The Word of God Has Power

Why should we be concerned about doctrine? After all, some have noticed that doctrines divide Christians, while others have opined that an emphasis on the mission of the church could unite Christians. But is it true that “doctrine divides, but missions unite”? Well, the answer is both “yes” and “no.”

On the one hand, yes! 

Doctrines may and often do divide professed Christians. “Doctrine” derives from the Latin doctrina, which means “teaching” or “learning” or “instruction.” In spite of its ability to divide us, what we teach really does matter. Doctrine matters because our salvation depends upon the truth, in particular upon the preaching of the good news of the free offer of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The problem with doctrine arises not because of the existence of doctrine, for doctrine is necessary to our salvation. The problem with doctrine arises because of the existence of false doctrine as opposed to true doctrine. We shall return to this issue.

On the other hand, no! 

A mission may unite us, but it may not necessarily unite us for good. If the churches are not engaging in the right mission with the right message, an appeal to unity is meaningless, even dangerous. Churches who proclaim the true doctrine, the gospel of Jesus Christ, will be used to bring people to salvation. People who proclaim false doctrine, which comes from human wisdom or philosophy, are not bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 2). Apart from his saving gospel, there is no salvation possible (John 14:1-7; Acts 4:12; Galatians 1:6-9). So, those who do not define their mission as teaching the gospel have the wrong mission. Again, doctrine is necessary.

But why is doctrine so necessary? Because God ordained that through the preaching and teaching of true doctrine, people may be saved. Concern for orthodox doctrine, as many biblical theologians have commented, motivated the two most prolific apostolic authors, Paul and John, to write many of their letters. Paul and John stressed the coming of God in Jesus, his death for our sins, and his resurrection for our justification—this is the gospel. However, Peter, the leading apostle in the early church, was also very concerned with proclaiming true doctrine and opposing false doctrine.

Peter’s Second Letter

Positively, we know that Peter was granted the saving confession upon which Jesus Christ would build His church. Peter, inspired by the Father, proclaimed that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:13-20). His God-given teaching is the true doctrine. Negatively, Peter warned about the coming of “false teachers,” who will “introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them.” Many will sadly “follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned” (2 Peter 2:1-2). Their teaching is the false doctrine. According to Peter in his second letter, true doctrine must be proclaimed, and false doctrine must be opposed.

Peter’s First Letter

In his first epistle, Peter explained why this is the case. Here, he describes how true faith—real life-changing Christianity—comes into existence. To do so, he employs a metaphor, equating the “word” with a “seed” (1 Peter 1:23-25). The way in which Peter identified God’s “word” as “seed” has profound implications for what Christian preachers, teachers, and evangelists are required to teach. This metaphor indicates that a person who teaches anything other than the God-given, Christ-revealing, and Spirit-inspired Holy Bible teaches without divine power. Let us explore the biblical correlation of “word” with “seed.”

Note that Peter was not the first to combine “word” and “seed.” His Lord, Jesus Christ, earlier used the identification between “word of God” and “seed” as the basis of one of his most extensive and well-known parables (Luke 8:4-15; parallels in Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20). The metaphor was so fruitful in Jesus’ mind that it earned starring roles in at least three more parables: the parable of the growing seed (Mark 4:26-29); the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30); and the parable of the mustard seed (Mark 4:30- 32).

Moreover, Jesus was himself drawing upon two deep and highly significant Old Testament traditions with His use of “word” and “seed.” After Jesus, the apostles invested both terms with theological importance in their construction of the New Testament. A cursory review of each term must suffice for this short essay.

“Seed” 

The Lord God himself introduced the idea of a “seed” (Hebrew zerah) through the promise that he would accomplish his saving will. In the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15, the seed, or “descendant,” of Eve would crush the head of the serpent even, although the serpent would strike his heel. In Genesis 12:7 (and in 15:3, 5, 13, 18; 17:7-10, 12, 19; and 22:17-18), Abraham was granted a covenant promise that his seed, or “offspring,” would rule the land and bring God’s blessing to the nations. Paul drew upon the Abrahamic concept of “seed” (Greek sperma or spora) in order to demonstrate that Jesus Christ is the covenantal plan of God for saving both Israel and the nations (Romans 4:13, 16, 18; 9:7-8, 29; Galatians 3:16, 19, 29).

“Word”

As for the “word” of God, we see from Genesis 1:3 onward that the speaking (Hebrew dabar) of God has power to implement God’s creative will (Genesis 1:6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26; cf. Psalm 33:6, 9; Romans 4:17). According to Isaiah, the Word of God is eternal, while human words fail (Isaiah 40:7-8). The Word of God is sent to accomplish, and will perfectly perform, God’s will (Isaiah 55:10-11). But the power of the Word of God is not limited to creating life.

In the New Testament, God’s Word (Greek logos or rhema) is powerful enough even to re-create life. According to John, not only is the Word God Himself, who has come in the flesh (John 1:1, 14), but the Spirit works through the Word to bring life to us (John 6:63). Anyone who believes these words of Jesus will be given life (John 5:24). In Hebrews, God’s Word is a living, active, judging agent (Hebrews 4:12). According to Jesus, His words come from eternity and “will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). And in Paul, the Word of God brings us surety of perseverance in the faith (Philippians 2:16).

Word of God

Thus, Peter is continuing and contributing to a well-known canonical concept when he brings together, like Jesus, the “word” with the “seed.” For Peter, the Word of God functions in such a way as to regenerate life. Because it comes from divine eternity, the Word of God is “living and enduring” (1 Peter 1:23). Peter quotes Isaiah 40:6b-8 in order to prove its eternality (1 Peter 1:24-25a; cf. James 1:10-11). The Word of God, moreover, is “the gospel,” which has been “proclaimed to you” (1 Peter 1:25). The Word of God brings people to be born again.

Words of Men

The Word of God, from a soteriological perspective, is entirely different from the words of men. While humanity is “like grass,” which “withers” and “fails,” the Word of God can bring one to be “born again” (1 Peter 1:23). Humanity’s “seed” is “perishable,” indicating that human words and deeds ultimately end in death, no matter how beautiful they may sound or what they promise to convey or even why man intends to utter them. But the “seed” of the Word of God, to the contrary, is “imperishable.” There is an insurmountable difference between human words, flawed by temporal imperfections, and the divine Word, fruitful with God’s eternal perfection.

In Summary

We conclude that the Word of God has power in itself to bring the new birth which fallen human beings require. There is no other way people may be saved other than through the Word of God. This is why I tell my students that our well-thought words to advance apologetics and our well-meaning works to improve society will ultimately fail—if that is all we give people. We should engage in both apologetics and social improvement, for Scripture commands such good work. However, the only way people will truly encounter God and receive new life occurs when we give them the Word of God, which we know is inextricably bound for us today with the Holy Bible.

If we do not teach the entirely sufficient doctrine of Scripture, our listeners have no hope at all. This is why doctrine, biblical doctrine, is singularly necessary, and every other human teaching pales into insignificance. This is why we must emphasize the knowledge of Scripture, in its historical and linguistic context and in its Trinitarian, Christological, and canonical shape, as the sine qua non of theological education. This is why we believe that evangelizing with true biblical doctrine is the mission of God, because it is the only way we can bring the saving gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, which so desperately needs to hear this life-giving Word.

You Must Die, If You Want to Live

At the center of the Gospel of Matthew, God the Father revealed to Peter, a man like you and me, the way to a victorious life. That way is through the faithful confession that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matt 16:13-20). A little later, after Peter demonstrated that he did not fully understand how this victory would be achieved (Matt 16:21-22), Jesus the Christ offered a lesson about how we must go about living the victorious life that He freely offers to believers.

In Matthew 16:23-27, it is written that Jesus told his disciples,

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.”

With these poignant, even piercing, words, Jesus totally reorients the lives of his listeners. Through years of trying to live, at first without the Word of God, but afterward with the Word of God ever before my eyes and in my ears and on my tongue, I have learned that the Word of God challenges us, changes us, compels us. His words have power, life-altering authority, and in this text He speaks to you today.

Jesus sets out a command for how to conduct your life, and then He offers one compelling reason, expressed in three increasingly demonstrative terms, as to why we should take his command with utmost seriousness. Let us look quickly at “the cost of discipleship,” which is death, and “the cause for discipleship,” which is life:

I. The Cost of Discipleship: Death

If you want to be Jesus’s disciple, then you are required to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow him. The Germans use the term Nachfolge to convey the Greek mathetes. It means, literally, “to follow after.” A disciple is one who follows after a master. He or she fashions his life upon the life of his or her master.

Because Jesus denied himself in his needs and his desires in order to bless the other, so we must do likewise. In his profound book, Nachfolge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously cried out, “When God calls a man, He bids him come and die.” Every time I read those words, they challenge me to the core of my being. Will I really deny myself? Will I really die to this world, so that I might rise with Him? Again and again, I cry out, like Bonhoeffer, with my whole heart, “I am yours, Lord!”

Because Jesus embraced the calling of God to live and then to die in this way, so we must do likewise. This does not mean we carry a literal wooden cross and are nailed upon it. Nor does it mean that we may propitiate for the sins of others, for that is far beyond our capabilities. However, it means we are called to a life of suffering on behalf of the needs of other people in other ways.

Because the life of Christ is the exemplar for the life of the Christian, it means we are to adopt his humility, his way of life, his higher purpose. The high calling of Christ is a claim that our lives mean more than the mean goals to which we are prone to reduce ourselves.

If I have noticed one thing that is highly detrimental to Christian believers of whatever age, it is the short memory we have regarding the high calling that He has given to each of his children.

• While God may bless you with a face of beauty, this is a mere means to the higher call. 
• While God may gift you with a mind of acuity, this is only an intellectual instrument to strive toward the higher calling.
• While God may grant you gifts of wealth and power and status, they are not what you really should be concerned about. Rather, see them as avenues toward a greater way of life.

Don’t let the little things, the lesser aspects, the mean moments become the purpose of your life.

Yes, develop your bodily beauty, your mental capacity, and your other talents and gifts to their utmost potential. However, keep the higher calling in mind. Your life is not about the things you own or the people with whom you cavort. Your life is about the One who owns you and who gave you all these things to use and all these people to love.

II. The Cause for Discipleship: Life

Why should you follow Christ? Why should you take up the cross God is laying upon your life? Why should you deny yourself and allow God to ensconce Himself exclusively upon the throne of your personal life?

Jesus offers three descriptions for the one reason for being his disciple:

1. You must lose your life to save it.
2. You must give your life to gain it.
3. You must prepare for judgment or glory.

Behind each of these expressions lays the overwhelming truth that we must ultimately give an account to God for what we do with our lives.

You must lose your life to save it? It is admittedly counter-intuitive from a humanistic perspective. I must lose my life in order to save my life. It only makes sense in the light of the sovereignty of God. By “lose your life,” Jesus means that you must stop trying to “save your life.” Your sin has already brought to you the loss of life. The only way that it can be saved now is if God himself does that for you. He wants you to trust him with your life.

You must give your life to gain it? Again, this is counter-intuitive from a purely anthropological perspective. It only makes sense from the theological perspective. By “give your life,” Jesus means that, once you have begun the life of faith, you must entirely dedicate to living your life God’s way. We want to gain things in this life—family, friends, experiences, joys, adventure. And yet, God tells us that we must give it away to get it. The older I become, the more I am convinced that this life is a grand adventure, a progress, a pilgrimage, and I am an adventurer, a pilgrim, a temporary resident on my way through the vagaries of this world headed to the promised land. This is not my home yet, and if I must give everything I have and I am in order to go home, then I will give it away.

This brings us to the third cause for discipleship: The final judgment. Jesus made it very clear in the Gospel of Matthew that there is a judgment coming (Matt 24:29-25:46). And every single person shall give a personal account. The Son of God will divide humanity into two groups on the basis of their response to Him. There are only two possible categories, and the result of one's placement therein is ainios, “eternal.”

1. Those who have turned away from him in disbelief shall be judged and condemned to “eternal punishment.”
2. Those who have walked with him in faith shall be ushered into “eternal life.” 

The subject of hell is not exactly a popular subject these days, but these are the words of Jesus, and they stand at the center of his gospel. The subject of heaven, however, is very popular, but there is no eternal heaven without a life of discipleship, a cross of death, and a resurrection.

Conclusion

And, thanks be to God, Jesus has paved the way through death into eternal life by his cross. When life is understood through the paradigm of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as well as the coming judgment, then our lives take on their ultimate meaning.

Life will give you so much, and you will have many choices to make. May I encourage you to keep the life, death, resurrection, and return of Jesus Christ at the center of your every consideration?

• May I ask you to accept the adventurous life that He has for you? 
• May I ask you to keep your faith in Christ first, your spouse second (if He grants you such), your children third (if He grants you such), and finally your diligence to work hard and to study hard in whatever particular vocation He grants you? 
• May I ask you to leave the gifts of joy in this life—gifts that He will grant you, because He loves you and wants to bless you? Can you leave the gifts up to Him and focus on the life He wants you to lead? Leave the delights of this life to be divine surprises that He delights to give to you. 

Pursue the high calling He has laid upon you. You won’t ever regret it. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow your Creator, your Redeemer, your Consummator through this life, through the death at the end of it, and beyond that into eternity. You won’t ever regret following Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, fully God and fully Human.

Easter Sunday: A Baptist Reflects on Holy Week

And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, 'Rejoice!' So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him (Matthew 28:9 NASB)

Sometimes, my friends and family are surprised at the intense passion this highly rational man can display when it comes to Jesus. Really, there should be no wonder about the matter, for the passionately reasonable faith I possess mirrors that of the first person to see Jesus after He arose from the dead.

Mary Magdalene initially appears in Luke 8, when she is noted as prominent among the women who supported the ministry of Jesus. The physician Luke informs us that Jesus had previously cast seven demons out of her. Demons are fallen angels, spiritual principalities and powers who rebelled against the rule of God in order to place one of their own in His place. Demons seek to rule the world through the perversion of truth and the subjugation of humanity. To be personally possessed by demons may result in personal harm at the bodily level, but demons also destabilize the human mind. Therefore, when Jesus cast out demons, He did so through intense prayer and powerful proclamation.

Mary knew Jesus primarily as 'Rabboni' ('Teacher'), indicating she knew Him as the one who liberated her with His words. Her mind was once under the sway of the false teachings of the ruler of this world. Then Jesus freed her through His own teaching, a teaching characterized by the authority of truth. Mary's mind had been released from the demonic powers active in this world's ideologies. Her conversion was a conversion to the highest of rationalities, the rationality of the creative Logos, who is the source of right reason. That Logos became flesh in Jesus in order to restore human beings such as Mary to their right minds.

As has been noted before, the courageous faithfulness of the women disciples stands in stark contrast to the cowardly disbelief of the male disciples during the crisis of the cross. Mary and the other women followers of Jesus were the last to leave the site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, and they seem to have departed only because they were compelled to obey the Lord's Sabbath ordinance. Moreover, they were the first to arrive on the morning after the Sabbath to minister to His body.

Over against such faithful devotion, Peter--the man who claimed he would stand with Jesus until the end--fled before the mob, denied his Lord three times, and withdrew from the scene to weep with guilt. The other disciples, too, ran for their lives. John was the male disciple who seems to have stayed long enough to be commissioned to care for Jesus' earthly mother. Perhaps their nonthreatening presence preserved the women from Roman and Jewish hostility, or maybe there really was a personal fortitude among the women that their public leadership currently lacked. Before the sun came up, out of devotion to the Man who released her from the grip of ideological bondage, Mary led the other women to take spices and prepare his body for permanent burial.

But when the women arrived at the tomb, their world was turned upside down. An angel, emitting the light of heavenly glory, descended to roll away the large stone covering the tomb. The earth shook under the electric might of this angelic act. And the professional soldiers guarding the tomb, men who knew power and how to use and abuse it, were debilitated. Heaven's display of shock and awe left them paralyzed. This woman, once tormented by the deceptions of fallen angels, now witnessed the power of 'an angel of the Lord'. She was frightened, too, but this angel spoke words of comfort and of transformative importance to her. This angel was different, for his power was submitted to the Lord who had liberated her.

The angel told her not to be afraid. He knew that she was coming to take care of His crucified body. But there was no need for that anymore, because His body was not here. Why? He was no longer dead. 'He is risen, as He said!' Through her keen mind rushed those words that Jesus had told His disciples before this week had begun. He had warned them that He would be betrayed, that He would suffer at the hands of the elders and chief priests, and that He would die. But He also said that on the third day He would arise from the dead. Had He done what He said He would do? Had Jesus embraced death and walked right back through it into life?

As if sensing her wavering over the unprecedented nature of the Lord's resurrection, the angel invited Mary to see where Jesus had lain. As she looked in, she knew there was something intentional about this raising from the dead. When Lazarus had been raised from death by Jesus, Lazarus needed assistance to be unbound. But Jesus conquered death on His own through the divine power of His Holy Spirit and thus needed no assistance. Moreover, Jesus folded the expensive linen and placed it neatly aside, indicating His approval of the goodness of restored creation.

Finally, the angel of the Lord over life and death told Mary Magdalene to go tell the disciples, 'He is risen from the dead!' The disciples must, therefore, go to meet Him where He appointed them to gather in Galilee. There, they would see Him and have their questions answered. Of course, we know Galilee would also be the venue for the disciples to receive the Great Commission, which has defined the purpose of the Christian life on earth ever since.

Marveling over these unprecedented events, trying to make logical sense of what she had seen and heard, Mary and her companions immediately set out to find the disciples. Mary obeyed the angel and went to seek out the men who were to lead the new faith, the faith in the living Lord who had conquered death. With tears in her eyes, Mary ran into another man. At first, she thought this man was the gardener and with humble apology, she asked where she might find Jesus' body. Really, she did not want to bother anybody. She just wanted to take care of His broken, lifeless body.

Then, He spoke to her. We can hear Him saying to her, 'Mary,' with the gentle power that only He possesses. Her capacious mind remembered all the times Jesus had taught her the truth, and it suddenly dawned on her that the gardener was no anonymous gardener at all. He had said her name in the familiar way that only He could say it. And her world was changed in a moment. THE ONE SHE THOUGHT WAS DEAD WAS NOW ALIVE! Death was transformed into life! Hopelessness was changed into hope! Untold fear was turned into unlimited joy! Her mind cried out with her voice to the Master who is Reason Himself, and with the greatest passion in the world, she fell at His feet to cling to Him for all she was worth.


Twice in my own life, I have seen a person fall and grasp the feet of another. Such an act is unusual. It is an act of chaste intimacy; it is an act of love; it is an act of hope. Once, I saw a distraught woman cling to the legs of a husband who decided to walk away from a lifelong commitment. Another time, I saw a man kicking his wife with cowboy boots. As I ran to grab him and stop this vicious act, the man's little girl leaped on his feet, hoping to protect her mother. Such an act is unusual. When the Magdalene grabbed her Risen Lord's feet--and she was not alone among the women disciples in doing so--she was telling the Lord she never wanted to depart from Him again.

Moreover, these perfectly orthodox women rendered that thing which human beings render only to God: they 'worshiped' Him. At that moment, the faith of these women became the faith of the first Christians. They had personally witnessed His death for the sins of mankind, they had personally heard the Gospel of His resurrection from the angel, and now they personally gave their homage to this Man, the God-Man, their Teacher, their Lord, their Savior. These women were the first Christians, because they were the first to believe that God had come in Christ Jesus, had died, and had risen from the dead. Jesus commanded them to do what they were already beginning to do: 'Rejoice!' He then untangled His feet from their hands, letting them know there was much to do, and warning them He would ascend to the Father.

And for nearly a whole day, the faith that saves humanity was exclusively the faith of these women. The Gospels tell us that the women went and told the disciples, but they did not believe, assuming these women were just relaying 'idle tales'. Later, after Jesus appeared to two men, Simon and Cleopas, that evening at the inn at Emmaus, they raced the seven miles back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples, but they still did not believe. Only late in the evening, when they had shut the doors for fear of the Jews, Jesus Himself appeared in His resurrected body to the disciples. Jesus rebuked their unbelieving, hard hearts. At last, they believed. And one of them, Thomas, took another day to meet Jesus, but when this doubter did finally see Jesus, with his hand in the Teacher's side, he cried out with the reasonable faith of Mary Magdalene, 'My Lord and my God!'

Some people assume that reasonableness and faith are anathema to one another. Certainly, there is a difference between reason and faith. Faith, according to Hebrews 11:1, is 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' Faith, in other words, will always require what Soren Kierkegaard referred to in terms of an existential leap. However, faith is, nevertheless, substantial, and faith is based upon evidence, even as it is temporarily formed in hope. The faith of Mary Magdalene was a supremely reasonable faith even as it was a supremely passionate faith. She was not embracing idle tales, unreasonable fables. She had been there and done that and wanted no more falsehood.

No, Mary Magdalene was reasonably passionate and passionately reasonable, because the One who is Reason Himself was the One who suffered the greatest Passion on her behalf. She saw Him die with her own eyes, a spear in His heart, and she saw Him alive again, and she believed. Her faith is my faith, and together, we are quite passionate and quite reasonable about Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord. And like her, I look forward to the day when I can fall at His feet, weeping in worship, and beg Him for the privilege of always living in His presence. Noli me tangere no more.

NOTE: This is the third and final installment of three reflections on Holy Week. Please go here for the first reflection, on Good Friday, and here for the second, on Holy Saturday.

Good Friday: A Baptist Reflects on Holy Week

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5 NASB)

Why did God the Father send His only begotten Son to take on our humanity in the person of Jesus of Nazareth in order to die on the cross? This is the great question regarding the atonement, a question that demands an answer. Some eight centuries before the event of the cross itself, the Father sent His Word to whisper by His Spirit into a prophet's ear part of the answer. Why would Jesus come to die on the cross? 'For our transgressions...for our iniquities.'


As a seminary student, my best friend, now the pastor of a very large church, invited my wife and I to watch a showing of U2's 'Rattle and Hum'. It was supposed to be an interesting movie, since some of the members of that band had identified themselves as Christians. One song struck me as quite effective and affective. The old blues artist, B.B. King, accompanies U2 lead singer, Bono, to voice confession of personal wickedness, particularly when they forsook true love in favor of crass fornication. That piece reached its climax in some profound reflections. In 'When Love Comes to Town', King joined with U2 to belt out with conviction, 'I was there when they crucified my Lord, I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword, I threw the dice when they pierced his side'.

Leaving the theater, I wondered whether King understood the strong theological realism he had just affirmed. Did he really understand that we were the ones who had pierced the Son of God? Did he understand that sin is universal and that sin, even when committed against man, is committed ultimately and primarily against God? Did he understand that the cross was not only a temporal event, in a particular time and place in Roman Palestine, but also an eternal event that brings all of human time into heavenly focus?

Do we really understand that it was our sin that nailed him to the cross? Do we really understand that we were the Jews crying out, 'Crucify Him! Crucify Him!'? Do we really understand that we were the Roman soldier piercing His side to watch His blood flow out of a broken heart? Do we really understand that God crucified His own Son, not for the sin of His Son, but for our sin? Because of our embrace of pride in the garden, it is the most difficult thing for a human being to admit truthfully and with all of his or her heart, 'I am wrong. I have sinned. I have no excuse.'

When we look at the cross from 800 years beforehand, we must weep with Isaiah, the mouthpiece of God, in the deepest of woe, 'I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips!' When we look at the cross on that day, we must run away and cry with Peter, the weak one who is supposed to be the 'rock', knowing that we just denied our best friend, the one we confessed only shortly before, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God'. When we look at the cross two thousand years later, we must plaintively admit with all of our soul, along with B.B. King, 'I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword'. It is my sin that put Jesus on the cross, my sin, and I have no excuse!

However, neither Isaiah nor Peter in biblical days, nor King nor us in these days, are left without hope. Beyond the lying lips about God, beyond the traitorous denials of God, beyond the sins of the body committed against God, there is God Himself. And God Himself seeks our reconciliation. On the cross of Jesus Christ, the righteous wrath of a holy God against our utter depravity was met with the gracious mercy of a God who is love in essence. For Isaiah, the transformation from wicked sinner to victorious saint occurred when the angel flew with tongs holding a hot coal from the altar to cleanse those lying lips. For Peter, the transformation from wicked sinner to victorious saint occurred when the risen Lord once again looked directly at the one who had denied him and again committed the care of other souls to him. For King, the admission that he was at the cross participating in the slaughter of the Lord of creation was followed by the victorious proclamation, 'but I've seen love conquer the great divide'.

If there is hope for a lying prophet and if there is hope for a fallen apostle, then there is hope for a fallen music star and there is hope for you and me. Whatever your sin, know that God is reaching out to you externally through His proclaimed Word and internally through His convicting Spirit, calling you into a restored relationship with Him. In Jesus, God became a man in order to die on the cross, so that you might have your sins forgiven. Christ took the sins of all men of all time upon Himself at the cross and took our punishment for us. If you will believe, then those sins no longer need to be owned as yours. He has taken them upon Himself, and He has overcome them through His death and resurrection. Confess, repent, believe, come to life, leave the guilt behind, open your eyes in hope toward the God who forgives and invites you to a glorious eternity.

NOTE: When I was a pastor, I recognized that Baptist churches, especially those on the old American frontier, often did not make much of the Christian calendar, the exceptions being the particular days of Christmas and Easter themselves. In my free church context, the Christian calendar was and is often crowded out by primarily secular concerns: American Independence Day, Veteran's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, even the Super Bowl. Such secular holidays have their place, but might it be of some value if we Baptists were to make more of the specifically Christian holidays, literally treating our 'holidays' as 'holy days'?

Mind you, I am not arguing for a return to the saints' days of the old Christian calendars, though a broad appreciation for Christian history could have a memorial value to inspire us to walk with the faith of such exemplary saints as Polycarp of Smyrna, Monica of Hippo, Michael Sattler, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Rather, what would it be like if we in the free churches were to focus on the biblical side of the Christian calendar? What if we were to seek to integrate the biblical events more intentionally into our daily lives in order to foster a greater appreciation for the impact of the calendar on the rhythm that establishes our lives?

In that train of thought, I once encouraged my congregation to replace our annual 'revival' with a focus on the events of what is traditionally known as 'Holy Week'. Rather than starting the evangelical week of revival on a Sunday and ending on a Wednesday, we started on a Wednesday and ended on a Sunday. On Wednesday, we began with the washing of the disciples' feet. Weren't the deacons surprised when I called them up on stage and removed their shoes to wash their feet, some of them fresh from the farm! The chairman of deacons even unconsciously pulled a Peter on me and tried to forbid me from washing his feet, since he should wash mine.

On Thursday, we celebrated the Lord's Supper and reflected on the fact that God intentionally sent His only and eternally begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins. And Christ Jesus, knowing what would come next, intentionally left us the practice of the Lord's Supper for continual memorial celebration between the Last Supper and the Lamb's Supper, when the universal church first gathers with Him. On Friday, two of our hefty, young deacons brought in several large pieces of wood during the middle of my sermon and nailed together a grisly cross. The shock of deacons interrupting the pastor's sermon was one thing. The visible representation that we human beings were the ones who put Him on the cross was quite another.

On an overcast Saturday, we gathered in a somber mood to remember that on this day, Jesus' body was in the tomb as He conquered hell. But then, oh, yes, we arose early to watch the sun rise together on Sunday, resurrection Sunday, the day when history was transformed by eternity, when death was defeated, when the grave became not an end but a beginning! And our final service was on Sunday at the normal time.

The transformation of the people (and the pastor) in our attitude toward what Christ had performed during that week some two millennia ago, about which some half of the gospel literature was devoted, was palpable. And the effect on the unwritten Baptist liturgy was nothing short of revolutionary. (Yes, even the low churches have a high regard for their liturgy. We just do not typically write them down and call them liturgies.) Alongside this call for a return to integrating the biblical calendar into our free church calendar, I offer a few thoughts today, tomorrow, and Sunday, on the meaning of Easter.