“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Little did they know how well they spoke — not only for themselves, but for the whole human race.

John 12:20 reports that “some Greeks” had come to worship in Jerusalem for that fateful Passover leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion. They approached his disciple Philip, who told another disciple, Andrew. Together, the two came to their Master with the request of the Greeks “to see Jesus” — to which Jesus gave this spectacularly unexpected response:

The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

That was not the answer they were expecting — the disciples or the Greeks. But their wish to see Jesus was not rejected but redirected. It was an admirable wish, profoundly so — and if they remain in Jerusalem for the week, they will soon see the most important sight of him, crushing as it at first will be. His time has come to be “glorified” — which will not mean leading a charge to overthrow Rome and seize the crown, but laying down his life. Like a grain of wheat, he will not bear much fruit unless he first dies.

These Greeks will indeed see him, and glimpse a sight far greater than they could have anticipated or imagined — far more horrible, and far more wonderful. They will witness the depths of his humiliation that will prove to be the very height of the glory of the one who truly
is David’s long-promised heir to the throne, as shocking and unexpected as it will be.

And as they see him — in his divine and human excellencies, united in one person, and
culminating in the cross and its aftermath — they will have all they wished and more in the request they made expressing the deepest longing of every human heart.

Infinite Abyss

Famously, Blaise Pascal wrote in his Pensees of “the infinite abyss” in the human soul that we try to fill with all the wonders and the worst this world has to offer.

There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. But these are all inadequate,
because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.

So also the great Augustine, more than twelve centuries before Pascal, had spoken of the great, undeniable restlessness of the human heart, until finding its rest in God: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Moses, seeking to leverage God’s remarkable favor on him, was so bold as to ask to see God’s glory. God permitted him a glimpse of the afterglow of divine beauty, not his face, and Moses made no complaints. Yet redemptive history was not done at Sinai. Centuries would follow. The kingdom would be established in the land, and decline. Human kings would rise and fall, and the nation with them. And the same Gospel in which the Greeks expressed their wish to see Jesus opens with one of the most stunning claims possible:

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The desire to see Jesus was far more profound than these Greeks could have guessed. They wished for amazement in the presence of someone great. And what they got instead anticipated the heavenly vision the apostle John would receive while in exile on the isle of Patmos.

Behold the Lion

In John’s vision, none in heaven, or on earth, or under the earth, is at first found worthy to open the scroll of God’s divine decrees of judgment (for his enemies) and salvation (for his people). Sensing the weight and importance of the moment, John begins to weep — perhaps even wondering if his Lord, the one who discipled him, the one to whom he’s dedicated his life as a witness, is not worthy. One of heaven’s elders then turns to him, and declares, in Revelation 5:5,

Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.

Having heard the good news, John turns to look — and what does he see? Not a lion. He says in verse 6:

I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes . . . .

We might mistakenly assume this was a disappointment, that John, hearing “Lion,” experienced some letdown to see a Lamb. But that is not how John reports it. This Lamb is no loss. The Lamb is gain. The one who was just declared to be the only one worthy is no less the Lion of Judah. He is also the Lamb who was slain. The Lion became Lamb without ceasing to be Lion. He did not jettison his lionlike glories, but added to his greatness the excellences of the Lamb. He is a Lamb standing — not dead, not slumped over, not kneeling, but alive and ready — with fullness of power (“seven horns”), seeing and reigning over all (“and seven eyes”).

So too for the Greeks in John 12 who wished to take counsel with the purported Messiah and Lion of Judah. Whatever disappointment they experienced in the moment in not having their immediate request fulfilled, and whatever devastations they endured on Good Friday as they watched in horror, it all changed on the third day. Then their wish, and perceptive inquiry, was answered beyond their greatest dreams — not just Messiah, but God himself, the very Lion of heaven. And not just divine, but the added lamblike glory of our own human flesh and blood,
and that same blood spilled to not only show us glory but invite us into it — Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian.

Looking to Jesus

Plain as it may seem, the author of Hebrews provides profound direction for the human soul when he says, simply, “Consider Jesus”. This is not a one-time exhortation, but continuous counsel, for every day and at any moment. And again, at the height of his letter, drawing attention to the great cloud of witnesses, Hebrews charges us to “lay aside every weight and sin” and “run with endurance the race set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). There is unmatched power in the Christward gaze.
As Jesus himself would soon say, in John 14:9, to the same Philip who relayed the Greeks’ request: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

Paul too, in one blessed flourish in 2 Corinthians 4, would celebrate, and commend,
the unsurpassed glory of the Christward gaze: “beholding the glory of the Lord [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” Unbelieving eyes have been blinded to “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,”
but we, by the mercy of God, have eyes of the heart opened to “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

We might here speak of the manifest Christocentrism of the New Testament, and a kind of healthy asymmetrical trinitarianism in the Christian faith — “contemplating the Trinity through a christological lens,” as Dane Ortlund writes, “and Christ through a trinitarian lens.”
We wish to see Jesus. He is the interpretative key to the Bible, the pinnacle of history, and central in Christian preaching, evangelism, and sanctification, and so we fix our eyes on him. Biblical trinitarianism doesn’t constrain us to symmetrically parcel out our attention and focus to each of the three divine Persons, according to modern notions of fairness, balance, and equality. The New Testament is far from “fair” in this way. Rather, as humans ourselves, we receive a peculiar centrality of the God-man, as the one Person of the Godhead who has drawn near in our own flesh, taking our own nature, to no diminishing of the Father or Spirit, but precisely according to their plan and work to direct attention to Jesus.

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus” would be a happy refrain to echo at key junctures in the Christian life. Before morning Bible meditation: “I wish to see Jesus.” Before conversations with the unbelieving: “I wish them to see Jesus.” For pastors, preparing to preach, to imagine these words on the lips of our people: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

Made for Him

We were indeed made for God — with an infinite abyss only he can fill, with a restlessness of soul satisfied in nothing less than him. And even more particularly, we were made for the God-man — for the greatness of God himself who draws near, in our own flesh and circumstances, in the person of Christ. The lionlike greatness of God in his divine glory is sweetened, deepened, and accented by his lamblike nearness and human excellencies. And his glories as the humble, meek, self-giving Lamb are enriched and magnified in the register of lionlike poise and majesty.

We wish to see Jesus — to know him as both great and near, and enjoy him forever.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back this Monday. Thank you for listening. Well, there are many factors that would disqualify a man from holding the office of elder, or pastor, in a local church. And that raises an important discussion about a man’s history. To what extent does a man’s sinful past come into play in his qualification (or lack of qualification) today, specifically when that sin is sexual sin? That’s the question we have from a young man.

“Dear Pastor John, hello! Ever since I was converted about four years ago, I’ve felt a strong desire to pursue full-time pastoring. My heart’s desire is to serve the Lord and the flock for the rest of my life. And that desire has only grown more intense as time goes on. Not only this, but, in this past year, the Lord has set before me everything needed to pursue this, like seminary training and support from my elders. There’s just one major question I must answer. Does my pre-conversion life of fornication disqualify me for pastoral ministry now? I have repented, but that life was filled to the brim with sin. According to 1 Corinthians 6:16, I became one flesh with the girl I committed this sin with. I’m unmarried now. But considering 1 Timothy 3:2, does my sinful past disqualify me from eldership today?”

No, I don’t think your past fornication disqualifies you for ministry, not in and of itself. And the reason I say it like that is because it would be part of what disqualifies you if it were part of an ongoing character flaw of bondage to sensuality, or pornography, or lack of self-control. Past fornication need not disqualify from ministry unless it’s part of an ongoing, sinful, unsanctified blemish in the present.

“Past fornication need not disqualify from ministry unless it’s part of a sinful, unsanctified blemish in the present.”

So let me step back then and give three (I think it’s just three) reasons from Scripture why I think that’s true — namely, why a man who is rebellious in a season of life, commits fornication, but has been free from that sin and repentant of its moral and spiritual Christ-dishonoring ugliness for long enough to prove his genuine newness, why it may be right to consider that man for Christian ministry in Christ’s church.

Paul, the Foremost of Sinners

So here’s the first argument. Paul’s example in his past life and present ministry with Christ’s blessing is really quite astonishing because of the actual use he himself makes of that example. Paul was complicit in Stephen’s murder in Acts 7 (see Acts 7:58; 8:1). Then as he became a ringleader in the efforts to stamp out Christianity with imprisonments and murders, it got even worse and more intentional. Acts 9:1–2: “Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to . . . Damascus.”

In short, Paul was a murderer, and “no murderer has eternal life abiding in him,” John said (1 John 3:15). Paul’s own assessment of his pre-Christian life was that he was the worst, the foremost of sinners. And that God saved him and used him anyway — precisely as an example to others who feel hopeless about their future possibilities of forgiveness and usefulness — is a precious reality in Scripture.

Here’s the way he says it in 1 Timothy 1:15–16: “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason” — and this is why it’s so remarkable, because we don’t have to make this application; he’s making the application — “that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”

So Paul gives his own experience of mercy as an example that I think extends to a person who may not have murdered, but has, in fact, committed fornication. That’s my first argument.

Husband of One Woman

Second, it’s a little more complicated because the young fellow that we’re dealing with here is sharp. He has studied, and he’s thought through the possible blockages to his own eldership. He’s asking a more sophisticated question. He asks on the basis of 1 Corinthian 6:16 whether, in fact, fornication is a unique kind of sin that may exclude from ministry when, in fact, murder may not.

Now that’s a thoughtful question because of the way Paul argues against fornication in 1 Corinthians 6, and because of 1 Timothy 3:2, to which he refers. In that text, Paul says that a minister in the church must be “the husband of one wife,” which some translate as “a one-woman man.” That’s pretty common paraphrase, a “one-woman man.” In other words, our friend wonders if he can qualify as a one-woman man because he committed fornication. That’s the way he’s thinking, which is a good way to think — I mean, it’s a good question to ask. It means he’s not weaseling. He’s not trying to squeak out of the rigors of Scripture.

So let me try to clarify what I think Paul means by “husband of one woman” (that’s important in the way his argument against himself is working), and why “one-woman man” may be a misleading translation. I have a lot of friends that translate it that way, and I have misgivings about that translation. Suppose your pastor is single. (Now, I think that’s legitimate: Jesus is single; Paul is single. I think it’s legitimate to have a single man for a pastor.) Suppose your pastor is single, and he commits fornication regularly with only one woman. Would he qualify as being a one-woman man? Well, good grief. Technically, yes — and we all know that’s not what Paul meant.

So translating “a husband of one woman” as “one-woman man” can get us into difficulty if we’re not careful. Paul really is dealing with marriage, and whether a man is faithful to his wife or whether he commits adultery.

Is Fornication a Marriage?

Now, the question then becomes, what do we make of Paul’s argument against fornication in 1 Corinthians 6? Some might say, “Well, Paul really does argue that, in essence, a sexual relationship before marriage is a kind of marriage.” Then our young friend might draw the conclusion, “Well, so I was in a sense married, and I’m not faithful to that girl today by not being married to her officially — not to mention that I can’t even get married legitimately if I’m still married to her because of that old relationship.” Is that what Paul meant?

He says in 1 Corinthians 6:13–18, “The body is not meant for sexual immorality [that is, fornication], but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. . . . Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” And here he’s getting very specific; he means our sexual organs. So our body parts are Christ’s body parts. “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?” And he cries out, “Never!” And then here’s the tricky part. He argues like this: “Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?” And he quotes Genesis 2:24, which is about marriage: “For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality.” Now that’s the end of 1 Corinthians 6:13–18.

“What makes fornication so horrible is that it takes the one-flesh design of marriage and prostitutes it.”

So Paul portrays the horror of fornication for the Christian as taking the body parts of Christ, because ours are his, and making them body parts of a prostitute. That’s how intimate and profound sexual intercourse is in Paul’s apostolic, inspired mind: you become one body with her. What makes the text look ominous for our young friend is that Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, which is a text about marriage: “The two will become one flesh.” So does Paul mean that, in essence, then, the one who fornicates with a prostitute is married to her? That’s what he wonders. That would exclude him because of 1 Timothy 3:2.

Prostituting Sex

My answer is no, that’s not what Paul means. He could have said that. He doesn’t draw that inference, or that conclusion. That would have been powerful if he had said that, but he didn’t go there. So what’s he doing?

I think what he’s doing is this. He says, “What makes fornication so horrible is that it takes the one-flesh design of marriage and prostitutes it.” He prostitutes that part of marriage by stripping it out of the covenant relationship of marriage and treating it as though it were designed for a prostitute. It’s precisely that this is not a marriage that makes the prostitution of Christ’s body parts so horrible. The one-flesh union designed for marriage — which represents Christ and the church, which is why it’s not idolatry to have sex in marriage — to take it out of that sacred covenant with a wife and with Christ and to prostitute it in fornication is what makes this fornication so horrible.

So I conclude that Paul was not treating fornication as a kind of marriage. There is no covenant formed at all with this prostitute, and that is precisely what makes the sexual similarity to marriage so morally and spiritually ugly. Therefore, I don’t think Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 6 means that our young repentant, transformed friend should use this text to argue that he’s excluded from eldership simply because of 1 Timothy 3:2, which says he must be “the husband of one [woman].”

Washed, Sanctified, Justified

One last observation, which is also precious. In this same chapter, Paul specifically refers to fornication as something in the church that has been cleansed and forgiven.

Do not be deceived: . . . the sexually immoral [and he’s referring to fornication there, because later he refers to adulterers] will [not] inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–11)

To which I say, “Praise God that any of us can be saved from our sin.”

So my conclusion is that the elders of this young man’s church should (and if they’re listening to me, greetings in the name of Jesus) carefully and biblically assess his qualifications for ministry and not let that past sin of fornication be decisive in excluding him.

“Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed,” wrote Oscar Wilde. “The poor should be practical and prosaic.” I can partially relate to this sentiment.

While I am not, in any estimation, to be numbered among the financially poor, I may be considered more impoverished in the currencies of independence and time. I am a father of five. My wife is currently recovering from COVID-19, and we are rounding out our second extended quarantine of the last two months. And in the last few days, two of our children’s stomachs have decided to expel their contents.

Our world orbits around need; and needs call for a more practical and prosaic season of life that all but excludes the possibility of romance, right? Quality time — undistracted and full of energy — seems like the privilege of the bourgeois.

But is it? Should we pause romance in this season? Should we simply acknowledge that we are shoulder-to-shoulder, not face-to-face, as we battle for the kindness and cleanliness of our kids?

Why Romance Is Worth Pursuing

I don’t believe we should pause romance in the demanding and chaotic world of parenting. Consider at least three reasons why.

First, delight in beauty is the sustaining substance of life. The battlefield of child-rearing is not for the faint of heart. Without consistent moments to be refueled together by the beauty of God in his creation (I’m thinking Psalm 19-style sunrises and sunsets, rich flavors, unforgettable melodies, and especially the divine image in each other), we will succumb to fatigue and forget why we’re raising the children to begin with.

Second, children need their parents’ affection for each other. God created parenting to be a completion of joy, an overflow of it. It is a Trinitarian image, whereby the mutual delight of the parents spills itself into creation. To quote thirteenth-century theologian Meister Eckhart (speaking in human terms and however imprecisely), “God laughed and begot the Son. Together they laughed and begot the Holy Spirit. And from the laughter of the Three, the universe was born.”

The nourishing and cherishing of Ephesians 5 doesn’t simply transfer to your children. “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church” (Ephesians 5:29) — I am convicted as I type. Spouses (with a special emphasis on husbands) are called to invest deeply into one another, with the nourishing and cherishing of one’s own body, implying more than mere functional living or co-laboring. “Cherish,” after all, is not a prosaic word. It is infused with deep delight, the kind of word husbands search for to express their affection in a poem or song.

Practical Advice for Married Couples

So, let’s get practical (but not prosaic). What might romance look like in the season of survival on the Serengeti that is parenting?

What follows is a list that mingles my own successes, failures, sin, and idealism, ranging from the mundane to the magical. Okay, mostly mundane. Most of it lives miles from a gondola in Venice, but placed on the battle for the souls of your children, every intentional face-to-face moment really helps. Take what helps.

1. Wake up together.

Most husbands need less sleep than their wives, but trying to coordinate either sleep or wake time can be good for your marriage. For us, it’s been wake time most recently. We get up most mornings before the kids are stirring. Yes, it’s dark. It feels like the middle of the night (because it is) and our eyes are bleary. But the world is quiet and we rehearse the mercies of God out loud to one another, and of course to him, as we paraphrase the Psalms. We directly thank him for the undeserved gift of one another — boom, romance.

2. Take a few minutes to connect.

This must be intentional, and it usually can’t be during dinner. Dinner is a wonderful opportunity to shepherd your children, but in most larger families, it is likely too chaotic to be a face-to-face moment with a spouse. The moment I’m speaking of is right after the kids are in bed. The reason it must be intentional is that you are likely drifting into a trance of fatigue, and some form of unwinding seeks your attention. But so does your spouse’s soul. And to turn to one another, without the television on or the phone in hand, and simply say, “Tell me about your day,” is fresh wind for your marriage. I might even recommend a few fun questions to pull from a hat in order to engage one another with more intrigue and substance.

3. Play.

After ten o’clock on most nights, my wife loses much of her filter to weariness and goes into full sass mode. She throws playful jabs my way and laughs until she cries, and I tend to amplify her delight with my over-the-top responses. It would probably look to the outsider like two middle school kids flirting, but it is an ironic display of marital safety and affection that is probably indispensable in this season. I would be hard-pressed to overstate the value of humor as a means of romantic connection.

4. Write to one another.

Even if you say you’re not a “words of affirmation” person, you are more than you realize. Your spouse is too. And when the words are written rather than simply spoken, they affect us powerfully. I think it’s because those words reflect deeper thought, deeper consideration, and deeper investment of time than something more spontaneous. That’s why a text message stating affection is good, but a sonnet is better. Or even a limerick if you’re not into iambic pentameter.

5. Get out into creation.

The heavens declare the romantic heart of God. The sun exclaims the joy and love of the Bridegroom (Psalm 19:1–5). A breeze whispers his gentleness, and the autumn leaves remind us of the beauty of Christ’s death. It doesn’t take the reservation of an Airbnb in Montana to engage the created world together. We sat on the back porch for a few minutes this week and marveled at the sudden bright yellows of the leaves behind the house. Consistent peeks outside or regular walks around the neighborhood, especially hand in hand, can bring peace to chaos. Speaking of hand in hand . . .

6. Show physical affection.

Keep holding hands in public. Or start holding hands in public. Half-mindlessly rub her back while you’re sitting on the couch. Don’t let the heckling of your teenagers keep you from a spontaneous hug in the kitchen. There was a moment, likely when you were dating, when the brush of your now-spouse’s hand was electric. The same desire, albeit without the giddiness, still resides in you. Touch is connection, and connection between two desire-laden, God-imaging souls is at the heart of romance.

7. Recall the wonders of God in your family’s life.

This is a clear command and practice in Scripture (see Psalm 136), and it is a poetic moment when practiced well. It ought to be a normative part of your prayer life, but we find it helpful to also formalize the practice. Each year on our anniversary, we pull out a journal and jog our memories about all the big events and sweet moments of the previous year. It is a connecting moment of sentiment, laughter, and gratitude.

8. Get away and dream.

This is a privilege that not all parents have the resources to enact. It requires willing babysitters (often family because of the sizable commitment) and sometimes money. We went three years without a night away at one point. And again, it doesn’t have to be in some exotic bungalow in Fiji. But one of our fonder marital memories was a simple switching of houses with my parents for a night so that we could come out of the winds and talk uninterruptedly about what the Lord might have for our future.

9. Play music.

I don’t mean that you need to turn your family into the Von Trapps. If anyone in your family can conjure a melody with voice or violin, all the better, but I am here referring to a simple song in the background. Whether it’s a hymn (Indelible Grace gets a lot of air time in our household), a soundtrack, or a beat to dance to, music awakens the soul. It allows easier access to emotion and meaning in the mundane moments. Use the gift of Spotify or a phonograph.

10. Speak the delights of God to your spouse.

While this is an admittedly shoulder-to-shoulder activity (since your collective gaze is elsewhere), it is akin to watching a sunset or a play, only with deeper relational weight. After all, you are fostering the romance between your spouse and the true Bridegroom. To speak the wonders of God’s holiness, his fatherly delight, and the wonders of his love, is to kindle the soul. So don’t just memorize Scripture. Memorize it in order to tell her of the dimensions of the love of Christ, and so fill her with the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19).

Life, even the life of a child-chasing parent, is magical. And marriage, even the mostly shoulder-to-shoulder kind that is stretched to its limit by fatigue and chaos, is still a picture of Christ and the church. Ask your heavenly Bridegroom for eyes to see that afresh and the energy to enact a bit of intentional romance.