THAT'S what faith means?
In 1 Timothy 3:16 Paul says, "Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great" and then proceeds to summarise the faith by quoting a well-established Christian confession that has a series of mind-boggling truths. The incarnation is a brain-wrecker, vindicated by the Spirit is too rich and complex and taken "up" in glory is a centre of controversy. Seen by angels is plain enough if it weren't so mysterious and preached on among the nations makes perfect sense (who would want to keep a message like that to herself?). But what do you make of that "believed on in the world"?
Believed on in heaven, believed on inside the jewelled walls and down the golden streets of the city foursquare, but believed on "in the world"? This world? The one you and I live in? The one you and I and millions with us have helped to build with lies and treachery and uncleanness and self-centeredness? Believed on in this world? Where Roman armies exiled enslaved millions and called it re-settlement, where they committed genocide and called it discipline, the one in which they created a desert and called it peace and where degenerate aristocrats fed their educated slaves to pet fishes? Did Paul mean this, our world? The one that educates its children from infancy how to be greedy while calling it "just good business", providing them with lots of good reasons to be racist, teaching them how to sneer at goodness and holiness while calling verbal or visual filth art?
Are we talking about this world, the one that hated and hounded him? The world of tough politicians that had no time for talk of crosses or integrity while there is more money and power to be gained? The world of churchgoing people that is good at singing and eating Passovers and Lord's Suppers and "doing church" and writing books about the love of God while harbouring bitterness, nurturing unbridled ambition, becoming experts at self-excusing, all neatly packaged in a sickening self-righteousness? My world?
Yes, it's astonishing, but even in a world like this one Jesus has been able to persuade people to believe in him!
Paul and people like him, down to this very day, have come to desperate people that have been oppressed externally and internally, socially and morally to the point where hope had died and cynicism was king; they came to people like that and gave them a Message and praise God, incredible though it seems, they believed!
Now that's a great mystery. I know that when Paul used "mystery" he meant something now revealed but you're dreaming if you think just because it's been revealed that it's no mystery to us. How does it come that Jesus Christ was believed on in a world like this?
The faith of any individual in Jesus Christ is astonishing. We take its existence too much for granted. We tend not to think much about it, of course, but when we do many of us take it as almost "natural" that we believe. "Well, of course, we believe, what's the surprise in that, isn't Christ worth believing in?" Yes, of course he is worth believing in but it isn't the worthiness of Christ that I'm amazed at. What astonishes me is that people shaped for so long by sin in a world that is really lord Sin's empire have stopped believing in Sin and now believe in Jesus Christ.
We stress the truth that there is no faith in Christ without a free commitment to him as if that explained the existence of our faith. Look, it's precisely because we were blessed with free will that we were able to become sinners in the first place. Free will doesn't explain the existence of faith in Christ. How does it come that we freely believed in him when the world was and is all-encompassing? How did we ever get free from it? Did we free ourselves by our moral strength? Did we face lord Sin, denounce and renounce him out of the moral and spiritual strength that we had without God's help? You understand I'm not talking about intellectual capacity at this moment, I'm talking about the amazing moral truth that at some point we turned to emperor Sin, defied him and walked away from him to Jesus Christ! That's calledrepentance. How did that come about?
It came about because God in the crucified Christ disarmed the powers and defeated lord Sin and came in the gospel and told us he had done it. Had he not done that there would be no faith in Jesus Christ on earth. And the faith of every believer and the corporate faith of the church make visible and concrete the triumph of Jesus Christ over Sin and the corrupted powers. The grand biblical truth shows itself in actual individuals and congregations. So the believers should rejoice in their personal deliverance from sin's dominion but, additionally, they should rejoice because they are witnesses to something vast, something cosmic and they're witnesses to the glory of the crucified, risen and reigning Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that astonishing?
If we proclaim the gospel that Jesus is Lord and has conquered Sin and the principalities and powers and someone should ask us for proof of that we would of course turn to scriptures. But it would be perfectly legitimate to point out the fact that we ourselves have faith in Jesus Christ and that is part of the proof that the gospel is God's saving power because we ourselves have been saved by faith. Scattered all over the world, little handfuls of people with no political or social clout, many of them despised and some of them persecuted by their communities, families and even governments are living proof of Christ's Lordship because he overcame the sin in them and brought them to faith! Their personal faith and salvation is proof that God in Jesus Christ actually saves people (1 Corinthians 1:21 and Romans 1:16). Rome slew him and yet here he is saving people by bringing them to faith in him.
As long as the world stands there's a man who will be known as "the penitent thief" whose faith climbed over every conceivable obstacle to breathe free. Despite his background, his own agony, the appearance of the one dying across from him that said he was nothing more than a criminal like himself he said, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." That faith wasn't born in a soft home and comfortable circumstances and it was more than a personal commitment of faith. That personal faith was a proof that there, on that other cross, the world and all the principalities and powers were being stripped of their power and dignity (Colossians 2:15).
And some of you reading this know very well what crucifixion means but every day and in every way by God's grace your faith in Jesus Christ leads you to say, "Lord remember me when..."
And because of it, if you listen really hard, from some vast distance you'll be able to hear the threshing sound and the pain-filled screech of a fatally wounded Dragon who knows his time is short.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.