Mr. Chambers on Dust and Deity

The following is from Mr. Chamber's book Shade of His Hand:

(Note: My emphasis is in bold)

"God made human beings a mixture of dust and deity (Genesis 2:7). The dust of a man's body is his glory, not his shame. Jesus Christ manifested Himself in that dust, and He claims that He can presence anyone with His own divinity. The New Testament teaches how to keep the body under and make it a servant.
"Drudgery is the outcome of sin, but it has no right to be the rule of life. It becomes the rule of life because we ignore the fact that the dust of the earth belongs to God, and that man's chief end is to glorify God. Unless we can maintain the presence of divinity in our dust, life becomes a miserable drudgery. If one lives to hoard up the means of living, he does not live at all; he has no time to, he is taken up with one form of drudgery or another to keep things going."

To "maintain the presence of divinity in our dust" is the outcome of a strong and growing relationship with God in Christ. When life becomes all about survival and not about a romance of becoming one with God, it becomes the mediocre drudgery that survival is.

The Word is Alive

"The word of God is alive..." Hebrews 4:12

1. By Inspiration: "The word is given by inspiration of God..." (II Timothy 3:16) In the beginning of creation, man was but the dust of the ground. It was not until God breathed into man His divine breath that man become a "living soul" (Genesis 2:7). So too, this sacred book that we hold in our hands is only so much useless ink and paper if it were not that God has breathed His divine breath upon it, mingling His presence with the ink and paper, and the book became and is a living word. That the word is alive, i.e., inspired by God, means it carries the life and light of God in it.
   
2. By Incarnation: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." (John 1:14) In the beginning before creation, before there even was a beginning, there was the Word, the living being of God's second person. When sin corrupted all flesh and poisoned the innermost dispositions of creation, another mingling occurred. Where sin separated the divinely breathed life of God from man, the Word mingled with our dust, danced with the dirt, and in doing so sanctified it, and made it holy. That the Word is alive, i.e., in the flesh, means that God's presence has revealed Himself to His creation.
3. By Resurrection: "[The Word] rose again the third day..." (I Corinthians 15:4) In the beginning of the third day, the life and light of men (John 1:4) loosed the pains of death (Acts 2:24), and through death destroyed the Devil (Hebrews 2:14, 15) and his works (I John 3:8). That the Word is alive, i.e., risen from the dead, means that the life of God can return to the innermost of His creation (Galatians 2:20).

"The Word is Alive,
And it cuts like a sword through the darkness
With a message of Life to the hopeless and afraid
Breathing Life into all who believe.
The Word is Alive,
And the world and its gloried will fade
But this truth, it will not pass away. It remains.
Yesterday and forever the same.
The Word is Alive."
-Casting Crowns, "The Word is Alive" (from The Altar and the Door)

Mr. Chambers on the Loss of Pious Pretense

The following is from Mr. Chamber's book Biblical Ethics:

"When we hear Jesus say, "Blessed are the pure in heart," our answer, if we are awake, is, "My God, how am I going to be pure in heart? If ever I am to be blameless down to the deepest recesses of my intentions, You must do something mighty in me." That is exactly what Jesus Christ came to do. He did not come to tell us to be holy, but to make us holy, undeserving of censure in the sight of God. If any man or woman gets there it is by the sheer supernatural grace of God. You can't indulge in pious pretense when you come to the atmosphere of the Bible. If there is one thing the Spirit of God does it is to purge us from all sanctimonious show; there is no room for it."

A Word of Warning

A common mantra that floats around the inner circles of most liberally educated Christians is "All truth is God's truth." Such a dogma is true (pun intended). From modern Catholics such as G.K. Chesterton saying that Christianity is to embrace every facet of truth, to old Protestants like John Calvin declaring that all truth is from God regardless of whose mouth it came forth from, Christians who look at the world and all its facets seriously have long held that everything that is true is from God. It is indeed a wise approach to life, a wonderful way to broaden your knowledge, imagination, and soul in general.
However, a word of warning must be said. "All truth is God's truth" is not a license to believe whatever we want. This is a trap too many "liberated" Christians fall into, too many use this mantra as an excuse to believe in anything that is wise, noble, logical, pithy, clever, but not true. Often you find "liberated" Christians desperately scrambling for anything that supports their opinions, and "All truth is God's truth" becomes a floodgate for using anything to bolster one's congenial preferences.
The reasons behind this error are surely complex, but fundamentally they can be broken down into the following formula:

1. A certain unChrist-like so-and-so does a very unChrist-like such-and-such to Christian A.
   
2. Christian A, though strong enough to not abandon his/her faith over this incident, is not strong enough to see the unChrist-like so-and-so as separate from the unChrist-like so-and-so's denomination, tradition, bible and music preference, political stance, theological stance, philosophical stance, etc, etc.
3. Thoroughly "burned out," Christian A henceforth proceeds to scrap together every bit of "truth" that goes against unChrist-like so-and-so's denomination, tradition, etc., etc., using "All truth is God's truth" as a smokescreen to allow all manner of thought and belief to slip in the back door, with the only real requirement being that it must bolster one's opinions against unChrist-like so-and-so.

This formula occurs often, is devastating each time, and none are immune to it. We all are susceptible to the same travesty, to treating "All truth is God's truth" as a license to believe anything and everything so long as it is "truth" in that it goes against that which we despise. That what we despise could have some truth of its own buried under all its error is never consider, and thus we ironically betray our own mantra: "All truth is what bolsters my opinion and sooths my hurt feelings."
Get it straight so you won't fall into this trap. "All truth is God's truth" simply means that everything that is true is of God. That is not license, that is limitation, and truth is the limit. These days, we are not bound to the truth like we ought to be. Everybody's too busy trying to be right.

Mr. Chambers on the Primary Objection to the Gospel

The following is from Mr. Chamber's books The Servant as His Lord and The Philosophy of Sin:

"When the Spirit of God come in, we begin to realize what it means--everything that is not of God has to be turned clean out...We soon find why the gospel can never be welcome. As long as we speak winsomely about meek and gentle Jesus, and the beautiful ideas the Holy Spirit produces when He comes in, people are captivated, but that is not the gospel. The gospel does away with any other ground to stand on than that of the atonement. Speak about the peace of heaven and the joy of the Lord, and people will listen to you; but tell them that the Holy Spirit has to come in and turn out their claim to their rights to themselves, and instantly there is resentment...The majority of people are not scoundrels and criminals, living in external sin; they are clean-living and respectable, and it is to such that the scourge of God is the most terrible thing because it reveals that the natural virtues may be in idolatrous opposition to God."

"The first thing in salvation is the element of destruction, and it is this that people object to. With this thought in mind, recall what our Lord said about His own mission: "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword." Our Lord reveals Himself as the destroyer of all peace and happiness, and of ignorance, wherever these are the cloak for sin. It sounds a startling and amazing thing to say that Jesus did not come to bring peace, but He said He did not. The one thing Jesus Christ is after is the destruction of everything that would hinder the emancipation of men and women. The fact that people are happy and peaceful and prosperous is no sign that they are protected from the sword of God. If their happiness and peace and well-being and complacency rest on an undelivered life, they will meet the sword before long, and all their peace and rest and joy will be destroyed."

Mr. Chambers on the "The Primacy of Being"

These entries can be found in Mr. Chamber's book My Utmost for His Highest. My Jesa Juva entry, "The Primacy of Being," can be found here.

(Note: My emphasis is in bold.)

From the October 19th entry entitled "The Unheeded Secret":

The great enemy to the Lord Jesus Christ in the present day is the conception of practical work that has not come from the New Testament, but from the systems of the world in which endless energy and activities are insisted upon, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observations, for lo the kingdom of God is within you," a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives in the shop windows. It is the innermost of the innermost that reveals the power of the life.
We have to get rid of the plague of the spirit of the religious age in which we live. In our Lord's life there was none of the press and rush of tremendous activity that we regard so highly, and the disciple is to be as His Master. The central thing about the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship to Himself, not public usefulness to men.
It is not its practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College, its whole strength lies in the fact that here you are put into soak before God. You have no idea of where God is going to engineer your circumstances, no knowledge of what strain is going to be put on you wither at home or abroad, and if you waste your time in overactive energies instead of getting into soak on the great fundamental truths of God's Redemption, you will snap when the strain comes; but if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in God on the unpractical line, you will remain true to Him whatever happens.

From the December 18th entry entitled "The Test of Loyalty":

Loyalty to Jesus Christ is the thing we "stick at" today. We will be loyal to work, service, to anything, but do not ask us to be loyal to Jesus Christ. Many Christians are intensely impatient of talking about loyalty to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more emphatically by Christian workers than by the world. God is made a machine for blessing men, and Jesus Christ is made a Worker among workers. The idea is not that we do work for God, but that we are so loyal to Him that He can do His work through us.

Finally, from the October 9th entry entitled "Pull Yourself Together":

I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot atone for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot make right what is wrong, pure what is impure, holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. have I faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made a perfect Atonement, am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The great need is not to do things, but to believe things.

A Thought on "Unnecessary Divorces" to Master Jenkins

In regards to "Memoryless Christianity"

The book review mentioned can be found here.

What irked me was the reviewer (and author) making the issue an "attractional versus missional" thing. Why is it "versus"? Why is it not BOTH? Why does the church not PULL IN as well as GO OUT? If the institutional church merely "pulled in," is not merely "going out" just restating the same problem with different words? Why is there this unnecessary divorce? Why is it an oppositional relationship and not a complimentary one? Why do we, as Christians, in regards to many things (worship, missions, church structure and service etc.) keep making there unnecessary divorces? Why is that when we slowly slip into letting one thing dominate one area of Christendom that we suddenly (and with much panic) run completely the other way and commit the same fallacy on the other end of the spectrum?

It's like this: we're standing on a bar held up by a thin pole. When we stray to far to one side and are in danger of completely flipping over, we think we solve the problem by running completely to the other side. It's like no one in the Church understands BALANCE anymore. These unnecessary divorces are the cause of much confusion, division and chaos in the Church today.

Church vs. Chapel

This blog is based off what was said at the Crichton Chapel on 8-22-07:

I would say that our speaker was amazing today. His brilliantly sarcastic approach delivered with thunderous yet easy impact the truth about the difference between Christianity and religion, a favorite subject of mine. His point (paraphrased): Christ came to give us life, not religion. Don't be religious. As he put it, "Religion will make you so stuffy that your own mother won't want to be around you." Oh, and did I mention that he called Paul a "religious smartass" before meeting Christ on the road? That was hilarious in its wonderful mixture of honesty and truthfulness.

I would say all of that...but I cannot, because (according to A.T.) the point of chapel is not the message.

Before we were delighted to our guest speaker's wondrous discourse, A.T. had a statement to make. Apparently (God knows who), some people are under the horrid delusion that chapel is supposed to be like church. Well guess what: it's not. That was A.T.'s point: chapel is not church. And exactly what makes chapel "not-church"? These were A.T.'s qualifications:

1. There is a time of music and worship, but that is not the point of chapel.
2. There is a message, but that is not the point of chapel.
3. Chapel is to glorify Christ.
4. Chapel is to reconcile people to each other through glorifying Christ in what is said and done during chapel.

Points one and two are bizarre by themselves: if the music and message are pointless, if our time of worship and edification (of giving back to and receiving from God) are fundamentally irrelevant to chapel, then what is their purpose? Are they subterfuge? Are they cliche? Are they just there? Since the context of these qualifications is in regards to how chapel differs from church, we can assume that giving to and receiving from God are meaningful in church, but in chapel they are...what? There is no answer given.

Point three is mind-boggling. Remember: the context of these qualifications is in regards to how chapel differs from church. If the point of chapel is to "glorify Christ," we are left to assume by inference that the point of church is not to glorify Christ. This makes absolutely no sense.

Point four is a complete contradiction of the whole set of qualifications. How exactly can we glorify Christ through what is "said and done" in chapel if what is "said and done" in chapel (i.e., the music and/or the message) is irrelevant? There lies the contradiction: points one and two have already established that what is said and done in chapel is irrelevant to the purpose of chapel, and yet point four says that the purpose of chapel is to reconcile ourselves to each other by glorifying Christ through what is said and done. That completely negates what was previously said.

The larger issue here, of course, is a question that has plagued this school for years now: what is chapel? According to what A.T.'s statement, it is and is not about what is said and done, and (as opposed to church) is about glorifying Christ. Um...what?

I am surprised that such a school as Crichton, which hails that it challenges its students to "Think Critically, Grow Spiritually, Change the World" is not thinking critically about this. If we were in a class room setting with one of our illustrious professors, and the question was presented "What is chapel," there would be a required reading of the history of the word and idea of chapel as well as the history of the usage of chapel throughout church history: how did chapel originate? How did the Church use it? What did the Church Fathers or authorities say its use was? How did they differentiate it from a regular church service? Did they differentiate it from a regular church service? What biblical backing is there for such conclusions? What has church history and authority said about chapel? If we came back to said professor with a response like A.T.'s, we would flunk, and flunk hard.

As a disclaimer, I should say that it is possible that A.T. was told to say something at the last minute, and that he tried to articulate what is very hard to say, i.e., what is chapel. What this incident demonstrates, however, is that the answer to that question is not as easy as some would assume. Any attempt to make a simple, cliche answer results in a quick slide into the ridiculous.

"It was a beautiful letdown..."

One paradox of the Christian walk is that there is comfort in the unknown. As long as we know what to do, we are standing firmly on ourselves: our wits and understanding, our ability to organize and control, our powers to manipulate and plan. This is, of course, a fragile house of cards that is sure to tumble at the slightest divine wind; indeed, divine reality checks come often to the self-confident.

Of course, one problem is that, in the moment, we do not know that we are being self-confident. At certain times, when we stop to take a breather, we say things like, "Let me pray about this," or "I'm just going to trust God," or "Lord, Thy will be done," and we think we are being fully dependent upon God. Those moments, however, are pure abstractions; when we go back into the practical and the nitty-gritty of circumstances, we immediately, completely naturally, assume the position as master and commander of our own little universe. God steps in and shakes the house of cards, letting us know that our feet are firmly planted on nothing.

"It was a beautiful letdown, when I crashed and burned," sings Switchfoot, and they are right. That is the paradox. For anyone else, having your tightly orchestrated and thought out plans and devices blow up in your face is a devastating and despairing scenario. Who else is there to turn to but themselves? For the Christian, however, it is not so. It is only when we "crash and burn" that we get a healthy grasp on desperation; and when we have that grasp, trusting God is no mere abstraction anymore: it has become an actuality, because our reality is that we are lost down here, and we need someone to save us.

There is surprising freedom in reaching the point where you can honestly say, "I don't know what to do." I am always reminded of the movie Volcano for some reason. Through 95% of the movie, Tommy Lee Jones' character has all the answers to the disasters surrounding him. It is not until the climax of the film that he puts his head down and confesses, "Well, I don't know what to do." At that moment, the answer came, and it was an unexpected answer. It is a truth we too often miss: God cannot help us if we can help ourselves. As long as we "know" what to do, we will never know what to do; that is the paradox. Our answers come only when all we have are questions. Until we can arrive at the most humiliating position of all, the quiet desperation that is "I don't know," we will never have an answer. Until we know--truly, practically know--that we need help, we will never receive it. God does not help those who help themselves; He helps those who know they need help, those who cry, "Oh God, I find no hope in me!"

God's divine reality checks will make sure that our foolish pride forever lets us down, but what a beautiful letdown it is. Everything suddenly becomes clear, the peace and the answers come suddenly, as though from outside ourselves, and the beauty comes from knowing, "God has meet me here."

The Condescension of God

This blog is based off what was said at the Crichton Chapel on 8-15-07:

I must admit: A.T. is becoming a good speaker; he improves every time he steps before us. Although sometimes it felt like he was struggling for words a bit, I understood and appreciated his point: the condescension of Christ.

Here's the gist of it: Christ, being God, was not lower than man and therefore our servant. He was greater than man, and therefore He chose to become a servant (Philippians 2:5-7). He was the higher willingly becoming the lower. As C.S. Lewis put it in Miracles, God went down to the depths so He could bring all that was there up with Him: He descended so that we could ascend with Him. Christ is the condescension of God.

The word "condescend" carries with it many negative connotations in our anti-establishment generation today, which is a shame. To "condescend" means for the higher to willingly reach down to the lower. We focus too much on the "higher/lower" part and less on the "reach down" part, which is far more important. For a king to reach down into the world of the peasant is not an act of arrogance, but of love, or at least of great magnanimity. With God it is the same. God demonstrated His love for us, in that while we were vile sinners, He reached down into our lower state, became a man, and died for us (Romans 5:8). As Christians, because Christ did this for us, and now that Christ lives in us, we too have the power to "condescend," to reach down into the lowest depths and bring others up with us, to descend into trials and tribulations and ascend purer than gold.

The condescension of God is the gospel. The condescension of God also has meaning for people into living after salvation That is what was preached in chapel today, and if that is what our first chapel was, then I am excited about what will happen later on in the semester.