this confession not only as a remembering of sin, but as a longing to be different.  It is, he says, ‘[t]he offering of myself to the future service of God’.

We are, perhaps, most familiar with the Sin Offering.  Here is the problem that is dealt with at the heart of sacrifice.  It is our sin that separates us from God and renders us vulnerable to His holiness.  Sin is a complex and all pervasive reality - internal and external, legal and relational.  I need to be acquitted and cleansed.  But again, it is a substitute that is exposed, that is given over to death, the wages of my sin.  The relational impact of that sin is captured in the Guilt Offering, which has a deeply social aspect (see e.g. Lev.6:4).  My sin is never just between me and God - it has consequences for others.  Restitution must be made as sin is dealt with.  Its effects must be restored, as we put right the consequences of our sin.  Bonar again, ‘The desire to put things right with other people is the surest proof that things have been put right with God’ (see e.g. Zacchaeus, Lk.19:1-10).

Which brings us at last to the Fellowship Offering (or Peace Offering).  Having walked the road of these offerings, the archetypal worshipper was now reconciled to the LORD.  There is no legal obligation to celebrate the Peace Offering - it was a ‘free will offering’, enjoyed simply because the worshipper longed to celebrate the restoring of fellowship with God.  A feast, delighting in God’s grace with family and friends, God’s presence represented by the priest. 

All five offerings teach us inalienable truth about what must be done to forge our reconciliation.  Christ on the cross is our burnt offering, consumed in the fury of God’s judgement; …our Grain Offering, perfectly dedicated to the Father; …our Sin Offering, cleansing us from the many-faceted reality of sin; our Guilt Offering, paying our debt to God and one another; …our Peace Offering, restoring fellowship and fashioning our intimacy with the Father and our joy in His presence.   Each captures an aspect of the mechanics of the cross as we are shown not just that Christ reconciled us to God, but also how.

Questions

In what sense do you think Christ was forsaken by God, and in what sense (if any) was He not (see Matt.27:46)?  Why is it important to understand this saying correctly?

What do you think the Bible means when it talks of ‘alienation’?  Does alienation from God bring freedom?

If God wants to forgive, why doesn’t He just do so?

Read II Cor.5:11-6:2

What does it mean to fear the Lord (5:11)?  How does that inspire and sustain Paul’s ministry of reconciliation?

How would you respond to someone who said that they weren’t, in fact, compelled by Christ’s love to engage in the ministry of reconciliation (5:14)?

In what sense can Paul say that ‘Christ died for all’ (5:14-15)?  Does that mean that everyone will ultimately be reconciled to God?

In what sense can Paul talk about us having died (v.14)?  What does it mean for us to ‘no longer live for [our]selves, but for Him…’ (v.15)?  How can we encourage one another in this?

If the Corinthians are already reconciled to God, why does Paul implore them: ‘Be reconciled to God’ (5:20)?

What does it mean for us to become, in Christ, the righteousness of God (5:21)?

What would it mean to ‘receive God’s grace in vain’ (6:1)?  How would you recognise this problem in a Christian?  What is Paul’s remedy?

How does reading Is.49:5-9 shape your understanding of what Paul is II Cor.6:2, where he quotes Is.49:8?  (reading Luke 2:29-32 might help).

Memory Passage:

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Rom.5:9-11

For further reflection:

Reflecting on Heb.9:(esp. v.23) reminds us that the Tabernacle and its Gospel-ministry was ‘a copy of the heavenly things’ (see our series on Leviticus: mie.org.uk).  The Levitical sacrifices are what they are because they are modelled on the cross.  Reconciliation proves a more complex process than we often realise.

This raises questions about our own forgiveness and the restoration of relationships.  Not only is the work of our being reconciled to God far more extensive than we thought, but it shapes our dealing with one another.  What must happen before we can forgive and be forgiven, and so be reconciled to each other?  Sin is the issue, and sin must be dealt with before reconciliation can take place.  We can’t just shrug it off and say, ‘It doesn’t matter’.   For there to be forgiveness, the penalty of sin must be paid; the confession of sin made; repentance entered into; the consequences of sin alleviated; a different future committed to (see e.g. Lk. 17:3-4, note that repentance is a condition of forgiving another Christian).  All sin (even sin against us) is at its most fundamental sin against God (Ps.51:4).  Any forgiveness we offer, any reconciliation we embark on, can therefore only occur within the context of the deeper satisfaction and reconciliation with God through the cross.

This isn’t to say there is nothing we can do when those who aren’t Christians sin against us.  We can determine not to be defined by their sin; to trust God to deal with the impact on us (Rom.12:17-21); to not to allow their sin to shape my own behaviour toward them (I Tim.6:11), and perhaps most profoundly, we can pray that the Father would forgive them, that they would become a Christian, so that we can forgive them too (Lk.23:34).

4. Christ our Revelation

The work of Christ 4 / Revelation

I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no saviour. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed – I, and not some foreign god among you.  You are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘that I am God. Yes, and from ancient days I am he.  No one can deliver out of my hand. When I act, who can reverse it?’

(Is.43:11-13)

I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.  And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.  I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.

(John 17:4-7)

In a previous study we began to unpack the idea that while the Cross revealed the love of God, much more than love is revealed.  God is revealed in fullness, in His manifold glory.  If we can speak of Jesus as the revealing of God, ‘the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being’ (Heb.1:3), then we can speak of the cross as the place where that revelation is at its deepest.  There are things shown us about God on the cross that we would not and could not have perceived in any other way.  For this reason, many believe that we must start with the cross if we can ever hope to develop a truly ‘Christian’ understanding of the God we worship.  We can only truly know Him at the cross.  This is in part because knowledge of God is relational, and relationship is only made possible at the cross.  But more than that - at the cross God discloses and defines Himself.  Martin Luther argued that our understanding of God at Golgotha is ‘not a single chapter of theology, but the key signature for all Christian theology’. 

The cross is an intrinsic part of God’s glorifying Himself (e.g.Jn.12:27-33).It is, of course, the demonstration of His love (Jn.3:16; 15:13;Rom.5:8; I Jn.4:9-10); but also His righteousness (Rom.3:25); His humility (Phil.2:8); His generosity (II Cor.8:9); His justice (Rom.3:26); His wisdom and power (I Cor.1:18-31); His grace (Eph.1:6-7); His mercy (I Tim.1:16) and so much more.Much of this we may have thought of before, but I wonder if we have thought of the cross as revealing God’s hatred?

That sort of language might cause us to catch our breath, the ‘hatred’ of God, but the language is found in the Bible (e.g. Dt.12:31; Dt.16:22; Ps.5:5; Ps.11:5; Ps.45:7; Is.1:14; Is.61:8; Jer.12:7-8; Amos 5:21 etc), and in the Church’s teaching and reflection.  The celebrated American theologian and pastor Jonathan Edwards wrote:

“Never did God so manifest His hatred of sin as in the death and suffering of His only begotten Son. Hereby He showed Himself unappeasable to sin, and that it was impossible for Him to be at peace with it.”

God’s settled, measured, personal, hostility and emotional rejection of all that is opposed to His glory and our good is demonstrated most fully at Golgotha.  Even when ‘sin’ is borne by His own Son, still that is not enough to cause Him to stay His hand.  The God who is revealed at Calvary cannot and will not allow sin to go unpunished.  As we saw in a previous study, the Gospel centres on the realisation that this wrathful God chose to be loving.  This is the core of Christianity: that Christ Jesus came to save sinners.  From what?  God’s wrath against their sin.  It is by bearing God’s wrath that Christ reveals His love for us.

And of course, the cross reveals not just the truth about God, but about us, and about the reality of what we have become as sinners, and the guilt that our sinfulness incurs.  Any religious attempt to deal with sin and guilt that doesn’t demand the intervention of God is simply inadequate.  It cannot work, for it does not take the phenomena of sin with sufficient seriousness.  Here we see God’s utter determination to deal with sin; and consequently of His absolute commitment to ‘redeem a people for Himself’ (Tit.2:14).  And to do so without compromise to His own integrity.  To surrender one aspect of who He is to satisfy another would be the violation of His holiness - the fundamental reality of all who God is.  God would cease to be, or at least He would cease to be God.

Above all else it was this demand within God Himself that necessitated the cross.  In the face of human sin, His Justice is unsatisfied; His love unexpressed; His anger unplacated; His mercy unfulfilled; His power constrained; His wisdom disappointed and His righteousness unsatisfied.  This infinite tension within the life of God Himself is resolved in the cross.  Apart from any individual attribute, we are shown the depths of God’s being as the Son cries out and gives up His spirit (Matt.27:50).  In the final analysis the cross reveals God’s commitment to His own ineffable glory and infinite perfection.  It is His genius that His revelation simultaneously means our salvation. 

Questions:

How would you respond to someone who said they couldn’t worship a God - in any sense - who was capable of ‘hate’?  How comfortable are you worshipping a God capable of ‘hating’?

Could God have loved sinners if Jesus hadn’t died for us?  Does God love people who don’t accept Jesus’ death for them?  Is God’s love for the Church different from His love for the world (Jn.3:16)?

Why is it important to know that Jesus is the Word become flesh (Jn.1:14) as we reflect on the reality of the cross?  If Jesus isn’t who the Bible says He is (the Word of God), could the cross achieve what the Bible says it does (atonement)?

Read I John 4:7-21:

In v.7, is John saying that everyone has been born of God and knows God - after all, everyone loves?  Can we say that people who aren’t Christians don’t know love, or how to love?

If ‘God is love’ (v.8 & 16), how can we speak of God hating (see above)?

How does the death of Jesus as ‘an atoning sacrifice for our sins’ (v.10) reveal and demonstrate God’s love?  How would you explain this to someone who wasn’t a Christian?

Is John implying that before we come to Christ we aren’t alive (v.9)?  How do we relate this to our experience of people who aren’t Christians?

If Jesus is the revealing of God, then (based on this passage) how can God be known now, if Jesus is no longer physically present on earth?  How effective a means of revelation do you think it is?  Could it be made better?

How would you counsel someone (again, based on this passage), who said they were struggling to love someone in the Church?

Memory Passage:

Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.’  Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

John 14:6-9

For further reflection:

We’ve already seen how Christian thinkers such as Luther saw the Cross as the defining moment of God’s self-revelation in Christ.   Here, God is hidden in the midst of suffering, and cannot be known until we have entered such suffering.  ‘God’, Luther writes, ‘can only be found in suffering and the Cross’.  Suffering then must become part of a Christian’s life.  It is not an unfortunate (perhaps avoidable?) element of human experience.  It is where God is most fully understood to be God, and therefore, where we most fully see our humanity.  For Luther, we can only fully know ourselves, as well as only fully know God, in the midst of suffering.  Only here, as we participate in the cross, do we find self-understanding: ‘It is impossible for a person not to be puffed up by his (sic) good works unless he has first been deflated and destroyed by suffering and evil until he knows he is worthless, and that his works are not his but God’s’. 

From this perspective, Luther argues that we can only ever know the true nature of anything as we consider it through the lens of Calvary.  A ‘theologian of glory’ thinks they can work out life for themselves, and that true knowledge, understanding and fulfilment is found in power and majesty and status.   When such an un-redeemed person envisages God, it is exclusively in these terms, and the orientation of their life shows they desire these for themselves.  But God, who defines all reality, teaches us His power is found in humility, in service, in giving His life as a ransom for many (Mk.10:45).  This subverts everything we think we know about the world and about what it means to live in that world.  What we naturally think of as good turns out to be evil (Is.5:20; Lk.16:15).  The cross, it seems, reveals our foolishness as much as it reveals God’s wisdom (I Cor.1:18-31).

3. Christ the First Fruits

The work of Christ 3 / First-fruits

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

(Phil.3:20-21)

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

(I Cor.15:12-13)

In our first study we found ourselves thinking about the ‘Church Militant’.  The counterpart is the ‘Church Triumphant’ - the saints who have finished their earthly pilgrimage, who have fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith (II Tim.4:7).  They have closed their eyes in death.  But what then?  There have been few areas of Christian thinking more plagued by uncertainty and confusion than the question of what happens after we die.  Over the years all sorts of strange and wonderful ideas have shaped the worship and thinking of the Church…  prayers are said for the departed (occasionally to them), candles are lit, masses recited. All Saints Day (1st Nov), All Souls Day (2nd Nov) - not to mention Hallowe’en (31st Oct) are often overlaid with rituals and superstitions, ignorance and confusion.  People talk about heaven and hell, limbo, purgatory, soul sleep, or simply about going to a better place.  Popular folk-religion wonders if the dead have even really ‘left us’, or whether they aren’t watching over us, perhaps having become a guardian angel of some sort…  These are not merely academic questions.  Death has come close to us all.

It may seem oddly reassuring that confusion has always been a part of the Church’s thinking about what happens after death.  The Apostles regularly had to teach and correct the thinking of the saints.  Paul warns Timothy that there were some teaching that the resurrection had already taken place (II Tim.2:18); he tells the Thessalonians that he doesn’t want them to be uninformed (I Thess.4:13-5:11); and he is exasperated that there are some at Corinth who aren’t even sure that Jesus was raised from the dead (I Cor.15:12).  And before the Apostles, Jesus dealt with people who weren’t clear on the OT’s teaching (the Sadducees - Mk.12:18-27, as opposed to Pharisees, who did believe in resurrection, Acts 23:6).  Christians who have taken the Bible seriously throughout the ages have always believed in the resurrection (Is.26:19; Ps.16:10; Ps.71:20; Job 19:26 etc.).  Paul was clear that the Old Testament teaches about the resurrection.  That of Jesus at any rate: ‘He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures’ (I Cor.15:4, a view shared by the other Apostles, Acts 2:25-32; and Jesus, Lk.24:44-46, though see also His rebuke of the Sadducees in Mk.12:24, where he explains that they are wrong about resurrection because they do not know the Scriptures).  And this is where we start.  With the resurrection of Jesus.  All sophisticated theories and speculations pale into insignificance compared to the revelation of God in the Scriptures and the actual, historical resurrection of Jesus.  All debate and discussion is over.  We know what happens.

In brief - there is no limbo, there is no purgatory, there is no soul sleep (meaning the idea that when we die we remain in an unconscious state until Christ’s return).  When the Bible does talk about the dead in terms of ‘sleep’ it is in a much more positive and euphemistic sense.  For Christians, lying down to die is as fearless an experience as lying down to sleep.  We are confident that we will ‘be with the Lord’ (see Phil.1:21-24 for a classical Christian ambivalence in the face of death).  Christ’s triumphing over death has meant that even our experience of dying has been redeemed.  There is no terror, no sting (I Cor.15:55-57).   Far from stripping us from all that we have loved and lived for, we know that ‘death’ is our servant.  It does not separate us from Christ (Rom.8:38-39), rather death carries us to Him.  We pass through death, and find that on that very day we will be with Him in paradise (Lk.23:43).  In this disembodied state we wait, conscious and in the presence of Christ, for the return of Christ (II Cor.5:1-10, Rev.6:9-11, etc.).  With Him, we will return; and at His return (and with it the renewal of all things, Matt.19:28), we will be re-clothed with our resurrection bodies (I Cor.15:23), and step into a very physical New Creation on this ‘resurrected’ earth (Is.65:17; Ii Pet.3:13; Rev.21:1-4). 

Paul links our resurrection directly with Christ (I Cor.15:20-23, where firstfruits are representative of and sanctify the total harvest, Dt.26:1f).  It is because Christ has been raised that we will be raised.  Indeed, as we shall see in a later study, because Christ is raised, there is a sense in which we are already raised.  It is that certain.  Our hope is that secure.  His resurrection is the actual beginning of ours.

Questions

Do you agree with the post-mortem scheme outlined above?  Why / why not?  How does it make you feel to think you can know what happens after you die?

Read Matthew 27:51-53.  What do you think is happening here?  More to the point?  Why is it happening?  What does it mean?

Do you think we can contact the dead? Or that they can contact us?

Do you think the OT teaches about the resurrection of the dead?  How would you justify your answer?

Read I Cor.15:35-58

How would you respond to someone who said they couldn’t believe in the resurrection because they didn’t understand what it would be like (v.35)?

Do you think that Paul is suggesting that people’s experience of resurrection will be different (vv.39-42)?  Will we have different ‘kinds of splendour’?

If you think, ‘yes’, then on what basis will such differentiation occur?  If you think ‘No’, what point do you think Paul is making in these verses?

What do you think your resurrection body will be like?

How does Paul anticipate that meditating on your experience of resurrection will shape your approach to life here and now?  Does it work?

What do you feel about dying?  What are you scared of?  What are you looking forward to?  How does the prospect of resurrection affect you anticipation of death? … your grieving the death of others?

What do you think the Day of Christ’s return will be like?

You might want to include I Thess.4:13-5:11 in your considerations of these last couple of questions

Memory Passage:

‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.’  Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’  Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’  Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’  ‘Yes, Lord,’ she replied, ‘I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.’

John 11:21-27

For further reflection:

The Resurrection of Jesus is many things.  It is His victory and His vindication, the Father overturning humanity’s rejection, condemnation and denial of all Jesus had been and taught.  It is His forging a road through death’s dark vale; His piercing the shroud, shattering the curse, becoming the inauguration of the New Creation, and a life no longer overshadowed by the spectre of sin’s wages.

It is also the endorsement of the ‘physical’, an asserting of its dignity and worth.  So many visions of life after death are non-physical: shades, spirits, echoes of people in a dreary, featureless wasteland.  This all resonates with the ancient pagan idea (so beloved of the Greek philosophers) that physical matter was somehow inferior, a hindrance.  The real person was the psycho-spiritual aspect of our being, and death was seen as its liberation.  The Bible knowns nothing of such superficial thinking.  In creation, the Lord fashioned our physical bodies not with words alone, but intimately formed our bodies before breathing in life (Gen.2:7) and declared it good (1:31).  That same Lord takes on that flesh Himself (Jn.1:14).  As in our origins, so in our destiny.  The ‘real’ me is not some disembodied pseudo-human, destined to drift ethereally through a vague, barren afterlife.  I am embodied, physical.  Christ did not leave His body behind (Lk.24:39, Acts 10:41).  Neither will I.  I long to be clothed with my resurrection body, which will be continuous with the body I have before death (II Cor.5:1-10). Only then will I be the fully human being God redeemed me to be.  Life in the New Creation is not impoverished, but enriched; more physical and real, not less.

2. Christ our Substitue

The Work of Christ 2 / Substitute

‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’  For ‘you were like sheep going astray,’ but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

(I Peter.2:24-25)

It is written: “And he was numbered with the transgressors”; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfilment.’

(Luke 22:37, citing Is.53:12)

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

(II Cor.5:21)

The necessity of sacrifice is found in fallen humanity’s most ancient religious history, in the very moment the Lord God curses creation and exiles Adam & Eve from Eden (Gen.3:16-19; Rom.8:20).  But even against the background of this spiritual trauma, there is grace.  Alongside the promise of His conquest of Satan (Gen.3:15), is the first sacrificial slaughter.  As death violates the world God had declared to be good, the first experience of that death occurs at the hand of the Lord Himself, and speaks of redemption.  ‘The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them’ (Gen.3:21).  It is no surprise that ‘sacrifice’ - even human sacrifice - has echoed in our memory ever since.  Throughout the religions and spiritualties of the world, wherever we have felt our alienation from God, we have cultivated priestly classes and have linked redemption to sacrifice.  In those religions we sometimes even find the idea of human sacrifices, that need to be hung on a tree, and subsequently eaten (see John G Paton’s account of his missionary endeavours amongst cannibals on the Island of Tanna). 

Throughout the OT, pagan and idolatrous religions regularly centre on the idea of the sacrifice of a first-born son (hence the warning of Dt.18:9-10, see also e.g. II Kings,3:27, and the tragedy of such practises finding their way eventually into the life of the Church, II Kings 16:3; 17:17; 21:16). 

This is, of course, a horrific inversion of the heart of true religion.  As the Lord Himself laments: ‘They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molek, though I never commanded – nor did it enter my mind – that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin’ (Jer.32:35).  The Gospel was never supposed to be that we sacrificed our first-born son.  It was always that He would sacrifice His.  Every animal sacrifice that the Lord ordained to stand in the place of sinful humanity pointed relentlessly to the ultimate Priestly Sacrifice on Calvary (Heb.9:1-14).  Here Christ ‘gave Himself up for us as a … sacrifice to God’ (Eph.5:2). 

Only this moment is adequate to deal with sin and alienation.  Ways of thinking about the cross which don’t recognise that in His death Jesus is substituting Himself in our place, implode under the weight of human experience.  We need something infinitely more drastic than a moral example, or a noble martyrdom.  We need a sin-bearing sacrifice, willing and adequate to bear the eternal fury of God’s justice against the evil of that sin.  We need ‘the self-substitution of God’ (Stott).  It’s as if God says: Your sin is too immense for you to deal with.  Let me take that and we will deal with it.   And so, ‘He was delivered over to death for our sins …’ (Rom.4:25).  ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…’ (Gal.3:13).  We are reconciled to the Trinity by the Trinity (Flavel).

As John Stott puts it so clearly in The Cross of Christ, ‘Sin is man (sic) substituting himself for God … Salvation is God substituting Himself for man’.  The Son, standing in the place of humanity (Heb.2:14), bears the sin of the world (John 1:29), and enters into the sinners’ dereliction (Matt.27:46).  The Cross is a ‘judicial execution’.  As a Man, Christ suffered with us but primarily, He suffered for us. 

With characteristic pungency, Martin Luther captured brilliantly the dynamics of the cross.  In his epic commentary on Galatians (3:13), Luther writes: ‘All the prophets did foresee that Christ should become the greatest transgressor … that ever was or could be in the world.  For He, being made a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world is not now an innocent person without sins … but a sinner…  Our most merciful Father sent His only Son into the world and laid upon Him the sins of all men, saying: Be Thou Peter the denier; Paul the persecutor, blasphemer, cruel oppressor; David the adulterer … the thief which hanged on the cross… be Thou the person which hath committed the sins of all men; see therefore that thou pay and satisfy for them’.  Such is the glory of our Gospel.

Questions

In a book called: The Lost Message of Jesus, Steve Chalke (in)famously wrote: “The fact is that the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse – a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed. . . . Such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement ‘God is love.’ If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil” (182-83).  How would you respond to this sort of comment?  What do you agree with?  …disagree with?  Why?

Read Rom.3:21-31

How has the righteousness of God now been made known (v.21)?  Why is this significant in Paul’s argument?  How does it shape our experience?

How serious is that ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ (v.23)?  How would describe the impact of sin on us as humans?  …on the world?   Why is Paul underlining the issue of ‘sin’ so emphatically in this whole opening section of Romans (see esp. 1:18-32; 2:1-16; 3:9-20)?

What is a ‘sacrifice of atonement’ (v.25, NIV)?  What is Paul teaching us about the nature of Jesus’ death on the cross?

Other translations render it: propitiation (ESV - some of you may recognise this word from BCP); sacrifice for sin (NLT); or ‘God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin’ (The Message).

In what sense has sin prior to the cross been left unpunished (v.25)?  How does that call God’s righteousness into question?  How is this resolved in the cross?

What does Paul mean when he describes God as ‘the One who justifies those who have faith in Jesus (v.26)?  What does it mean to be justified (also vv.28 & 30)?

How does Paul’s teaching lead to humility (v.27)?

What is a Christian’s relationship to the Law of God as laid out in the OT?  Should we keep it or not (v.27-31)?

Memory Passage:

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Is.53:4-6

For further reflection:

As we saw in our first study, such a death has long lived in the mind and heart of God (Jn.10:17-18; Is.53:4-10 etc.).  The Church however has periodically struggled to retain the integration of God’s love and justice that is so exquisitely revealed in the substitutionary death of Jesus.  Our vision of both love and justice tend toward being far too puerile and superficial to allow for the glory and gravity of what God is doing at the cross: as the Son offers Himself by the Spirit to the Father (Heb.9:14).  Over the years, many have struggled to hold together these two aspects of God’s character: His love and His wrath.  One writer in the second century, Marcion, even when so far as to suggest that the God of the OT - a God of wrath and judgement - must have been a different being to the God of the NT who is a God of love and grace.  We still hear echoes of this today, as people continue to suggest there is some discontinuity between the ways God behaves sin the O & NT.  Such a dichotomy is utterly false, and betrays only our own lack of engagement with either Testament.

The beautiful integrity of God’s character is demonstrated supremely at the cross.  At Calvary, as one theologian daringly puts it, ‘The wrathful God is loving’ (Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, p.31).  We cannot treat the atonement without grasping that its source is the sovereign love of God (Jn.3:16; Rom.5:8; I jn.4:10).  But the very fact of the cross demands we face up to the immensity of God’s wrath and the reality of His judgement.  We often see the cross as the revelation of God’s love.  But it is the revelation of so much more…  I wonder if we have learnt to see it as the revelation of His hatred?  To this we will return in a later study.

1. Christ our Victor

The work of Christ 1 / Victor

Gird your sword on your side, you mighty one; clothe yourself with splendour and majesty.  In your majesty ride forth victoriously in the cause of truth, humility and justice; let your right hand achieve awesome deeds.  Let your sharp arrows pierce the hearts of the king’s enemies; let the nations fall beneath your feet. Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a sceptre of justice will be the sceptre of your kingdom.

                       (Psalm 45:3-6, cited at Heb.1:8-9)

The Lord is my strength and my defence; he has become my salvation.  He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name.

(Ex.15:2-4)

One of the many books penned by A.W. Tozer had the provocative title, ‘This World: Playground or Battleground?’  Our spiritual forebears would have had little hesitation in answering such a question.  They saw clearly that we live in a Battleground.  They spoke of ‘the Church militant here on earth’; they pictured the Christian as dressed in armour and fighting against sin, the world and the devil (see Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress; Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour); they wrote hymns that conjured up the image of warfare and conquest: Onward Christian Soldiers; Fight the Good Fight; A Mighty Fortress is our God; Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus: Soldiers of Christ Arise.  These were the battle anthems of a people who understood themselves to be at war.  But that was a different generation.  We tend to be more hesitant about this aspects of the Bible’s teaching, and of the Church’s traditional self-understanding.  Such hymns are rarely sung in our day.  Perhaps we are embarrassed by such militancy? …or fearful of being opened to misinterpretation? … or more fundamentally, we have lost a way of thinking about our faith that stood our spiritual ancestors in good stead?

Alongside the loss of militancy in our thinking about the Church (and ourselves), is the loss of militancy in our vision of the Person and Work of Jesus.  The imagery of Christ as our Warrior doesn’t sit comfortably with many.  Those passages that speak, sometimes graphically, of His declaring war on His enemies upon His return, will be the subject of a later Jesus-Centred-Life term (see e.g. Rev.19:11-21).

In this study we’ll focus our attention on the conflict won by Christ on the cross.  The death of Jesus at Golgotha can be compared to jewel of infinite beauty and worth.  Different facets come to the fore as we hold it to the light of God’s Word, and each gives us a glimpse in to the depths of God’s being, heart, mind, and work.  Each blends into the others, giving them depth and perspective, lending colour and brilliance.  The facet that captivates our attention in this opening study demands that we lay aside our ‘squeamishness’ and our discomfort at language and categories that might seem ill-suited to a Western liberal democracy.  In days gone by, the worship of the saints was fired by the vision of Christus Victor.  He was our Champion, who David-like, steps out from the helpless ranks of the Church to slay the monstrous giant that threatens tyranny, slavery and death.  Christ’s victory was won by Him for the sake of His people. 

The arena of His victory was Calvary where, in the genius of God, the Victor becomes the Victim and the Victim the Victor.  In a brandish of Divine Wisdom, the moment of defeat is supremely the moment of conquest. 

The victory of Christ in His death and resurrection is the foundation of the victory of the Church in her battle against sin, the world and the devil.  The rage, rejection, malice and persecution of the world are only the impotent death rattle of a vanquished foe (Jn 16:33; I Jn 5:4).  Satan’s temptations are foiled (I Cor.10:13; Lk.22:31), his power over the Church is broken (Lk.11:21; Jn.12:31); His capacity to enslave is shattered (Heb.2:12-14; I Cor.15:47-56); and both he and his accusations are rendered impotent (Rev.12:10; Rom.8:1).  The whole work of Christ can be summarised thus, ‘The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work’ (I Jn.3:8).  Satan’s dominion rested on the reality of sin, and once sin is atoned for, his kingdom has no foundation or legitimacy.  On the basis of the Cross, our Father has ‘rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins’ (Col.1:13-14).  In the death of Christ, Satan is judged (Jn.16:11), he is dispossessed of any legitimate power and authority he once held over us (Mk.3:27), and death is no longer weaponised (Heb.2:12-14; I Cor.15:54-56).

When we consider the Ascension in our Deep Church evening, we’ll see that the work of Christ is also the grounds of the Church’s inevitable victory in her advance through the preaching of the Gospel.  We’ll do well to recover the militancy that remains latent in our Christian faith.

Questions

Could (should?) we worship / do evangelism with Roman Catholics, whose understanding of what Jesus does in His death is very different from Protestant Churches, e.g. the Church of England?  Do we ‘all believe the same thing really’?

Why did Jesus have to die on a cross?  Could he have dealt with sin and its consequences if He had died peacefully in His sleep?

Read Mark 3:23-27

Who do you think the ‘strong man’ is (v.27)?  Why is this imagery used?

In what sense is this ‘strong man’ bound / tied up and what difference do you think it makes to our experience of life and Christian discipleship (v.27)?

Read on to Mark 3:30.  What do you think is the ‘eternal sin’?  How is it different from other sins?  Why can it never be forgiven?   How does Jesus’ teaching about the binding of the strong man connect with His teaching in vv.28-29?

Read Col.2:13-15

Who or what are the ‘powers and authorities’ Paul refers to here (v.15, see also 1:16, 2:10)?

What does Paul mean when he talks about our legal indebtedness (v.14)?  How does it condemn us?  How is it nailed to the cross?  What do you think is the link between this and the disarming of the powers and authorities?

Why is it important that they were made a public spectacle of (v.15)?

If, on the cross, Jesus was ‘disarming’ our enemies in this way, and ‘triumphed over them’ (v.15), why are they still so powerful and invasive?  Doesn’t Christ’s death mean we should no longer experience ‘opposition’?

How does the idea of the Victory of Christ over evil affect how you think and feel about being a Christian?

Memory Passage:

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’  ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.

I Cor.15:54-58

For further reflection:

Why is the world a world of suffering, injustice and death?  There are several levels at which we can engage with such a question.  We could say it is because of ‘people’.  Too often ‘we’ are what makes the world the way it is. We talk about ‘injustice’, when we really mean ‘people who are unjust’.  A deeper level of engagement must confront God’s responsibility.  We know God is able to create a world without (and incapable of), death, mourning, crying or pain.  Isn’t that our New Creation hope (Rev.21:4)?  But such a hope begs the question: Why not here and now?  If God can create such a world, why didn’t He do it in this world?

There is an intriguing idea that we find scattered throughout the Scriptures.  Christ, as a sacrificial Lamb, whose precious blood redeems us, was in fact ‘chosen before the creation of the world’ (I Pet.1:19-20).  Again, Jesus is ‘the Lamb slain from the creation of the world’ (Rev.13:8).  Paul too speaks of the grace that comes through Jesus’ destroying death as being ‘given us … before the beginning of time’ (II Tim.1:9; see also Titus 1:2).  The cross, seemingly, was in the mind of God before creation. Indeed, it may be that the cross is the reason for and the foundation of creation, i.e. creation is the arena for the cross.  Why then is there sin?  So it can be dealt with on the cross.  Why is there injustice?  So Christ could suffer injustice on the cross.  Why is there death?  So Jesus could die to save the Church.  Such thinking seems to lie behind a passage such as Heb.13:20, which speaks of the ‘blood of the eternal covenant’.  The cross gives shape to creation, to its life… and to its death.  This was the mind of God before the world began.