Crux Probat Omnia

On Good Friday, it is important to remember the words of Martin Luther: Crux probat omnia — The cross is the test of everything. Below is an excerpt from The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ by Fleming Rutledge (Via Internet Monk):

The crucifixion is the touchstone of Christian authenticity, the unique feature by which everything else, including the resurrection, is given its true significance. The resurrection is not a set piece. It is not an isolated demonstration of divine dazzlement. It is not to be detached from its abhorrent first act. The resurrection is, precisely, the vindication of a man who was crucified. Without the cross at the center of the Christian proclamation, the Jesus story can be treated as just another story about a charismatic spiritual figure. It is the crucifixion that marks out Christianity as something definitively different in the history of religion. It is in the crucifixion that the nature of God is truly revealed. Since the resurrection is God’s mighty transhistorical Yes to the historically crucified Son, we can assert that the crucifixion is the most important historical event that ever happened. The resurrection, being a transhistorical event planted within history, does not cancel out the contradiction and shame of the cross in this present life; rather, the resurrection ratifies the cross as the way “until he comes.”

…The resurrection is not just the reappearance of a dead person. It is the mighty act of God to vindicated the One whose very right to exist was thought to have been negated by the powers that nailed him to a cross. At the same time, however, the One who is gloriously risen is the same One who suffered crucifixion. It is not an insignificant detail that “doubting Thomas” asks to see the marks of the nails and the spear in the Lord’s resurrected body (John 20:25). The book of Revelation is an extended hymn to the risen Christ, but he is nevertheless the “Lamb standing, as though it had been slain,” the One whose wounds still show, the One by whose blood the robes of the redeemed have been cleansed for all eternity (Rev. 5:6-7)

The reason Paul said to the Corinthians, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), is not that he considered the resurrection to be of lesser importance. The reason Paul insisted on the centrality of the cross in polemical terms was that the Corinthian Christians wanted to pass over it altogether. This tendency persists in the American church today. H. Richard Niebuhr put it unforgettably in The Kingdom of God in America: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” When this happens, we may have spirituality, but we do not have Christianity.

A Coming Civil War

I want you to think about a coming civil war. No, not the Captain America movie (which I will definitely go see). I'm referencing another civil war that will directly affect most of my readers. This will be a conflict between religious ideas about the nature of America, and the role of Christians in this nation. I think the post I'm about to link to is so important I want to urge all of you to read it. Even if you do not concur with his conclusions, please at least think (and pray) about these issues.

A Coming Evangelical Civil War? by Alan Cross

Here's one sample paragraph:

...the conflict will be about theology in a way that we have never really had agreement on and do not often raise in level of importance to the place where division is ever even considered. But, events are driving us to consider not just our orthodoxy (right teaching), but also our orthopraxy (right practice). How does our Evangelical theology cause us to love God and love people (the Great Commandment)? How does our theology cause us to see other people? How does it cause us to see ourselves? To see our churches? To see America? Will we be people of the Cross or people seeking glory? Will we see the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross as our hope and salvation that then causes us to love and sacrifice for others, even our enemies? Or, will we see the Cross as the means to and end of us being safe and secure and receiving our “best life now”?

Please go to the link and read the whole post; it is well worth the time.

The Crucial Paradox

"Hence the Cross, conceived as the expiatory penal sacrifice of the Son of God, is the fulfillment of the scriptural revelation of God, in its most paradoxical incomprehensible guise. It is precisely in His revelation that the God of the Bible is incomprehensible, because in His nearness He reveals His distance, in His mercy His holiness, in His grace His judgement, in His personality His abosluteness; because in His revelation His glory and the salvation of man, His own will and His love for men, His majesty and His “homeliness” cannot be separated from one another."

— Emil Brunner, quoted by David Wells in Above All Earthly Pow'rs (Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdman's Publishing, 2005), page 225

HT: Of First Importance

Cruciform Faith

Holy Week Thoughts at Internet Monk:

At Mockingbird, they have this helpful entry on the subject of “Theology of Glory” in their site glossary:

Theologies of glory are approaches to Christianity and to life that try in various ways to minimize difficult and painful things, or else to defeat and move past them, rather than looking them square in the face and accepting them. In particular, they acknowledge the cross, but view it primarily as a means to an end – an unpleasant but necessary step on the way to good things in the future, especially salvation, the transformation of human potential by God and the triumph of the Kingdom of God in the world. As Luther puts it, the theologian of glory ‘does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore he prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil’ (The Heidelberg Disputation, Proof to Thesis XXI). This is the natural default setting for human beings. A theology of the cross, by contrast, sees the cross as revealing the fundamental nature of God’s involvement in the world this side of heaven.

That last sentence is striking. “The fundamental nature of God’s involvement in the world this side of heaven” is the way of the cross.

People don’t like that. I don’t like that.

I want a God I can see, not a God who is hidden.

I want a God who will convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is living and active and on my side.

I want spectacular answers to prayer.

I want to witness remarkable events that can only be explained by God’s intervention.

I want tangible evidence that faith pays off, not only in the end but here and now.

I want a God who solves my problems, eases my pain, answers my questions, and makes me successful.

I want God to enable me to do good works so I can feel good about myself and my contribution to the world.

I want to be made strong, confident, optimistic, fit for the long haul.

I want insight into how life works so that I can follow the right steps and help others do the same.

I want a God who makes a way in the wilderness, not one who leads and leaves me there.

I want fulfillment in my work, health and happiness in my family, grace and cooperation among my neighbors, peace, security, and ample provision in my world.

I want to hear God speak. I detest silence.

I want God to show up when I need God. On time. Bringing what I need.

I don’t want a God who bleeds, who thirsts, who worries about his mother, who lets clueless, cruel people drive nails through his hands and feet, whose lifeless body is carried away by weeping women and timid men.

I don’t want a God who forgives people who do things like this. I want them to pay dearly.

I’m with the crowd here: “Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him.”

Show us, God. Prove yourself. Let us see, let us hear, let us experience your power and glory.And the one on the cross says not a word.

Always New

"There is no end to this glorious message of the cross, for there is always something new and fresh and entrancing and moving and uplifting that one has never seen before.”

            — Martyn Lloyd-Jones   The Cross

HT: Of First Importance

Centered Advice

“Don’t ever degenerate into giving good advice unconnected with the good news of Jesus crucified, alive, present, at work, and returning."

              — David Powlison,  Seeing With New Eyes
                   (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2003), 43

HT: Of First Importance

Subverting Evil

“Thanks to the cross, evil is now utterly subverted in the cause of good. If the cross of Christ, the most evil act in human history, can be in line with God’s will and be the source of the decisive defeat of the very evil that caused it, then any other evil can also be subverted to the cause of good.”

— Carl Trueman  "Luther's Theology of the Cross"

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

The Symbol of Divine Suffering

“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. 

That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering.”

                       — John Stott The Cross of Christ

Hat Tip:  Of First Importance

Summation of the Glorious Ruin

I hope you've benefited from the quotes I've posted over the past few weeks from Tullian Tchvidjian's new book Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free. You can search this blog for the tag/label "Glorious Ruin" to find all the quotes.

As of now I'd list this book as one of the top 5 I've read in the past few years. I suspect I'll be re-reading it many times in order to absorb everything he says. I do not mean that it is a hard read - it's not. I mean that the content is such that it must be digested over time and used to evaluate my personal life experiences. I suspect you would find the same.

Here is the key thought from my first read through of the book.

Most books about suffering focus on the "Why" question (why must I suffer?) and/or the "How" question (how can I grow from or benefit from my suffering?).  Tullian moves past both of those to the more important "Who" question. From Martin Luther's "Theology of the Cross" he points out that God is most revealed in suffering, because He is a God who saves us through His own vicarious suffering on the Cross of Christ. We prefer a "Theology of Glory" - where God always and only blesses and prospers us. The Cross, however, reveals that the place of pain is the place were God is most clearly revealed in Scripture and life experience and where He is most truly known. Although the author of the Book of Job tells us why Job suffered. Job was never given that answer. He was never told "Why." His "friends" spent all those chapters moralizing his suffering (If you were good you would not suffer) and minimizing it (Just get over it). Job's only answer, all that he was given,  was a revelation of Who - the one true eternal God whom he met in his suffering. That revelation made him a "glorious ruin." That answer was enough.

"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
                 (Job 42:5-6 ESV)

The gospel enables us to escape from the prison of How and Why, and find freedom in the Who. The only answer is meeting God in Christ -and, to borrow the title to one of Tullian's other books, "Jesus + Nothing = Everything."

My brief thoughts do not do the book justice. Whether you agree with these comments or not, go read the book for yourself. I do not think that you will be disappointed.

Next on my reading and quoting list - The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears by Mark Batterson.

Glory in the Bloody Display

So where is God’s glory most manifested?

In God’s goodness -
when Jesus is ‘glorified,’
lifted up and hung on a cross,
displaying God’s glory
in the shame, degradation, brutality,
and sacrifice of His crucifixion,
and by this means returning to the glory
He shared with the Father
before the world began.

The most spectacular display of God’s glory
is in a bloody instrument of torture
because that is where God’s goodness was most displayed.

It is good to sing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus,’
but we must also sing, ‘On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
the emblem of suffering and shame’ -
because there God displayed His glory in Christ Jesus,
who thus became our tabernacle, our temple,
the meeting place between God and human beings.”

- D.A. Carson, The God Who Is There, 115-116

Hat Tip: Trevin Wax

Present in the Defeats

"...a theology of glory sees God at work in the victories of life ratter than the defeats.

...a theology of the cross allows us to love and serve a suffering person independent of whether on not, or how fast, he is healing. We can walk with these people in their present pain, as opposed to impatiently focusing on their future health.

God is right there, not somewhere else."

    -Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free.  pages 122-123

God Hidden in Our Wreckage

Pastor Tullian on Luther's concept of the Theology of the Cross:

"A theology of the cross...understands the cross to be the ultimate statement of God's involvement in the world this side of heaven. A theology of the cross accepts the difficult thing rather than trying to change it or use it. It looks directly into the pain, and 'calls a thing what it is' instead of calling evil good and good evil. It identifies God as 'hidden in [the] suffering." Luther actually took things one key step further. He said that God was not only hidden in suffering, but He was at work in our anxiety and doubt. When you are at the end of your rope- when you no longer have hope within yourself - that is when you run to God for mercy. It's admittedly difficult to accept the claim that God is somehow hidden amid all of the wreckage of our lives. But those who are willing to struggle and despair may in actuality be those among us who best understand the realities of the Christian life."

- Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free, pages 42-43

Finished

“The utter uniqueness of the Christian message — the heart of the gospel — is found in the three words of Christ from the cross, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30). The message of every other religious system, without exception, is predicated on some variation of another three words, which stand starkly opposed to the gospel’s three words. Religion’s three words are: ‘Get to work.’ And this is the heart of the bad news behind every approach to spirituality, enlightenment, or salvation that is not Christian.”

— Jared C. Wilson Gospel Wakefulness
(Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2011), 131

The God of the Cross

I'm still trying to digest Carl Trueman's words from yesterday, and now he has added this continued discussion at The God of the Cross - Reformation21 Blog: -

...The love of human beings is fundamentally reactive: the lover sees something intrinsically lovely in the beloved which draws out his love towards her; her loveliness precedes and indeed causes the love of the lover. That is how the theologian of glory thinks of God's love: I thank you, Lord, that I am not like other men....

The God of the cross, however, is far different. He delights in setting his love on the unlovely and thereby making them lovely. That is the logic of 1 Corinthians 1: the church, built in the midst of a port town, undoubtedly contained a high proportion of those who would have been regarded as the scum of the earth - the poor, the weak, former prostitutes, the sexually profligate; yet God chose these, the things that are not, to shame the things that are. The logic of the cross itself is manifested in the fact that God's love is no respecter of persons as society respects persons; God delights rather in loving those that are most despised.

Again, this is a word both of grace and of judgment on the contemporary church. Of grace, because it reminds us of God's promise that He - He and not we - will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against her. Only a God of the cross and of creative love can make and keep such a promise. Surely there is nothing greater that can give us confidence than the thought that it is ultimately God who gives the increase.

Luther's Forgotten Insight

I'm so glad I found this! Here's Carl Trueman on The Forgotten Insight of Martin Luther:

At the heart of this new theology was the notion that God reveals himself under his opposite; or, to express this another way, God achieves his intended purposes by doing the exact opposite of that which humans might expect. The supreme example of this is the cross itself: God triumphs over sin and evil by allowing sin and evil to triumph (apparently) over him. His real strength is demonstrated through apparent weakness. This was the way a theologian of the cross thought about God.

The opposite to this was the theologian of glory. In simple terms, the theologian of glory assumed that there was basic continuity between the way the world is and the way God is: if strength is demonstrated through raw power on earth, then God's strength must be the same, only extended to infinity. To such a theologian, the cross is simply foolishness, a piece of nonsense.

Now, some will respond: But the theology of the cross has not been forgotten; it is often talked about and discussed and even preached. But here's the rub: in the Heidelberg Disputation Luther actually refers not to a theology of the cross but to theologians of the cross, underscoring the idea that he is not talking about some abstract theological technique or process but rather a personal, existential, real way that real flesh-and-blood theologians thought about, and related to, God. A person's theology, whether true or false, good or bad, is inseparable from the individual's personal faith.