Month: March 2015

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Often when travelling, I’m asked to speak to GCI churches, conferences and board meetings. Sometimes I’m asked to give the closing benediction. When doing so, I frequently use the blessing Aaron proclaimed over the children of Israel in the wilderness (the year after their flight from Egypt, long before entering the Promised Land). On that occasion, God was instructing Israel concerning administration of the Law. The people were restless and rather passive (after all, they had been slaves all their lives!). Likely, they were wondering: “God delivered us out of Egypt through the Red Sea, and gave us his Law. But here we are, still wandering in the wilderness. What now?” God did not reply with details of his plan for them. Instead, he encouraged them to look to him in faith:

The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: ‘The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace'” (Numbers 6:22-26).

I envision Aaron standing before God’s beloved children, arms outstretched, proclaiming this benediction. What an honor it must have been to pronounce the Lord’s blessing upon his beloved. As you’ll recall, Aaron was the first high priest from the tribe of Levi:

Aaron was set apart, he and his descendants forever, to consecrate the most holy things, to offer sacrifices before the Lord, to minister before him and to pronounce blessings in his name forever (1 Chronicles 23:13).

Pronouncing a blessing was a profound act of worship—representing God to his people in order to encourage them—in this case during the difficult sojourn between Egypt and the Promised Land. This priestly benediction invoked God’s name and blessing, so that his people might live with assurance of the Lord’s mercy and provision.

Though this benediction was first spoken over a people weary and frustrated with wilderness wandering, I see an application for us today. There are times when we’re unsure about the future, feeling like we’re wandering in a wilderness of our own. At such times we need words of encouragement to remind us that God has blessed us and will continue to keep us. We need to remember that God does make his face shine on us, is gracious to us, and gives us peace. Above all, we need to remember that because he loves us, God has given us his Son, Jesus Christ—the great and ultimate high priest who, himself, fulfills the Aaronic blessing.

Holy Week (also called Passion Week) begins in a week and a half with Palm Sunday (Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem), followed by Maundy Thursday (commemorating the Last Supper), Good Friday (where God’s goodness toward us was manifested in the greatest sacrifice of all) and Holy Saturday (when Jesus lay in the tomb). Then comes the glorious eighth day—Easter Sunday, which celebrates the resurrection of our great high priest, Jesus, the Son of God (Hebrews 4:14). This season of the year powerfully reminds us that we have been and continually are blessed “in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3).

Yes, we all face times of uncertainty. But we rest in peace knowing how greatly God has blessed us in Christ. Like a mighty river whose waters flow from its source out to far lands, God’s name moves before the world. Though we don’t see the full extent of this movement, we stand in awe at what we do see. Truly God has and is blessing us, and Passion Week is a powerful reminder.

Though the people of Israel heard Aaron’s priestly benediction and, no doubt, were encouraged, they soon forgot God’s promises. Part of the reason had to do with the limitations, even failings, of the human priesthood. Even the best and most faithful of Israel’s priests died. But God had something (someone!) better in mind. The book of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus, who lives forever, is our permanent high priest:

Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens (Hebrews 7:25-26).

The image of Aaron stretching out his arms over Israel to impart a blessing points us to an even greater high priest, Jesus Christ. The benediction that Jesus pronounces over God’s people far exceeds Aaron’s blessing (though it extends, intensifies and personalizes it):

I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more (Hebrews 8:10-12).

Jesus pronounces a benediction of forgiveness that reconciles us to God, healing our broken relationship with him. It’s a benediction that transforms us—extending deep into our hearts and minds. It draws us up into deepest fellowship and communion with God. Through the Son of God, our brother, we know God as our Father. And by his Spirit we become his beloved children.

As I reflect on Passion Week, there is another reason this benediction has great significance for us. As Jesus was dying on the cross, his arms were outstretched. His precious life, poured out as a sacrifice for us, was a benediction—a forever blessing on the world. Hanging on the cross, Jesus asked the Father to forgive us in the midst of our sin, then he died that we might live.

Following his resurrection, and just before his ascension, Jesus gave another benediction:

When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy (Luke 24:50-52).

In essence, Jesus was saying to his disciples, both then and now, “I myself bless you and keep you, I make my face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; I lift up my countenance upon you and I give you my peace.”

May we continue to live under the benediction of our Lord and Savior, no matter what uncertainties we may be facing.

Looking to Jesus in faith,
Joseph Tkach

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

While reading a list of the 100 best novels written since 1900, I noted two by Vladimir Nabokov. Not being familiar with this author, I checked him out on Google (ah, the marvels of search engines!) and found that in addition to being a famous novelist, he is known for coining the term doughnut truth, which refers to truths with holes in them, making them less than the full truth. It struck me that some of the current explanations of Christ’s sacrifice are doughnut truths of a sort. Let me explain.

“Jesus died to appease the wrath of God brought about by your sins” is a message being thundered from many pulpits. The idea is that Jesus had to interpose himself between God and us and suffer in order to absorb all of God’s wrath towards sinful humanity. Many Christians accept this penal-substitution theory of the atonement (sometimes called the forensic theory) as the Bible’s primary teaching on the topic. Sadly, an overemphasis on this theory leaves the impression that Christ died not as a substitute for sinners, but as a substitute object for God’s punishment. The mistaken idea is that God the Father had to take his anger out on someone—as if inflicting pain and suffering on someone would itself make things right.

There are significant problems with this theory (model) of the atonement. One is that the Bible uses not one but several models to describe the riches of Christ’s atoning work on our behalf, including the sacrificial model, the economic model of exchange (redemption), the familial or filial model of family (reconciliation), the marital model (fidelity), and the healing model (peace, shalom). As Gustaf Aulen points out in Christus Victor, An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, the Bible also presents a Christ the victor (Christus victor) model of the atonement, which was the primary one taught by the early church fathers. According to this model, “The work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death and the devil” (Christus Victor, p. 20). Rather than going to the cross to appease God’s wrath, Christ did so to claim victory over the bondage of sin, the threat of death and the power of the devil, thus making all things subject to himself. Just as God delivered Israel from the bondage of oppression into liberty, so God delivers us from these terrible forms of oppression into true freedom in Christ.

Some theologians, such as Gregory Boyd and Scot McKnight, teach that the Christ the victor model should be seen as the Bible’s central model of atonement and the forensic model should be viewed as only one of several. Some theologians who support the centrality of the forensic model offer cautions about doing so. J.I. Packer warns that it should not be based singularly on human models of justice (which often is retaliatory or reciprocal) and should not be understood as an automatic explanation of how penal substitution really works. John Stott, in The Cross of Christ, lists multiple cautions about misrepresenting the nature of the atonement.

It certainly is true that Christ’s death paid the price, the cost, the debt and even the penalty of our sin. Jesus did rescue us from the consequences of our sin and experienced those consequences in order to overcome them and transform them on our behalf. But the penal substitution model of the atonement can be taken too far. Here are some common ways:

• Misrepresenting the Father as forcing the Son to do what he didn’t want to do—making the will of God divided and opposed between the Father and the Son.
• Misrepresenting the Son as manipulating, appeasing or cajoling the Father into changing his mind about condemning humanity—again, making the will of God divided.
• Characterizing the Father’s wrath as being pitted against the love of Christ. This mistake pits God against God as if the character and purpose of God are divided, at odds.
• Modeling the atonement after human models of retribution or vengeance, which are rooted in violence and tend to look more like child abuse than grace—as if human wrath “works the righteousness of God,” when it does not.
• Portraying the sinner as the object of God’s wrath instead of the sinner’s sin. This mistaken approach loses sight of the biblical truth that God’s aim is to separate the sinner from the sin, so that the sin can be done away with and the sinner redeemed.
• Viewing the Old Testament sacrifices as God pouring out his wrath on the animals used for sacrifice—sending them to “hell” on behalf of Israel. The truth is that the sacrificial animals were not being punished, but as unblemished creatures were sacrificially giving their lives so that there might be life in others where there was only death.
• Misrepresenting forgiveness as God making exceptions for sin in the lives of some. The truth is that God is implacably opposed to all sin everywhere, and through Christ made a way to condemn all sin, yet rescue sinners, giving them new, regenerated natures and making everything new.
• Portraying God as being absolutely separate from sinners. This misrepresentation flies in the face of God dwelling among Israel and the entire story of the Incarnation.
• Attributing to God a role that actually is Satan’s (whose name means “accuser”), thus making God out to be the accuser of humanity (because humanity is unholy and unworthy) and portraying God as desiring sinners’ condemnation rather than their repentance (the mistake made by Jonah!).
• Viewing grace as a secondary, separate and optional work of God after his primary and necessary work of judicial justice has been accomplished.
• Separating God’s justice from God’s love; his righteousness from his mercy and grace.
• Portraying God as more bound by his own rules of retributive justice (punishing the bad and rewarding the good) than by his restorative righteousness and desire for the reconciliation of his covenant love (where God’s righteousness aims to put things right).
• Placing an exclusive emphasis on sinners being saved from the penalty or consequences of sin, rather than on the sinner being saved from sin and being given a share in Christ’s renewed and glorified human nature. The truth is that we are saved from sin and for a right relationship of holy love with God as his beloved children.
• Overlooking the incarnation, the cross and the resurrection, and thus the truth that the Son of God became the new Adam—the new head of humanity—who came to reconcile the world to God on behalf of the Father and in the Holy Spirit, and not to condemn the world.

Faithful and accurate consideration of the atoning work of Christ will take into account the whole of the biblical story and teaching. When one aspect of that truth is singled out and developed in isolation, distortion inevitably results. But when we assemble all the pieces, giving all of them full weight while keeping Jesus at the center, we’re on the right track. That holistic approach keeps clearly in mind Christ’s relationship to the Father and the Spirit, and his relationship to us, and why he came. This is what the apostle Paul did in writing that God poured his love out lavishly upon us in Jesus Christ in order to condemn sin in his flesh so that we might have his new life and love in us by the Spirit (Ephesians 1:7-8; Romans 8:3-4). The author of Hebrews adds that Jesus Christ paid the price to bring this reconciliation about freely and gladly, united in heart, mind and will with the Father and the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 12:2; 9:14). The Bible teaches that Jesus’ atoning work was an act of the eternal, divine love of the Father, Son and Spirit.

We understand God and his lavish love for us through Jesus’ life and especially through his self-giving death. As T.F. Torrance notes in The Mediation of Christ, “the cross is a window opened into the very heart of God.” The cross reveals a God who is passionately in love with the world, not one who is furiously angry with it. Indeed, God so loved the world that he gave his Son. Yes, God hates sin, but he hates it because it hurts the world that he loves; it hurts his beloved creation. God does not pour out his wrath on the object of his love—Jesus or any of his other children. Jesus did not go to the cross to appease an angry God, but to show clearly the unconditional love of a Father, Son and Spirit whose greatest desire is to be in relationship with us. And that’s not doughnut truth—it’s whole, gospel truth!

Appreciating Christ’s sacrifice,
Joseph Tkach