There are many levels of pleasure in thinking back over 150 years of the life of Bethlehem. The pleasure of actually looking at the pictures of 20 of the 23 charter members in 1871, and discovering that there were 14 women and 9 men in that first membership. And that on June 24, they held their first service at the home of Eric and Anna Hernland on Hennepin Island.

The pleasure of seeing among those old photographs the picture of August Malmston, the grandfather of one of our living members, Marlys Arenson.

The pleasure of learning that there were 61,000 Swedish immigrants in this 14-year-old state of Minnesota in 1871. And these 61,000 immigrants were served by 20 Swedish-speaking churches in outstate Minnesota, but by only one Swedish-speaking church in Minneapolis — namely, Augustana Lutheran, whose old building, interestingly, one block from the downtown campus, is now occupied by a Bethlehem church plant — Hope Church.

The pleasure of discovering that our first pastor John Ring had been imprisoned in the 1860s in Sweden because of his Baptist faith, and that he had to step away from that first pastorate of Bethlehem after only a year because of poor health.

The pleasure of seeing a picture of our first building completed in 1874 with the hitching posts for the horses clearly visible along the dirt street.

The painful pleasure of seeing the picture of the building destroyed by fire in 1885 and reading that pastor Frank Peterson’s text that next Sunday was Isaiah 64:11, “Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins.”

The pleasure of thinking that the church has passed from its origins of horse and buggy to the space-age. It has experienced the arrival in Minnesota of the telephone in 1880; electric streetcars in 1890; automobiles in 1902; a first radio station in 1921; 36 days in a row below zero in 1936; and 6,225 Minnesotan lives lost in World War II that ended in 1945 (the same year the church changed its name from First Swedish Baptist to Bethlehem Baptist); the first TV station in 1948; the first church computer at Bethlehem in 198 — and the emergence today of perhaps more smartphone Bibles than print Bibles in our worship services.

And let’s not pass by too quickly the pleasure of pondering that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Let it sink in that the Minnesota that we live in today is more different from the Minnesota of 1871 than the Minnesota of 1871 was different from the days when Jesus walked this earth. It is vastly more different.

“Christ has never ceased, through all of this change, to be infinitely relevant for every generation.”

Is it not amazing, therefore, that this church has been alive and flourishing under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in allegiance to the word of God through a century and a half of the greatest changes that the world has ever seen? Is it not amazing that this glorious Jesus Christ — the creator of the universe, the upholder of all things by the word of his power, the suffering savior giving his life as a ransom for many, the risen Christ sitting at the right hand of God, the head of the church and lover of his people — this Christ has never ceased, through all of this change, to be infinitely relevant for every generation through these changing times. Seeing that, savoring that, is a great pleasure.

How Does a Church Endure?

How does that happen? None of the people who made up Bethlehem Baptist Church in 1871 are part of this church today. And yet it is the same church. How does that happen?

It happens because even though the individual members of the living organism called Bethlehem come and go, the enduring life of that organism does not consist in any one member, or group of members. Rather it consists in the life of the living Head of the church, Jesus Christ, who calls shepherds and sheep in every generation to himself and to this organism.

It consists in the power of the Holy Spirit moving among the people bearing his fruit. It consists in the reality of faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It consists in the worship of God the Father and prayer to him in Jesus’s name. It consists in a consistent mission to reach lost people with the good news of Jesus. It consists in the biblical structure of leadership and accountability formed by the word of God.

Individual members come and go, but these realities that make up the organism called Bethlehem do not come and go. They remain.

God Sustains Churches

Why do they remain? Or, more urgently, will they remain?

But let’s make it more personal, as we try to answer this question. Not only, Will faith remain in the church? Will the church be the church? But also, Will we remain in faith? Will we be Christian?

If saving faith remains in Bethlehem, and she remains a church, and if you remain in faith, and remain a Christian, the ultimate reason will be the same in both cases.

We just sang the reason:

His oath, His covenant, His blood     Support me in the ‘whelming flood;When all around my soul gives way,     He then is all my hope and stay.

The new covenant, the oath it contains, and the blood that bought it. This is our hope and stay. God’s people will stand, we will stay, because of the blood-bought covenant between God and his people.

“If Bethlehem is faithful for another 25 years, it will be because God did not let her turn from him.”

What covenant? Here’s what Jesus said at the Last Supper: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). This means that the terms promised in the new covenant, I will secure for you, my people, by shedding my blood tomorrow morning. So, if you belong to Christ, this new covenant is yours. Its terms apply to you. Now, what are the terms of this new covenant that answer the question: If Bethlehem is here for its 175th anniversary, and if you are a Christian in 25 years, what will be the decisive reason?

New Covenant Pleasures

One of the most beautiful and clear expressions of the terms of the new covenant is found in Jeremiah 32:40–41,

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

Here are five more pleasures to revel in as we look back over 150 years and see why it is that Bethlehem is still here, and why it is that we are still believing, and why it is that we will keep on believing until Jesus comes or until he calls.

Eternal Covenant

>I will make with them an everlasting covenant. (Jeremiah 32:40)

A covenant is a set of promises and obligations between two parties.

Here God’s not saying, “I made with you a covenant when I brought you out of Egypt, and you broke it, and now you are under judgment in exile.” That’s true. That’s why there has to be a new covenant. A covenant that is not going to be broken by either side.

Therefore, it will last forever. It will be an everlasting covenant because both sides of the covenant-keeping are secured by the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 13:20 refers to the “blood of the eternal covenant.” In Christ, we are a people with whom God has made an eternal covenant. Now, what does it guarantee by the blood of Jesus?

Unremitting Grace

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. (Jeremiah 32:40)

This is exactly what the apostle Paul said God secured by the giving of his Son for his people. He said it in Romans 8:32, which was a restatement of Romans 8:28.

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose [his covenant purpose never to turn away from doing us good]. (Romans 8:28)

“Every hard thing that God brings into our lives is for our ultimate good. It is never destructive for the children of God.”

“He will work everything for our good” is the Romans 8:28 way of saying Jeremiah 32:40, “I will not turn away from doing good to them.” There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is no wrath. There is only mercy. Only grace.

Every hardship that God brings into our lives is for our ultimate good. It is never destructive for the children of God. To take you back to 1995, there was a little four-line rhyme that for several years the members of the church would quote to each other to explain this understanding of God’s unremitting, sometimes difficult sovereign grace in our lives:

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,     Nor flight from all distress,But this, the grace that orders our trouble and pain,     And then in the darkness is there to sustain.

New Heart

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts. (Jeremiah 32:40)

This is what I meant when I said that the blood of Jesus secures both sides of the covenant-keeping — God’s side to be faithful and our side to fear the Lord. The fear of the Lord stands for the whole humble, believing, reverent response to God and his promises.

What God is saying here is that he sovereignly takes the initiative to see to it that the hearts of those whom he has chosen are humble, believing, reverent hearts. We don’t first fear God and then get chosen by God because we met the qualification. He chooses us first and then puts the fear of him in our hearts.

Here’s how God says it in Ezekiel 11:19: “I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.”

That is how you were saved, Christian. You know that! This is what we call amazing grace. Amazing mercy: “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4–5). We were dead. And God made us alive. He took out the proud heart and put in the fear of the Lord. Never cease to be amazed that you are a Christian.

The world today needs Christians whose lives have the aroma of humble amazement that they are saved.

Blood-Bought Perseverance

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. (Jeremiah 32:40)

There it is. There is the answer to our question, Why has Bethlehem existed in faithfulness for 150 years? Why are you still a Christian? What will be the decisive explanation if Bethlehem is flourishing at her 175th anniversary? What will be the decisive explanation if you are still a Christian 25 years from now?

And the answer is this: “I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.” God keeps those whom he calls.

And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:30)

He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:24)

He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

This is the amazing, blood-bought new covenant.

Why will you wake up a Christian tomorrow morning? Because by his blood Jesus bought this covenant-keeping promise for you: God will not let you turn from him. If Bethlehem is faithful for another 25 years, it will be because God did not let her turn from him. We are, as individuals and as a church, finally dependent on this promise in Jeremiah 32:40, “I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.”

God Rejoices in Our Good

I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul. (Jeremiah 32:41)

If you ever thought for a moment that God was begrudging in doing you good, let yourself be set free from that error! We have a happy God. And one thing that makes him happy is doing good to his people with all his heart and with all his soul.

This is absolutely breathtaking. “I will rejoice in doing them good . . . with all my heart and all my soul.”

Celebrating What Is to Come

As I close, I’m going to put on my old pastor’s hat that I wore for 33 years and celebrate three things.

First, without in any way detracting from the great work of God in the last eight years, I celebrate the call of Kenny Stokes as my pastor downtown. And I am thrilled with the ministry of Steven Lee at the north campus and of David Zuleger at the south campus. What a great leadership God has raised up for us.

I want you to know that I worshiped with great joy under the ministry of Jason Meyer for eight years, and I expect to worship with equally great joy under the ministry of Kenny Stokes. I was Kenny’s lead pastor for 15 years, and now I am privileged to have him as mine. This too is a great pleasure.

Second, even though there is a nostalgic downside to think of Bethlehem soon becoming three churches instead of one church, the decision of the elders to move in this direction is, in my judgment, strategic and wise.

From the beginning, I always thought this would be a good outcome to the multi-campus strategy: three strong centers of Reformed Christian Hedonism along the 40 mile stretch of I-35 from Mounds View to Lakeville. I think of it as robust church planting with the gestation periods of 19 and 15 years. Not to mention all the other churches that have been and will be planted from these three locations. This too is a great pleasure.

Finally, when I was pastor, for the last couple decades of that ministry, we would come to this point in the year almost always hundreds of thousands of dollars behind budget. I felt a special responsibility to remind the people that nothing is too hard for God.

He holds the world in existence. He stops the sun in the sky. He divides seas. He feeds five thousand with a few fish and loaves. He raises the dead. He puts gold coins in mouths of fish. Nothing — nothing is too hard for God. Let’s trust him with our lives and give to his cause like he is our Treasure. God met every need for 33 years — for 150 years. Watching him do this has been a great pleasure.

We are going to sing a signature song of Bethlehem. One of the greatest songs of “sorrowful yet always rejoicing.” And when we get to that final verse and crescendo into the Lord’s coming, remember, dear child of God, whether you see the Lord on the clouds, or hear his call in death, you’re going to make it home. He will not turn away from doing good to you. He will put the fear of the Lord in your heart, so that you will not turn from him.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight     The clouds be rolled back as a scroll.
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend.
     Even so, it is well with my soul!

Many a new Bible reader have run into Matthew’s Gospel, eager and determined, only to trip over the first seventeen verses. We come expecting story, expecting drama, expecting angels and magi and a baby born in Bethlehem. What we find instead is this:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David . . . (Matthew 1:1)

Had Matthew consulted us as editors, we may have suggested he begin at verse 18: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened in this way.” Here is a story.

But in truth, Matthew’s opening words tell a far better tale than appears at first glance. For ever since the days of David, God’s people had waited for a son of David. They had waited for David’s royal line to run, unbroken, until the Anointed One, the Christ, should be born in David’s city. They had waited for God to keep his ancient promise and fill their empty throne. They had waited, in other words, for a King to come and reign.

And here, in the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, Matthew says, “Wait no more.”

David’s Heir

From Genesis 3:15 on, God’s people had hoped for a son who would overthrow the serpent’s kingdom. Over time, that hope grew more defined: he would come from not just Noah, but Shem; not just Shem, but Abraham; not just Abraham, but Jacob; not just Jacob, but Judah; not just Judah, but David.

The climactic promise comes in 2 Samuel 7, where God makes a covenant with David:

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. (2 Samuel 7:12–13)

Note the grand dimensions of this promise: When David dies, God will raise up a son of David who will build a house for God’s name. God will establish this son’s kingdom. And his kingdom will never end.

Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, this promise shines like the brightest of stars in the sky. Every other light may darken. Every other star may fall. But the light of this promise can never fail.

Stump of Jesse

At first, the promise seems fulfilled in Solomon, son of David and builder of God’s temple — until Solomon descends to sins far darker than his father’s (1 Kings 11:1–8). Something more than a physical house is needed, and someone greater than Solomon (Matthew 12:42).

Generations come, and generations pass; David’s sons reign, and David’s sons die. Many seem for a time to carry the government upon their shoulders (Isaiah 9:6): Jehoshaphat, Azariah, Uzziah, Hezekiah, Josiah. But they too fall from their thrones, and each fall swings another axe against the leaning tree of David. By the time Babylon takes a final hack, only a stump remains (Isaiah 6:13; 11:1).

As the Jews watched Nebuchadnezzar wrap David’s heir in chains (2 Kings 24:11–13), the ancient throne seemed forsaken by God. The star seemed black as night. The psalmist Ethan spoke for many:

You have cast off and rejected;     you are full of wrath against your anointed.You have renounced the covenant with your servant;     you have defiled his crown in the dust. (Psalm 89:38–39)

To which God patiently responds, through prophet after prophet, “I have not.” Far easier for the sun to fall from heaven than for David’s line to die (Jeremiah 33:19–22). The ruined city will be rebuilt, its breaches repaired and its walls strengthened (Amos 9:11–12). And in time, a shoot will sprout from the stump of Jesse, a righteous Branch to rise and rule (Isaiah 11:1).

“Far easier for the sun to fall from heaven than for David’s line to die.”

Even in exile, David’s genealogy remained unbroken. And from that line, God says, a child will be born, a son given. He will be the son of David — and far, far more: “His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

Great David’s Greater Son

We can understand, then, why Matthew begins his Gospel, his book of good news, with a family tree ending on one glorious Branch (Jeremiah 23:5–6). In Jesus, David’s son had come — and as it turns out, so had David’s Lord.

Jesus unveils the wonder in a famous exchange with the Pharisees. “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” Jesus asks. They’ve read 2 Samuel 7 and the Prophets; they know the answer to this one. “The son of David,” they say. So far, so good. But then Jesus turns to Psalm 110:1:

How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’”? If David then calls him Lord, how is he his son? (Matthew 22:42–45)

And there on the streets of Jerusalem, silence falls before the Mighty God — the Son and Lord of David (Matthew 22:46).

“In Jesus, David’s son had come — and as it turns out, so had David’s Lord.”

We always needed a son of David greater than David. One who would be anointed not with oil but with the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 3:21–22). One who would slay not Goliath but Death (Romans 1:3–4). One who would win his bride not by shedding another man’s blood but by spilling his own (Ephesians 5:25–27). One whose end wasn’t the grave but the throne (Acts 2:29–36).

And such a King we have in Christ.

Come and Reign

Among all the glorious titles of our glorious Lord, Jesus would have us remember him still as the Son of David. Hear his last recorded words in Scripture:

I am the root and descendant of David, the bright morning star. . . . Surely I am coming soon. (Revelation 22:16, 20)

When we say, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20), we ask not just for a Savior, but for a King. Or, to gather up some of the biblical hope surrounding David’s son, we say,

Come and rule “like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth” (2 Samuel 23:4).

Come and take “dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” (Psalm 72:8).

Come and reunite wolf and lamb, calf and lion, and let the little children play safely on your holy mountain (Isaiah 11:6–9).

Come and cure our waywardness, rule our inner rebel, and heal our aching hearts (Hosea 3:5; Ezekiel 34:20–24).

Come and clothe your enemies with shame, and wear your shining crown (Psalm 132:17–18).

Yes, Root of Jesse, Son of David, come and reign.

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.

What do we do when life just doesn’t make sense? Illness strikes. A job is lost. Friendships fade. Uncertainty looms. Whether the gray-haired saint facing cancer or the college student burdened by the pressures of the future, crisis and suffering have a way of shaking even the most confident Christian.

We may know that God is in control of all things at all times in all places, yet we often feel frustrated because we don’t understand what he is up to. So what do we do when life doesn’t make sense?

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes asked a similar question. Often, when someone mentions Ecclesiastes, we can think, “Whoa — he was a downer.” In reality, though, Ecclesiastes does not push the depressed over the edge, but rather gives the frustrated a foothold of joy in our puzzling world. The Preacher declares a simple message of hope for the struggling: enjoy life by fearing God even when you cannot understand his works and ways.

God Weaves All Things Together

When we do not understand why life is the way it is, the Preacher would have us be certain that God orchestrates all its changing seasons.

Everything has its time: “A time to be born, and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:2). The Preacher poetically introduces his subject by using birth and death to encapsulate all things in life. All things — the good, the bad, and the somewhere in between — occur according to an appointed time. In his words, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Who appoints this timing? The Preacher does not leave us wondering for long: “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Just as beauty befits a lover (Song of Solomon 1:8, 15; 2:10), so God works all things together in a fitting, beautiful way according to his will. He is the artist; all of life is his mosaic. He is the great weaver who threads all things together to form an exquisite tapestry. Perhaps we know what passage Paul meditated on as he wrote, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28).

Mystery from Beginning to End

Yet even with confidence in the sovereign rule of God over all things at all times in all places, the Preacher recognizes his own inability to understand. He writes, “Also, [God] has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

In context, “eternity” parallels “what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Humanity has a God-given desire to comprehend “what God has done from the beginning to the end,” but God placed this desire in our hearts in such a way that we “cannot find out” what he has done. As Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) writes, “For all eternity he put in men’s hearts the fact that they might never discover what God has done from the beginning right to the end” (Homilies on Ecclesiastes, 79).

Naturally, as we arrive at the intersection of our finiteness and God’s infinity, we leave frustrated. The Preacher writes, “What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with” (Ecclesiastes 3:9–10). His question implies a negative answer: none. The worker has no gain from his toil.

What toil? In general, the activities noted in Ecclesiastes 3:2–8 constitute our toil through life, but Ecclesiastes 8:17 also reveals a specific piece of our struggle: “Then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out.” No matter how hard we try, we cannot make sense of God’s works and ways.

“God’s works and ways make sense — beautiful, wise, and fitting sense — just not always to us.”

At the very least, we should consider reframing the original question. Instead of asking, “What do we do when life doesn’t make sense?” we might ask, “What do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us?” God works all things together according to his wisdom, but we do not have the capacity to understand all he does. God’s works and ways make sense — beautiful, wise, and fitting sense — just not always to us. Isaiah would not be surprised by this conclusion: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).

Fear Before Him

So what do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us?

The Preacher does not leave us alone to suffer in nihilistic resignation: “I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

God is not merely playing with his creation because he wants to have some fun at our expense. He has not created a world with no meaning, leaving humans to wander through life without hope of understanding. Instead, God designed us to desire infinite knowledge so that we would fear him.

To fear God means to remember who God is and to remember who we are in relationship (and outside of relationship) with him. We remind ourselves of God’s sovereign control of all things in life, humbly accepting our own inability to always understand his ways. At the same time, we can do so with joy because we know that God works all things together beautifully for our good.

Like Job in the face of great calamity, we ask, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). We look uncertainty and tragedy in the eye, as painful as it may be, and by his grace declare, “Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Embrace the Life You Can See

We do not stop at fear, though. Rightly fearing God starts the process, but God wants more. The Preacher writes, “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil — this is God’s gift to man” (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13). Don’t read the Preacher’s words as some sort of carpe diem motto that urges us to make the most of life while we can. Even when we cannot understand God’s work or ways, he wants us to enjoy life — every season of it — within the context of a holy fear.

In his book Things of Earth, Joe Rigney urges Christians to “embrace your creatureliness. Don’t seek to be God. Instead, embrace the glorious limitations and boundaries that God has placed on you as a character in his story” (234). Rigney’s exhortation hits at the core of Ecclesiastes 3: rightly fearing God and enjoying his world. To fear God rightly is to remember our humanity. When we can’t see around the dark corner of life yet to come, no matter how much we want to, we remember our humanity. We remember that God is God, and we are not. He controls all things at all times at all places, and he is good.

“God is God, and we are not. He controls all things at all times at all places, and he is good.”

So, we ask God for the grace to embrace the life we can see — the life he has given to us — and to enjoy it fully. Breathe deeply the cool air of a fall morning as you walk the dog. Slowly sip hot chocolate with your children. Work hard at the temp job as you await a permanent position. Let your hand linger with your ailing loved one. Even when we do not understand God’s works and ways, we can delight in his good gifts to us. We can find a unique pleasure in our toil as we throw ourselves upon our rock, Jesus Christ, through the storms of life.

Jason DeRouchie ably summarizes the tension between finitude, infinity, frustration, and joy: “This is the goal of Ecclesiastes: that believers feeling the weight of the curse and the burden of life’s enigmas would turn their eyes toward God, resting in his purposes and delighting whenever possible in his beautiful, disfigured world” (“Shepherding Wind and One Wise Shepherd,” 15).

Do Good Like God

After inviting us to enjoy the life God has given, the Preacher adds one more dimension to our well-being: “There is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live” (Ecclesiastes 3:12). When we embrace our finiteness and enjoy God and his gifts to us, we ultimately live like God by doing good to others. We soak up the joy of the life he has given to us, and then we channel that joy to others.

So, what do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us? We face all things — the good, the bad, and the somewhere in between — with confidence because we know our God is weaving all things together for good, even when we cannot see past our current circumstances. We walk hand in hand with our Savior on the path of life, enjoying all his gifts, big and small. And then we do good to others by inviting them to do the same.

In a season that focuses on gifts, I often overlook one of the most priceless ones. It’s a gift I’ve dreaded, refused, and longed to give back, but it has been invaluable in shaping me and drawing me to Jesus. It’s the unwelcome gift of suffering.

Suffering does not seem like a good gift. Job’s friends saw it as punishment for an unrighteous life. Most people, including me, avoid it whenever possible. Even thinking about it can fill me with a sense of fear.

Yet the Bible shows us that suffering is an intentional gift. Though we are never told to seek it out, we can know, if we are in Christ, that God gives us suffering for our good.

Comfort Can Make Us Forget

God used the wilderness to shape the wandering children of Israel, so they would learn to trust him for all their needs and live by his word (Deuteronomy 8:3). In the wilderness, God’s presence was unmistakable; his direction, clear. He provided for the Israelites what they could not provide for themselves and fulfilled all his promises to them (Joshua 23:14).

God wanted his people to remember how he delivered them in those difficult days — he knew how important the wilderness was to their faith. He wanted them to remember his tender care, and he knew that when they were prosperous, they would be tempted to forget him. They would assume they could provide for themselves and would turn away. So he says through Moses,

Take care lest you forget the Lord your God . . . lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God . . . who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” (Deuteronomy 8:11–17)

In essence, God told them that in times of plenty and abundance, they needed to reflect on past times of struggle and remember how he met them in it. The great and terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and thirsty ground was the place they learned of his faithfulness and provision.

This is the opposite perspective of the world, which urges us to look back and focus on the good times and to work for future success and comfort. But God knows the gifts of success and comfort are temporal, only to be enjoyed while we have them. Apart from God, they don’t foster lasting joy and often lead to bitterness when they are taken away.

Where Great Prayers Were Prayed

God never promised to give us thriving ministries, perfect marriages, obedient children, healthy bodies, comfortable bank accounts, or protection from painful trials. But he has promised to be with us in trouble, which can be a greater blessing than the absence of trouble.

“God has promised to be with us in trouble, which is a far greater blessing than the absence of trouble.”

His presence feels nearer. His embrace tighter. And when the trial is removed, we have a deeper faith, rooted in God’s character and love. Just looking back at God’s faithfulness in trials anchors us. The memory of the presence of God in our pain is enough to make us love Jesus more, long for heaven, and fall to our knees in gratitude.

Joseph Parker, a British pastor in the mid-1800s, speaks of the value of the great and terrible wilderness. He says, “The ‘great and terrible wilderness’ was the place where our great prayers were prayed. . . . You do not know what you said in that long night of wilderness and solitude; the words were taken down; if you could read them now, you would be surprised at their depth, richness, and unction. You owe your very life to the wilderness which made you afraid” (The People’s Bible, 80).

Suffering Deepened My Faith

I owe the depth of my faith and my love for Christ to the wilderness that made me afraid. I learned to lament, to press into God, to depend on him completely in the wilderness. I don’t remember what I cried out to God in the dark, but I do remember that God answered with himself.

“I owe the depth of my faith and my love for Christ to the wilderness that made me afraid.”

Friends were around me, but no one could touch the deepest parts of my pain. I couldn’t even articulate how I felt. The emotions often seemed bigger than I was. It was in crying out, in throwing myself on his mercy, and in praying desperate prayers, that I met God most intimately. He knows that our experience of him and his unmistakable provision in suffering can mark and ground our faith. If we truly are comforted by God in our pain, we likely will never forget it.

That is why suffering is a gift. Not the suffering itself, but the turning to God in suffering, because that is where we encounter him. The greater the pain, the closer God comes. And the closer he comes, the more joy he offers. In his presence is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11), and he offers joy for those he chooses to bring near (Psalm 65:4). This otherworldly, counterintuitive, overflowing joy assures us that heaven is real, God is good, and glory awaits.

Tearing Wrapping Paper

I have come to see that this life is like wrapping paper and ribbons. We want our lives to look beautiful, and we spend most of our energy making sure they are. This wrapping is what we can see and touch and experience, both the tangible and the intangible. It includes our families, our friends, our homes, our accomplishments, our physical appearance, our money, our gifts — all the pursuits we spend time on, appreciate, and invest in. God wants us to enjoy these gifts which are from him, though none is permanent or indestructible.

Suffering tears that wrapping paper, and the process permanently changes us. Life as we knew it may never be restored, and we appropriately mourn what we’ve lost. We look at the torn paper longingly, wishing that we could at least tape it back together. We look at other people’s intact paper and shiny ribbons and wonder why only ours have been damaged, sometimes almost shredded. It doesn’t seem fair. We’re tempted to wonder what we’ve done wrong.

But as we sit with our torn paper, we begin to realize that the paper wasn’t an end in itself. It was only temporary, never meant to last forever, like our earthly tents, which are not our permanent dwellings. We know we will deal with pain and loss until our true home in heaven (2 Corinthians 5:1–4).

While the paper was once our focus, when it rips, we notice that there is something more. We see that the paper, whether beautiful or plain, was just there to enfold a gift. The gift is the item of supreme value, and the torn paper enables us, perhaps for the first time, to notice it. Even a glimpse of the gift is breathtaking. While the wrapping paper had an important purpose, it fades when we see the unparalleled beauty of the gift. The gift is God himself — the only treasure that will last.

Gift of Suffering

We’ll delight in Christ endlessly in heaven, and encountering his beauty and comfort on earth gives us a small foretaste of that eternal happiness. For me, experiencing God in my suffering is the closest I’ve come to pure joy.

Suffering has taken my eyes off the temporary and fixed them on the eternal. My faith is not theoretical, not a set of doctrines and principles that others have adopted; it is personal and real. As my outer nature is wasting away and my paper has ripped, I have glimpsed a weight of glory beyond all comparison.

So this Christmas, if your paper is ragged and torn, don’t despair. Look carefully to find the gift of supreme value, that can never be taken away and will last throughout eternity. It is the matchless gift of our Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Audio Transcript

We have a question today from a listener named David: How progressive can a progressive Christian get? Here’s what he asks: “Dear Pastor John, thank you for this podcast. I have a colleague who would define himself as a ‘progressive Christian.’ He believes homosexual practice is holy, and people engaged in such acts are qualified to be leaders in the church. He also believes the Old Testament is completely metaphorical and cannot be trusted in any historical way. I believe both beliefs fly against what the Bible teaches and teaches about itself. My question is this: Can you contradict the Bible at these levels and still be considered a Christian? I know it’s impossible to have an infallible understanding of the whole Bible and that we will err in many ways. I’m sure I do! But also, isn’t there a line that cannot and must not be crossed? How ‘progressively Christian’ can a real Christian get?”

So let me think out loud with you for just a moment about a couple of the words used in this question, and then I’ll get right to giving as clear and biblical an answer as I can.

Progressing vs. Abiding

Let’s take the word progressive. The reason this word has come to refer to people and views that go beyond what has historically been considered true to the Bible is not because the idea of progress is bad in itself. All of us want to see progress toward truth and goodness and beauty. And the reason the word progressive has taken on the meaning it has is because it has come to imply a progress away from the truth and toward error, progress away from biblical holiness toward immorality.

And here’s a really interesting and, I think, significant thing — namely, that the idea of progressiveness is in the Bible; even the word and the idea are in the Bible. I didn’t know this until a few years ago when I was trying to do a careful translation of 2 John. So here’s 2 John 1:7–9:

Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God.

Now, the Greek behind “goes on ahead” is proagō. So, you could translate it: “everyone who progresses,” or you could say, to bring it right up to date, “Everyone who is progressive and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God.” So here is a use of the word progress or going on ahead in the sense of leaving true teaching behind. In other words, a person can forsake the Christian faith, not just by swerving to the right or to the left, but by going ahead, straight ahead, and leaving behind the truth and grasping for things that are coming — things that do not fit with the “faith . . . once for all delivered to the saints,” though they may fit the spirit of the age (Jude 3).

So we have a yellow flag waving — I suppose I should say a red flag waving — in the Bible: beware, beware of those who get frustrated with abiding, standing firm. You could stick in the word “conserving,” and then you’ve got the political polls. But let’s just stay with the Bible words: abiding, standing firm in the teaching of Christ, holding fast to old sure truth. The alternative is that people get restless with the old and the firm and the true, and they want change. And they want newness, especially change that fits the spirit of the times.

Now, of course, lots of non-essential things need change from age to age and culture to culture. That’s not at issue here. But lots of essential things do not need to change and must not change if we are to be faithful Christians.

Fruit of the Heart

Now, the second word that I wanted to make a comment about is the word considered in his question. David asks, “Can you contradict the Bible at these levels [that he itemized] and still be considered a Christian?” That’s a good way to ask the question. He didn’t say, “Can you contradict the Bible at these levels and be a Christian?” Now the answer to that question is more complicated because the person might be on the brink of repenting from a temporarily destructive, unbiblical, heretical view, and we can’t see it. He might have dipped into it, been gripped by it, be on the brink of repentance, come out of it, and prove to be a long-term, great Christian. And we can’t see any of that. Only God can see things like that.

Our job in the church is not to make final, decisive, infallible decisions about who is truly born again and who isn’t. Our job is to decide who should be considered a Christian — that is, who should belong to the visible church — and who should be disciplined or excommunicated from the visible church. And we make these decisions, not because we’re God, but because we are called to form judgments on the basis of what we can see, and what we can hear, and what we know in the Bible. God looks on the heart; we look on the fruit of the heart — namely, what a person believes and how a person acts.

“God looks on the heart; we look on the fruit of the heart — namely, what a person believes and how a person acts.”

So with those two clarifications of progressive and considered, my answer to the question is this: yes, there is a line that a person may cross that puts him in a position of rightly being considered a non-Christian, having once professed to be a Christian, because of some unrepentant behavior or some belief that the Bible itself shows to undermine salvation.

Time to Walk Out

Let’s just take one of David’s examples. He says that his colleague believes homosexual practice is holy, and people engaged in such acts are qualified to be leaders in the church. So there are two questions here. One is whether practicing homosexual acts without repentance puts one in a position where he should be considered a non-Christian. And the other is whether a person who celebrates that homosexual practice as good and pleasing to God, who may not himself practice, should be considered a Christian.

A little anecdote: In June of 2002, the synod of the Anglican diocese of New Westminster in Vancouver, Canada, authorized its bishop to produce a service for blessing same-sex unions. J.I. Packer, who has gone to be with the Lord now, a longtime member of that church, that denomination, walked out. He walked out. This is hard to imagine. This is a gentleman to the max, right? You’ve spent a lot of time with Packer, Tony, and I don’t know if it’s easy for you, but it’s not easy for me to imagine J.I. Packer standing up and, in rejection of something so serious, actually walking out.

So here’s what he wrote in January of 2003, and the title of the article in Christianity Today is “Why I Walked”:

Why did I walk out with the others? Because this decision, taken in its context, falsifies the gospel of Christ, abandons the authority of Scripture, jeopardizes the salvation of fellow human beings, and betrays the church in its God-appointed role as the bastion and bulwark of divine truth.

Now, why did he say that blessing homosexual unions falsifies the gospel? That’s probably the most serious of the four. Because of 1 Corinthians 6:9–10. (He explained in the article, but I’ll just put my own words here.) The text says,

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

“When you celebrate the very behaviors that keep a person out of the kingdom of God, you are anti-gospel.”

Now, the gospel of Jesus — the death of Jesus for sinners — is meant to rescue people for the kingdom of God, not keep them out of the kingdom of God. Therefore, when you celebrate the very behaviors that keep a person out of the kingdom of God, you are anti-gospel; you are pointing people into the very sin that Jesus died to rescue the people from. This is a falsification of the gospel. It is saying, “Jesus did not die for this. It doesn’t need to be died for. It’s beautiful. It’s not damning.”

Souls in Jeopardy

So, my conclusion is that both the person who persistently and unrepentantly carries on with adultery, theft, greed, homosexual practice, and so on, and the person who celebrates that person’s self-destructive course should not be considered Christians; that is, they should be disciplined by the church. They should be excluded from the visible church in the hope that the seriousness of that act would bring them to their senses and restore them to Christ and to fellowship.

So one principle, then, I close with. One principle for decisions about which beliefs and which behaviors are in this category of seriousness is whether there is biblical evidence that they actually undermine the gospel. The closer they get to jeopardizing souls in this way, the more fitting it is that their advocate should be considered non-Christian.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14938876/christian-love-is-sacrificial-love

I had never thought of myself as passive. Throughout high school and college, and all throughout my twenties, I had been the driven dreamer and achiever. I thought of myself as the organized one, the proactive one, the disciplined one, the visionary. I was the one who initiated next steps, important meetings, needed changes, group plans, hard conversations.

And then I married, and marriage showed me sides of myself I had never had to see.

A man does not change much by making vows and putting on a ring, but an awful lot changes for a man that day. The apostle Paul tried to prepare us: “The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided” (1 Corinthians 7:32–34). Divided me was not as put-together and proactive as single me had been. And as the pressures rose and the cracks began to show, I suddenly saw just how tempted to self-pity and passivity I could be.

What God Expects of Husbands

Over the first year or two of marriage, the passivity of Christian husbands went from a foreign and somewhat perplexing problem to a profoundly familiar and personal and humbling one. Vision and initiative were easier, in some ways, when they were fenced into certain parts of my life. Now, as two became one, all of life required a leading love.

Will I give myself up for her good again today (Ephesians 5:25)? Will I keep pursuing her, studying her, wooing her? Will I develop and carry out a vision for our family? Will I consistently open the Bible and pray with them? Will I lead our family in loving and serving the church? Will I lean into conflict with patience and love, or will I withdraw? Will I anticipate our family’s needs and preserve space to rest? Will I discipline our children, even when I’m tired? Will I bring up difficult conversations and make tough decisions? Or, like Adam, when God comes calling, will I hide and point the finger somewhere else (Genesis 3:12)?

God expects much from husbands. As my senses have been heightened to my own tendencies to passivity, stories of husbands in Scripture — good and bad — have come alive with greater gravity and relevance for marriage.

Weak and Wicked Example

God often trains men to be faithful husbands and fathers by giving us great examples to follow — the faith of Abraham, the conviction of Moses, the leadership of Joshua, the wisdom of Solomon, the heart of David. Sometimes, however, God trains us for faithfulness by showing us just how wicked men can be. He trains us to love by showing us men who failed to love, to lead by showing us men who failed to lead, to fight by showing us men who refused to fight, to die for others by showing us men who saved themselves.

And as husbands and fathers go, few were as corrupt and shameful as King Ahab.

“Sometimes God trains us for faithfulness by showing us just how wicked men can be.”

When we first meet the man, Scripture tells us, “Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him” (1 Kings 16:29–30). The kings before him were a cauldron of evil — conspiring, deceiving, stealing, murdering, and in it all, insulting God by choosing idols over him. Ahab, we learn, was worse than them all.

And his marriage was at the center of his rebellion. “As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him” (1 Kings 16:31). He first mocked God by marrying an idolator, and then — as God warned would happen — he caved and bowed in submission to her and her god.

The facets of Ahab’s wickedness are worthy of much reflection, but here I want to focus on a scene that exposes the allure and peril of his passivity.

Seduction of Self-Pity

When 1 Kings 21 opens, Ahab covets the vineyard of his neighbor, Naboth, and asks to buy it from him — disregarding God’s law that prevented the permanent sale of land (Leviticus 25:23). Naboth doesn’t merely refuse because he wants to keep his land; he refuses because to do otherwise would be to disregard God. Now watch how Ahab responds, crumbling into self-pity and passivity:

Ahab went into his house vexed and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food. (1 Kings 21:4)

The most powerful man in the land curled up in a ball, like a brokenhearted teenager. He refused to eat. He pouted because he didn’t get his way. He’s almost a parody of passivity — almost. As pitiful as the cry-baby king seems, many husbands will know something of the temptation he indulged. Self-pity is strangely seductive, and can be equally paralyzing. It can keep a man from confessing his sin, from initiating reconciliation, from picking up the phone, from attempting family devotions, from making a difficult decision or taking the hard next step.

What happens next, as Ahab nurses his hurt feelings, compounds his shame all the more. See how self-pity imprisons and disables him.

Passivity Encourages Iniquity

Knowing his wife and what she was capable of, Ahab should have stepped up to stop her — for the good of Naboth and those who loved him, for the good of the kingdom, for the good of his own soul, for the good of his wife. A passive husband will inevitably enable and encourage the sins of his wife (and vice versa!). When Jezebel sees how miserable and pathetic poor King Ahab is, she takes matters into her own hands. She says to him, “Do you now govern Israel? Arise and eat bread and let your heart be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite” (1 Kings 21:7). Ahab’s sorry silence suggests he was all too glad to acquiesce.

So Jezebel instructed the leaders in Naboth’s city to kill him. She wrote letters (and signed them with Ahab’s name and seal), saying, “Set two worthless men opposite him, and let them bring a charge against him, saying, ‘You have cursed God and the king.’ Then take him out and stone him to death” (1 Kings 21:10). The greed, the deceit, the robbery, the conspiracy, the murdering of a blameless man. These were the weeds of wickedness in full bloom.

We could explore the devilry of Jezebel — a wife so awful Jesus himself uses her as a metaphor for immorality (Revelation 2:20). For now, however, notice how her peculiar sins were kindled by her husband’s passivity. While he wallowed in self-pity, he nurtured her iniquity. Had he had the conviction and nerve (and honor) to act as God called him to, he likely could have prevented all that unfolded here. He could have saved a good man’s life.

But he stayed in bed instead. Ahab proves that sometimes a man who does nothing is as harmful as the man who does the wrong thing.

“Sometimes a man who does nothing is as harmful as the man who does the wrong thing.”

A good husband cannot keep his wife from sinning, but he also will not lie on the couch while she does. A bad husband — especially a passive husband — will encourage her to sin all the more. In the challenging moments of our own marriages, some men will lie down like Ahab, others will rise up like the man we meet next.

Refusing the Pull of Passivity

Jezebel tells Ahab that Naboth is dead and that his vineyard is now available. “As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab arose to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it” (1 Kings 21:16). Again, the passivity. Not, What have you done? Not, How did he die? Not, Is this dead man’s vineyard mine to have? No, “as soon as he heard that Naboth was dead,” he finally found the strength to leave his bed and went to enjoy another man’s field.

“Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite” (1 Kings 21:17). As much as I despise how selfish, passive, and evil Ahab was, I admire all the more the man who stepped up to confront him. While Naboth’s innocent blood ran in the street, the prophet Elijah came knocking at Ahab’s door — notice he comes to Ahab, not Jezebel — with a word from the Lord: “You have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord” (1 Kings 21:20).

They had just killed a man for refusing to sell them a vineyard. Imagine what evil they might do to a man who accused them like this. While other men watched and stayed silent (and even participated in the injustice), one refused the pull of passivity and embraced the costs of obedience. He would rather die than sit and watch God’s law be vandalized.

Don’t miss what God says next through Elijah. Ahab’s passivity would come back not just on his own head, but on the heads of all he loved — his sons, their sons, his wife: “I will utterly burn you up, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel . . . for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel the Lord also said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel’” (1 Kings 21:21–23).

Ahab’s judgment is a vivid, bloody picture of how unchecked sin ruins a home. When a husband grows passive, the whole family suffers — perhaps not in judgment like Jezebel, but they will suffer nonetheless.

Mercy for Passive Men

The story circles back to where it began with Ahab: “There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited” (1 Kings 21:25). The narrator wants us to see all that just happened as a clinic in iniquity, a masterclass in marital failures. The next verse, however, is one of the more surprising verses in Scripture:

And when Ahab heard [Elijah’s] words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. (1 Kings 21:27)

One might think this is the same man we found lying in bed, feeling sorry for himself, refusing to eat. This, however, is not the same man — not in God’s eyes anyway. Instead of lashing out in fury at the prophet, instead of retreating into more self-pity and passivity, Ahab humbles himself in repentance. He does the hard thing. He sees his sin, hates his sin, and seeks the Lord’s mercy.

“And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster upon his house” (1 Kings 21:27–29). Consequences still remained, to be sure, but something of his sin had died. The selfish, prideful, passive husband became a humble one, at least for a time, giving hope to selfish, prideful, passive husbands.

It’s easy to hate the passivity of Ahab — a king who stubbornly mopes while his wife commits murders, who blatantly disregards, even mocks, God’s calls to lead and love, who selfishly sets God’s will below his own desires. It’s harder, however, to hate the passivity in ourselves. Will we, as husbands in Christ, practice an intentional, costly, active love? Will we keep leading when it’s inconvenient to lead? Will we receive the mercy of God, humble ourselves before him, lay down our pride and self-pity, and resist the enticing pull of passivity?

The hit CBS show Undercover Boss has enjoyed a decade-long run based on a simple premise. Conceal the identity of a high-ranking leader of a company as he or she works among ordinary employees — and make the big reveal of the boss’s true identity at the end of each episode. Part of the fun is how some folks begin to piece it together along the way.

Of all designations used for Jesus Christ, the most undercover one is “Son of Man.” It shows up seemingly everywhere in the Gospels (over eighty times across all four), as a distinct way Jesus refers to himself in the third person. Jesus is not shy, in other words, about calling himself “Son of Man.” But what does it actually mean? It is surprisingly rare elsewhere in the New Testament, and unlike “Son of David” or other designations, it is not common in the Old Testament or Jewish tradition either.

As we reflect on Jesus this Advent season, it is right to ask the very question he asked his disciples: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13). “Son of Man” may sound simple on the surface, but this phrase masks the astounding depths of the person and work of Jesus.

Revealing: Man Among Us

Let’s begin with what seems quite obvious about the phrase: “Son of Man” reveals someone is truly human. On the surface, the title seems to work just like, say, Aslan’s affectionate way of calling the four Pevensies “Sons of Adam” and “Daughters of Eve” to distinguish them from Narnian creatures. The offspring of a human shares the same nature.

Early church writers generally understood “Son of Man” along these lines. They treated it as a beautifully succinct reminder that Jesus is fully human, often as the opposite pole of “Son of God.” Here are a few examples that capture the Christmas spirit of the phrase (italics mine):

Ignatius (d. 140s): “Jesus Christ — who according to the flesh is of the lineage of David, the Son of Man” (Letter to the Ephesians, 20.2).
Justin Martyr (d. 165): “He spoke of himself as ‘Son of Man,’ either because of his birth through a virgin . . . or because Adam was his father” (Dialogue with Trypho, 100.3).
Irenaeus (d. 202): “Our Lord is . . . Son of Man, because from Mary he has his generation according to humanity, being made Son of Man” (Against Heresies, 3.19.3).
Tertullian (d. 220): “Christ is neither able to lie, that he would pronounce himself ‘Son of Man’ if it were not truly so, nor could he be regarded as son of man if he were not born of a human” (Against Marcion, 4.10.6).
Origen (d. 253): “The Son of God is said to have died, namely, with regard to that nature that was able to accept death — and he is designated ‘Son of Man’” (On First Principles, 2.6.3).

The church fathers, then, chart a course for seeing “Son of Man” as a three-word way of capturing the essence of the nativity: Jesus took on flesh and was born of a virgin. This fits nicely with the hypothesis that — assuming Jesus regularly spoke this phrase in Aramaic (bar enash) — it would sound to his hearers like a simple idiom for “a man like me.”

There is only one problem: Jesus uses “Son of Man” in ways that stretch far beyond mere humanness.

Concealing: Divine Man in Heaven

Several times, Jesus states that, as “Son of Man,” he will sit on a heavenly throne, come with the clouds, receive glory and power, and be surrounded by angels (Matthew 24:30; 25:31; 26:64; Mark 13:26; 14:62; Luke 21:27; 22:69). Surely this is not normal for a man! A reader with ears to hear will be drawn to Daniel 7 as the key for how “Son of Man,” while revealing Jesus’s humanity, simultaneously conceals Jesus’s heavenly status.

“‘Son of Man’ sounds simple on the surface, but this phrase masks the astounding depths of the person and work of Jesus.”

In Daniel’s vision of heaven, the Ancient of Days takes his throne of judgment, and “with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man . . . and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom” (Daniel 7:13–14). The setup is staggering. Someone is enthroned with God in heaven to rule forever, and he appears as a “son of man” because he is better than the beastly kings of earth (Daniel 7:17).

By deftly applying phrases of Daniel 7 to himself, Jesus unveils that he is that Son of Man. And Daniel’s vision is not about simple flesh and blood. It is ripe for far more.

Preexistence: In this vision, Daniel glimpses the preincarnate Son in the throne room — just as Isaiah saw Jesus’s glory (John 12:37–41; Isaiah 6:1–10), and Ezekiel saw a “man” enthroned in the highest heaven (Ezekiel 1:26–28).
Present authority: Multiple times, Jesus invokes his identity as Son of Man to claim authority on earth that no mere man could claim, such as unrestricted forgiveness of sins (Mark 2:5–12) and lordship over the Sabbath (Mark 2:28). Jesus’s divine prerogatives are rooted in his status as heavenly Son of Man.
Suffering to accomplish redemption: Jesus also connects “Son of Man” with the vicarious suffering of the Isaianic “servant” (Isaiah 52:13–53:12) when he predicts how, as Son of Man, he would suffer and die for sins (Mark 9:31).
Heavenly enthronement: Upon his ascension, Jesus is enthroned as Son of Man at the right hand of the Father on high (Acts 7:56; cf. Revelation 1:12–16) — further connecting the phrase to Psalm 110:1. Having accomplished salvation, the man Jesus Christ now reigns in heaven.
Return in glory: Finally, Jesus will return from heaven as Son of Man, the divine judge and eternal king (Matthew 19:28–30).

On closer inspection, “Son of Man” is just as much about Jesus’s divinity as it is his humanity.

This title proves to be perhaps the most effective way Jesus reveals and conceals who he really is. By using “Son of Man,” he is able to minister undercover, so to speak, on earth. For many observers then and now, the cryptic phrase just states the obvious: he’s human. But those who know the Scriptures see that “Son of Man” conceals something amazing: he is the one divine-man, grounded in heaven!

Our Son of Man

When Daniel glimpsed this heavenly reality, he was thoroughly overwhelmed (Daniel 7:28). What is our own response this Advent, as we see with greater clarity than even Daniel that Jesus Christ as Son of Man is truly man — born in Bethlehem, placed in a manger — but also much more?

He came down from heaven as Son of Man among the sons and daughters of Adam. Why? So that, through his divine authority and self-giving, he might make us to be children of the living God. The Son of Man descended from the heavenly throne room to win a people for himself, that in him the “saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever” (Daniel 7:18).

How, then, should we answer Jesus’s question, Who is this “Son of Man”? He is nothing short of God-made-flesh, who reigns in heaven, yet was born of a virgin — our brother and our friend.

Audio Transcript

God can prevent every trial from entering our lives. He can. And he doesn’t. Why not? That’s the question every believer must eventually answer, especially if you believe God is all-powerful. If God is all-powerful, why does he allow trials into our lives? Why does he let the car break down in the middle of nowhere?

To that end, we have a fascinating clip to address this very point, a clip from a 1996 sermon that marked the 125th anniversary of Bethlehem Baptist Church. Pastor John was preaching Jeremiah 32:36–42. To introduce the text, he shared a poem and a personal story. Have a listen.

Our aim is to celebrate the sustaining grace of God for 125 years, and my first question is, What is that? What is sustaining grace? And I want to put it in a four-line poem that I took about an hour to figure out yesterday, and I want to say it over and over again, because when I take the time to put truth in a rhyme, it just helps me. It helps me. So you have to tolerate this. What is sustaining grace?

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,     Nor flight from all distress, but this:The grace that orders our trouble and pain,     And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

“Grace does not prevent pain, but orders it, arranges it, measures it out, and then, in the darkness of it, sustains us.”

Now, the reason I stress this is that if we were to celebrate a grace this morning that bars us from what is not bliss, and that gives flight from all distress, and that does not order our pain, it would be biblically false and experientially unrealistic. Our experience and the Bible teach us that grace does not prevent pain, but orders it, arranges it, measures it out, and then in the darkness of it sustains us.

Car Accident and an Air Tube

For example, yesterday, Bob — I’m going to borrow your story. (You go to him and get it corrected afterward if I’ve missed anything.) He told us in that other room over there that God ordains that the people of the Lord, from time to time, take stones and make memorials out of them, so that when they look at them and children say, “What’s that?” parents and others can say, “That’s because God did that.”

And then he told the story of how, a little less than ten years ago, their daughter was in a very serious automobile accident — so serious that she would have died. But the car behind, providentially, had a doctor in it. The doctor, providentially, had in his pocket an air tube. He also had the presence of mind, and got to her just as she was turning blue, to force this into her throat, and she lived. And he did her wedding here in 1992. And as he looked at her, doing the wedding as the pastor, and saw these little scars that remained, he said to her, “Those are a memorial of sustaining grace.”

“God ordains that the people of the Lord, from time to time, take stones and make memorials out of them.”

Now, Bob is not naive. He knows that if God can manage a doctor in the car behind, and if God can manage a little air tube in his pocket, and if God can manage to put him on the scene with the presence of mind and the saving action to save her life, he could have stopped the accident in the first place.

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,     Nor flight from all distress, but this:The grace that orders our trouble and pain,     And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

A Radiator and a Catfish

Another story, a little lighter this time. Noël, Abraham, Barnabas, and Talitha are in the car, two Saturdays ago, driving from here to Georgia. The car breaks down three times, and Daddy is at home, comfortable. The third time it broke down was about an hour outside of Indianapolis on a lonely stretch on Saturday afternoon. And the radiator crumbles to pieces, basically. The car overheats. They’re off on the side of the road — a baby, two kids, a mom, and no daddy. What do you do on Saturday afternoon?

A 67-year-old farmer stops and says, “Can I help?”

And Noël says, “Well, we just need a motel and a garage somewhere on Monday morning. Where are we?”

And he says, “Well, would you be willing to come stay with us, my wife and me?”

Pause.

“Well, I’m not sure we would want to impose.”

And he says, “You know, the Lord says that when you serve people in need, it’s like serving the Lord.”

And she says, “Well, can we go to church with you tomorrow morning?”

And he says, “Can you take a Baptist church?”

Not only is he a farmer, but he is also a retired aviation mechanic, and he sets them up. Monday morning, he drives to Indianapolis at 6 a.m., buys the radiator, puts it in, will not charge her for the labor, and they’re on their way mid-morning on Monday. And the icing on the cake is that he has a pond on his farm, and Abraham catches a nineteen-inch catfish.

Now, if God can manage a farmer on the scene who happens to be a Christian — and a Baptist to boot — and an aviation mechanic, and an open home, and a heart for the hurting, and a fishpond, he could have saved the radiator. And he didn’t because sustaining grace is

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,     Nor flight from all distress, but this:The grace that orders our trouble and pain,     And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.