Some more thoughts on glory

I will return to the Piper quote when I’ve got some time.  Meantime, here are some jottings I did a while ago on glory in John.  They are not joined up thoughts, it’s all a bit scattershot…
Jesus insists He will not glorify Himself, but His Father glorifies Him (John 8:50,54).  Glory is other-centred – even [...]

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Glory is not…

Glory is not a something that God gets.  Glory is the display of who God is. 
And this display, shining out from Christ and Him crucified, reveals the overflowing plenitude of God’s being as Giver.
Glory is not what lies behind the cross (the cross considered as a veil or mere stepping-stone).  God’s glory is this [...]

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We make God look like a jerk, He makes looking like a jerk truly glorious

A further thought:
What do you look like when you hold out your arms to obstinate people?  (Rom 10:21)  You look like a jerk.  You look completely foolish.
But God makes this arms-outstretched, suffering love His glory.  In spite, not because of us.
If we’re going to oppose synergism (and we should) let’s be thorough-going about it.  Just [...]

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Robbie Williams on the scope and effect of the atonement

If Jesus really died for me /             Then Jesus really tried for me
Bodies
..

./

How do you say the first line with conviction without the second line sounding like a well-meaning but ineffectual gesture?  That’s at the heart of the debate between limited and universal atonement.  Well put Robbie.
Pity the song’s rubbish.
I like the way Peter put [...]

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He rescued me because He delighted in me

I preached that verse about a month ago (Ps 18:19).  And you know my first reaction as I was preparing?
Hmmm, tricky, how on earth should we understand this…?
I hope you’re all saying: But why Glen – it seems perfectly straightforward.
Well, there’s the slightly tricky part about how we take the verse on our own lips.  [...]

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A couple of thoughts on Dawkins

I think, actually, [Richard Dawkins is] a pre-Christian atheist, because he never understood what Christianity is about in the first place! That would be rather like Madonna calling herself post-Marxist. You’d have to read him first to be post-him. As I’ve said before, I think that Dawkins in particular makes such crass mistakes about the [...]

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Passover is…

… the ultimate plague (i.e. judgement)  (Ex 11:1)
… judgement upon the gods (Ex 12:12)
… the defeat of the Enemy (Ex 6:1)
… liberation from slavery to overlords (Ex 13:14)
… liberation to the service of the LORD (Ex 8:1)
… the cause of unparalleled sorrow for the enemies (Ex 11:6)
… the cause of great joy for the redeemed (2 [...]

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I wish I never sinned

“I wish I never sinned” said the Israelite at the head of the queue.
The others waiting to make their sacrifices nodded.
The priest narrowed his gaze.  “Why do you wish you never sinned?”
The Israelite was amazed that the priest would ask.  The answer was so obvious it hardly needed saying.  “So I don’t have to keep [...]

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A good infection

Have you ever heard or ever spoken about Christ’s cleansing of lepers?  Have you ever heard it said that, in the OT, you never got a good infection, only a bad one?  In other words the teaching says – holiness and cleanness never travels to the unholy/unclean thing.  Instead it’s always the unholy/unclean thing that [...]

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Models of masculinity

It’s an age-old question, but it’s taken the Flight of the Conchords to pose it again with aching poignancy:
What man?  Which man?  Who’s the man?
When’s a man a man?
What makes a man a man?
Am I a man?
Yes… technically I am.
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On reflection there were two models of masculinity on show at the London [...]

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The Dream of the Rood

An incredible 7th century old English poem.  (Rood means cross)
Listen! The choicest of visions I wish to tell,
which came as a dream in middle-night,
after voice-bearers lay at rest.
It seemed that I saw a most wondrous tree
born aloft, wound round by light,
brightest of beams. All was that beacon
sprinkled with gold. Gems stood
fair at earth’s corners; there likewise [...]

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Steve Chalke on the torture of the cross

Maybe this is well known but I was intrigued by finding this in a second hand bookshop:

 
Chalke wrote it in 1995.  On the cross he writes this:

“…to complete the rejection, [Jesus] was abandoned by God the Father.  To a large extent, it was this emotional torture which killed Jesus… It shows the completeness with which [...]

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Hung on a tree

This makes a lot of sense.
Especially since Jesus was crucified in the garden (John 19:41).  A garden of death, a tree of curse becomes Eden renewed (John 20:15).  The very tree of life.
Can you imagine ‘cross’ necklaces that took this to heart?  Very interesting..
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UPDATE:  Some artwork along these lines.

Apse of San Clemente’s upper church, Rome.  Photo: [...]

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Being in very nature God… He humbled Himself

6 Christ Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death–even death on a [...]

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God loves God more than God loves us?

In comments, Ed brought up this claim for consideration:
 God loves God more than God loves us.
I’ll jot down a few thoughts and then make way for Bobby’s comment at the bottom which nails it in about a tenth the space it takes me.  (Which again proves how horribly prolix I am!)
I have two problems with [...]

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Meditating on Romans 3

I preached on Romans 3:21-26 recently.  It’s a dense, theologically loaded paragraph on the vindication of God’s justice in justifying the unjust through the cross.  Leon Morris has called it perhaps the most important paragraph ever written.
So how to preach it? Well it’s Paul, so then clearly a strong didactic form is called for.  Verse [...]

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The Glory of the Bloodied God

Here’s a hymn.  Not sure it’s finished – not happy with switch to first person in final verse.  Critique happily received (very new to this).
It fits with any common metre tune – maybe one of these: Worcester, Moravia, Martyrdom, Manoah, Leicester, Faith, Dundee, Dunfermline, Crimond, Cheshire. Burford, Bradford. Belmont
 
The glory of the bloodied God
His fruitfulness [...]

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Four surprises in Mark 8

(I’ll get back to the series soon, just thought I’d break things up).
I was reading some very familiar words again:
 Jesus then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after [...]

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Gethsemane

He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”  (Matt 26:37-38)
He fell with His face to the ground and prayed.  (Matt 26:39)
“Abba, Father,” He said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but [...]

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Forgiveness is sacrificial

This never made it into my sermon ‘Why the Cross?‘  It’s a side thought raised by the question why God doesn’t simply forgive us…
Forgiveness is always costly. Whenever people say ‘Why doesn’t God simply forgive?’ I often wonder what they mean by the word ‘simply’. Anyone who says forgiveness is simple has clearly never tried it. Forgiveness [...]

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‘Why the Cross?’ sermon

My sermon on Romans 3:21-26 is here.  Audio is here.
I preached on ‘Why the Cross?’ on Sunday.  Thanks to all who gave help to this sermon.
In the end I guess I did a version of an old style law-gospel talk.  Basically it ran – sin is very serious, thank Christ for atonement.
Now I’m aware that such [...]

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Any help?

I’m preaching on Sunday with the title Why the Cross?  (I think the whole ‘Why can’t God just forgive?’ question is behind the choice of topic).  What should I say?
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Islam and the cross

You want a very quick way of distinguishing Islam from Christianity?  Think of the cross.  The Muslim account of the cross exactly reverses the gracious work of Christ.
In Islam, the sinful man (Judas) is substituted for the righteous one (Jesus).  The Quran says it only appeared to be Jesus on the cross, another was substituted in [...]

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The Way of the LORD

From Genesis 1, the way of the LORD has always been forming, then filling.
The filled-out reality is there by anticipation even in the forming. The intention for filling is included in the forming. But still the order is ‘form, then fill.’:

In Gen 1:2 – a formless and empty creation is then formed (days 1-3) and [...]

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The Crib and the Cross

I’ve just preached on Hebrews 2 this Sunday.  “He shared in their humanity so that by His death…”  Or again, ”He had to be made like His brothers… in order that He might make atonement.” (v14,17)
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Or to quote Kim Fabricius’ provocative post: “The crib and the cross are cut from the same wood.”
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See the crib and [...]

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Sermon recommendation

On the Cruciform God thing - here’s a brilliant sermon by Darrell Johnson on these same issues.  His text is Phil 2:5-11 and his title: “So that’s what it means to be God!”
The real realization is not “Oh, Jesus is the god I’d always believed in!” – how’s that for fitting the Saviour onto a Procrustean [...]

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The Cruciform God

[I've edited this post from it's original form which was a little specialized and 'try-hard'!] 
For a long time I’ve held a certain verse from John at arm’s length:
“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life.” (John 10:17)
I’ve always held it at arm’s length because… well what would it mean to take [...]

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