The Week after Easter: When Sin and the Resurrection Collide
As believers, we are reminded afresh of the full forgiveness of our sins through the death and resurrection of Christ. The good news of the gospel never gets old to the heart of a redeemed sinner because we never stop needing grace. We know that never-ending grace is ours because of our Savior’s empty tomb.
Sin is not a popular topic to discuss in our world today. Our culture has virtually banished sin out of its vocabulary. Sin has been re-defined, re-labeled, re-directed, and even revered. People who sin are not sinners because nearly everyone is a victim.
The reality, though, is that you can erase sin from a culture, but you can’t erase guilt. There is the sense that all human beings have that we are guilty of doing wrong. We are born into this world having been created in the image of God, and because we live in God’s world as creatures who bear His image, we can never escape the reality of our guilt because of our sin.
What has been so fascinating and so tragic to watch over the past several years is that the more the world has tried to deny the reality of sin, the greater the guilt they feel. We can see the reality of that all around us. Wokeness, social justice, anti-racism, virtue signaling, false religions, vague forms of spirituality, mindfulness, psychology, and more – all attempting to do one thing: erase the guilt we feel over our sins and make us feel like we are good, righteous people. But all of these attempts at self-justification are ultimately futile and useless.
The real tragedy is that they don’t work at the spiritual level. Denying your sins will never erase your sins before a holy and just God. The real problem we have as sinful human beings isn’t that our existential happiness is hindered by sin; it’s that we are destined for an eternity under the wrath of God because of our sin. This is the tragedy of denying your sin; simply wishing it away or pretending your sin is virtue doesn’t deal with the problem of the wrath of God abiding on you. And you know that in your conscience, and you can’t escape it no matter what you do.
It’s into this setting of a world of sinners in need of real forgiveness from God that Mark begins the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Mark tells his readers from the outset that he has good news to share with sinful people about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. He ensures we understand at the outset of his Gospel that Jesus has come into this world to defeat Satan by bringing forgiveness to sinners. The miracles, the healings, the casting out of demons are external signs of a spiritual truth, that Jesus has the authority to do the most important thing for us that we need: to forgive our sins. That’s the good news of the gospel that Mark is writing about.
As this Gospel progresses, we learn in Mark 10:45
exactly how Jesus is going to provide forgiveness for our sins. He will do it in the most degrading manner possible, by giving His life for sinners on a cross. There’s one detail, though, that Jesus includes in Mark 10:34 that will vindicate Jesus’ claim that His sacrifice was accepted by God and brought forgiveness to sinners: He would rise again three days later.
Here, we come face to face with the most crucial fact of all: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship
What can the “Pentecostalization of worship” refer to, if we have removed the overtly charismatic acts of praying in tongues, healing, and so forth? In a series of upcoming articles, I will argue that Pentecostal worship has a matrix of distinctives that is a clear break from historic, Protestant worship, or even the worship that preceded it. These distinctives are not unique to Pentecostalism, and some of them originated before it existed. Nevertheless, they represent much of the esprit de corp of self-identified Pentecostals when it comes to worship, and certainly represent an innovation in Christian worship.
It’s hardly disputable that global Christianity has been overwhelmed and colonized by the Pentecostal and charismatic movements. After Roman Catholicism, the Christianity identified variously as charismatic, Pentecostal, Prosperity Gospel, or Latter Rain (with all its permutations and differences) makes up by far the largest percentage of what is classified as Christian. In just over 100 years since its beginnings in Azusa Street, California, it has come to dominate Christianity, and particularly the Christianity spreading in the Global South and and South-east. The growing and new-born Christianity in South America, Africa, and south-east Asia is overwhelmingly of the Pentecostal kind.
Non-Pentecostals, or cessationists as they are sometimes called, have dwindled into the minority. Very few voices have been raised to counter the theological distinctives of Pentecostalism: an emphasis on the supernatural sign gifts of the Holy Spirit, a belief in the baptism of the Spirit subsequent to salvation, and assorted novel views on healing, prosperity, and spiritual warfare. A notable exception was John MacArthur’s 2013 Strange Fire conference and subsequent book. By and large, cessationists simply accept their minority status, and defend their theology when asked.
But perhaps far more insidious has been the quiet takeover of Christian worship by Pentecostalism, even in those churches that reject the theology of continuationism. Worship forms are far more portable than doctrinal statements, and tend to insinuate themselves gradually and quietly. A popular song, emerging from Pentecostal or charismatic roots, finds a home in cessationist circles, because its theology is either orthodox and acceptable to cessationists, or sufficiently banal to fit in almost anywhere. This is not intrinsically problematic; it simply illustrates how worship forms travel across denominational lines in ways that sermons and Bible studies do not. Of course, some of the the most distinctive Pentecostal acts of worship remain out-of-bounds for cessationist churches: praying in tongues, announcing prophecies, public laying on of hands for healings or exorcisms. What arrives incognito is the Pentecostal understanding of the act of corporate worship, with its accompanying postures, approaches, and expectations.
As cessationist churches post vigilant patrols at the doctrinal boundaries, but offer open borders to charismatic songs, music, forms of prayer, and overall sentiment, a quiet transformation takes place.
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Union with Christ: A Biblical Overview
Every person is either “in Adam” or “in Christ.” Those “in Adam” are dead in sin and separated from God because of their relationship to Adam and his rebellion. Those “in Christ” are dead to sin and spiritually alive unto God because of their relationship to Christ and His obedience.
A Forgotten Doctrine
When was the last time you heard a sermon about union with Christ?
Union with Christ might be one of the most neglected, overlooked doctrines of the Christian faith. And yet, as we will see in a moment, this glorious truth is the basis for every blessing and joy we experience as God’s chosen people. Michael Reeves notes, “Union with Christ is not some small, particular blessing that might go alongside the key blessings of the gospel. Union with Christ is the Christian life.” Spurgeon states, “There is no joy in this world like union with Christ. The more we can feel it, the happier we are.”
“In Christ”
While the specific phrase union with Christ is not found in Bible, the doctrine is presented in a number of ways. For example, the phrase in Christ is found over ninety times in the New Testament. Phrases like in him and in whom often refer to this blessed doctrine as well. The Bible also uses a number of metaphors to illustrates this union. For example:Jesus is the Head, and we are His body (Col. 1:18; Eph.1:22)
Jesus is the Vine, and we are the branches (Jn. 15:1-11)
Jesus is the Bridegroom, and we are His bride (Eph. 5:31-32; Rev. 19:7-9)
Jesus is the Cornerstone, and we are the living stones built upon Him (I Pet. 2:4-7)What is Union with Christ?
Union with Christ refers to our vital, inseparable oneness with Him. John Piper defines union with Christ as follows: “The reality of all the ways that the Bible pictures our human connectedness to Christ, in which He is indispensable for every good that we enjoy. No saving good, no eternal good, no God-exalting good, no soul-satisfying good comes to us except as we are connected to Christ.” Every gospel blessing that we have, from eternity past to eternity future, comes to us because of our union with Christ (Eph. 1:3-14).
In his helpful book, The Gospel for Real Life, Jerry Bridges identifies two aspects of our union with Christ. He notes (p. 39), “We can distinguish two aspects of our union with Christ this way: Our legal union with Christ entitles us to all that Christ did for us as He acted in our place, as our substitute. Our vital union with Christ is the means by which He works in us by His Holy Spirit.”Related Posts:
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Tyranny and the Seeds of Persecution
A tyrant then is not necessarily a sinner (we are all sinners) or even an unbeliever. A tyrant is one who defies not only God’s Law in the 10 commandments, but also the created order. In this, he destroys civil and social life and so is responsible for unrest in society as people are pitted against each other, left without freedom of movement or assembly, and have their livelihoods threatened. We were made to work, to worship, to live in relationships.
One of the challenges to understanding the times that we live in is related to our definitions. What exactly is tyranny? What exactly is persecution? How does God call us to live during times such as these?
There is a saying that is attributed to the Scottish Reformer John Knox: “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” For those who know more of the history surrounding this reformer, images might be brought to mind of the fiery reformer preaching to Mary Queen of Scots, persecutor of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This man offered stout resistance to tyrants.
Most fundamentally, a tyrant stands opposed to the law of God as it is laid out in the 10 commandments and in the summary of the 10 commandments in the Law of Love. But while tyranny may end in a black and white opposition to the Word of God, it often begins in the grey. And so we must understand that tyranny is connected to something more fundamental to who we are as human beings before it stands in direct opposition to the law of God. Most fundamentally, tyranny is the fruit of unbelief that has blossomed in places of power.
In its initial expression, any form of tyranny stands opposed to God’s created order. In this, it also stands opposed to the law of God which is intended as a rule to order things again. There are kings and emperors in history who were not Christian and sinners who ruled well, relatively speaking. But how do we distinguish between those and other kings who have not ruled well, whether Christian or not? Johannes Althusius is a Calvinist lawyer in the 1600s who writes this: “So not every misdeed of a magistrate deprives him of his sceptre, but only that in which he, having accepted and then neglected the just rule of administration, acts contrary to the fundamentals and essence of human association, and destroys civil and social life….”
There are a couple important aspects to this quote from Althusius.
The first is the principle of equity. You can find this principle commanded throughout the book of Deuteronomy. The Bible often speaks of the call to rule with equity and points to Jesus who is the only King in history who has ruled with equity in the fullest sense of the word (Psalm 45/72). It is the just rule of administration that maintains this equity in the land and there is no partiality that is shown to one person or the other based on something outside of what is defined by God as evil or good.
The second principle that Althusius speaks of here is something that is fundamental to being human. There is an acting contrary to creational realities (ie natural law). The civil authority acts contrary to the fundamentals and essence of human association and in so doing destroys civil and social life.
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