The Two Fates

     "That ye may be blameless and pure, the sons of God, without fault, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world [alt: as stars in the universe]." Philippians 2:15

     We are stars shed from the blood of the sun, the sparks of a greater flame that is infinite and glorious, sending us flying upward into the pitch black sky of night. We are in constant rebellion against the dark: we will not conform to its shades and secret sins. Like a new caretaker purchases a rotting old building and begins by replacing a bulb in a dark alleyway: the roaches flee and the caretaker begins his repairs. So we too, having been purchased by God through His blood and pain and having our old deformities set right, we shine in the dark places as our master sets to fix the whole.

     God did not call people to merely escape from Hell; He has called us to bear the fruits of His fire. Read Galatians 5:22-23. There are the fruits of the Spirit; there is the result of being one with the consuming fire. If you have not these things, then you are still a dead ember lying lifeless on the ash heap of the world. A fire is coming for you and your kind, but you will not survive it.

     Hence are our two fates: to burn or to burn. To be filled up by the fiery Spirit of God like an overfilled cup or to be drowned in an infinite ocean of His fiery wrath. To the burning Love or the burning Wrath you must flee. The choice is yours; the results are eternal.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Fit for Fire

"...the god that answereth by fire, let Him be God." I Kings 18:24

The god who reveals himself, let Him be God. This is the answer to the "black box" puzzle: if you have a black box that is completely sealed and utterly impenetrable, how do you know what is inside? You can know what is inside if the thing inside it (1) is there, and (2) is not silent. If the thing inside reaches out to communicate somehow, then we can know what is inside. Our God is the same: our belief in Him is not based in blindness and good feelings but rather His revelations. He has answered by fire, and thus He is God.
"Is not my word like a fire?" (Jer. 23:29) The word of God is full of dynamic life and strength ("quick and powerful," Heb. 4:12) like a fire. It has burned the world for thousands of years, sending up smoke and incense alike into the eyes and nose of many. God has written to us, has set down in words and language His ways and His works. There are many holy books of men, but only one word of God, only one that burns like a flaming coal in the night, rekindling any ash it touches, and setting ablaze the deadwood of the wilderness; for the world is indeed a wilderness in need of fire.
"I am come to send fire on the earth" (Luke 12:49). Was not our Lord a fire as well? Was He not (and is He is still) a burning light to the world? Did He not (as Ms. Sayers put it) pass through this world "like a flame"? Read the Gospels, and you will see people, when confronted with Jesus, acting as though they were handling a fire. Herein is God's second answer: He has come to us and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The Morning Star has touched the dust of the earth, and the fire that He started can never be quenched. The works that He did bare witness to who He is (John 10:24-25), so that we are without excuse.
"The day of the Lord will come..., and the elements shall melt with a fervent heat..." (II Pet. 3:10). There is one last answer that God will give, one that is yet to come. The Second Coming of Christ, the day of God's judgment, will be the final word to all doubters and skeptics. There will come a day, as in Elijah's, when fire will once again fall from heaven before the eyes of the world, and all people will once again fall on their faces and say, "The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!" (I Kings 18:39)
"...our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29). Our God can and will only answer by fire because He is fire. To know Him is to take fire into your bosom, a flaming coal to your lips. His burning is holiness: to kiss Him is to be purged of all damage and defects; to know Him is to be one with a furnace. Once, being sinners filthy and frail, we would have melted into ash in the presence of such a flame. However, through the blood of Christ, we are reconciled back to God (Rom. 5:1, 8-11; II Cor. 5:17-19; Eph. 1:7), back to the fire; and like the three young men in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, we walk unharmed because we do not walk alone. He has made us fit for fire, and for that we worship Him.

-Jon Vowell

"That also is a mystery..."

"So there was a division among the people because of Him." John 7:43

John 7:2 through 10:21 chronicles the events surrounding Jesus' visit to the temple at Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles. Many notable events occur, containing several reoccurring themes. John 7:43, however, captures one of the most interesting themes, a theme whose implications are highly important.
It is an error to claim that Jesus was an enigma to only one group of people. The truth of the Gospels (esp. John) is that Jesus was an enigma to everyone. Of course, the Pharisees did not get Him, but neither did His family, or His disciples, or the Jews, or the Gentiles, or the woman caught in adultery, or the man born blind. From the highest rungs of political and religious power, to the lowest dregs of societal outcasts, the theme was the same: Jesus astounded and confounded; and all the while (esp. John 7:2-10:21), Jesus continued to hammer another theme essential to the former: (1) I am of God; (2) anyone who is of God gets me; (3) if you don't get me, then you are not of God. Even that bit of logic escaped them (John 8).
Perhaps these two intrinsically linked themes (Jesus' enigma caused by being from God) is what Paul was trying to express by the whole "conform/transform" dichotomy (Rom. 12:2). Jesus seemed to express the same thing in John 15:19: "If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world (because I have chosen you out of the world), therefore the world hateth you." The author of Hebrews shares the same sentiment with their image of "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb. 11:13-14), and John adds his own voice when he said, "We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth us not" (I John 4:6a). There seems to be an assumption in Scripture that those who are "of God" through Christ are necessarily a strange bird to everyone else. Some Rubicon has been crossed. Our relation to the world and its people has changed, and it will not and cannot be the same ever again; for we are no longer of this world (John 17:16).
Hence comes the frustrating tension of the "in the world but not of it" scenario, and the battles lines over this issue are drawn deep. Factions vary, but most can be safely grouped into two camps. One camp (we shall call them "Relevantists") claims (quite truthfully) that people are weary of an impersonal and sloganeering Christianity, detached from their lives and concerns; the truths of God must matter to them (who they are and where they are) before they will accept them. This particular camp condemns their opponents of being too aloof and "hands-off". Their favorite words of commendation are "real," "relevant," and "authentic"; their favorite words of condemnation are "Pharisaical," "fake," and "disingenuous". Meanwhile, the other camp (we shall call them "Sanctificationists") claims (again, quite truthfully) that we are clearly called to "be holy" as God "is holy," and to be bound up in the trappings and garb of the world will corrupt us and subsequently ruin our evangelism; the world needs and seeks holiness, and if we do not emit holiness then we have nothing to offer them. This particular camp condemns their opponents of being too down-and-dirty and "hands-on". Their favorite words of commendation are "godliness," "holiness," and "holy"; their favorite words of condemnation are "worldly," "fleshly," and "carnal".
Both sides equally claim that their way is the "Christ-like" way and that the other's way will (and is) sabotage and destroy the Christian mission. The rest of us are caught in the middle of these two trends, pulled by each side's truths and repelled by their errors. We do feel the necessity of relevance and honesty, yet feel that our Relevantist brothers and sisters are a bit too comfortable with the world. Likewise, we do feel the necessity of holiness and separation, yet feel that our Sanctificationist brothers and sisters are a bit too disconnected with the world. Thus, the frustrating tension continues without a resolution.
Oh, and guess what? Jesus does not help us on this point. He is still confounding, especially since both Relevantists and Sanctificationists quote Him to prove (and quite clearly prove) their respective cases! Jesus ate with sinners; He also met with Nicodemus. He argued against the unbelief of the Pharisees and the common folk, and thus committed Himself to no one. He told the woman at the well, a Samaritan and enemy, strange thoughts and astounding knowledge; and she believed, and He welcomed her. Yet this same Jesus told a rich young ruler, a man eager and ready to follow Him, strange thoughts and astounding knowledge; but the man went away, and Jesus did not go after Him. His enemies were divided over Him, but so where His own disciples. The self-righteous could not understand Him, but neither did the broken and downcast. Neither Relevantists and Sanctificationists nor any other group can claim Jesus as solely theirs. It is as if He belongs to no one but Himself. He is untouchable, as if the understood arrangement is "He does not belong to you; you belong to Him."
It seems to me (an admittedly unlearned man of faith and the Faith) that all of the movements and groups that try to make Jesus their "example" (a better word would be "mascot") are merely committing the unintentionally yet rather serious error of trying to completely rationalize and categorize what is inherently mysterious. The life of a Christian is the life of Christ, and the life of Christ is the life of God; and the life of God--that triune dance, that sovereign power so great that it can allow for free agents and yet cause no injury to its omnipotence, that love and wrath burning and boiling to their uttermost side by side, that immutable yet jealous zeal, the life of God--is inherently mysterious. It is with that life that we are made one in Christ (John 17:20-23). Why, then, do we act like we should make sense?
Madeleine L'Engle quoted some Cardinal (I forget his name) as saying that we are to live in such a way that our lives would make no sense if there was no God. I think that about perfectly sums it up. Jesus frustrated the logic and sensibilities of everyone, and the end result was either (1) they collapsed with their logic, or (2) their logic collapsed and they could finally see the truth (Matt. 21:42-44). Are we not called to be made into the same image? We are the living mysteries: we touch and yet are untouchable; so very real and yet so unreal. We frustrate and confound, yet none can turn away. Something within us burns with a fervent heat and living light, something that equally appalls and attracts. That something is not our charm and honesty, our righteousness and godliness; it is the life of the living God, surging through us like electricity through a conduit. At least, that is how it should be. For now, most of us (if not all of us) are tangled up in our own misconceptions and subsequent inconsistencies and inadequacies, faithfully missing the point and the mark. Yet God's grace fills up the crack of our imperfects, and makes (and is making) us what we ought to be. That also is a mystery, a great and beautiful one; let us leave it at that.

-Jon Vowell

Alone Amongst Other gods

"...the people which are to come shall praise the Lord; for He hath looked down from the height of His sanctuary, from Heaven did the Lord behold the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner [and] to loose those that are appointed to death...." Ps. 102:18b-20

Christianity does not worship God because He is a supernatural being, viz., a spirit. As Mr. Lewis put it, there's nothing special about being a spirit; the Devil is a spirit after all. So God is not worshipped simply because He is a spirit.
Neither is He worshipped (or found worthy of worship) because He is powerful, even more so than all the other gods of men. Power per se is nothing; it is the action that stems from the power that matters. A powerful God is not as important as whether or not He is good.
God, however, isn't even worshipped for His goodness. Like power, goodness per se is meaningless without action. Goodness that is static and still is useless; admirable and noble, perhaps, but still useless.
The God of Christianity is worshipped because of incarnation, i.e., His power and goodness, and all that he is (i.e., His holiness), has lead to practical, benevolent consequences in the woop and warf of space and time. Along amongst other gods, the God of the Christian is Immanuel--God with us. Not created by us, projected by us, realized by us or in us; not anything by us. He is "God with us." Our God has come down to us and has brought salvation with Him (Is. 59:15-16), for salvation is the goal of incarnation (I John 3:8b). We had fallen into a deep and miry pit, but He did not leave us there. He reached down to us; or rather, He jumped down to us and lifted us up. He came to us and saved us; and for that we worship Him.
Of course, God can be worshipped for His power and goodness and other things for what they are. However, the foundation of all worship towards God begins and ends with Jesus Christ, who is the demonstration and revelation of God and His holy character. Without Christ, God's goodness and power (and other things) is meaningless to us, without purpose or plan. God without Christ is just another deity; more powerful and benevolent than most, but still just one more in the mix. Christ, however, reveals the reality of the God who is there, a God beyond the invention and intention of man, a God actually "mindful" of man (Ps. 8:4), a God that comes and saves man. Only such a God is worthy of worship and obedience.

-Jon Vowell

Holy Life, Holy War

"I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt Thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me." Ps. 101:2-3

"Ye that love the Lord, hate evil...." Ps. 97:10a

"Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good." Rom. 12:9b

The "holy life" (as some call it) is simple on paper but difficult in practice. On paper, we are to love and cleave to the good, while we are to hate and reject the bad. In practice, however, this simple formula is always a war. Of course, before salvation, the struggle was impossible to win thanks to the inward law of sin and death (Rom.7:18-25); after salvation, the Spirit of God sets us free from that law (Rom. 8:1-2): Sin still has its pull, but we no longer have to obey it.
It is that continual and ever-present "pull," however, that drives us insane. Though set free from necessary sinfulness, we still find ourselves fighting against a lingering deadness of the body (Rom. 8:10), i.e., the appetites*. Fortunately, such a fight is ours for the winning in the moment because of Christ (Rom. 8:11) and God (Phil. 2:13). Whereas once our mind agreed with God (Rom. 7:25) but our spirit was dead and therefore could not enforce the mind's desire upon the appetites (i.e., the flesh), now we have (through Christ's atonement) the Spirit of God, who quickens our bodies (Rom. 8:10-11) and enables us to be holy as He is holy (I Peter 1:16).
There is a reason Christ described salvation as a new birth (John 3:3): it is not mere forgiveness only, but also a re-creation (II Cor. 5:17). A new life has been born in us (I Cor. 6:19), a life that can live the life of God (for it is the life of God), the only life worthy of Heaven. Our meriting eternal life and communion with God is based upon the work, life, power, and presence of someone other than ourselves. That is the key distinction between Christianity and the religions of the world: complete and utter dependence on the divine. We cannot save ourselves; only God can.

-Jon Vowell

*I say "appetites" for two reasons: (1) So as to avoid any hint of Gnosticism. I do not believe that the physical body is evil because it is physical. I believe that the physical body is fallen, and thus subject to the corruption of Sin and Death. When that corruption is removed, the body will remain: glorified, yet still physical. (2) So as to explain the "pull" of Sin. This has been a troublesome spot for me. If the "old man" and "the flesh" (which I take to be the same thing) are removed by Christ (Rom. 6:6; 8:1, 9), what then within me is drawn by Sin's "pull"? If I am free from the old life and its corruptions, what then is the motive power in me to sin? I take Rom. 8:10-11 to signify that there is still a part of us that is dead, i.e., the body. Since the mind already agreed with God (Rom. 7:25) and our spirit is now the Spirit of God, "the body" cannot be our mind or spirit. Therefore, it must be the physical body with its fallen appetites. This is what I take it to mean until a smarter head than I corrects me.

The Real Nature of Salvation (A Lecture for Salvation 101)

"The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do.... For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.... I can of my own self do nothing...." John 5:19, 26, 30

"I am the vine, ye are the branches...without me, ye can do nothing." John 15:5

The implication of these two verses is that what we have (as believers) is what belongs to Christ, and what Christ has belongs to God. This gives an added dimension to the nature of Salvation.
All that God is (i.e., Holy--the perfect wholeness and harmony of His qualities) is what we, as humans, need to be (John 17:3; I Peter 1:16). However, as sinners (i.e., those bound by and enslaved to Sin; John 8:34 & Rom. 6:16) we are separated from God (Is. 59:2; Ps.88:4-5), and thus we cannot know Him and thereby partake in His holiness.
Christ has solved this problem on both fronts: [1] By being the sacrificial payment for Sin (I John 2:2), He ended the separation thereof (Eph. 2; Col. 1:20-22). [2] All that Christ is comes from God (John 5:19, 26, 30), and all that God is has been given to Christ (Col. 2:9). Therefore, it is through Him that we can know God and partake in all that He is (I Cor. 1:30-31; II Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:8-9).
Thus, fellowship with God in His holiness was our destiny as humanity, but Sin brought by humanity's rebellion cut us off from that destiny. So God sent Christ so that (1) the world may be reconciled back unto Himself, and (2) all that He is may once again be ours (II Cor. 5:17-21). Therefore, we can see that salvation is not merely restored fellowship in the sense that God is no longer mad at us and won't throw us into hell; salvation is the restoration of a fellowship that leads into a partaking of and oneness with God and all that He is. This is the answer to mankind's deepest desires. This is the Gospel, which except a man believe, He cannot be saved.

-Jon Vowell

Real Presence

"...my heart and flesh crieth out for the living God." Ps. 84:2b

The main ignorance both inside and outside the church is that Christianity is about dead principles rather than a living person. Apparently, we are all about rite and ritual and ceremony with empty prayers and readings rather than communion with a living, personal being who is there. In addition, our churches are merely buildings of stone and wood rather than the house of the Holy One. Even holiness itself is nothing more than dead piety rather than an active principle emanating from a living and present presence that dwells within us. We must set this ignorance straight: Christianity is no more about dead formalism or stringent legalism than Christ Himself was; rather, Christianity is about actual fellowship with the living God who is there.
Perhaps the world can be excused for this ignorance, for how are they to know unless we tell them? Thus, we are the more guilty ones. Our lives, our deeds as well as our words, reveal nothing living or present, nothing active or personal. If we are not dead formalists orlegalists (or both), then we are at least pasty-faced moralists, our lives no different from the average pagan or heathen. Christianity, however, is not about dead religion; it is about the living God who walks with us and dwells within us. That reality should be reflective of a difference in our lives, a difference that cannot be simply explained away as mere religion and/or morality. To be "Christ-like" means that, like Christ, people must not know what to do with us because they have been in the presence of the living God, whether they knew it or not.

-Jon Vowell

On Darkness (and a word on Light)

"...Thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. [...] Turn us again, O God, and cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be saved." Ps. 80:1b, 3, 7, 19

"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." John 1:4

Jesus spoke of the "light of life" (John 8:12), a characteristic obviously belong to Jesus (the light of the world; John 8:12) and God (who is Light; I John 1:5). According to Scripture, being outside of God is properly understood as being in darkness, for what is darkness? Firstly, it is a confusion and deception, for it hides and distorts all things, so that our perception is clouded and unreliable. We follow every shadow and shade, our blinded eyes unable to see what is real. So also, those outside of God are blind (II Cor. 4:3-4), and they cannot see what they stumble over (Prov. 4:19).
Darkness is also a terror, a terror because of its deception. To be lost without sight or clear perception is to be trapped in the utter unknown, as if the unknown were dark ocean depths that one drowns in. We see no paths, we cannot identify any sound or face, whether they be real or of our own imagination. We cannot discern between friend and foe, threat and comfort. We cannot even identify ourselves, for every mirror merely reflects the darkness. So also, those outside of God know only fear and dread, for the world is dark and pitiless (I John 5:19), and they cannot find a place of safety and rest; neither can their hearts comfort them, for they are dark as well (Jer. 17:9).
This is the proper state of man outside of God: deceived and afraid. Thus, being redeemed by God is properly understood as being in the light; not just a single flash, but a continuous burning that illumines the darkness without and the darkness within, serving as guide and revealer not only for the pathways of the world but also the depths of the soul. It is this light that man desires, this light that Christ reveals: God is that light.

-Jon Vowell

The Fundamentality of Grace

"Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him, and all nations shall serve Him; for He shall deliver the needy when he crieth. The poor also, and he that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in His sight." Ps. 72:11-14

That which will cause every knee to bow in the end will be the understanding and acknowledgment of God's goodness and grace. Christ's humiliation was and is the grounds for His exaltation (Phil. 2:8-9), and that humiliation was to become a man and die on the Cross. We do not draw men unto God by lifting up clever arguments and sound speeches. Those things are useful, but they are not the needful thing (I. Cor. 2:1-5). The needful thing is the elevation of Christ as the demonstration of God's love towards us (John 12:32 & Rom. 5:8).
Any old god can garner worship out of fear and terror, and our God is a God of wrath and judgment. It is grace, however, that serves as the grounds for worship, His goodness as the foundation of praise. Of course, His grace and goodness is complex; from our limited and fallen perspective, His love towards us can often look like hate. We will see the goodness of it all in the end, however; we will see the hidden workings of grace, and we will know that in all things the Divine was and is not indifferent towards us and has directly involved Himself in our salvation; and with all the nations of men left on the earth, we will cry, "Holy, holy, holy."

-Jon Vowell

Desiring God: Something Real

"O God, Thou art my God. Early will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee. My flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. I have looked for Thee in the sanctuary to see Thy power and Thy glory. [...] My soul followeth hard after Thee...." Ps. 63:1-2, 8a

The whole of Christianity these days (esp. in the Western world) comes off as either dusty and fragile or fluid and messy rather than solid and real. We could help it come off as solid and real more if we, as Christians, took seriously this concept of thirsting after God, of desiring Him above all things. Some of us desire head knowledge, with good theology and proper exegesis. Others of us prefer respectable religion, with practical advice and moralisms. Many other desire various things. Very few desire God. All other things are not bad per se. They become bad when they take the place of God, as they often do in our lives. To paraphrase Charles Williams, we say "This is Thou," but never get to "This is not Thou." To paraphrase Lewis, we mistake the inns for home.
Perhaps Christianity and its current Christians would be taken more seriously as something solid and real (i.e., as truth) if we (1) unapologetically told people that there is a God, that He can be known, and that to be known by Him is the soul's deepest desire; and (2) unapologetcially live like it, because it is the truth. If people gazed into a common sanctuary and saw souls thirsting after and satisfied by God, His power and glory and all that He is, rather than dusty scholars and amiable moralists, then perhaps they would begin to see why the Gospel is the only good news out there, for it tells us how to satisfy our deepest longings by taking us back to God through the Cross of Christ.

-Jon Vowell

The Gospel

"[Lucifer is] the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms, that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof, that opened not the house of his prisoners." Isaiah 14:16b, 17

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath appointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, [...] to comfort them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.... I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God...." Isaiah 61:1, 3a, 10a

"For this purpose the Son of God was manifested: that He might destroy the works of the devil." I John 3:8b

To see Jesus as a social revolutionary is an injustice and a crime against the Gospel. To see Him as a mere statement of Divine sentimentality is a blasphemous hatred against the Gospel. To see Him as a cash cow, a cosmic ATM, is to rob the Gospel of all power and glory. To see Him as the liberator from cruel governments of men is to be as confused and disappointed at His coming as the Jews who eventually killed Him were. If you see and preach Christ as anything less or other than the propitiation for the Sin of the world, as the revelation of God's holy wrath and loving kindness, as the only mediator between God and man, as the Destroyer of all evil and corruption caused since the Fall, and as the Kinsman Redeemer of all men who have fallen, then you blaspheme and disgrace the work and name of our Lord, and we have no part in you, for what fellowship has light with darkness? Indeed, if you preach any gospel other than that which proclaims the forgiveness of sins and atonement of men back to God through the shed blood of Christ, then you are merely adding to the darkness that already blinds so many. Every breath you breathe that carries with it your false gospel sends unholy fog across the souls of men, furthering their natural obscurity, so that the true light is even harder to find. In the end, you will be one of the ones mentioned in Matthew 7:21-23; you will have your reward.

The lost and lonely people of this dying world do not need a social revolutionary. They do not need beautiful phrases of sentimentality. They do not need a cosmic ATM. They do not need a usurping liberator. They do not need a guru, an enlightened one, a homeboy, a co-pilot, or a moral mentor; they need a savior. They need the awesome and terrible truth that God is there, He is not silent, and He has come to us, "His arm [has] brought salvation...the Redeemer [has] come to Zion." (Isaiah 59:15, 20) This world needs good news that transcends and outlasts all cultures, kingdoms, fashions, and fads; news that is good no matter what social, cultural, political, or religious environment you live in. This world needs a saving truth that is the same for all at all times no matter what happens, and that truth has always been: God is, God loves, and God can be found.

"We have seen God's Glory:

Not beautiful words and phrases,

But Redemption based on the

Blood of Christ..."

-Jon Vowell

The Gospel in the Context of the Trinity

"For thy Maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and thy Redeemer [is] the Holy One of Israel, The God of the whole earth shall He be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God." Isaiah 54:5, 6

The idea of God as a romantic (in a relational and not literary sense) strikes many as unconventional, especially men (God is my husband?). Imagery aside, however, the thing to grasp here is that God desires communion with you: to love, to have and to hold. Regardless of gender, all people desire to be desired; whether for beauty or strength, all people long to be wanted by another. The desire for communion with others is a fundamental element of humanity, and the Bible tells us the shocking truth that the terrible and glorious Almighty desires to commune with us.

Now, there is a difference between desire and need. God desires communion with us, but He does not need it. Existing as the Trinity, God is in an eternal, perfect communion and society within Himself; He needs nothing more. The flip side of all this is that the truth of God existing as the Trinity is the fundamental reality behind the oft over quoted and misquoted phrase, "God is love," i.e., God's very nature is bound up in communion with others. Thus, we see two facts that emerge from God existing as a Trinity: He does not need to commune with us, for He is in perfect communion always; He does desire to commune with us because it is His very nature to commune with others. Note that the reason God desires communion with us has everything to do with Him, not us. There is nothing in us that merits God's desire; His desire springs from His own nature and nowhere else. Though we are unlovable, God loved us; while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Of course, Christ is the fullest expression and proof of God's love for us (Romans 5:8), and He came to 'make us lovable,' i.e., make us so that we can commune with God. That God desires to commune and whether or not He can commune are two different things. God cannot commune with Sin (for Sin is the rejection of and separation from God), and we are all sinners (Romans 3:23). Thus, unless something drastically changes within us, we cannot commune with God, but are destined to stay separate from Him forever, which is the true meaning of Hell (Matthew 7:23 & 25:41; notice the use by multiple translations of the word "depart"). At the Cross of Christ, however, a transaction was made. Christ, who was and is God, took our Sin upon Himself and in return gave us His righteousness, i.e., God's righteousness (II Corinthians 5:21). Therefore, Christ has (through the Cross) made a way for us to be made lovable, by making us a way to become like Love Himself. Having been 'made lovable,' (i.e., saved) by Christ, commune with God is now possible, but only if we (1) believe that Christ is the only way to be 'made lovable,' and (2) accept such a salvation (for a gift is not yours until you accept it).

Thus, by accepting the salvation found only in Christ, that which separates us from God (i.e., Sin) is done away with, and our communion with Him is restored. It is restored becomes Sin (that which absolutely separates) has been removed, and Love (that which absolutely unites) has replaced it. Therefore, the gospel is about love, romance, about God desiring us and making a way for us to commune with Him. We can reject such communion if we wish, but we do so at our own peril.

"All consuming Love and Passion,

Holy Fire of pain and pleasure,

Draw us deeper still

Into the Light of Your Glory and Grace..."

-Jon Vowell

The Past Reborn

"...for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood anymore." Isaiah 54:4b

The past is one of the greatest demons to ever torment mankind. If there is one ghost no one wants to be haunted by, it is the past. It could be argued that part of the psychological terror that ghost inflict is that they are dreaded embodiments of the evil past, the unholy manifestation of some former failing or sin no longer with us chronologically but still with us actually. To that affect, the past is a ghost that haunts us endlessly, and the greatest haunting pain of mankind is a past action, i.e., the Fall. The remnants of that horrendous aboriginal disaster hovers about corporate humanity and individual humans like a foul wraith (or a foul odor).

"Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (II Corinthians 5:17) One of the glories of the gospel is the realization of the reality that our slate is wiped clean and kept clean by Christ (see I John 1:7 in regards to "kept" clean). The one demon mankind needs slain is the past, full of fears and failures, full of the Fall. Christ deals with our past at the Cross, and thereby gives us a new past, a new legacy, one whose foundation is not the Fall but the Atonement. One of the joys of the Christian is that (because of Christ) God no longer sees them on the basis of the Fall, but rather on the Cross. Thanks to Christ, we are set free from the unholy past and given a new, irreproachable legacy, one that even God Himself can find no fault in.

"May men find in You

Not beautiful words and phrases

But a legacy reborn

Into immutable Holiness..."

-Jon Vowell

Hand in Hand

"Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows...He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed...[The] Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all...for the transgressions of my people was He stricken...[God] shall make [the Servant's] soul an offering for sin...[God] shall see the travail of [the Servant's] soul, and be satisfied.... My righteous Servant [shall] justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.... He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Isaiah 53:4-12

The concept of the Atonement was not a New Testament fantasy but an Old Testament reality. The disciples did not invent a new thing when they proclaimed Christ as the Lamb of God that takes away the Sin of the world. A core part of Israel's temple worship was the sin offering, and the prophet Isaiah made it very clear that the long awaited Messiah would be a sin offering. The disciples were reminded of, and went around reminding others, what the Jews already knew: God shall make the Messiah's soul and offering for Sin.

The Old Testament is not irrelevant to the Christian; it is the very foundation of the New Testament teachings. Without the O.T., the N.T. would make no sense and have no strength. All key Christian doctrines--the Atonement, the Trinity, the Incarnation--all of them can be found within the O.T. We would be wise as Christians to instruct and be instructed by the Spirit in the continuity of Scripture. It is God's complete, verbalized, propositional special revelation to man. Every part is vital; no part is excluded. To think otherwise is to cripple yourself spiritually; you will never know the strength of your beliefs, nor the glory of God's wisdom and workings.

"Your entire word

Is lamp and light.

Old and New

Lead us unto You..."

-Jon Vowell

Christ the Offender II: What This World Needs

"...He hath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not." Isaiah 53:2b, 3

The Jesus we are presented with today is nothing like the Jesus of the Scriptures. These days Jesus is God's happy helper, out to bring many sons to glorious health and wealth. Meanwhile, the Jesus of the Scriptures was offensive and hated because He came as a sword to annihilate the peace and stability of the content and comfortable. The Jesus of the Scriptures was God walking amongst fallen men, revealing at every turn that He was nothing they wanted and yet all that they needed.

The lost and lonely people of this fallen world do not need another happy guru bringing great tidings of great self-help books; what they need is God, and the knowledge of His scandalous and glorious Gospel. Fallen man does not need to be made more amiable; they need to be shocked to their sense. Shock and shake them out of dark apathy with the offensive knowledge that they are sinners, separated from God, damned to Hell, and that Immanuel has come to accept their unconditional surrender and crush them so that they can be made whole, kill them so that they can be reborn. Do not give men scratchings for their itching ears; tell them something a man would be glad to believe.

"Keep me clear from

Anti-Christs

Who steal the glorious power of

The Gospel.

Deliver us from their evil..."

-Jon Vowell

Christ the Offender

""Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" Isaiah 53:1

The Bible never said that its claims would seem sensible (or even rational) from a purely human perspective. Indeed, its claims are equally true and outrageous. The Redemption of Christ, the very core theme of the Bible, is called a stumbling stone to some and foolishness to others (I Corinthians 1:23), and there is a reason Jesus said that the way that leads to life is narrow and few would find it (Matthew 7:14).

Of course, the Christian faith is rational; apologetics and Christian philosophic thought are not invalid; Christian Existentialism is not our sole view. That Christianity and its doctrines are outrageous does not in any way steal from the fact that they are true. What needs to be noted here and remembered is that we are in error if we think that Christianity and its doctrines (especially the terrible doctrines of the Cross and the Atonement) are easy for fallen man to swallow, namely because the heart of Christianity (i.e., Jesus Christ) states with unblinking authority, "Nothing you do or are can save you." That cuts right across fallen man's rationale, which is a mode of thinking that starts with man and only man. Fallen man's reason starts with man and nothing else; Christianity's reason starts with God or nothing else, and fallen man cannot accept such a premise, a premise that demands of them to come as humble sinners and nothing else. For fallen man, stepped in rebellion, understanding the nature of a sin offering or of hypo-static unions is not the real stumbling point; bowing the knee is.

The very thought that man is not enough is scandalous, outrageous, but true. At the end of the day, whatever the arguments (or lack thereof), it is never reason that keeps men from God (for God is the source of reason); it is pride that keeps them, keeps them from getting to God by going through Christ, the only name whereby men might be saved. Men might accept our claims more easily if it were not for Christ, for Christ demands absolute surrender to His salvation, and such a thing is anathema to fallen mankind's ultimately irrational thinking.

"May the gospel we preach

Offend and inflame.

May it burn the hearts of men

Like hot coals on their heads..."

-Jon Vowell

Back to Reality

"Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore they shall know in that day that I am He that doth speak; behold, it is I." Isaiah 52:6

To know that God (the infinite-personal, Scripture revealed God) is there, is real; that is the reality all men strive for, whether they know it or not. Whether or not we are ultimately alone cuts to the core of all other significant questions: if we are ultimately alone, then there is no solution to the conundrums of being (what is real?), knowledge (how do we know? how do we know that we can know?), and morals (what ought and ought not to be?), because there is no objective, infinite-personal outsider that can tell us these things. The knowledge of the reality of God automatically gives a man the groundwork whereby he can begin to answer the 'big' questions.

Everyone of Israels 'redemptions' was always about bringing them back to the reality of God. The same is true of the Redemption found in Christ. Our Sin has separated us from the God who is there, and that alienation will be the death of us. Christ dealt with Sin on the Cross, and now mankind can return to the reality of God, and find in Him all that humanity has ever desired and hoped for. Jesus is the joy of man's desiring, because He satisfies man's desiring by bringing us back to God.

"Tell all the lost and lonely people

That God is real

And there is a way back to Him..."

-Jon Vowell

The Magnification of the Law

"The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness' sake; He will magnify the law, and make it honorable." Isaiah 42:21
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law...I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." Matthew 5:17
"Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law...Therefore, the law is holy..." Romans 7:7, 12
"Therefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." Galatians 3:24

The "law" is God's immutable code of conduct, a concrete representation of His own holiness. It is immutable because He is immutable: like Him, it does not change or alter; no amendments or addendum's. He has no intention of doing away with it anymore than He has any intention of doing away with Himself. This codex dei is still the same: if you want to abide in the presence of the Holy, then you must be holy; and if you must be holy, then here is what it means to be holy. There is still no escaping those conditions.
"The law hath concluded all under sin" (Galatians 3:22a), "Whosoever shall keep the law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (James 2:10). The law cannot save us; it was never meant to save us. It was meant to point us to a savior. The law condemns all "so that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." (Galatians 3:22b) God said that he would magnify His law, and He has done it. Jesus Christ is the magnification of the law. In Him, it was fulfilled completely; and in Him, we fulfill it completely. The law was not meant to be a standard for us to meet, but a standard for us to become; and it is in Christ that we become it: "Of God are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us...righteousness..." (I Corinthians 1:30), "For God hath made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (II Corinthians 5:21)
It is amazing how we forget that God has not changed. From the Old Testament to the New, the law is still the standard, and blood is its price. Whereas once it was fulfilled in temple worship, now it is fulfilled in Christ. It was, however, in Christ so much more than mere fulfillment; it was magnification. On the cross not only came the redemption of all, but also the magnification of these two truths: the law is still the standard, and blood is still its price.

"The Law is Holy, The Lord is Righteous.
May this my plea be:
Christ my Holiness, Christ my Righteousness..."
-Jon Vowell

On Meekness

"Behold my servant [i.e., Christ, the Messiah]...He shall not cry out, nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench..." Isaiah 42:1-3a

There is something to be said for the gentleness of Christ, for His absolute, divine meekness. It was indeed the greatest of all foolishnesses to save the world through such a man. At least the Greeks mythologized the descent and death of a god to and on earth with much heroism and grandeur; the Jews at least saw the Messiah as a king who would conquer and kill. What they all got, however, was the poor carpenter from Galilee, Who raise no rebellions, and healed the broken, and was very God of very God. A bruised reed is an easy thing to break, and a smoking candlewick is an easy thing to put out; yet His gentle meekness would leave them all unscathed whilst He saved the world.
We must rescue the words "meek" and "meekness" from the secular trash-talkers and slogan makers. Anyone with a knucklehead's understanding of English vocabulary would know that "meek" is not a synonym for "weak," nor is "meekness" one for "weakness" (no matter how well they alliterate). To have "meekness," to be "meek," is to have power and strength under control. The image is that of an elephant: the perfect combination of bone-crushing power and strength with a gentle disposition. That is what it means to be meek, and since Christ was God in the flesh, then His meekness was absolute power and strength under absolute control.
The opposite of meekness is most certainly not strength. The opposite of meekness is recklessness, or better yet, savagery, a complete and utter loss of self-control that results in abominable cruelty. Those who despise meekness as weakness have no idea what they are doing. There is no greater weakness than a total inability to control yourself, to suffer a complete breakdown of self-control, a spiraling out into chaotic animal volatility. Our Lord did not have this problem. His temptation in the wilderness proved He could have taken over the world whenever He wanted. His own words proved that He could have, with a mere command, summed countless angels to wipe out the world. His own actions, such as in the temple or with the Pharisees, proved that He had power and strength, and that He knew when and where to use them, i.e., He had absolute control over them. These, however, are not the greatest proof of His meekness.
If there is one symbol that will forever tower above all others as the banner of absolute meekness, it is the cross of Christ. Never before has there been such outlandish example of divine power and strength under absolute control. That God condescended for us, and took on flesh, that He went through the kenosis and the Incarnation, is grand enough meekness, but He did not stop there. Let all the nay-sayers be silent before the cross, before the monument of meekness, before the moment in time when the Creator of all allowed His feeble creation to overpower Him (what a thought!) and kill Him (what a thought!). There is no greater meekness, no greater strength, then almighty divinity hanging from the cross. No greater control than the holy Uncreated allowing Himself to be killed by the fallen and defiled created. There is no greater strength to be found than for Heaven, of its own volition, to submit to earth, for the Son of Heaven to freely submit to the sons of earth. How can one call this weakness? Our fallen minds cannot fathom the depths of such strength, the power of such control, and the reality of the truth that on the cross the Meek did indeed inherit the earth. Amen.

"To fathom the strength that is the Cross,
Salvation won through suffering shame.
Can my mind come near to grasping the whole of it?"
-Jon Vowell