How to be born (again)

        None of us had any choice about when and where we were born, or we might have chosen somewhere else. Who would choose to be born into war torn Germany or into Pol Pot’s era in Cambodia, or even into some of the slums of present-day Calcutta?

        But Jesus gives us an alternative worth investigating. Back in Jesus’ day, a member of Parliament named Nicodemus, came to him after dark one evening, just to talk. Nico hoped Jesus could explain some things that were bothering him—instead, Jesus opened a new and puzzling question—he said, “You must be born again!” Instead of mocking the suggestion or trivializing it as modern journalists and commentators seem to do, Nico realized there was something real behind it.

       Naturally he asked how such a thing could be—obviously it couldn’t happen in a physical sense, so what did Jesus mean? The key is this: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but Spirit gives birth to spirit.”

        In the midst of this scripture, Jesus talks about himself being “lifted up”, first on the cross, then exalted to the glory of Heaven in resurrection. This is where our own choice now comes in—“everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” By our own conscious, deliberate commitment to Jesus, we essentially choose our moment of “second birth”—and no one yet has ever wished it was anywhere else, except probably, sooner!

        I have only ever witnessed one birth, and that was my son’s. But I witnessed a second birth too, and that was my daughter’s. And I’ve experienced it myself. How about you? Why not, within your own mind and soul, thank God for his Son and thank Jesus for taking all the punishment you deserve? That second birth will never happen in you unless you respond actively to Jesus. Ì

Book Review: The Pursuit of Holiness

            My edition of this book is dated 1983, and that’s about when I first read it. But recent events in my own life, in my own church’s life, and in the wider experience of the Church in the world, have brought my attention back to the need to “live godly in Christ Jesus”—to live for Christ and resist all the pressures from a corrupt and sinful world. In other words, to “Be holy, for He is holy.”

        Jerry Bridges has assembled a huge stock of commentary on holiness, both from Scripture and from Christian thinkers. In fact, the supply is almost overwhelming. In seventeen brief chapters, Bridges has covered subjects like, “Holiness is for You,” “The Holiness of God,” “Holiness is Not an Option,” “The Holiness of Christ,” “The Place of Personal Discipline,” “Holiness in Body,” “Holiness in Spirit,” and “The Joy of Holiness.”

The Pursuit of Holiness

Jerry Bridges

NavPress, Colorado Springs,

1978,

158 pp

        My own personal concern is that young people become Christians but then make few distinctions between Christianity and the “clueless” lifestyle of the world. The verse that Bridges used for his title may come to us as a bit of a shocker: “Pursue holiness, for without holiness no one will see the Lord.” Heb.12:14. There’s motivation!

        We learn that “the pursuit of holiness is a joint venture between God and the Christian”—we have the responsibility to walk in holiness. In Chapter One, Bridges wonders, “Why do we not experience holiness more in our daily living?” He then proceeds to answer his own question: 1. Our attitude toward sin is more self-centered than God-centered; 2. We have misunderstood “living by faith”; and 3. We do not take some sin seriously. “Are we willing to call sin “sin” not because it is big or little, but because God’s law forbids it?”

        In Chapter Three, Bridges gets into reasons why holiness is required: 1. for fellowship with God; 2. for our own well-being; 3. for effective service to God; and 4. for our assurance of salvation.

        There are still fourteen more chapters, some of them with some beautiful writing. Let’s skip ahead to Chapter 16, Holiness in an Unholy World. Bridges suggests, “One helpful reinforcement to living according to our convictions is to identify ourselves with Christ openly”—a student might leave a Bible out for anyone to see. Old preachers used to call this, “nailing your colours to the mast,” meaning that once your flag was nailed in place, nobody could bring it down.

        Finally, Chapter 17, The Joy of Holiness: “God intends the Christian life to be a life of joy…A life of disobedience cannot be a life of joy…to experience this joy, we must make some choices.”

        There really is joy to be had for the Christian in the schoolroom, in the shop, in the home, in the office,  or in the factory. The pursuit of holiness leads us well along that path.

        In my teenage years, I was an idealist—there was black and there was white, but there was very little gray. Jerry Bridges has once again encouraged me to see that where God is concerned (and of course that is everywhere) true holiness allows for no gray.

How to die!

        We certainly don’t mean taking your own life so let’s get that thought out of the way! We mean how to be ready. According to Jesus, the critical and deciding factor is, “You must be born again!”

        Obviously not one of us can talk from personal experience of death. So far in my life, I’ve only ever seen one person die and that was my father-in-law, William Spencer. He was living with his daughter and was put in a bed on the main floor so he could be with the family. As everyone sat around and chatted he was breathing softly, then suddenly he wasn’t breathing at all. It was the quietest, gentlest passage to meet his Lord.

        So, on the “earthward” side, be ready to give up everyone you know—spouse, children, grandchildren and friends; your familiar home and land; all your hobbies or collections (books, gardens, flowers, music, cars); and all your bank accounts and investments.

        On the “heavenward” side, expect to see Jesus first, then maybe you will see some of those glories we read about in the Revelation—the lord “who holds the seven stars in his right hand”, “your victor’s crown”, the One “whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze”, “the book of life”, “the temple of my God”, “a throne in heaven”, “a sea of glass, clear as crystal”. There is every reason to expect to see people like Abraham, Sarah, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah and especially all our loved ones who have gone before in Christ.

        Getting back to Scripture, Stephen, as he was dying, said, “Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:56) As the Apostle Paul neared the end of his race, he said, “the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day…” (2Tim.4:7, 8) The apostle John, as he neared the end, said, “When Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves.” (1 John 3: 2,3) And in his last letter, Peter said, “I know that I will soon put [the tent of this body] aside…Make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.” (2 Peter1:14; 3:14)

        Finally, our Lord Himself cautioned that “the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.” (Mark 4:19)

        Some of us older Christians seem to forget or block out our mortality. We start to live as if we have fifty more years of good health and good income. Maybe it’s time we took charge of our lives, the way these outstanding New Testament believers have done.       

            Ì

Cowper's Grave

         William Cowper (1731-1800) is the writer of such hymns as God moves in a mysterious way, My Saviour Whom absent I love, There is a fountain, and at least three others in the Believer's Hymn Book. In 1719, Cowper collaborated with John Newton (author of Amazing Grace) in publication of a hymnbook, Olney Hymns. Sadly, Cowper suffered severe depression throughout much of his adult life and attempted suicide on numerous occasions. This is the unhappy background to much of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem, Cowper's Grave. Here are seven verses out of the total of fourteen. Especially note Browning's grasp of the faithfulness and all-sufficiency of Christ and of His substitutionary death.

1. It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's decaying,—
It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying:
Yet let the grief and humbleness as low as silence languish!
Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her anguish.

3. And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story.
How discord on the music fell, and darkness on the glory,
And how, when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering lights departed.
He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted.

10. ...Thus woke the poet from the dream his life's long fever gave him,
Beneath those deep pathetic Eyes which closed in death to save him!

11. Thus? O, not thus! No type of earth could image that awaking,
Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs round him breaking,
Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted,
But felt those eyes alone, and knew, "My Saviour! not deserted!"

12.  Deserted! Who hath dreamt that when the cross in darkness rested,
Upon the Victim's hidden face no love was manifested?
What frantic hands outstretched have e'er the atoning drops averted?
What tears have washed them from the soul, that one should be deserted?

13. Deserted! God could separate from His own essence rather;
And Adam's sins have swept between the righteous Son and Father.
Yea, once, Immanuel's orphaned cry his universe hath shaken, —
It went up single, echoless, "My God, I am forsaken!"

14. It went up from the Holy's lips amid his lost creation,
That, of the lost, no son should use those words of desolation!
That earth's worst frenzies, marring hope, should mar not hope's fruition.
And I, on Cowper's grave, should see his rapture in a vision!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1838

God was pleased to reveal his Son...

        ...in ME! In his letter to the Galatians, the apostle Paul makes a number of astounding comments about how the world may learn of Jesus. This is from chapter 1, verse 16, and it tells us that somehow, by looking at Paul, we can see Jesus. Once we see Jesus in him, he can start to tell us more. In 2:20, Paul tells us that, “Christ lives in me.” The thought is that Paul can’t just do what he likes because now Christ animates his body, much as the dead bones of Ezekiel 37 were re-animated by the breath of God.

        In Chapter three, verse 27, Paul brings his whole argument home—“all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” The previous picture was our body with Christ living in us. Now the image is our body clothed with Christ. When someone looks at us, the vast majority of what they see should be Christ. Romans 13:14 is in the same vein: “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.”

        But our “self” is not completely gone when we are clothed with Christ; our face and our hands, at least, still show. God doesn’t take away or overwhelm our individual personalities. David was once a shepherd, whose shepherd-heart, as in Psalm 23, stills shines through. Luke was a physician who cares for the health of the lame beggar at the temple gate (Acts 3:2).

        Finally, in 4:14, we see the effect of the indwelling Christ—the Galatians welcomed Paul “as if [he] were Christ Jesus himself.” If they could have done so, they would have torn out their eyes and given them to him! (4:15) What a challenge to us! Would anybody ever dream of giving us an eye because we need it and are so much like Christ?  

The Upper Room (John 13-17)

 

Man overboard!

        In the May, 2011, issue of this Newsletter, we reviewed Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, Cowper’s Grave. Browning shows the completeness of the sacrifice made at Calvary, and how William Cowper had no need ever to feel forsaken.

        I was reading the story of Jonah and how he brought grief on his sailor friends. Their only hope was to deliberately throw Jonah overboard. The Bible gives us no details of his moments just after hitting the water, but I think Cowper’s poem is appropriate and graphic. Here are a few verses:

 

               THE CASTAWAY

               (four stanzas out of eleven)

               Obscurest night involved the sky,

                   The Atlantic billows roared,
               With such a destined wretch as I,
                   Washed headlong from on board,
               Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
               His floating home for ever left.

               Not long beneath the whelming brine,

                   Expert to swim, he lay;
               Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
                   Or courage die away;
               But waged with death a lasting strife,
               Supported by despair of life.
               - - - -

               Nor, cruel as it seemed, could he

                   Their haste himself condemn,
               Aware that flight, in such a sea,
                   Alone could rescue them;
               Yet bitter felt it still to die
               Deserted, and his friends so nigh.
               ----

               No voice divine the storm allayed,

                   No light propitious shone,
               When, snatched from all effectual aid,
                   We perished, each alone:
               But I beneath a rougher sea,
               And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.
                                                             William Cowper

         The castaway was washed overboard by accident; his friends threw out boards and casks but couldn’t come about to rescue him. He swam strongly for a while but grew weaker and weaker till he gulped the water and sank.

     Cowper then takes the image from the physical to the spiritual— his castaway friend sank and drowned—he, on the other hand, feared a deeper, eternal, spiritual loss.

        From the hymns and poems that Cowper wrote, we know that he was a true believer, but he had little or no assurance of his salvation. Returning to Browning’s poem about Cowper, she shows how he had every reason to bless the Lord after death, when he...

                Felt the new immortal throb of soul     

                       from body parted,
               But felt those eyes alone, and knew,  
                      “My Saviour! not deserted!”                                                           Ì