Tag: Jesus

Red Letter Year: 10/4

John 3.13-21

13 “No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who trusts him will have eternal life.

16 For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who trusts him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

18 There is no judgment against anyone who trusts him. But anyone who does not trust him has already been judged for not trusting God’s one and only Son. 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20 All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. 21 But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”

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Photo by David Brookes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidbrookes/8192594845/

This is where we begin to see the difference between “believing” – what typically means ‘mental assent’ for us and “trusting” which encompasses a good deal more and better conveys (imo) what John means by the Greek verb piseteuo, which literally means “to faith” – except faith can’t be used as a verb in English. If we stuck with believe/mental assent here, what Jesus says in v. 19-21 would represent a shift in message and one contradicting what he had just said. If all we need for eternal life is to think the right things (v.15: everyone who believes in him will have eternal life), then what does what we do, our actions (good or evil), have to do with our eternal state? To put the matter in evangelical/Pauline terms, if we are saved by grace apart from works, then how is it that our works have eternal significance?

In practice, the answer is often that our actions don’t have eternal significance. We are offered a reading of v.15-16 that is so over-determined by a faith as mental assent reading, that v. 19-21 are rendered meaningless. Our focus on trust helps us see the continuity in Jesus’ message here, since trust necessarily entails an active expression. To give an analogy, I can express a belief in parachutes, but I only demonstrate trust in a parachute (and the person who packed it!) by strapping one on and jumping out of a plane. Belief is a mental expression, trust encompasses mental belief, but also includes a full person engagement, putting what is believed into action. In this case, trusting in the love God has for us as God’s creation to put aside our evil, self-serving deeds and do what God wants, trusting that as our loving Creator, what God wants for us is best for us.

This requires trust on our part because we live in a world that is hostile to God despite God’s love for it. Understanding God’s love helps us to see that God does not default to a stance of judgment. Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to communicate God’s real and persistent love for the world. Those who first and foremost communicate a message of judgment are not communicating the good news of Jesus. Instead, they are communicating, in religious terms no less, the world’s hostility to God and God’s love. That’s right, some who claim to preach the Gospel are doing exactly the opposite.

Let’s not be among those. Trust God’s love. Communicate God’s love. The world already knows enough about its hostility to God. What it needs to hear is that God still loves us enough to create a bridge to us. If we can only let God’s Spirit give us the courage to trust enough to walk out onto the bridge.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale HousePublishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Red Letter Year: 10/3

John 2.23 – 3.12

23 Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in him. 24 But Jesus didn’t trust them, because he knew human nature. 25 No one needed to tell him what mankind is really like.

3.1 There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. 2 After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”

3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

4 “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”

5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. 7 So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

9 “How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked.

10 Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? 11 I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. 12 But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”

Comments

I back tracked a bit to include the last few verses of ch. 2 because they make an essential point I don’t want us to miss. The people described in 2.23-24 are people who trusted (remember our theme – pisteuo/believed in) Jesus. Nicodemus may been among them because he was a leader of the Pharisees and also expresses a measure of trust in Jesus. Probably no less than the people did – seeing as how Jesus did not reciprocate their trust. John likely had in mind here the Ebionites he was writing to counter, as this describes them quite well – people who trusted Jesus to a point, who accepted him as Messiah – so long as they got to dictate the terms of what that meant.

Except Jesus tells Nicodemus this is precisely what his followers can’t do. Their partial trust in Jesus – trust on their own terms – won’t do (partly because trust on your own terms is really just trust in yourself). To see the kingdom, to follow Jesus, requires a change so radical it can only be described as being born all over again, this time from above, that is, by the Holy Spirit. Things pertaining to the flesh have only to do with the flesh. They have nothing to do with the Spirit (in that they cannot control the Spirit). Jesus did not trust his partial followers. This stands as an indictment on them, the Ebionites John was dealing with, and us with our own Ebionite tendencies.

Believing that Jesus came from God is not enough. Believing in miracles – then and/or now – is not enough. What is enough? Nothing less than trusting Jesus – trusting him as the Son of God with a vision for the kingdom of God, a radically different kingdom that tests that trust as followers participate in bringing it about.

Americans are accustomed to having things on our own terms. American Christians are no different – even in our relations with our Christ. The American church in all its forms – liberal, conservative, emergent, evangelical, Protestant, Catholic, Pentecostal, what have you – has modeled Jesus after our own image and reduced his way of salvation (the way of the kingdom) to our own self-affirmation. We are Americans first and Christians second. We have a hard time distinguishing the difference between the kingdom of God and the American project. We’re not sure if they are different and even if they are, which one might be better. We are probably more Ebionite than the Ebionites ever were.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale HousePublishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.