Slow to chide, and swift to bless.

With such a memorable tribute to our heavenly Father, pastor and poet Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847) ends the second stanza of his hymn “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven.” Lyte was born to a derelict father, who sent him off to boarding school, nearly abandoned him, and signed infrequent letters “Uncle” instead of “Father.” In time, young Henry was taken in at holidays by the school’s headmaster as a kind of adopted son.

So Lyte knew personally the pains of a negligent father. Yet he came to find healing in a heavenly Father. “I have called Thee Abba Father,” he writes in the climactic verse of “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken.” And then again in “Praise, My Soul,”

Fatherlike he tends and spares us;well our feeble frame he knows.In his hand he gently bears us,rescues us from all our foes.

The functionally orphaned poet came to know deeply the fatherhood of God for having had such an awful earthly one — and in seeing what he saw, he teaches us a vital aspect of all healthy fatherhood.

One Thousand Versus Four

“Slow to chide, and swift to bless” is a fitting tribute to our heavenly Father who revealed himself to Moses, and across time, culminating in Christ, as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin . . .” (Exodus 34:6–7). In showing us his glory, he leads with grace and mercy.

“In showing us his glory, our heavenly Father leads with grace and mercy.”

Notice, in his swiftness to bless his people, our heavenly Father is not absent of chiding, but slow to it: “. . . who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:7). Our God is merciful and gracious, and no pushover. He does indeed chide. When he does, however, observe the ratio with his blessing: he chides “to the third and the fourth generation” but blesses with “steadfast love for thousands.” And even then, because we’re sinners, his chiding is not at odds with his blessing, but a vital aspect of it.

Psalm 103 echoes the great revelation to Moses and adds a connection to fatherhood:

The Lord is merciful and gracious,     slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.He will not always chide,     nor will he keep his anger forever. . . .As a father shows compassion to his children,     so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. (Psalm 103:8–10, 13)

Though he will chide, and though we feel the sting, his final word to his children is always blessing and favor and joy:

His anger is but for a moment,     and his favor is for a lifetime.Weeping may tarry for the night,     but joy comes with the morning. (Psalm 30:5)

Our Father and We Fathers

What might this remarkable peek into the heart of our heavenly Father — slow to chide, swift to bless — mean for how we raise, discipline, and delight in our own children?

Such a vision of our Father’s glory not only runs across Scripture from beginning to end but also informs human fatherhood. As earthly fathers, we take our cues from the heavenly Father (Ephesians 3:14). In Christ, we too, though typically formed and conditioned in opposite ways, want to become increasingly “slow to chide, and swift to bless.” This kind of posture fits with, and is filled out, by Paul’s remarkable one-verse vision of parenting, and fatherhood in particular, in Ephesians 6:4:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Clearly what the apostle says here is relevant for mothers too, and yet he addresses fathers specifically — not simply as head of the household, but also as the one with the particular responsibility for educating the children in preparation for sending them out into the world.

Given Authority to Bless

The most disciplinarian dads among us will do well to observe that Paul doesn’t summarize the task as, “Make sure to establish and exercise authority over your children.” Rather, he assumes fatherly authority. Given the authority (and power) that we already have, as dads, by ordinance of God, he cautions us to exercise it with care, being mindful not to harm our children with our greater abilities, but instead to help them.

“Do not provoke your children to anger.” For our part, we are not to give our children any just reason to be angry or discouraged. We should not sin against them, but treat them with full Christian virtue — with as much kindness and respect as we treat fellow adults in our lives, whether at work, or at church, or in the neighborhood. That God has given children to us, and instructed them to obey us, is patently no excuse for sinning against them. Rather, it is all the more reason to make every effort, with God’s help, to treat our children with the utmost Christian kindness, and respect, and love.

“Our children should be the ones we treat best of all people, not worst.”

Given their vulnerability as children, and our calling as their parents, they should be the ones we treat best of all people, not worst. Our adult sins have far greater repercussions than the missteps of our children.

Gentle, Patient Teachers

So, Paul assumes fatherly authority, and then exhorts us to wield it for the benefit, not detriment, of our children. The question is not whether fathers will provoke or drive their children; we will. With our presence or absence, with our holiness or sin, we inevitably will turn and shape our children in some direction. The question is whether we will drive them to anger or provoke them to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24).

What, then, might we avoid and pray against in ourselves? Commentator Andrew Lincoln writes that the negative charge in Ephesians 6:4 involves “avoiding attitudes, words, and actions which would drive a child to angry exasperation or resentment and thus rules out excessively severe discipline, unreasonably harsh demands, abuse of authority, arbitrariness, unfairness, constant nagging and condemnation, subjecting a child to humiliation, and all forms of gross insensitivity to a child’s needs and sensibilities” (Ephesians, 406). With a few moments pondering, we all might make similar lists. And, remembering Lyte, we might also rule out neglect, which is a great temptation in times of multiplied distractions and screens.

In other words, fathers are to have their children in submission with all dignity, as Paul requires of elders in 1 Timothy 3:4. We all know there are dishonorable, undignified ways to have children in submission, as well as honorable ones. “In contrast to the norms of the day,” writes P.T. O’Brien,

Paul wants Christian fathers to be gentle, patient educators of their children, whose chief ‘weapon’ is Christian instruction focused on loyalty to Christ as Lord. Christian fathers were to be different from those of their surrounding society. (447)

Countercultural parenting in the first century may have meant, especially, swiftness to bless. Today it might also require the countercultural intentionality and deliberateness that is a readiness to genuinely chide, even as we’re slow to it, and never less than loving in it.

Speed Limits of Fatherhood

In cultivating such holy slowness to chide, we parents, and fathers especially, remember not only that we are bigger than our kids physically, but also that we should be bigger people than our children — that is, in the inner man. As adults, and fathers, we’re called to be the mature ones, the magnanimous ones, the patient ones. Our physical size and strength distinguish us from our children. So should our emotional maturity.

This might lead us to keep in mind, for example, that voice volume is not a clear differentiator between adults and children. Raising our voice is no special parental ability. However, patience should be. And wisdom. Practicing Christian patience as a parent does not mean failing to discipline our children, but it does help us to be slower to chide than we might be naturally, and to exercise wisdom, in partnership with our wife, in applying the rod.

As fathers who take our cues from the heavenly Father, we are encouraged, in the words of Henry Francis Lyte, to be swift to bless: quick to commend our children when they obey cheerfully, quick to give them our attention, quick to express praise and love and delight, quick to teach them ahead of time, knowing that the lion’s share of fatherly discipline is pro-active instruction and anticipating their needs and weaknesses. And then we must correct and reprove. Indeed we will chide. And our children will be all the better for it when we, like our heavenly Father, have been swift to bless.

I take it that this session — in a breakout track called “Ministry in the World” — is meant to press us back into the world. Steven was assigned to address chaos and confusion, and Erik the sexual revolution. Both of these begin with our being “in the world” and help us think about how to live and minister in ways “not of the world.”

But now, in this session, the force goes the other way. In Christ, and as pastors, we are “not of the world,” and yet, as Jesus says in John 17, we are sent back in, by his commission, to win many for him from the world:

The world has hated them [Jesus prays about his disciples] because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one [keep them from the snare of the devil!]. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. (John 17:14–18)

You hear the direction in Jesus’s prayer. Instead of saying, they are in the world, help them not be of the world, Jesus says they are not of the world, and now I send them in. Jesus doesn’t just play defense; he goes on the offensive. Which, in its own way, is the thrust the final qualification for pastor-elders has in 1 Timothy 3, “well thought of by outsiders.” As Bob Yarbrough comments on 1 Timothy 3:7,

[Paul] assumes that there will be a live connection between those inside and those outside the church. In settings where church communities or their members have grown isolated from “outsiders,” this verse is a reminder that social separation . . . can be overdone and detrimental. (203)

As we take up this focus on 1 Timothy 3:7, it might be good to acknowledge that, for some, this may be the most unexpected or surprising qualification.

Hopefully we’re not surprised to hear that pastor-elders must be able to teach. Not a drunkard? Of course. Not violent? Yes, please. Not quarrelsome? Hmm, okay, that sounds freshly relevant in recent years. But well thought of by outsiders? Hold on. Does this mean that outsiders have a say in who leads the local church?

How many of us would have seen this coming if we didn’t know already that it was here? Some of us might have even assumed the opposite, that the collective disdain of unbelievers would be a great badge of honor, and show what a great weapon a man must be for Christ’s kingdom.

Holy Disregard for Disgrace

Now, clearly, we have a place in the Christian life for a holy disregard for what unbelievers think. Romans 1:18 tells us that unrighteous men “suppress the truth” of God as Creator and sustainer — how much more, then, will they deny and oppose God’s speaking (in the Scriptures) and Christ’s redeeming (in the gospel)? We know this. We should not be shocked when the world acts and responds like the world.

In fact, it is the words of Christ himself that best prepare us not to be “well thought of” (at times) by outsiders:

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” (Matthew 5:11)

“If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household?” (Matthew 10:25)

“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you.” (Luke 6:26)

Let’s make sure we have this clear: the world crucified the one we confess as Lord. Outsiders martyred the apostles, one after another. Surely, then, we might resign ourselves to put very little stock in what outsiders think, especially in what they think of pastor-elders who together teach the word of Christ as central to their calling and lead the local church.

Yet here, in 1 Timothy 3:7, as the culminating qualification for the church’s lead office, we hear that pastor-elders must be well thought of by outsiders.

Of the apostolic voices, Paul has the most to say about outsiders. Let’s try to capture how he would have us orient on outsiders, in four parts, and the fourth will bring us back to 1 Timothy 3:7.

1. Associate with Outsiders

Paul’s first mention of outsiders, in 1 Corinthians 5:9, clarifies that his previous instructions “not to associate with sexually immoral people” did not mean the immoral of the world but the immoral in the church (1 Corinthians 5:10). He was not instructing the Corinthians to separate from outsiders but from the one “who bears the name of brother” yet remains in unrepentant sin (1 Corinthians 5:11). He says in 1 Corinthians 5:12–13,

What have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

To be true to the church, and to the world, we judge within the church on clear sin issues (all the while, per Romans 14 [verses 3, 4, 10, 13], not judging each other on items of mere preference). But as Paul lays that burden on us, to judge “those inside the church,” he lifts another: “God judges those outside.” In Christ, we are liberated from the need to pronounce judgement on “the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters” (1 Corinthians 5:10). Rather, we happily (and carefully) associate with outsiders, seeking to be a means of their redemption by exposing them to the gospel of Christ and demonstrating its counterintuitive fruit in our lives.

And as pastors, and fathers, we kindly and clearly warn our families not to be like those outsiders. And we make sure that the decided influence, in our associations, flows from us to outsiders, not vice versa.

So, first, associate with outsiders.

2. Be Aware of Outsiders

Paul reckons with outsiders again in 1 Corinthians 14. This time the context is corporate worship, and far from ignoring outsiders or planning the gathering in such a way as to estrange them, Paul wants to welcome and engage them. He wants to win them, to repentance and faith in Jesus. To be sure, he does not instruct the church to orient its worship to outsiders but only to keep them in mind when considering the intelligibility of the corporate gathering.

Rather than the indecipherable terms of tongue-speaking, Paul would have the church speak prophetically in its public gatherings, that is, words understandable and clear to all. He asks, “How can anyone in the position of an outsider say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying?” (1 Corinthians 14:16). In other words, his hope is evangelistic:

If . . . the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds [note: this is not something we’re aiming for!]? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. (1 Corinthians 14:23–25)

So, associate with outsiders, and be aware of, even welcome, outsiders.

3. Be Alert to Outsiders

Beyond 1 Corinthians, we find Paul’s pronounced concern for the gospel’s public reputation in the Pastoral Epistles. Whether it’s the conduct of widows (1 Timothy 5:14), or slaves (1 Timothy 6:1; Titus 2:10), or young women (Titus 2:5), Paul would have Christians seek “in everything [to] adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:10) and not bring any justifiable reviling on the name, teaching, and word of God (1 Timothy 6:1; Titus 2:5). He would have Christians be concerned “to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:2) and care that our good works “are excellent and profitable for people” (Titus 3:8), within the church and outside. It is a striking theme in the letters to Timothy and Titus.

It matters to Paul, and to Jesus, that we “walk properly before outsiders” (1 Thessalonians 4:12). Christ expects his church, in the power of his Spirit, to “walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:5–6). (Interesting he moves from outsiders to speech; we’ll come back to that.)

So, associate with outsiders; be aware of outsiders; and be alert to outsiders.

4. Ask About Outsiders

Now we come back to Paul’s own explanation of the qualification in 1 Timothy 3:7.

Let me offer three observations, then, about verse 7, the one stand-alone-sentence and final qualification.

1. The qualification presses us toward specifics.

The ESV has “he must be well thought of by outsiders.” A more literal rendering would be: “But it is also necessary to have a good witness from outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace and a trap of the devil.”

Note the difference: “to have a good witness from outsiders” pushes us toward specific outsider testimonies, rather than some general, amorphous sense in the air of what outsiders think. This sounds like we would do well to ask a few particular “outsiders” to bear witness about the man — say, those who work with him, or live near him, or have played or coached with him, or went to school with him. A wise council of elders might check some references and solicit testimonies from flesh-and-blood associates, outside the church, who have known the candidate well in real-life situations.

“Mark this: a ‘good witness’ from outsiders means not just the absence of a bad witness, but an actual ‘good witness.’”

And mark this: a “good witness” from outsiders means not just the absence of a bad witness, but more positively, an actual “good witness.” He is “to have a good witness” from those outside the church, which gets at that “live connection between those inside and those outside the church.” Is the candidate’s, or the sitting pastor’s, social separation overdone or detrimental? Does he know many, or any, outsiders?

Another question we might ask is whether the Titus 1 list includes any analogous requirement. We do find the related “above reproach” (twice) that also leads the 1 Timothy 3 list. And it would be worth pondering how many of these attributes, especially the negative ones, will be evident to outsiders, not just fellow insiders: “not . . . arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain” (Titus 1:7).

Beyond those, we might point to the specifics, in Titus 1:8, “hospitable” and “a lover of good” (both phila- roots, philozenon philagathon). Hospitable, of course, is literally “a lover of strangers,” or outsiders. Jesus commends the welcoming of strangers (Matthew 25:35); Paul reminds Gentile Christians that we were once strangers to the covenants of promise (Ephesians 2:12); now we are no longer strangers, but members of God’s household (Ephesians 2:19); and in Hebrews 11:13, even now, in this age, we are strangers and exiles. We have been strangers to Christ, and in being bought near to him, we have newly become strangers to the world. We know about being strangers, and what it’s like to be welcomed with divine hospitality.

So too “lover of good” has in it a kind of outward impulse that relates to moving toward and acting honorably among outsiders. “Lovers of good” are men who are wide- and warm-hearted, maturely magnanimous. They believe in good, and look for good (among insiders and outsiders alike). They do good, and genuinely love the good. They demonstrate the broad hearts and capacious, expansive souls that, in time, become bracing evidence of a sinner’s supernatural encounter with God himself in Christ.

So, again, the qualification is not simply “well thought of” but “have a good witness from outsiders” — which presses us to ask about specifics.

And to ask ourselves, do I “have a good witness from outsiders”? Do I know multiple outsiders well enough, whether neighbors or other associates, that they could give “a good witness” on my behalf? Am I making investments in the places I live, work, and play, serving in my town or city, as to be personally known by individual outsiders?

2. The reason is to avoid disgrace.

Paul gives us his explanation for including “well thought of by outsiders”: “so that [the pastor-elder] may not fall into disgrace.” So, we have two distinct realities here: first is the life leading up to and surrounding the pastoral office, that is, the pastor’s reputation with outsiders. Then, secondly, we have the possibility of one of the church’s pastors, while in office, falling into a state of public disgrace.

Now, Paul’s concern with “disgrace” (or “reproach,” Greek oneidismos) is surely not a condemning of all possible disgrace, whatever the terms. Elsewhere this term for “disgrace” or “reproach” refers to what Jesus bore for us (Romans 15:3), or the righteous reproach, gospel reproach, Christians bear when suffering for Jesus’s sake (Hebrews 10:32–33; 11:26; 13:13–14).

A question, then, we might ask about any public reproach or disgrace that a pastor-elder endures is this: Is it “the reproach [Jesus] endured”? Is it gospel reproach? Is it, then, a necessary disgrace, because Christ and his truth is the real issue, or is this unnecessary disgrace because the pastor himself has failed the truth, or failed to exercise wisdom or failed to conduct himself Christianly, disobeying Christ’s commands?

In other words, as 1 Timothy 3:7 highlights, is it unrighteous reproach? Is it disgrace from outsiders that is deserved because of foolish and sinful attitudes and actions in the church’s leaders?

So, practically, if there is some disgrace related to a pastoral candidate, let’s say, a key question to ask would be: Why is this reproach, this disgrace, falling on him? Is it because of his own folly, just as much on Christ’s terms as the world’s? Is he a “fool for Christ’s sake” (1 Corinthians 4:9–13) or a fool in Christ’s eyes as well? Is he speaking truth but in an un-Christian way?

What if a pastor is clean of disgrace when called, and then begins to acquire a worsening reputation while a pastor? Stephen might serve as a good example for us on this. Acts 6:3 gives us the first ever officer qualification specified in the church age. Do you know what it is? Good reputation. “Brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute [“well spoken of”], full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty” (Acts 6:3). Stephen had a good reputation when he became one of the Seven. How long did that last? It doesn’t sound like very long.

So, what is the church to do when some outsiders who rose up to dispute with Stephen “secretly instigated men who said, ‘We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God’” (Acts 6:11)? The church knew what Stephen actually said and what he meant. Clearly, this is gospel reproach, for Jesus’s sake, and so you stand by your officer. Acts 6:13 says the witnesses who came against him were false. (And there may be a difference to consider between standing by your already appointed officer and newly making an officer of a man with an already disgraced name.)

In Matthew 5:11, Jesus says, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you” — and then he says, “falsely on my account.” If the reproach heaped on a pastor-elder is “false on Jesus’s account,” the outside witnesses do not carry the day. Stand by your man.

So, the qualification presses us to ask about specifics. The reason is to avoid public disgrace. And finally, what about that last phrase in verse 7?

3. The devil delights to disgrace the church.

The end of verse 7 says, “so that he may not fall into disgrace and a trap of the devil.” Here we have two nouns, connected by and: disgrace and a trap of the devil. How does the “and” work?

Does it mean that the devil’s trap is a second and additional reality beyond disgrace (like two stages, first public disgrace, then the disgraced pastor subsequently falls into a trap)? Or is the snare a second way of saying the first — that disgracing the pastor is the devil’s trap? I think the latter makes more sense, in the context and more broadly — that public disgrace is the devil’s special trap, his frequent scheme, how he draws it up and designs it. He works the angles all the time to publicly disgrace pastors. That’s exactly what he wants: publicly disgraced pastors, and their churches with them.

“The devil loves it when Christian leaders, of all people, give outsiders valid, reasonable cause for disgrace.”

A disgraced pastor — who is reproached by outsiders, not on false or gospel terms, but on the moral terms of Christianity itself — is a trap Satan loves to exploit. He squeals with delight as the jaws snap shut. And with it, he kills three birds with one stone. He renders the pastor himself less effective, if not totally ineffective; he injures or torpedoes the faith of some insiders; and he solidifies unbelief in outsiders — whom he wants to keep from the gospel. He wants outsiders to remain just that, outside the church, and in his clutches. So, the devil loves it, when Christian leaders, of all people, give outsiders valid, reasonable cause for disgrace. (And he loves to use modern media to magnify it.)

Again, it’s one thing to be a fool for Jesus, but quite another to be foolish just as much on heaven’s terms as the world’s.

Brothers, let’s know the devil’s devices and beware his schemes. He tempts leaders in the church, and aspiring leaders, into the kinds of sins that will bring reproach on them and the church. So, beware the perennial temptations related to money, sex, and power. And beware the new field of public temptations in our generation that many, sadly, are not yet taking as seriously as we will learn to in the future: online self-disgrace, with worldly outrage, hot-takes, and rash comments.

And we might take special warning as pastors, as men for whom words often come so easy. In previous generations, Satan would disgrace pastors as others spread the news about a pastor’s sins and folly. Today Satan adds to his schemes the delicious strategy that pastors can just directly disgrace themselves with public online folly.

Why Care About Outsiders

To be clear, the world does not choose the church’s leaders. The thoughts and opinions of outsiders are not ultimate. But they do matter. We ignore them to our own peril, and we should not presume public disgrace as a mark of faithfulness. To the question, “Should we care what outsiders think?” the biblical answer is just as much yes as it is no (if not more so yes; the no’s are exceptions, not the rule). But most significant is why: that outsiders may be saved. We want both to keep believing sheep in and to win more from the world, as Paul did:

Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. (1 Corinthians 10:32–33)

“The thoughts and opinions of outsiders are not ultimate. But they do matter.”

In the end, outsiders matter to us because they matter to Jesus. And he has other sheep, he says, to bring in (John 10:16). He delights to make outsiders into friends, and brothers, as he has done with us. And we hope and pray that he has many more in our towns and cities who are his (Acts 18:10).

Outsiders matter to us because such were all of us. But we have been brought in. And good pastors know, firsthand, that Christ loves to take frail, former outsiders and make us his instruments for bringing in more, and for leading his church with such hearts and dreams and prayers.

We nixed the name “Fellowship Hall.”

Our church purchased the building three years ago. “Fellowship Hall” had been the name we inherited for the other big room. Recently, in the process of doing some renovations, we needed to formalize a name for each room. The sign now reads, “Chapel.”

The word fellowship has fallen on hard times in many churches, like the word encourage — emptied of its power by casual overuse. Trivialized, you might say.

We scrapped fellowship from the name not because the biblical reality of fellowship is waning in importance. Quite the contrary. We want our church to reclaim the electric reality of fellowship in the New Testament and not have the term die the slow death of Christian domestication.

Fellowship Bigger Than Us

Perhaps the word can seem hollow if we have lost the concept of fellowship as a means of grace, with the end of enjoying Jesus.

That we have means of grace in the Christian life implies some end, some goal, some target. In other words, “means” means means to some end. The means are not the end. And if we leave the great end undefined, lesser ends come to replace it. Lesser ends like growth. Nor is godliness or holiness the goal, vital and precious as they are.

“Knowing and enjoying God himself, in the God-man, Jesus Christ, is the goal, the end, of Christian fellowship.”

Rather knowing and enjoying God himself, in the God-man, Jesus Christ, is the goal, the end, of Christian fellowship. The final joy in any truly Christian habit of grace is, as Paul writes, “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). “This is eternal life,” Jesus prayed — and this is the goal of the means of his grace — “that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). And as J.I. Packer writes, “The more strongly one desires an end, the more carefully and diligently one will use the means to it” (Honouring the People of God, 274).

Of those means, God’s word and prayer are often emphasized for their crucial place in the Christian life. Rightly so. But in the age of the individualist modern self, a third vital means — like a forgotten middle child — needs more attention: fellowship.

Something More Than Friendship

Christian fellowship — our holy commonality of sharing in one Savior, through one Spirit, as one body — goes far deeper than games and a potluck. In the New Testament, fellowship is less the Christian Super Bowl party, and more like the players themselves huddled on the field, calling the next play.

Perhaps few of us realized how vital fellowship was as a means of grace until COVID hit. Many languished unexpectedly, and some of our churches still feel the fallout. We tend to underestimate how much our souls are fed, and stay healthy, through the regular rhythms of in-person corporate worship and face-to-face fellowship. Especially in an age of enormous technological advances which keep us in touch with those who are remote, while quietly undermining ties with those most proximate. Our devices have increased our sheer count of “friends,” while stripping our lives of real, flesh-and-blood friendships.

New Testament fellowship is far deeper than common human friendships. Fellowship, at its best, is comprised of deeply committed relationships, that is, covenant allegiance through thick and thin, through pain and inconvenience and awkwardness and annoyance. This has long been a challenge for Americans who, when they rally together, have often done so in defense of individual rights, liberties, and our personal pursuits of happiness.

God Gave Us Each Other

Hebrews’ twin texts on fellowship as a means of grace speaks into the challenges of our generation. As we see in Hebrews 3 and 10, life and health and perseverance in Christian faith is a community project. Our hearts harden, and our faith fails, as we distance ourselves from the fellowship.

“Life and health and perseverance in the Christian life is a community project.”

But when we stubbornly stay connected, and deepen those connections, we not our find our own hearts staying soft, and our faith enduring; we also taste the joy of being Christ’s means of grace to each other. It is marvelous and deeply satisfying to be human instruments of the Spirit’s keeping work in the church. Both passages in Hebrews show us the benefit of receiving grace and giving grace in the covenant fellowship of the local church.

The first of the twins we might see as cast in more negative terms, but both texts work together, with the second being more expressly positive in thrust.

Watch Out for Each Other

In Hebrews 3, the writer quotes from Psalm 95 to spur his readers to Christian perseverance, and then pivots to this immediate application to the church as a whole, not just individuals:

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:12–13)

Look out, watch out, take care of each other — be vigilant over your brother’s soul, not just your own. The church body as a whole is to watch out for some (“any”) whose hearts may be cooling. And the stakes could hardly be any higher. An “unbelieving heart” is not just unfortunate, but evil. It leads to falling away from the living God — that is, from spiritual life to spiritual death. The preventive measure, or the remedy, says Hebrews, is at least twofold.

First is the daily charge to vigilance. Why daily? Well, for one, Psalm 95 says “today.” We are not promised tomorrow. If you recognize hardness of heart in yourself or a brother, address it right away, today. Such watching out for own souls, and others, needs to happen at the daily and weekly level (rather than monthly or yearly). Hearts harden in subtle increments, a day at a time, not all at once. The good news is that it’s preventable, and doesn’t just happen to you without some process. The bad news is that the increments can be difficult to discern, and snowball over time. But regular attentiveness keeps us from a pattern of hardening. Fellowship is a means of God’s grace that interrupts the cooling of our hearts.

The second emphasis is the power of words: “exhort one another.” This word for exhort (Greek parakaleo) appears as “comfort” or “encourage” in other contexts (as in Hebrew 10:25). At its heart is the idea of helping one another with words — with helping words that take various forms in different contexts, whether rebuking a hard heart, comforting a tender conscience, or encouraging a humble faith. This is a call to come alongside a brother or sister in the faith and be a human instrument of the Spirit’s keeping work through our words.

In other words, we might say to the struggling saint, Hear God’s voice in your brother’s voice! And to the whole body, watching out for the some, Be God’s voice in the ear of your brother, to keep his heart from hardening and unbelief — to stay soft and believing.

Provoke Each Other

The other twin, then, Hebrews 10:24–25, expands on the vision, now cast in more positive terms:

Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Now, as Hebrews 3 has its positive charge to take up helping words, so Hebrews 10 includes the warning against “neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some.” Here again is the some from Hebrews 3 (who were falling away), which the whole body together watches out for, and cares for, through the ministry of words (“encouraging one another”).

Striking in Hebrews 10 is this charge to “consider how to stir one another up” — or literally, “consider one another for the provoking of love and good works.” There’s no “how” in the original. Rather, the object or focus of the saints’ contemplation is “one another.” Consider one another . . . It’s a personal charge, and assumes that saints know each other specifically and with some depth — enough to contemplate what particular words might be pressed into service, not just to inspire humans or Christians in general, but to stir up love and good works in particular struggling saints.

Here helping words are designed by one saint to stir up, or provoke, Christian affection and action in another saint. This is a good provoking, not bad — not to anger but to love; not to evil but to good; not to bitterness but to joy. And being God’s voice to your brother does not mean the mere parroting of Scripture, but knowing your brother, on the one hand, and being informed by Scripture, on the other, to then speak as God’s voice, fallibly and in your own words, what needs to be said, as a means of grace, to your brother, to incite him to love and good deeds.

And it is not insignificant that Hebrews 10:24 mentions the assembly, the gathering (“meet together”). Corporate worship is a singularly important means of grace in the Christian life, combining the three essential elements we’ve noted: word, prayer, and fellowship. All three come together in the gathering. At the weekly level, this is the single most important means of grace in the Christian life.

Today and ‘the Day’

In the Christian life, every day matters. And every Sunday matters, with its rhythms of fellowship. Keeping ourselves, and others, in the faith does not call for herculean efforts, but regular upkeep. Routine vigilance, watching out for the souls of others, leads to losing less of the some, and to “all the more” grace as we anticipate the Day of Christ’s return drawing near.

Fellowship as an irreplaceable means of grace in the Christian life offers us two priceless joys: receiving God’s grace through the helping words of others and giving his grace to others through our own. Jesus does not call us to “hold fast” alone, as if we didn’t need the fellows he gives. But we help each other hold fast and thrive.

Whether fellowship is the namesake of a room at our church or not, we will do well to reclaim this reality as a vital means of God’s ongoing grace, and perhaps all the more after the trials of recent years.

What is the good that makes the gospel good news?

If the present, and especially the future, that the Christian gospel offers is undesirable, unimpressive, boring, bland, and unenjoyable, then how good is the good news? Is it only good in contrast with the active misery and punishments of hell? Or, does the good news positively reflect, and welcome us into, the very heart of the God who is Goodness himself?

At bottom, the good news that stands behind and beneath the Good News is what we might call “the God-centeredness of God.” Our Creator’s “supreme regard to himself” makes possible, solidifies, and guarantees his loving and gracious posture toward sinful creatures who are united to his Son by faith. And perhaps no other good news upholds the very foundation of good in the Good News itself like answering the question, What makes God happy?

Why Did God Create the World?

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), remembered as “America’s Theologian,” authored books, essays, and sermons that have been read for generations, and freshly discovered in recent decades. But given its topic and its quality, Edward’s posthumously published Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World has yet to receive its due. As Stephen Holmes observes, and laments, “there is so little attention paid to this Dissertation in the secondary literature” (God of Grace and God of Glory, 45, note 45), and yet it addresses many of the same challenges we still face today.

Biographer George Marsden recognizes the dissertation as a “counterattack against some of the most prevalent assumptions of modern thought” (Edwards: A Life, 459). Edwards is “attempting to undermine the foundations of what had gone wrong in modern thought” (459) including its “fashionable scheme of divinity,” which still remain in the air we breathe.

In the final paragraph, Edwards mentions his concerns with “our modern free-thinkers who do not like the talk about satisfying justice with an infinite punishment” (God’s Passion for His Glory, 251). We still know the type. And with it typically comes a focus on the love or grace of God that is implicitly, if not explicitly, man-centered. In Edwards’s day, moral philosophers and writers — like Alexander Pope, whose Essay on Man was “the best-known popular expression” — were “increasingly speaking of the deity as a benevolent governor whose ultimate interest must be to maximize human happiness” (Marsden, 460). Edwards countered with the clear emphasis of the Christian Scriptures from beginning to end: the glory of God.

His response was not to reduce or minimize the love of God toward his people — including God’s grace and forgiveness and mercy and goodness — but to locate it properly in the full sweep of Scripture. And in doing so, we find that our God shows us a divine love and favor for his church that does not diminish but grows in the soil of God-centeredness — good news beneath the Good News, guarding the true gospel from the would-be poison of modern man-centeredness.

What Does Reason Teach?

The dissertation contains a brief introduction, to clarify terms, and only two chapters. Chapter 1 considers what human reason alone teaches; Chapter 2, God’s revelation in Scripture.

Reason alone, Edwards concedes, is not enough to make his case, but it can answer objections. Chapter 1 culminates with four objections and his responses — with the fourth being the one he will mention again at the end of the dissertation, and expound upon further in his companion work on The Nature of True Virtue.

What is this fourth objection? It is one that many still feel and voice today: that God’s supreme regard to himself takes away from (Edwards says “derogates”) his goodness and love toward his creatures. If God, goes the objection, “makes himself his end, and not the creatures, then what good he does, he does for himself, and not for them; for his sake, and not theirs.”

Here we are right at the heart of what Edwards means to make plain in this dissertation and in True Virtue: that God’s supreme regard to himself and his genuine love toward his creatures “are not properly set in opposition . . . these things, instead of appearing entirely distinct, are implied one in the other” (God’s Passion for His Glory, 176). Chapter 1 ends with Edwards acknowledging that revelation in Scripture, to which he now turns in Chapter 2, “is the surest guide” and yet “the voice of reason” can be valuable in showing “that what the word of God says of the matter is not unreasonable.”

What Does Scripture Teach?

In the second and longer chapter, Edwards turns to what Scripture teaches concerning God’s ultimate ends in creating the world. Note an important distinction here: that God has one supreme or chief end (singular) in creating the world does not mean that he does not have other ends (plural). Indeed, as Edwards will show from Scripture, God has multiple ultimate or last ends which he finds pleasing in themselves, including loving his people.

Edwards begins (Section 1) with the Alpha and Omega, first and last texts that show God making himself his own last end in creation. Section 2, then, takes a step back to lay out twelve positions for a right understanding of Scripture on this theme. Here he introduces key interpretive principles he will return to in dealing with particular texts in Section 3. For instance, God’s ultimate end in providence also would be an ultimate end in creation. So too would be God’s revealed end in the moral world (ethics), in his providential use of the world, in his main works of providence toward the moral world, in the goodness of moral agents, in what he commands of moral agents, in the goodness of the moral world, in what is sought by exemplary saints, in what is longed for in the hearts of saints in their best frames of mind, and what was sought by Christ. Section 3 then demonstrates that in these many ways God’s ultimate aim is his glory, or importantly, his name.

Section 4 turns to “places of Scripture that lead us to suppose that God created the world for his name, to make his perfections known; and that he made it for his praise.” Now Edwards expands the field of relevant texts to include not only God’s name but also his praise, as well as his perfections, greatness, and excellency which are spoken of like his glory.

Love as End and Means

Section 5 is the heart of the dissertation in addressing the modern question we still hear today: Does God’s supreme regard to himself undermine, and even ruin, his love toward his creatures? Edwards answers with texts of Scripture in which God’s goodness toward the creature (that is, his love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, salvation) is “one thing which God had in view as an ultimate end of the creation of the world.” The ten parts of Section 5 include, first and foremost, that God is pleased, in itself, to do his creatures good — which, he says, “is not merely subordinately agreeable, and esteemed valuable on account of its relation to a further end, as it is in executing justice in punishing the sins of men; but what God is inclined to on its own account and what he delights in simply and ultimately” (220–221). In other words, God genuinely loves his people. He is pleased in itself, not simply in service of his glory, to love them. He truly delights in his people “simply and ultimately.” And he loves them enough not to leave his love unrelated to his great “further end” but to love them both as end and means.

“Does God’s supreme regard to himself undermine, and even ruin, his love toward his creatures?”

So too (Part 2) God is pleased in the work of redemption itself as an ultimate end. Here Edwards visits the love of God, and love of Christ, texts we rehearse often in the modern world: John 3:16; 1 John 4:9–10; Ephesians 2:4; as well as Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 5:25; John 17:19. Edwards even presents Christ’s sacrificial work of “labors and extreme agonies” as satisfying in itself (Isaiah 53:10–11), “not merely as a means, but as what he rejoices and is satisfied in, most directly and properly” (223).

Third, forgiveness and salvation are for the sake of God’s goodness or mercy, meaning for his name. Fourth and fifth, Christ governs the moral universe and the whole creation for the good of his people. Sixth, God judges the wicked for the happiness of his people. Seventh, speaking again of the church (“them who are to be the eternal subjects of his goodness”) “the whole of creation, in all its parts is spoken of as THEIRS” (227). Eighth and ninth, all God’s works are good and merciful to his people, and have been preparing a kingdom and glory for them. Finally (Part 10), related to Christian ethics and the companion dissertation to come on true virtue, the good of men is an ultimate end of moral virtue.

That One Phrase

In Section 6, Edwards draws together the strands of what is meant in Scripture by the glory and name of God. To this point, he has been considering what Scripture speaks of as ultimate ends in creation; now he moves to ask what they are. First, glory of God can (1) refer to what is internal (excellency, dignity, worthiness; great possessions, or fullness of good), or (2) the (external) exhibition or communication of internal glory; or (3) the view or knowledge of God’s excellency (that is, in the sight of the beholder); or (4) signify or imply praise. “Name of God” often indicates his glory, sometimes his praise, and especially is used for the external manifestation of God’s goodness.

In the final Section (7), Edwards argues that the ultimate end of the creation of the world is one (not many), and that one end is best captured as the glory of God. “All that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God’s works, is included in that one phrase, the glory of God” — that is, the “true external expression of God’s internal glory and fullness.”

Given how many conceptual threads Edwards has drawn together (glory, name, praise, goodness, grace, mercy, love, Christ, church), we might ask why Scripture contains so many different expressions for one supreme and ultimate end. “It is confessed,” he writes, “that there is an obscurity which is unavoidable, through the imperfection of language to express things of so sublime a nature. And therefore the thing may possibly be better understood by using a variety of expressions” (242). Yet these do amount to “one thing, in a variety of views and relations” (243).

This one thing, to express it afresh yet again, is “God’s internal glory or fullness existing in its emanation.”

Good News: God Loves Himself

Why marshal such energy and focus, 250 years ago or today, to argue something so obvious to most faithful readers of Scripture? Surely, many would say with Holmes, “Scripture is constantly clear that God makes Himself His end” (50).

“Our God seeks our good in seeking his glory — and we seek his glory in seeking our full and final good in him.”

This issue is a watershed, not just then but now, and not just between the contrasting theological instincts of Arminians and Calvinists, but reveals how seriously we take the Scriptures — and how functional they are in our theology and lives. Edwards serves the church in his day, and ours, with his intellect, keen observations, insights, and logic, but most of all with his knowledge of the Scriptures and by compiling into one place, in such short space, the overwhelming testimony of God himself as to what makes him happy and why he does all that he does.

It is profoundly good news that the true God — the God who is and who loves his people — does have “supreme regard to himself” and that his own God-centeredness is not in opposition with his love and mercy, but the very foundation beneath and force behind it. Such a God, who really does make much of us through his goodness and grace, is also such a God who can be our supreme joy both now and forever.

And in an often-overlooked insight in Edwards’s dissertation — which he himself does not nearly make as much of as he could — our joy in such a God not only delights and satisfies our souls, but also glorifies him. In fact, as John Piper, captures it, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

Our God seeks our good in seeking his glory — and we seek his glory in seeking our full and final good in him.

Even death on a cross.

The apostle dares to add this obscenity as the low point of his Lord’s self-humbling. Jesus “humbled himself,” Paul says, “by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

Today, with crosses on our steeples, and around our necks, we scarcely perceive the original scandal of such a claim. But to any new hearer in the first century, Jew or Greek, Paul’s words were almost unimaginable. Crucified?

We grimace today at the thought of nails being driven through human hands and feet. We squirm at a crown of thorns pressed into the brow, piercing the skin, sending blood streaming down the face. And once these violent acts had torn flesh and bone, the pain of crucifixion had only begun. Hours later, many bled out; others died of asphyxiation, eventually too decimated to even breathe. This was not just death, but torture unto death. It was nauseatingly gruesome.

But not only was it calculated to amplify and prolong physical pain; it was designed, almost psychotically, or diabolically, to utterly shame the victim. The horror of the cross was not only that it was done, but that it was done to be seen. It was not only literally excruciating but humiliating in the extreme.

“The horror of the cross was not only that it was done, but that it was done to be seen.”

Some of us might find the tune of “The Old Rugged Cross” too light for the weight of Good Friday, but the second line of George Bennard’s 1913 lyrics captures well the significance of the cross in the ancient world: “the emblem of suffering and shame.”

Device for Disgrace

In his book Crucifixion, Martin Hengel produces examples of “the negative attitude towards crucifixion universal in antiquity” (7). In short, far more than just negative, the whole spectacle of “the infamous stake” or “the tree of shame” was so offensive, so vile, as to be obscene in polite conversation. Hengel observes “the use of crux (cross) as a vulgar taunt among the lower classes” (9). The mannerly did not stoop to such a ghastly subject, whether with tongue or even pen, which accounts for “the deep aversion from the cruelest of penalties in the literary world” (14). Few ancient writers dared to provide anywhere near the crucifixion details we find in the four Gospels.

In the century prior to Christ, Cicero (106–43 BC) called crucifixion “that most cruel and disgusting penalty.” The historian Josephus (ca. AD 37–100) referred to it as “the most wretched of deaths.” Celsus, a second-century opponent of early Christianity, asked rhetorically about a crucified Christ, “What drunken old woman, telling stories to lull a small child to sleep, would not be ashamed of muttering such preposterous things?” Not only was a crucified Messiah preposterous. It was shameful.

In first-century Palestine, Jesus’s contemporaries were haunted by the regular spectacle of crosses — and their manifest pain and shame — and, added to that ignominy, they knew of God’s own curse, in Scripture, of anyone hanged on a tree (Deuteronomy 21:22–23). Is it any wonder, then, that Paul would speak of a crucified Messiah as utter folly, sheer madness, among unbelievers in his day (1 Corinthian 1:18)? The honor of Messiah and the disgrace of crucifixion made the idea nonsensical and disgusting, contradictory and offensive, preposterous and shameful.

And it’s the public shame of the cross — rather than the pain we might be prone to think of first — that Hebrews mentions at the climax of his rehearsing of the faithful: “For the joy that was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2).

Enduring the Cross

This crushing shame of crucifixion offers a vantage on Good Friday that few today emphasize. Theologians often have spoken of Christ’s active obedience in life and passive obedience in death. We might find some help in this distinction, but passivity is not the emphasis in Hebrews 12:2.

The image in Hebrews 12 is strikingly active — unnervingly so. We might even call it athletic: a race to be run, surrounded with onlookers, and a prize to be claimed at the end. Jesus’s enduring the cross in verse 2 parallels enduring the race in verse 1, where to finish is irreducibly to achieve.

Which we see in Jesus “despising the shame” at Calvary. As David deSilva comments, to despise the towering, paralyzing shame of the cross “entails more than simply enduring the experience of disgrace rather than shrinking from it” (433). Rather, when Jesus despised the shame of the cross, he scorned it and determined to overcome it. He confronted it. He looked the looming shame in the eye, and disregarded what would have been the final barrier for other men.

But simply knowing himself innocent would not be enough against the extreme suffering and shame of the cross. Endurance to the finish demanded more. Hebrews, memorably, tells us he endured “for the joy set before him.” But specifically, what joy could that have been? What reward could have been powerful enough to pull him forward, to finish this race, with the very emblem of suffering and shame standing in the way?

What foretaste of joy, or joys, could endure the cross?

Pleased to Be Crushed

The Gospel of John, written by Jesus’s closest associate, gives us the best glimpse into his mind and heart as he readied himself for the cross. Two particular sections, among others, speak to the substance and shades of his joy as he owned and embraced the cross in the hours leading up to his sacrifice.

The first section is John 12:27–33, sometime after Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Previously, Jesus had said “his hour” had not yet come (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20). Now he owns that it has:

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” (John 12:27–28)

Whatever we uncover of Jesus’s joy, it will not be trouble-free. Three times in these climactic chapters, we read of his being troubled (John 11:33; 12:27; 13:21). But the presence of trouble does not mean the absence of joy. In fact, the reality of such trouble demonstrates the depth and power of his joy, to move into and through the trouble, rather than flee.

Here we find a first source of his joy: the glory of his Father. When Jesus owns the arrival of his hour, this is the first motivation he vocalizes. He had lived to his Father’s glory, not his own (John 8:50), and now, as the cross fast approaches, he prays first for this, and receives the affirmation of an immediate answer from heaven: “I have glorified it [in your life], and I will glorify it again [in and through the cross].”

Next comes a second joy: what the cross will achieve over the ancient foe. “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). Satan, whom Paul would call “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), would be decisively unseated as “ruler of this world,” and Jesus would experience the joy of unseating him, and being his Father’s instrument to “disarm the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15). The tree of shame, in time, would shame the foe.

“The tree of shame, in time, would shame the foe.”

Jesus then mentions a third joy: the saving of his people. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). He would be lifted up from the earth — first in being lifted up to the cross, as John immediately adds (John 12:33). Make no mistake, in the “joy set before him” was the joy of love. He had come to save (John 12:47), and on Thursday night, he would wash his disciples’ feet to show them the love that, in part, sent him to the cross: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

‘My Joy in Them’

The second passage — Jesus’s high-priestly prayer in John 17, on the very night when he gave himself into custody — echoes two of the joys already introduced, and adds one further “joy set before him” that brings us back to Hebrews 12.

First, Jesus prays explicitly about sharing his own joy, and that (again) as an expression of his love for disciples: “These things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13). Jesus’s joy — deep enough, thick enough, rich enough to carry him to and through the cross — will not only be his, but he will put it in his people, through both his words and sacrificial work: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).

Second, Jesus also prays in John 17 in anticipation of his Father’s glory. He recalls that his life has been devoted to his Father’s glory, to making known his name (John 17:4, 6, 26). But now, in the consecration of prayer, and on his final evening before suffering and shame, he prays, third, for his own exaltation:

Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. . . . Now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17:1, 5; see also verse 24)

Misunderstand the utter holiness of Christ, and of this moment, and we will misunderstand this culminating joy: returning to his Father, and taking his seat, with his work accomplished, on the throne of the universe. The joy of being enthroned in heaven — glorified — at the right hand of his Father, will not come any other way than through, and because of, the cross. And his exaltation and enthronement will mean not only personal honor but personal nearness. “At the right hand” is the seat of both honor and proximity to his Father. He wanted not only to have the throne but again to have his Father.

This coming exaltation, and proximity, is the particular joy, among others, that Hebrews 12:2 points to: “For the joy that was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Foretaste of Glory — and Joy

We return, then, to the honor that overcame the “tree of shame.” Good Friday tells us of the cosmic war between honor and shame. At the cross, that obscene emblem of shame,

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:27–29)

Good Friday is the great reversal. The utter humiliation and imponderable disgrace would have kept lesser souls from choosing Calvary. But Jesus willed it, for joy. Even as horrible as it was, it pleased him. Knowing his innocence, he anticipated the joy of glorifying his Father, and defeating Satan, and rescuing his people in love, and these joys set before him came together in his victorious return to his Father’s side, now as the exalted God-man.

As Isaiah had prophesied seven centuries before, “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:11). In the agony and ignominy of Good Friday, he saw. He saw the joy set before him, and began to taste it, and he was satisfied enough to endure.

Even death on a cross.

He’s still on the throne.

In moments when rough waves rock the boat of our Christian lives, an otherwise near-platitude can be a welcomed reminder. Our God is sovereign. Whatever befalls his people has been lovingly sifted through his fingers. Our trials and troubles are no evidence of his abdication or defeat, but of his astounding patience and mysterious timing.

What it means that he’s still on the throne may remain vague and distant. Yet we might take some real solace in the general reminder of his reign.

However, the common saying may also signal something more particular, concrete, and specifically Christian. That is, the God-man, the eternal divine Son — who came to earth as man to live and die for us and rise — ascended to his Father in heaven and sat down, as mediatorial king on the throne of the universe, and he’s still on the throne. Jesus reigns, right now. More than a timeless attribution of universal divine sovereignty, we might hear a Christian ascription of the Messianic rule of Jesus — a rehearsing of Christ’s session, as Christian theology has called it, his sitting in power, as Lord, and human, at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3).

What Is Jesus Doing?

Along with his ascension and intercession, the “doctrine of Christ’s session” may go underappreciated, and where that is the case, we might find fresh joy, and solid ground for our feet, in rediscovering it. While many do well in confessing the glorious past-tense verbs of Christ (like came, lived, died, and rose), and even his future verbs (like will come again and will judge), they might find themselves in the strange predicament of professing Jesus as Lord while not really knowing what to say he’s doing at present.

The doctrine of Christ’s session teaches us where Jesus is, and what he is doing — right now. Right now, as you read these words, and all day today, as you go about the rest of the day. And as you have lived till now, and as you will live your whole earthly life going forward, unless Jesus returns first, his session is what he has been, and is, and will be doing. It is what Jesus has been doing, beginning with his ascension and then coronation in heaven as King of kings, and what he will continue doing until he comes again. He is sitting right now on heaven’s throne as Lord of all. But what is he doing while he sits?

While He Sits

The Westminster Larger Catechism serves us with this brief but masterful answer to Question 54 about “his sitting at the right hand of God”:

Christ is exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God, in that as God-man he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father, with all fulness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth; and doth gather and defend his church, and subdue their enemies; furnisheth his ministers and people with gifts and graces, and maketh intercession for them.

Following the catechism’s lead, let’s consider, in three parts, what Jesus is doing right now as he sits, through the lens of what his sitting makes that seat.

1. Heaven’s Seat of Honor

First and foremost, Jesus sits in the universe’s highest seat of honor. That is, “as God-man he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father, with all fulness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth.” During his “state of humiliation” while on earth, leading up to his suffering and death, he looked forward to the reward of “highest favor” and “fullness of joy, glory, and power” that were to come. Even to the sitting high priest at the time, Jesus declared, “You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64; Mark 14:62; Luke 22:69).

“What Jesus is doing right now, as he sits, is he’s receiving our praise and worship.”

As anticipated by Psalm 45:7 (quoted in Hebrews 1:9), Jesus now has been anointed with the oil of (literally) extreme joy, having been super-exalted (Philippians 2:9) to the universe’s seat of honor, there to be served, praised, and worshiped, by men and angels. So, the first answer to what Jesus is doing right now, as he sits, is he’s receiving our praise and worship. Seated above, at God’s right hand, he is the one on whom we “set our minds” in weekly corporate worship, and in our daily habits of devotion:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. (Colossians 3:1–2)

Far from ignoring, neglecting, or disdaining the things of earth, we set our minds above, on the seated Christ, who then enables us to attend to and enjoy the things of earth, for his sake, in their proper times and ways.

2. History’s Seat of Judgment

Second, Jesus now sits, in heaven, on what will be the judgment seat of all the world and its history. When he sat down at his coronation, he did so to rule over all, as sovereign and judge, with all authority already his (Matthew 28:18). From this throne, he speaks, sitting to teach his church, through his apostles and pastor-teachers, even as he sat to teach while on earth (Matthew 5:1; 13:2; 15:29; Luke 5:3; John 6:3; 8:2). And from his throne, he rules the nations as the great mediatorial king, with all divine sovereignty mediated through him (1 Corinthians 15:24–25), and with special interest and attention to his church.

Not only is Christ seated far above all others, with his name above every name, but he reigns with a particular view to the building and protecting of his church (Ephesians 1:20–23). The advance and defense of his church is the centerpiece of his work in the world, even as he rules exhaustively over all. It is “through the church,” Paul writes, that “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10) — and that with the reigning, seated, sovereign Christ as her head (Ephesians 1:22; 4:15; 5:23)

And from this throne, one day soon, he will sit to deliberate and judge (Luke 14:28, 31), making heaven’s throne the judgment seat on which he will right every wrong and reward every cup of cold water given in his name.

3. Repentant Sinners’ Seat of Mercy

Finally, and perhaps most amazingly, sitting in heaven, he “maketh intercession” for his people. Having finished his atoning work and made purification for sins, he made the very throne of God into a mercy seat.

“Having finished his atoning work, Jesus made the very throne of God into a mercy seat.”

Under the terms of the old covenant, the “mercy seat” was the top of the ark of the covenant, representing the place where the invisible God sat, to dispense mercy to his sinful people. Only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place and approach the mercy seat, and only once a year, to make atonement, by God’s decree, for himself and for the sins of the people. Now, under the terms of Christ’s new covenant, our mercy seat is heaven’s “throne of God” to which we can draw near with confidence, in any time of need, to receive mercy and find grace (Hebrews 4:16) — because Jesus, sitting there, intercedes for us.

When we ourselves undertake to intercede on another’s behalf in prayer, we do so in Jesus’s name, not our own. But the specific kind of interceding Jesus does for his people, with the Father, is unique. Jesus intercedes in his own name. He himself is the one mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5), and his intercession for us is not an asking on our behalf based on the mediatorial work and merits of another. Jesus himself is the intercession. And so Hebrews 7:25 says, “He always lives to make intercession [for us].”

How He Intercedes

With his every breath, with every beat of his indestructible new-creation heart, Jesus is our living, indissoluble link to God. We are not to picture Christ in heaven as our intercessor, on his knees, begging the Father, “Please, don’t destroy them, I beg of you.” No, he ever lives to make intercession for his people. How does he do it? He lives. If we are his, and he is alive, then his very life, his very breath, the very beating of his glorified human heart, intercedes for all those joined to him by faith, giving them access to his mercy seat in heaven. As Charles Wesley wrote in the hymn “Arise, My Soul, Arise,”

Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary;They pour effectual prayers, they strongly plead for me:“Forgive him, oh, forgive!” they cry,“Nor let that ransomed sinner die.”

Seated in heaven, Jesus is not anxious or uncertain. He is not scurrying feverishly around heaven’s throne room, making last-minute rescues. He lives. He sits on heaven’s throne, secure and utterly stable, in perfect heavenly equanimity and composure, interceding for his people with, and as, God almighty by his very life and breath.

However familiar we have been with the term, his present session teems with glory and good news. Indeed, Jesus is still on the throne, seated in honor to receive our praises, seated with authority and power to rule the nations and build his church, and seated with mercy to welcome repentant sinners, cover their failures, and make intercession for them by his very ongoing life and breath as the God-man. Will you not approach his throne today?

Enrich your soul this Easter with a Rich Wounds 30-day devotional plan on the glories of Christ. You can download the plan and purchase the book through our friends at Westminster Bookstore.

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here!”

I remember reading that line aloud to my boys and pausing to file it away in my mind. We were working through the first Harry Potter book. Following a moving rendition of the Hogwarts’ school song, headmaster Albus Dumbledore delivered the pregnant segue. In a story involving magic, and these being the words of the headmaster — and of a school of magic at that! — I wondered if this would prove to be no throwaway line.

From there on, such striking, carefully crafted statements had me thinking again and again, I look forward to re-reading this someday. I was perceiving more layers than I could enjoy fully on the first read. The author clearly intended not only to capture first-time readers, but to delight second- and third-time readers as well, and perhaps even more.

The best of books, you know, do this. Narnia does it. So does Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. And chief above them all, and far beyond them all, is the original source from which Lewis, Tolkien, and Rowling took their best cues, however consciously: the Christian Scriptures.

Read, Repeat, and Savor

God himself is the master author of second, third, and twentieth reads. And here in Lent, anticipating another Easter, we remember that resurrection is one of the Bible’s most important read-and-repeat themes. While we taste the ever-increasing delights of finding resurrection across the canon throughout the year, some of us stop to see and savor more each spring. We might prepare our hearts for the glories of Easter through the long 46-day journey of Lent, or the more-pointed focus of “Holy Week.”

For centuries, Christians have found value in imaginatively entering into the waiting, as we do with Advent. Yet as Christians, we do not grieve on Good Friday as those who have no hope, or enter Lent as those who do not yet know, for certain, that the resurrection is coming. So Lent, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, and Holy Saturday serve as opportunities, like re-reading other great stories, to find ourselves caught up in the drama again — to appreciate Jesus’s story, and Jesus himself, in new and deeper ways.

Five Risen Aftermaths

In an effort to prepare our hearts ahead of Easter for the riches of glory in Christ’s resurrection, we dare not limit our celebration of the resurrection to one day each year. Jesus is risen, and alive right now — and every day you’ve ever lived. And so as we observe this anticipatory season (to whatever degree), we do so as those who know, and proclaim, and enjoy that he is risen indeed.

Ponder with me, then, five critical aftermaths of Christ’s resurrection that tend to get short shrift when we move to and through Easter too quickly. Christ’s resurrection is not the end of the story, but his rising from the dead means he is alive to be and apply other precious realities as our living Lord.

1. Alive to Rise

Christ’s new life from the dead began his rising, but was not the end of his rising. Forty days later, on what some mark as “Ascension Day,” he rose yet again, this time ascending from earth to heaven and to heaven’s throne.

“Christ’s new life from the dead began his rising, but was not the end of his rising.”

Luke-Acts and Hebrews are especially conscious of Jesus’s post-resurrection rising. Luke’s Gospel ends with Jesus being “carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:51). Acts, then, begins with “the day when he was taken up” (Acts 1:2) — that is, “he was lifted up” (Acts 1:9). In other words, he rose (from the dead) to rise yet further (to heaven). And his ascension, then, like his resurrection, is not the end of the line but leads to further glories still.

2. Alive to Reign

Hebrews 1 gives us a glimpse from the other side of the ascension, as it were — from heaven’s vantage, when God brought his risen Son into the world above (“when he brings the firstborn into the [heavenly] world,” Hebrews 1:6; 2:5) to take his seat and be coronated on the throne. In fact, Hebrews 1, in all its vaulted and gloriously verbose celebration of Christ, does not make explicit mention of his resurrection, but assumes it as critical to Jesus being alive that he might be exalted and coronated as King.

What did he rise for? For one, to reign. He is, at present, sovereign over the nations and the universe, and he will be, soon to come, from that same seat, the judge of the nations and all of history. As he announced to his disciples before ascending, by virtue of his finished work, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). Right now, as you read — and whether you mark Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, or not — the risen Christ reigns.

3. Alive to Rescue

If Jesus’s human body had stayed dead — and if he did not ascend and does not reign on heaven’s throne — then, as Paul writes, “your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). But, in fact, “Christ has been raised” (1 Corinthians 15:20), and the reality of Easter teems with a threefold rescue: the saving of our souls, the satisfying of our souls, and the eventual saving of our bodies.

As for the rescuing of our souls, not only did our sins require a reckoning, but we also needed to have access to Christ’s cross-work, to have it applied to us, through the power of his own Spirit, which he pours out for us from heaven’s throne. Potential salvation does not save. We need actual rescue, which comes through the instrument called faith which unites us to our risen, living Lord.

However sufficient Christ’s self-sacrifice might have been to cover our sins, we would have no access to his rescue if he were not alive so we could be united to him. But he is alive. As he says, “I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore” (Revelation 1:17–18). There is no great salvation for us if we are not united by faith to the living one, so that the benefits of his work are applied to us.

4. Alive to Rejoice the Heart

Jesus not only saves our souls but also satisfies our souls through his post-resurrection life. He is alive to know and enjoy. There is no final good news if our Treasure and Pearl of Great Price is dead. Even if our sins could be paid for, righteousness provided and applied to us, and heaven secured, but Jesus were still dead, there would be no great salvation in the end — not if our Savior and Bridegroom is dead. At the very center of the Easter triumph is not what he saves us from, but what he saves us to — better, who he saves us to. Himself.

“There is no final good news if our Treasure and Pearl of Great Price is dead.”

Our restless souls will not find eternal, and ever-increasing, rest and joy in a Christ-less new earth, no matter how stunning. Streets of gold, reunions with loved ones, and sinless living may seem to thrill us at first — but they will not ultimately satisfy, not for eternity, not on their own. Not then, and not now. We were made for Jesus. He is at the center of true life, and he will be forever. If there is no living Christ, there is no final satisfying eternity. But he is alive indeed — to know and enjoy, now and forever.

5. Alive to Raise Us Too

Our own resurrection may not be in the foreground of Easter, but it is there. Christ’s resurrection has everything to do with ours, and vice versa (1 Corinthians 15:12–20).

When Christians celebrate “the God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9), we mean not only that he raised Jesus, but that he will raise our bodies too. And even now, through faith, we realize the resurrection we ourselves already have experienced, and enjoy right now. Already now, when God “made us alive together with Christ . . . [he] raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). If you have been born again, you already have the imperishable life of Christ in you (1 Peter 1:3–4).

And the new life we have now by the Spirit is a guarantee of the full and final resurrection of our bodies to come. “He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). “God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power” (1 Corinthians 6:14; 15:43–44). Coming soon, “the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52).

Ever-deepening delights await those who re-read with care, already knowing the outcome. However long you’ve known him, you have much more yet to know of this story, its effects, and of the risen one himself. Easter is one month from today. What if you took the next thirty days for a focused season to glory in his life, death, and resurrection?

Money and joy. Across the passages in the New Testament that speak to Christian leadership, these are the two most repeated themes. And we might see them as two sides of one motivational coin. That is, what gain are pastor-elders to seek (and not seek) in becoming and enduring as local-church leaders? Why pastors serve really matters.

What Makes a Pastor Happy?

The apostle Paul worked with his own hands, making and mending tents — which made him a good man to make the case for “double honor” (respect and remuneration) for pastor-elders who give themselves to church-work as their breadwinning vocation. However, necessary and good as it is for staff pastors to receive pay, Paul would not have greedy men (paid or unpaid) in either the pastoral or diaconal office. “Not a lover of money,” he specifies in 1 Timothy 3:3 (memorable in the King James as “not greedy of filthy lucre”). For deacons, in 1 Timothy 3:8: “not greedy for dishonest gain.”

So too, the final chapter of Hebrews moves seamlessly from “keep your life free from love of money” (Hebrews 13:5–6) to “remember your leaders” (Hebrews 13:7), and it’s no wonder. The one should go hand in hand with the other — as they do right at the heart of Peter’s passage for elders: “Shepherd the flock . . . , not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly” (1 Peter 5:2). The apostles would have us speak, in the same breath, of lives free from love of money and local-church leaders who exemplify that lifestyle.

The other side of the coin, then, is the positive motivation: joy. Paul begins 1 Timothy 3 by not only condoning but requiring the holy pursuit of joy in ministry: “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” Pastor-elders must aspire to the work, that is, want it, desire it, anticipating that it will, in some important sense, make them happy. They should not have their arms twisted to serve, but genuinely desire such work from the heart — as Peter says, “not under compulsion, but willingly.” Even though prospective church leaders hear (and may have observed or even experienced) that this line of labor can be especially taxing emotionally and spiritually, they can’t seem to shake a settled desire and aspiration for the work. They desire it, from and for joy.

Gain That Matches the Work

Peter succinctly captures the two sides (not money but joy) of our motivation coin: “not for shameful gain, but eagerly.” Notice he doesn’t say “not for gain.” Rather, he says “not for shameful gain,” meaning that there is a gain without shame that he is not excluding. And in fact, he requires it. “Eagerly” presumes some motivation to gain — just that this gain is not “shameful.”

“Honorable gain in Christian ministry is benefit that befits the work.”

What, then, might be honorable gain in Christian leadership? We wouldn’t be right to rule out any financial remuneration (which would require ignoring Paul’s case). But we would be correct to rule out money as the driving motivation. What gain, then, are pastors to seek? We might say it like this: honorable gain in Christian ministry is benefit that befits the work. Or we might say: gain that is commensurate with the work. We might ask the potential or present pastor, “Do you have joy in the work, and receive joy from the work, that strengthens the work itself? Or does the gain you seek from the work of Christian ministry take you away from the work?”

In other words, Is the gain you seek from ministry in, or apart from, the good of the flock?

Joy, Not Groaning

Hebrews is particularly striking in that it puts the pursuit of joy at the heart of the work of pastors, both for the pastors and for their people. Addressing the congregation, Hebrews 13:17 says,

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

In the healthiest of churches, the pastor-elders aspire to the work and do it willingly and eagerly (1 Peter 5:2), and (now we add) the people do their part to “let them [labor] with joy.” Which makes for a kind of holy conspiracy of joy in three critical stages.

1. The Leaders Aspire

First, the leaders aspire to the work, as we’ve seen, and joyfully undertake it. Good pastors want to do the work of pastoral ministry, from joy and for joy.

“Let them [labor] with joy” assumes that the pastors are starting out with joy; they are operating from and for holy joy in Christ, and in his people. Let’s be honest, pastors don’t get into this line of work for the money; the pay is modest at best in the vast majority of pastorates. Rather, God moved on these men, whether over time or seemingly in some particular moment, to give them an unusual desire to give more of themselves for the good of the church. They came into the work with a particular joy-fed and joy-led desire to love and serve the church through diligent teaching and humble governance.

“Unlike other vocations, mere willingness is not enough in pastoral work.”

Unlike other vocations, mere willingness is not enough in pastoral work. Christ appoints and provides a kind of eagerness in pastors for the calling, not just to make a living, but to give of themselves, beyond what can be fully reckoned and remunerated, for others’ progress and joy in the faith.

2. The Church Cooperates

The people then, encourages Hebrews, “let them do this with joy.” That is, the people try not to disrupt or derail that happiness by turning pastoral joy into groaning. Healthy congregants don’t want to interrupt happy labor with needless and sinful complaining and grumbling.

Note well, the church is not charged to make the pastors’ work joyful, but to let them labor with joy. In other words, “Church, your pastors are working with joy. Don’t make their work miserable or unnecessarily difficult. Your miseries might want company, but for your own good, don’t seek to make your pastors groan.” The church is not responsible to make their pastors happy; neither is it the church’s job to make them miserable.

Now, to be sure, there’s a word here for pastors too: brothers, labor with gladness, not groaning, even when ministry gets hard, for both your own joy and the church’s, which is the third and final part.

3. The Church Gains

Finally, ongoing, resilient, joyful labor by the pastors brings about the joyful gain of the congregation. That’s the explicit reason Hebrews gives: “Let [your leaders labor] with joy and not with groaning,” he says, “for that would be of no advantage to you.” When the pastors labor with joy, and the people don’t unnecessarily interrupt that joy, the people themselves benefit. Those who undermine the joy of their pastors do so to their own disadvantage.

And the pastors, who have been aiming all along at the holy and enduring joy of their people, have their own joy made complete in seeing the advantage and gain of the flock. So it is, in the apostles’ complementary callings on the pastors and their people, a kind of holy conspiracy of joy: the leaders aspire to the work and joyfully do it; the people “let them do this with joy,” striving to not give their pastors reasons to groan; and that joyful labor by the pastors then brings about the greater joy, advantage, and benefit of the whole church.

In it all, why is joy so central to the work of pastoral ministry? Because Christ is most glorified in his people when they are most satisfied in him. Joy in Christ in the heart, radiating out in audible and visual expressions, and life together in the church, magnifies its source and focus. So if pastors want Jesus to be glorified in their work, then one major, even central, reality to take into account is joy — the pastors’ joy in the people’s joy in Christ.