Christ The King

          Something that the gospels have in common is the pairing of the stories of the baptism of Jesus by John, followed by Jesus being tempted by Satan out in the wilderness.  The details are expanded and contracted in different gospels.

          We see that as the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  It is fairly obvious.  But something to consider is that this is also the beginning of Jesus’ Kingship.  This is one aspect of the Messiah, that He will be of the line of King David, that He will sit on His Father’s Throne.  This has both an earthly and a heavenly quality to it. 

          I think we recognize the heavenly aspect far more quickly.  The language about heaven is that God will place Jesus at God’s right hand.  But the language is even more, that Jesus will be given the place of God as our Judge, one huge aspect of Kingship.

          This is what we interpret today.  How about the first readers of the Gospels?  Now, there is an axiom about interpreting the Bible that we can find Jesus on every page.  What has struck me is that this pairing of Jesus’ anointing and his temptation find a parallel in the Old Testament, in regards to Kingship.

          In the book of First Samuel, first Saul and then David were anointed by Samuel, at God’s command to be the kings of God’s people.  The story of David supplanting Saul is for another time, but there is a striking parallel in each of their anointings.  The most obvious is Samuel.  He is the ‘judge’s judge’, forming a bridge between the book of Judges and the regional “war leaders” to this centralized King.

          In each case, the man is identified to Samuel by God as the one to be anointed.  Each man is chosen by God.  This anointing is also a shared event.  For Saul, it was done before the gathered people, for David, it was among his brothers, in his immediate family (his public ascension to the throne would come later).  But what marked each situation is what came next.

          In each case, once anointed as king, each man went to make war.  For Saul, it was freeing the city of Jabesh.  For David, it would be going up against the Philistine champion, Goliath.  This was the pattern of leadership from the time of the judges.  Sampson, Jephthah, Gideon, all were called to fight and free the people from invaders.  So it is with Saul and David. 

          For me, having my attention drawn to the repeated patterns is what brought me to this.  While Jesus is prophesied as the king to come, for original readers of this text, for whom the Old Testament is not simply ‘more’ of the bible, but their own history, it was more plainly written.  The parallels of Jesus being baptized, anointed by the Holy Spirit, and then going into ‘battle’ against Satan I believe were not lost on those of the early church.

          Neither should they be lost on us as we seek ever more to understand more wonderfully, more completely, who our Lord Jesus Christ is to us.

Peter Hofstra

Evil Versus Sin: Which One is Lucifer? Which is Us?

          The difference is redemption.

          There is a series that originated on network television before migrating to Netflix called “Lucifer”.  And the title character is the devil, Lucifer Morningstar, king of hell, who came to earth and helps an LAPD detective solve murders.  Of course he does.

          I understand the interest.  The devil, what an interesting character study.  He has a therapist, he’s trying to ‘grow’.  It was always a show for a mature audience.  Once it hit Netflix, it was even more so.  From a humanist cultural perspective, Lucifer makes for a fascinating figure.  The embodiment of evil, the rebellious angel, the waylayer of the goodness of humanity, among other things.  Media has come to this character on several occasions, not just in this show but as a recurring character in “Supernatural” as well.

          But what this humanist approach to Lucifer accomplishes is a reflection of their consideration of humanity.  Can the evil be redeemed?  Even outside of Christian thought and theology, this question weighs heavily.  Can the evil be redeemed? 

          In Christian theology, Lucifer, Satan, is the embodiment of all against God.  Satan is not a sinful being but, to look at Genesis, the author of sin.  And in Genesis, Satan was not trying to turn Adam and Eve against God, but rather to subvert their obedience to God.  It was a malicious determination to destroy what God created.

          Lucifer is beyond redemption.  He is destroyed in the Last Day, according to the Book of Revelation.  So, for the sake of this post, Lucifer is evil.  For the sake of this post, Lucifer is beyond redemption, from a Biblical perspective.

          It is for humanity that God has created a plan of redemption.  We are sinful, as a species, taken there through an appeal to human self-interest and deception.  Lucifer should be held responsible for that, as Satan, and Lucifer will be.  But as we created as beings with free will, we hold responsibility for our own actions.

          But the promises of God are universal.  The assurance of our salvation is guaranteed by the power of Providence.  God acts in, what to we humans, is a paradox.  We have the freedom of choice, which includes the freedom to turn away from the promises of God and follow the path of evil (which Lucifer takes us along) or the choice to give ourselves into the mercy of God for the forgiveness won for us in Jesus, but still within the plan and perfection of God. 

          But that drifts us into discussion of foreknowledge and predestination, which is a whole other place.

          So, when I contrast “sin” and “evil”, in this context, it is to assign these terms absolutes (over and against their more general meanings) to contrast those who can be redeemed versus those who cannot be redeemed. 

Why, in the Biblical witness, can Lucifer not be redeemed?  Because Lucifer has turned irrevocably against God and seeks to subvert God’s plan and purpose. 

In the popular media, why is there an obsession with redeeming Lucifer?  I believe it is because there is a hunger in humanity to find redemption.  It is a question in the human heart and mind which our faith gives us an answer to.  To be so hungry for redemption strikes me that there is a fear that redemption is ultimately lacking, because we, as humanity, know our sin and know our capacity to commit evil acts.

While the truth is that, in the promises of God, redemption is promised to all humanity.

Peter Hofstra     

The Promises of God

           Everything we have is built upon the promises of God.  Our very existence is built upon the promises of creation itself.  Our eternal existence is built upon the covenant promises that God has given to us throughout the Bible.  We can enumerate those covenants, but the one that rules our relationship with God is the covenant of Christ.

          What are the promises?  That God will be our God.  That God is love.  That, in Jesus Christ, our sins our forgiven.  That, by the grace of God, we have life eternal.  These are the promises of the covenant.  What is the promise of creation?  That we have existence.  It will not end at the return of Jesus, but instead will be renewed to the New Heaven and the New Earth.

          Our actions are built upon those promises.  Our actions are not a call to work for our salvation, the so called “works righteousness”, we do not do good works to gain these promises, but these promises are for us then to do good works.  It is a subtle consideration of human nature that is built in here.

          The idea of works righteousness presumes a people perpetually, intentionally at odds with the Almighty.  Thus, we have to do these things to prove ourselves, by action and intention, that we are, if not worthy-which we are not-at least trying to do what we can.  It is an assumption that sin turns us all from God and we are nothing but self-serving greedy-guts. 

          But to look to Adam and Eve, to look at their fall into sin, is to see something a little different.  Yes, they turned from God, but for them, it was with the best of intentions.  They wanted to be more like God.  It served their desires of course, but it also was a ‘favor’ they were doing for God. 

          I am not entirely sure how to define this, but I think the bible teaches that while we are innately sinful, we are not innately evil.  The divine spark still exists within us.  Discussions could be held about those who are the most evil in the history of humanity to seek out that bit of love, that one place of decency, in their otherwise horrible existences.  Usually someone like Hitler is put into this context.

          What is the measure of this?  The possibility of redemption.  The devil is evil, to my Biblical understanding, beyond the possibility of redemption and so the devil seeks to bring us down as well.  So the promises of God have no place in the context of Satan.

          But we, who are sinful, have that possibility.  We have the ability to do good, but that ability has been warped and redirected to serving our own interests instead of God and Neighbor.  So, to look to Paul, all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. 

          But God’s promises are established to bring us back into God’s Glory.

Peter Hofstra

A Movie Review: The Dark soul of Humanity presumed in "The Purge"

           So there is some pretty intense media out there, movies and cable offerings that seem to keep pushing the bar of decency and acceptability.  One of the hardest things for me is knowing, on the one hand, that there is such violent, evil, and sinfulness being portrayed out there, inappropriate to the church sanctuary, while, on the other hand, this is what people are going to see, this is what is popular.  Do we, as the church, ignore it?  Engage with it?  Engage with carefully selected pieces of it? 

          There is one such title that developed into something of a franchise, It has an interesting premise and a very dark view of the human soul.  I am talking about “The Purge”. 

          Just watched the original, “The Purge”, from 2013.  Danger, SPOILERS to follow.  Have not seen any of the following films, although I understand there is also a series in the works.  Where I found this movie the most compelling was in the same place where I found “Starship Troopers” very compelling.  It was not in the horror story unto itself, as it was not in the science fiction story of “Troopers”.  Rather, I found it most compelling around the edges, where the “new United States” in which ‘the purge’ takes place is described.

          In short, the US was a mess, ‘new’ founding fathers took over, established the purge as an annual catharsis of all that is evil in America, which has turned the nation into a utopia.  For one night, all the laws of the nation are put on hold, all emergency services are, presumably, locked down, and hell reigns. 

          But there are a few notable exceptions.  Government officials over a certain level are exempt.  Weapons systems over a certain power level are forbidden.  And the focus of the movie is on murder in all its brutal, genocidal forms.  When it comes to the people who are actually involved in the purge, there are certain typical reactions. 

          The most obvious is the reaction of the ‘crazies’, who enjoy the hunt and killing.  The second are the ‘average’ people who do not go in for the killing but work very hard to accept it for the ‘blessings’ it has brought.  The rich ‘average’ people can fortify their homes and be relatively assured of safety through all of this.  The last group are people who seem to be of the ‘average’ type but, in fact, have embraced the purge as a means of salvation from the evil inside of themselves. 

          That is where I found the movie compelling.  In the appeal to the ‘new founding fathers’, these ‘average’ people believed that they could purge their evil feelings, their sinfulness, by indulging in them.  In this case, the one target family has created jealousy in their neighbors because of how they have ‘flaunted’ their wealth.  Therefore, killing them relieves those feelings. 

          In terms of Christianity, salvation is not found in turning away from sin and turning to Jesus Christ, it is not found in the grace of forgiveness.  Rather, in this view, it is found in the controlled and ritualized indulgence of sinful behavior.  In the course of the movie, there was a thread of the indulged, rich and bored white upper class killing the poor black homeless man (probably a veteran too by the way he is played). 

          I think the vision of the movie was one of taking the gun culture, the racism, and the privilege of the United States and pushing it out to an extreme.  It provides an almost spiritual basis for ritualized violence as the answer to what is already a very violent culture.  As a pastor watching this movie, I shocked myself a little when I did not respond with a dismissive ‘this could never happen’.  Rather, I found myself running a mental list of all the elements that are already in place.  And the GREAT need of the voice of the Christ, of our Savior, of the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding.   

          I say watch and be scared.  This is where one filmmaker seems to think we are going.  And the building popularity of the franchise lends credence to that possibility.  We, Christians, have that image that we need to be able to respond to.

          In Christ.

Peter Hofstra

The Unforgivable Sin

From Matthew 12: 

^“31Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. ³²Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

          So I called it grieving of the Holy Spirit, which is drawn from Paul, not from Matthew 12 as this is.  Yet there is a connection.  Grieving the Holy Spirit, doing things against what the Holy Spirit would incline our hearts to do, if we truly allowed for the indwelling of the Spirit.  There is a linkage to yesterday’s post, when someone has done something so sinful, they feel they have lost their salvation.  Perhaps the background of such a feeling is that they have so enraged God, or so grieved God, that there is no way back.

          I called this grieving of the Holy Spirit when the actual charge is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, speaking against the Holy Spirit.  A charge not forgiven in this age or the age to come.  It is one absolute that may be placed alongside another absolute.  We have the assurance of salvation, except in this case, where we have the assurance of condemnation.

          What does it mean?  Well, there is a powerful distinction in the passage.  Speaking a word against, blaspheming against Jesus is forgivable, but not against the Spirit.  As a driver in New Jersey, I thank the Lord for the first. 

          What is the Holy Spirit?  It is the person of the Trinity sent to us, as at Pentecost, to indwell us as Jesus, as another sent by Jesus.  This is described in John 14.  So, Jesus makes and lives the promise of the assurance of our salvation that we read of in God’s Holy Word.  It enters as knowledge, head knowledge.  The Holy Spirit, indwelling us as Christ, carries the conviction of the assurance of our salvation to our hearts, to our faith, and to its outworking.

          When it comes to performing a task, there is what is termed ‘muscle memory’.  Practice the task enough and it can be done by rote, without active thought.  Such is the need of emergency responders, for example, in times of crisis.  It is something passive, developed through discipline and repetition.

          I would suggest that the role of the Holy Spirit might be described as actively providing us ‘heart memory’.  This is not simply remembering that our salvation is assured, it is living in the daily joy and wonder of that promise of  God.  Why is there this ‘division of labor’ that is the Trinity?  That is a sidebar, but for me, God’s revelation as a Trinity is to let us limited mortals begin to wrap our minds around the immortal perfection of God.

          So we know the assurance of salvation as a promise from Scripture, something we can recollect.  We live the assurance of salvation by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

          To blaspheme Jesus is to reject the information of the divine in Him.  But to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, to speak against the Holy Spirit, that is to reject the Spirit of God that indwells us, that is to reject the very choice of Jesus as our way, our truth, and our life.  To throw God, the Holy Spirit, out of our hearts, that is to reject and turn away from all that God promises, including (maybe especially) the assurance of salvation.

          I do something sinful and I care about what happened, about the consequences, about what God will do, God will work with that.  The assurance of faith underlies my own doubts and weakness.  I do something sinful and I do not care what God thinks, I do it in defiance of God, I systematically reject the promises of God in the walk of my life’s journey, I am not worried about the question of salvation, I have openly rejected it.

          A wise preacher said in a sermon at one time in my youth, “If you are afraid that you have committed this unforgivable sin, know that you have not.”  So, to blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to reject God’s intent, love, and purpose for our lives.  Such is the unforgivable sin.  What I miscalled it, the grieving of the Holy Spirit, that will certainly happen as a result of such rejection.

Who Is In Charge of My Salvation?

March 2, 2022

          This may seem to be an obvious question on the face of it, and maybe it is, in the answer we give.  But is the answer different in the life we live?  The obvious answer is that God is in control.  But is that how we then live?

          So here is a big assumption.  I am assuming the living of an examined Christian life.  I am assuming that the reader who takes on this question is taking it on from a point of view of someone actively pursuing life in Christ.  It means active consideration of what is in need of confession to the Lord.  It is an active embracing of that part of the person that is in need of God’s grace to allow for change.  It is not simply jumping from worship to worship, Sunday at 10 to Sunday at 10.

          While this may sound like a shaming commentary, an indictment of a Christian life indifferently lived, that is only a byproduct of what I hope to get across.  Am I in charge of my salvation?  If I live my life in Christ with indifference, that points to a life where consideration of salvation is not even an issue.  We are left with the baby food of who we are, “I am a good person” or “I try my best.”  Superficial at best.

          What I am considering is the person whose life is given to Christ, whose perceptions are active, who is considering their life by the measure of the Law of Love, and those moments where they fear they come up short.  But even that comes in different dimensions.

          There are those sins that we commit intentionally in our lives that we confess to the Lord and, if we follow the Old Testament, there is the confession to the sins that are unintentional, even unknown, so that we receive both the forgiveness and the awareness that what we have done has hurt another of God’s Children (I would argue that white privilege is a HUGE area of growth for personal perception that the Lord should open to God’s Children).

          I am talking about dimensions of sin that have grown to a place where the Child of God feels their very salvation is at stake.  When Sharon Obsourne came out so very publicly when she ‘fell off the wagon’ during the Covid pandemic, that is the kind of personal shame I have known Christians to have.  They have slid from a life in Christ back into old patterns or into new patterns that have drawn them so far (in their own minds) from grace and forgiveness, that they are unsure if they can find their way back.

          I am from the school of Biblical interpretation that considers Christ to be the only arbiter of my faith and salvation.  To someone who is so fearful that they have sinned so egregiously that salvation itself is on the line, I would remind them that salvation for our sins, the solution to our problems, begins with admitting we have a problem.  And that Jesus is so loving, there is no sin we cannot come back from.  Lest someone wish to call me out on the sin of grieving the Holy Spirit, it will be another topic.

          With Jesus in charge of my salvation, the assurance of pardon is irrevocable.  Jesus does not let us go.  Now, there are always the ‘what about that person’ questions.  There is someone each of us can name that, to us, has a questionable reputation for entering heaven.  Praise the Lord that Jesus is in charge of salvation, that is not my call.  I do not know the heart, I know only what I can observe.  Good and evil in the mixture of humanity is FAR more complex than what I see from the outside.  But Christ knows.  That is enough.

          With Jesus in charge, does that lessen my need for an examined life of faith?  It most certainly does not.  But in this case, instead of examining our lives to see what we are doing wrong, by the grace of God, we can examine our lives to see what greater wonders and opportunities await us in Christ’s name.

Peter Hofstra

Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine, Oh What A Foretaste of Glory Divine…

          We are assured of our salvation in the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ.  I grew up assuming that, which I suppose is a tribute to the theology of the Christian Reformed Church.  In Sinclair Ferguson’s wonderful book, “in Christ alone”, he tells us that assurance of salvation was the single biggest theological division between the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church (who held religious dominance across Western Europe). 

          That is different from what I grew up on.  For me, the theological charge leveled on the Reformers, especially in the Counter Reformation-the backlash of the Catholic Church versus these upstart Protestants, was, in the words of the Old Testament, that everybody would do what was right in their own eyes.

          For me, the proliferation of denominations and non-denominational and non-affiliated churches seems the answer to that charge.

          But I see the similarities in the charges.  Without the control of church structure and tradition, the Church as we know it has branched into so many directions.  One of the great abuses possible in the church is for some smooth talking, charismatic leader, to use the Word of God for their own ends. 

          Again, without the control of church structure and the traditions of what is not only expected of, but mandated of believers, what is to stop the insincere from saying all the right things, claiming Jesus as Lord and Savior, claiming that they have received, from the Great Commission, the Baptism into the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which is the call for the church to the world, but continuing to do whatever they want?

          Good works as the provision of salvation, it ties faith to practice.  The idea being that without the mandate of practice, to go by faith alone, will be to invite trickery. 

          Does anybody know what the unforgivable sin is?  It is to grieve the Holy Spirit.  Let me tell you, I reflected long and hard on what that means when I was younger.  It did not really come back into my theological consideration until Harry Potter.  And there by association.

          In Harry Potter, there are the three unforgivable curses.  Something that is done that one cannot come back from.  Grieving the Holy Spirit is that equivalent in the Biblical witness.  And it is never explained unto itself.

          So here is the question that will take me forward from here.  To understand the question of the Assurance of Salvation requires understanding how we consider it if it were not a thing.  Would we phrase it in the way I hear more commonly, that I would do something ‘to lose my faith and/or salvation’ or would we phrase it, ‘Jesus has taken away my salvation’?

          Takes us down different paths when considering the assurance of salvation, when considering grieving the Holy Spirit, when answering the charge leveled against the Reformation.

          More to come.

Peter Hofstra