Non Nobis Domine

"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us; but unto Thy hame may all the glory be, for Thy mercy and Thy truth's sake." Ps. 115:1

"When Jesus heard [of Lazarus' illness], he said, 'This sickness is not for death, but for the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.'" John 11:4

"[The chief priests and Pharisees said,] 'If we let Him alone like this, all men will believe on Him, and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.'" John 11:48

Psalm 115 gives us a comparison of God with idols (vs. 2-9), with the conclusion being that while God is the Lord of Heaven (vs. 3), idols are nothing more than "the work of men's hands" (vs. 4), and "they that make them are like unto them, and so is everyone that trusteth in them" (vs. 8). There seemed to be an understanding amongst the Hebrews that the comparison of God to idols was not a comparison of God to other gods but rather a comparison of God to man, which is no comparison at all (hence the foolishness of idolatry). Idol worship is the glorification, not of lesser gods, but of man over God.
This is why the Pharisee's sentiment concerning Jesus is so dangerous. Whereas Jesus continually stressed the glory of the Father in all things, the Pharisees were more concerned with the maintenance and exaltation of themselves and their country, their very own "work of their hands."
It is very easy to glide over idolatry when we view it as simply the worship of false gods. We are civilized (so we say); we no longer have pagan totems or temples. If, however, idolatry is actually more basic, if it is simply to worship the work of your hands and therefore is subsequently self-worship, then we all have blood on our hands. It is easy to love ourselves, and it is easy to love the work of our hands: our humanity desires expression and commendation of that expression. The problem is when we glorify ourselves by glorifying the work, when all glory belongs to God, a glory sought not out of egotism, but out of love, for only when God is glorified are we wholly human.
This does not mean that we must never create (if so, then why are the Psalms scripture?). What it does mean is that every creation of our hands, and our understanding of ourselves as creatures, must keep in mind at all times the supremacy (and majesty) of the Creator. It is "in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28), and thus every work of our hand is really a work of His hand. To claim otherwise is idolatry, which is pride, which is sin.
Nothing falls outside the grasp of the glory of God, not even evil (John 11:4). Why then should we think that the works of our hands are immune? Let all things be done for the glory of God, for all things are done to the glory of God. Any assertion to the contrary is a delusion on our part of the way things really are. How foolish will be the one who worships a creation that, on the day when "every knee" will bow, it itself will worship the Creator? If the works of our hands could speak, they would mimic the words of the angels, who said to any that worshipped them, "See that thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant.... Worship God" (Rev. 19:10; 22:8-9).

-Jon Vowell

Jesus: Light of the Dark World

"In Him was life, and that life was the light of men; and the light shineth in the darkness, and darkness cannot lay hold of it." John 1:4-5

"Everyone that does evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds shoould be exposed." John 3:20

"The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil." John 7:7

"To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." John 18:37

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

The destruction of the enemy and his works begins and ends with the proclamation and revelation of the truth. Jesus was not hated because He lead military uprisings (which He didn't), nor because He merely taught us to love each other (which He also didn't); rather, He was hated because He spoke the truth to those in and of the darkness. The result was like fire and deadwood, or vampires and the sun, or sodium and water: it was not a pleasant mixture.
Jesus, however, was not here to mix pleasantly with all things: he was here to start a fire (Luke 12:49), to break a spell, both in word (His teachings) and in deed (the Cross). Jesus was the Light not just because He is and came from God, who dwells in Light inaccessible, but also because He was the truth and spoke the truth, and the darkness hated Him for it.
We too are called to be such a witness; not a witness to our own ideas or notions, but to the truth: the truth that God has revealed in His word and in Christ. As Christ was the light of the world (John 8:12) so too are we (Matt. 5:14-16). We are called to pierce the darkness with a hated yet unquenchable light, and thus we can expect the same ire but also the same victory. The world loves two things: (1) convenient lies that are easy to forget while they support our congenial apathy towards and complacency in Sin, and (2) uncertainty and doubt as an appropriate hiding place for our pet preferences and opinions. They love these things because they fear what truth and certainty will reveal about themselves and their preferences, viz., that they are weighed and found wanting before the holiness of God.
We are told to sow the word like seeds; what an image to think of the seeds as sparks of flaming light that illuminate the night and burn up the dead and rotting things! We are the light-casters: we bear witness to the truth, and in doing so cast shards of Heaven's light like fire round about. This is the fire that Christ has started and that we continue, until perhaps all the elements of the earth will melt by its fervent heat.

-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

The Way of the Man of Sorrows

"I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off my beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting." Isaiah 50:6

The majority of God's children (mainly in the West) do not contain the rugged masculinity of Jesus Christ; they do not possess the backbone of the man of sorrows. Courage is when a person goes to their breaking point and does not break, and there is a breaking point that Jesus met and passed many times, a breaking point that we crumble with self-pity over--humiliation. From the Incarnation (Philippians 2:7, 8), to Gethsemane (Luke 22:42), to the passion of the Cross, Christ's life was marked as one of abject humiliation, of the Highest willingly being made the lowest. Have we lost the courage of the man of sorrows, the courage to rest in God at the price of humiliation before men?
"Because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." (John 15:19) Are you prepared for the mock and scorn of the child of God? Are you prepared to be considered some horrible, alien thing in the eyes of men? Or are you prepared to be the friend of this world? Being friends with the world is easy because it cost nothing except your soul; nothing you hold dear and everything that is dear. God asks that you rest your soul in His hands and let all other things be humiliated: your pride, your rights, your self, your sin. You shun humiliation at your own risk.

"Make me a son of Your Love:
Purged pure and whole,
All of life redeemed,
All of life centered on You..."
-Jon Vowell

The Weapon of God

"[God] hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me. He hath made me a polished arrow; in His quiver hath he Hid me...." Isaiah 49:2
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34

The Jewish hope that the Messiah would be a weapon in the hand of God was most certainly fulfilled, but not as they had imagined. The Romans did not fall; the Gentile empire did not crumble. Instead the Jewish beliefs about God crumbled (I Corinthians 1:23), and all precious loyalties were challenged (Matthew 10:35-38). The Messiah had come to kill, but apparently to kill His own followers (Matthew 10:39). It was the price that would have to be paid, and Christ demonstrated it in graphic fashion: the pathway of life lies through the gateway of death. All things must be made desolate before they become glorious.
"When the law came, sin revived, and I died." (Romans 7:9) "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." (Galatians 3:24) Salvation is an impossibility unless we realize that we are lost; glorious redemption is a myth if there is no desolate damnation. It is the stern claim of God that in order to feel wonderful, you must first feel dreadful; in order to find Him, the weapon of God must shatter us apart completely, until there are no more delusions left, no deceptions, no masks, just the wretched, blind, naked, miserable self handed over to God in surrender. If we are to be lifted up by God, we must step down from our pedestals, for it is the broken and dirty things that God has come to make His children (Luke 19:10). Only sinners can received grace; Pharisees cannot (Luke 18:9-14). Redemption belongs to the broken and desolate things of the world, for they alone recognize and accept it when it comes.

"Sword of Heaven,
Missile of God:
Shatter me! Batter me!
And make me whole..."
-Jon Vowell

The Beauty of God's Soul

"I, even I, and He that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember thy sins." Isaiah 43:25

The forgiveness of God is found within His own nature; it is not based upon any merit of ours. God did not send Christ because we deserved it. What we deserved is exactly what we chose in Adam: the not-God, outer darkness, Hell. God sent Christ not because of who we are, but because of who He is. We are fallen, broken, cursed, defiled and diseased. We deserve nothing and can merit nothing except damnation. God is love, holiness, goodness, grace, justice, and mercy. He cannot help but act in a loving, holy, good, gracious, just, and merciful way. Christ is the result of everything God is responding to the reality of Sin, and this response has revealed the beauty of His soul.
Christ is the beauty of God's soul, the revelation of Himself in His entirety. The Incarnation was not only God made flesh, but also a revelation of His nature. God (being who He is) could not and would not simply ignore Sin. His response had to be, and that response was, the Incarnation, a revelation of all that He is. Christ reveals a God that, though men may not believe in Him, at least they will know that there is a God worth believing in.

"Christ the Glory of God,
The Revelation of Deity's Soul.
Though the world is bitter and ugly,
Heaven is Sweetness and Beauty..."
-Jon Vowell

This is Redemption II: God with Us

"Every valley shall be lifted up, and mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places made smooth; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together..." Isaiah 40: 4, 5a

The revelation of God's glory has always been noted as a necessary part of redemption. At least, the language of the Bible seems to garner that image. Somehow, God's ultimate victory will not require one ounce of sweat from His brow.; He will merely "show up," i.e., be manifested, and it is all over. When his glory comes (Isaiah 40:4, 5), when His presence fills the whole earth (Isaiah 11:9), when it fills all of His people (Romans 8:18-21), and shines forth without measure, so that the earth becomes like a star, and all things are consumed into Him, that is redemption, i.e., God with us.
Christ is redemption, not only in action but also in very being, not only in the Cross but also in Immanuel. The presence of God is the presence of redemption, and Jesus is the revelation of God's presence and glory (John 1:14). When he comes again, it will be the same (there is a reason the Christian apocalypse is referred to as a "revelation"). The glory that Christ placed in those who believed will be revealed as He comes bringing the all consuming, crushing presence and glory of God, manifested "as He is" (I John 3:2). The effect will be the same as it was when he walked the dust of this earth:
"Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low," the humble shall find their honor, and the proud will crumble to the ground. Jesus once said that those who are "poor in spirit" and "meek" would overthrow the mighty and strong (Matthew 5:3-12), and that the religious elite where utterly abominable (Matthew 25:1-36). Revelation speaks of great and mighty men hiding in caves and crying that mountains collapse on them so that they may hide from the presence of God, and there is always that ominous law (written in both Testaments) that God will give grace to the humble but that He "opposes the proud" (I Peter 5:5).
"The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places made smooth," the "bent" of all things will be returned to their proper place, i.e., towards God. That is what Christ did for us (Romans 5:1-11); it is what he will do for the whole world. In addition, all that was once heart-breaking trials and sorrows can no longer cause us to fall. God's word has told us as much (Isaiah 43:2; Romans 8:31-39; II Corinthians 4:8-10).
These are not mere abstraction; "God with us" is not a mere philosophical theorem. It is an actuality, right now and soon to come. Christ has made (and will make) such things possible. It started with His Cross, it will end with His Coming in glory, but that ending will, in truth, only be the beginning. When the Fall is burned away from every residue of creation's being, the adventure and wonder that is redemption, that is the all-consuming fiery presence of God, will have just begun.

"May the Deeper Life to come
Consume this life of mine now.
May my life be a prelude
To Heaven on earth..."
-Jon Vowell

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

"At that time [the king of Babylon] sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick and was recovered. And Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them the house of his precious things...Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah...'Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house...shall be carried to Babylon, nothing shall be left, saith the Lord.'" Isaiah 39:1-8

This was not a punishment; this was a reality check. Hezekiah's flaunting did not cause the Babylonian exile; the exile was an inevitable consequence from things before Hezekiah's time. What God did here was demonstrate to him how the impending exile rendering all his flaunting foolishness, i.e., shatter his supposed reality with His true Reality. "Why do you treat like friends those who are not your friends? Why are you obsessing with that which does not matter?" Good question.
One of the biggest caveats to being a Christian in the modern world (both of the East and West) is the danger of being swept up into a corporate consumeristic materialism. This is not merely "mega church" syndrome. This is "the American Dream" syndrome. If you want to do or be anything or something around these parts (or so we are told), you need money, status, and power. To get that, you must throw yourself, body and soul, into the world corporate machine, or into a business endeavor. You have to "know people," you have to "schmooze," play politics, jump through hoops, dance, play ball, etc., etc. The tragic irony of it all is that once you have finally got the money, status, and power, your life is now consumed with the pursuit of them, and all spiritual applications of your life are left to the back burner. In trying to be useful to God, we become absolutely useless. In trying to serve Him, we serve ourselves. In trying to love Him, we become friends of this world. If one could just stand back and take in the whole horrific scope of our "busy-ness," our frittering and fluttering about, one would be led to ask, "What are we doing?"
God does not need money, either yours or others. He does not need your talents and abilities. He does not need your usefulness. He does not need your wit or wisdom. He does not need your pluck or personality. He does not need your humor. He does not need your sense of fashion or style. He does not need your creativity or "new" ideas. He does not need your strength or determination. He does not need your political candidate. He does not need your political party. He does not need your country. He does not need your denomination. He does not need your translation of the Bible. He does not need you to save souls. He does not need your service. He does not need your praise. He does not need your sermons and your lessons. He does not need what you "know." He does not need what you are. He does not need anything. What He wants, what His will is for you is (please pardon the cliche) for you to "let go and let God," i.e., stop trying to tell God what kind of person He gets to use and start letting Him make you into the person that He wants to use, i.e., a spitting image of Himself, a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29).
Jesus Christ is not a cookie cutter. God is not monotony, sterility, and generality. All the unique elements of your person that He created will be brought to bear in a life of Christ-likeness. However, all those elements too often become distractions and hindrances to God's will for us when we get wrapped up in them and not in Him. "Oh God! I am so beautiful! So witty! So talented! So smart! So useful!" No you are not. You are nothing without Him (John 15:5). You can offer Him nothing (Philippians 3:4-11). All you can offer (pardon another cliche) is yourself (Romans 12:1), the real you, the one unhindered by fleeting wishes, wants, desires, and ambitions. God wants to take our fading dreams and gives us His own eternal ones, to make His desire our own. That can only happen when we stop dictating to Him how things are going to work and start being swept up into Him.
We so easily take our eye off of the ball. God does not need anything from us, nor does He even need us. The wonder is that (despite His lack of need) He still wants to use us, to take us into Himself and make us one with Him; but to do it as He says, not as we say. We do not know ourselves as well as He does. What we see as a talent could actually be a hindrance that must be removed, and what we see as a triviality (or even a weakness) could actually be what God plans to use (What good are the skills of a shepherd on the field of battle? And yet the giant was not slain by a warrior). The key here is that we do not get wrapped up in ourselves, in what we "can" and "cannot" do or be; but get wrapped up in God, Who He is, what He does, and what He is doing and being through us. To put it simply: keep your eye on the ball, i.e., God. That was king Hezekiah's foul--He thought he knew what was up, what he was doing. God demonstrated that he did not: "You think you know what's up? Here's the reality. All 'your' greatness, I will give to Babylon."
Do we keep our eye on the ball? Do we live in the reality of God? Do we walk in that light? Do we realize that life is found, not in doing things or being something for Him, but by being swept up into Him (John 17:3)? Do we realize (as Lewis put it) that our lives are "a perpetual Evangel, a story written by the finger of God," and not written by our own finger? Are we ready and willing to stop distracting ourselves with our own stories, our own plans and our own knowledge, and let God take us "further up and further in" to the adventure that is Himself? Are we finally ready to stop flaunting our feathers before Babylonian kings and start letting all become shadows as we stand in the light of His presence? That is true Christianity; that is what it means to be "Christ-like"; that is eternal life. The burning question is, "Are you ready?"

"Let Your Presence, like a fire
Burn all dross and tin away.
Lead me ever away from me,
And take me further up and further in
To You..."
-Jon Vowell

Love and Forgiveness

"...Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." Isaiah 38:17

How seriously do we really take the love of God? Do we honestly believe that it aves to the uttermost, that it goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell? Our salvation could have been simple in execution: God could have saved us out of duty or obligation, or out of a demonstration of sheer power. Instead, however, He did it out of love, a love that sent His only Son through the horrors of death and the gates of Hell itself. Elongated stays in the pit of corruption can turn love into a farce. We must recapture the wonder of a love, "for love is strong as death; jealousy as cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame." (Song of Solomon 8:6b) Have we forgotten that God's very nature is bound up in love (i.e., "God is love"), that He is the very essence of intimate experiential knowledge of another founded on intimate communion with that other? Or have we lost that truth behind the mysterious veil that is the word "Trinity"?
How serious do we really take the forgiveness of God? There are two misconceptions that we must do away with. First, God's love cannot be the grounds for His forgiveness. It can be a motive, but not grounds. His love will find a way to forgive, but it is not the reason He forgive us. Get it through your heads and never forget it: God can forgive us because Christ died, and nothing else. Second, God does not forgive like we forgive. That God "forgives" does not mean that he merely overlooks. God's forgiveness is not ignorance, but absolution. In His forgiveness, sin is done away with in its entirety, and we are made before God as though we never sinned. It is an absolute finality, a finality that God's love sought for us and that Christ's death bought for us. God's love and forgiveness are not matters of sentiment. They are heavy things, matters of "deep magic," and yet we carelessly throw them about as worship buzzwords, or live agnostically towards them in practical experience.
Ask yourself: What would happen if you truly lived the weighty reality of God's love and forgiveness? How would your days change if during those abysmal moments you were thunderously struck with the heavy, rugged clarity of this truth: "God loves me, and I am forgiven"? How many strongholds of the enemy would fade like chaff in the wind if we let that truth envelope us everyday? If we let ourselves soak in any of the great truths of God, would we dare stay the same?

"Love takes Eternity in its embrace;
Forgiveness, in its comprehension.
Dare I treat them less than they are...?"
-Jon Vowell

The Great Return

"And the ransomed of the Lord shall return..." Isaiah 35:10

A part of Israel's redemption was a returning, a getting again of what had been lost or taken. Though Isaiah foreshadowed exile for Israel, he also foreshadowed redemption, and that entailed a return to the land of promise. What was once torn asunder is now reconciled together, is made as one again.
Read Romans 5:10. That we were "enemies" of God is incredible to consider. We became the foe of our very Creator, sided against Him in rebellion, and made a pact with His enemy, becoming his children. There has been a great tearing asunder of ourselves from what gave our lives purpose and life. There is now etched in the essence of humanity a longing for return and a sadness at being unable to return.
"We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." Jesus Christ is the Great Return, the bringing together again of what was lost from each other. "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:1b) The war, on this plane, is over. We have surrendered; and through surrender, we have won, for our surrender has caught us up in the victory of Christ over death, hell, and the grave. We have left the pits of Sheol and have been swept back up into the intimate communion of the Godhead. The ransomed pf the Lord have returned, ad what a reunion it has been. We have returned to God, with songs and everlasting joy upon our heads. We have obtained joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing have fled away.

My God is reconciled,
His pardoning voice I hear.
He owns me for His child,
I can no longer fear.
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And, "Abba, Abba Father," cry...
(from Charles Wesley)
-Jon Vowell

Wall of Separation

"Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty..." Isaiah 33:17a

There is a sense of separation in our humanity that gnaws at our very souls. We cannot explain it. Some say we are merely separated from each other and need to form strong friendships and bonds. Some say we are merely separated from our inner self and need to self-actualize, or "find yourself". Some say it is because we are separated from the universe and that technology must increase so that we can return to the bosom from which we accidentally sprang forth. Whatever we say, we all agree that we are missing something, something terribly necessary to our humanity; we feel as though we have lost something irreplaceable.
The separation caused by Sin is not stressed enough this day. We hear a great deal about badness and guilt, but very little about separation, and separation touches a deeper chord of our humanity than guilt ever could. Preach to people guilt by sin, and they will scorn your gospel. Preach to the people separation by sin, and you will capture their attention. As Christians, we hold the secret to the great ache of humanity (i.e., the Fall), and the great healing (i.e., the Redemption). Why do we distract people with side eddys?
"We have peace with God," i.e., the end of separation; that is what Christ did for us (Romans 5:1). The triumph of the cross was the overturning of separation with reconciliation, of death with life, of Sin with Holiness. "Thine eyes shall see the King," the wall of separation is broken down. The cross has ground it into dust.

"The void inside
Eats me like a cancer.
Fill this absence
With Your Presence..."
-Jon Vowell

The Firstborn

"Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly...he shall dwell on high..." Isaiah 33:14-16

From the burning bush of Moses, to the pillar of fire in the wilderness, to the burning presence on Mt. Sinai, redeemed Israel knew one thing for certain: "Our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:29) Fast forward around a thousand years: Israel is once again threatened by a terrible foe (i.e., Assyria). What is worse, Israel's sin has incurred the wrath of her Lord, and His burning presence is coming to wreck havoc on the land. "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?" they rightly ask. Then comes their answer, "The righteous."
The presence of God is all consuming perfection. No imperfections will last even a second in His blaze. Sin (the absolute absence of perfection) will be instantaneously obliterated, not necessarily because of what God does as much as who God is. God is holiness and perfection; anything less than that will not survive His presence. Outer darkness is the only place Sin can survive. In short, only perfection can stand before perfection; only God can stand before God.
If such a statement does not create despair in you, than you must not be awake. Mankind may act charitable sometimes (to ease their guilt, and only if they get something in return, of course), and may act moral on occasion (in order to keep out of trouble and not ruin future enterprises); but all in all, human history cries vehemently in rebuttal to any claim of human perfection or perfectness. There are some fools who claim humanity can reach perfection with time as our intelligence grows. Look at the last century: our grown intelligence only helped us kill ourselves in more brutal and effective ways than ever before; and that fact lingers to this day. Nothing, absolutely nothing, we have ever or will ever do can create the inner disposition of perfection needed to stand before Perfection Himself.
If only God can stand before God, then our only hope is if somehow, someway God can be within us. Not placed within us (like a transplanted organ), and not in us merely as power so that we become a god; but that the Spirit of God somehow intimately mingles and mixes with us, somehow His Spirit unites and communes with ours. In short, our only hope is incarnation, and Christ is the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).

"Spirit of the Living God,
Mingle with my dust,
Dance within my frame,
And make us One..."
-Jon Vowell

Righteousness and Peace

"And the work of righteousness shall be peace..." Isaiah 32:17

To be "righteous" means to be "in the right," so to speak. Now, the "right" here is not speaking of legal grounds, as when four people pull up to a stop sign and wonder who has the "right" of way. "Right" in the sense of "righteous" is speaking of moral grounds. Moral and legal are not the same thing; something can be legal and yet be immoral (e.g., abortion). To be "righteous" means to be standing in accordance with what is moral; or, to be more redundant, to b e"righteous" means to be in the state of righteousness.
Now, Christ is not only revealed as our righteousness (I Corinthians 1:30), but also as "Melchisedec," which is translated two ways: "King of Righteousness," and "King of Peace" (Hebrews 7:2). Taken in the light of Isaiah 32:17, these two translations make perfect sense: righteousness and peace are inseparable--you can hardly have one without the other.
This connection is vital in our understanding of salvation: if Christ has been made our righteousness (not that He gave it, but that He is it), that that means we have some kind of peace as well. What kind of peace, you ask? Peace with God (Romans 5:1).
This peace is vital to our salvation. In "The Weight of Glory," Lewis spoke of an innate need we have as humans to feel right with our Maker, to know that we are approved in His eyes. Thanks to sin, we can never be approved on our own. Christ came and became the righteousness we needed in order to be approved, and now we can have peace with God.

"My Soul longs to be
All my Maker made it to be.
Through Christ, all that God is,
I Am. I am approved,
For He Himself is my approval,
The Only Approval..."
-Jon Vowell

The Presence of Christ

"Behold, a King shall reign...[and He] shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a shelter from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Isaiah 32:1, 2

In the immediate and literal sense, these verses speak of the Messiah's final coming and victory over all His people's enemies. Christ, however, is all these things regardless if they have been actualized in a literal sense or not. Even this day, Christ is our shelter from the howling and storming noise and lies of the enemy and the world. He is the sustenance and strength of our souls. These things are just as much realities today as they will be one day when the whole world recognizes them.
Also inherit in Christ's presence is this: that which is right is kept right (vs. 3) and that which is wrong shall be exposed as wrong and set right (vs. 4-8). In short, the presence of Christ is the presence of truth. There is no more confusion or deception; no more calling evil good and good evil. One day the whole world will be affect by such a thing; but as for today, we who have the life of Christ within us live in the reality of truth. We cannot escape it. We may try and bury it under heaps of lies and excuses, but we cannot escape the living truth that burns within us. Besides, it is apart of our life to let that living truth shine forth, not hide it under a bushel basket.

"All that You will be,
Is all that You are now;
And all that You are now,
Is all that You've made me.
Let that Light so shine..."
-Jon Vowell

The Empty Womb

"We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen." Isaiah 26:18

This verse sums up the end of man trying to save himself: nothingness. There is no victory, no peace, and all of your enemies still exist. When it comes to producing a deliverer, all wombs are empty. This is the key to earth's history: Great, noble, and wise men have risen out of the sea of humanity, and done great, noble, and wise things. In the end, however, their works fail, becoming monolithic corruptions that are overthrown by the very people they originally tried to save, and those people come under the banner of the next "big thing." What was thought to be deliverance was just the next wind blowing by.

Anything born of man is destined to fail. Everyone born of man's seed is a being whose inner nature is based on corruption and rot, and anything they touch is affected thereby. History is filled to the brim with institutions (even Christian institutions) that were solely works of man, forged and sustained by their own might and power, and they all fell into ruin. It is a truth we will see over and over again: man cannot save himself.

Now, Jesus Christ was not born of man; He was born of God, i.e., He was not born of our history, but came into it from the outside. That is what we needed: someone standing on the shore outside the water we were drowning in who could reach in and pull us out. Only one womb in earth's history ever produced deliverance, and it had never been touched by man. Christ was God stepping into this world, because this world was dead, and all born on it were spiritually stillborn. No man could save us because all men were dead. We needed a life transplant, someone outside ourselves to come and infuse their life into us. That is what Christ did: He brought us the Life of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

There was one womb, however, that Christ's presence did make empty, and that was death's womb. Whereas all other wombs bring forth life, this one takes it, swallowing it whole into darkness. All men go there, and if all men are dead, then death is a dreadful mother, for she eats her children. However, when death tried to swallow Life Himself, she found her limitless void filled to the brim with His presence, and she could not contain Him. She spat Him back up like Jonah out of the whale. The tomb was the womb of death, and on the third day she too joined the helpless ranks of man as her emptiness proved her impotence. She held nothing but the warm wind of the dawn.

"Cursed be the man that trusteth in man." (Jeremiah 17:5) All that is born of man is destined to fail. Only that which is born of God and has His life within him has hope. Those who believe it will inherit life, while those who think differently will truly inherit the wind.

No Excuses: The Joy of Man's Desiring

"Behold, the Lord...shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at His presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it." Isaiah 19:1

The idea of the lost being "without excuse" before God seems painfully unfair until God actually comes. At the sudden and uninvoked presence of Jehovah, there is no sense of surprise, just the cold sting of recognition (mixed with a good bit of shock). "The heart of Egypt shall melt." A melting heart is a heart that understands that it has run afoul; it knows it has been in the wrong. All the stony obstinacy that once served as a sure and comforting barrier against the solemn cry of the truth are turned as fluid as liquid at the presence of Truth Himself. Even the stony idols tremble with recognition, for "the devils also believe, and tremble." (James 2:19b)

St. Augustine was right when he said that God is the human heart's one and true desire. God is what we are all truly looking for. He speaks to that desire through everything: from the glory that is sung through the declarative words of creation, to the joys and sorrows of life that stir and shake our souls--God's siren call overshadows all.

We must get out of our heads that we do not know what we want. The law is written in our hearts (Romans 2:14, 15), and therefore we know and desire what is good (Romans 7:22). God spends our entire lives letting us know that He is the highest good, the form of the Good itself. If we reject Him, it is because we loved the darkness rather than the light (John 3:19). When He steps into time and space again, and the whole earth is full of His glory, there will be no question in any one's mind that this is the one that they truly wanted, though they rejected Him in the end; and every knee will have to bow in heaven, earth, and hell, declaring that Jesus Christ is Lord, and singing as one, "Jesu, joy of man's desiring!" Amen.

"...with many Crowns..."

"And in mercy shall the throne be established: and He shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking justice, and hastening righteousness." Isaiah 16:5

It was commonly understood by the Hebrews that Messiah would be a king. What was interesting is that apparently He was a priest too. "The throne [shall be] in the tabernacle." For centuries, the office of priest and king were two separate things. Now it appears that they will be made one in the Messiah (see also Zechariah 6:13).
There is a reason why the Messiah was compared to Melchizedek. The mysterious blesser of Abraham was both king and priest (see Genesis 14:18). The connection to the Messiah was easily made (again, see Zechariah 6:13 & Isaiah 16:5, in addition to Psalm 110:4).
Christ, Who was and is the Messiah, is also connected with Melchizedek (see Hebrews 7), and therefore He is connected with the image of the priest-king. The king served as head and authority. The priest served as advocate and atoner. In Christ, they are one: our head is also our atoner. He not only leads us to victory, but also makes us fit to receive that victory. Upon His head lies both the crown of the priest and the king.

"Crown Him with many Crowns!
The Lamb upon His Throne!
Who serves both as our Head and Lord,
And for us does Atone!"
-Hymn of old (addition by Jon Vowell)

The Well Within

"Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." Isaiah 12:3

Oh, the wells of salvation! There is no end to that wellspring. Jesus, the Messiah, stepped out of eternity and into the prison of time, set foot on the barren, lifeless soil of earth, and told the Samaritan woman that He came to dig a well of living water (John 4:10-14). On the cross, Christ consumed all of Sin and death, replacing it with a holy well of His Father's life and fullness. If any man thirst, let him come to Christ and drink (John 7:37, 38).

"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." (John 4:14) The well is within. Through Christ, the Holy Spirit of God resides within you, and all His life and fullness is yours. Why seek thou water elsewhere? Why seek thou life amongst the dead? You are in forever communion with water everlasting and life abundant. Are you weary and need refreshing? Fall to your knees and drink of the all satisfying waters from the well within, which is the presence of God in you.

Immanuel: God with us. Not merely spatially or temporally, but communally. Christ in us, an God in Christ (John 17:23). Thirst no more, for we are one with the Father.

The Branches of the Branch

"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots..." Isaiah 11:1

"I am the vine, ye are the branches..." John 15:5a

"The Branch" was another Old Testament symbol for the Messiah. He was to be of David's family lineage, which Christ was (Matthew 1:6, 16; Luke 3:23, 31, 32). All of Jesus' disciples (being first century Jews) would have known that Jesus (since He was the Messiah) would be "the Branch." Needless to say, they probably were a little taken aback when Christ said that they would be, in effect, the branches of the Branch.

In John 15, Jesus was speaking about more than mere life and strength that comes from Him. He was talking about life and strength that comes from Him in order to DO something, i.e., "bear much fruit," carry on the mantle of the Messiah. What Christ started, His followers were to continue.

We have a small view of salvation and sanctification. We think Christ merely saved and sanctified us from something, when the truth is He saved and sanctified us from something into Himself. We did not just escape from Hell. We are now a part of the Branch, and everything He is, we are.

We do not take sonship seriously. We are the children of God, His sons and daughters; and if there is one thing our Elder Brother taught us 2000 years ago, it is that to be God's child is about more than privileges: it is about responsibility. "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples." (John 15:8) To be Christ's follower means to take up the work that He left for us, i.e., "the kingdom of God," the preaching of forgiveness of sins and deliverance from evil, the praying for God's kingdom to spread, and everything else that the Lord's prayer was about (Matthew 6:9-13).

As Elisha took up Elijah's mantle literally, so we take up the Messiah's mantle figuratively, i.e., we are the body of Christ. We are to continue on earth what Christ started 2000 years ago and what He will finish at the time appointed.

A New Kind of War

"For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise , and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire." Isaiah 9:5

"...He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." Matthew 3:11b

Two things are learned from Isaiah chapter 9: (1) Messiah's coming is as a warrior's battle. We should be sick unto death with all this noise about how Jesus came to teach us how to "love one another." Jesus taught His disciples to love one another (John 15:12-17). The world knows only hatred towards such love (John 15:18-25), and it cannot know such love until Christ overhauls their life with His.
"I am come to send fire on the earth...suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." (Luke 12:49a, 51) Jesus came to draw battle lines in the sand. "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out." (John 12:31; c.f. I John 3:8b & Hebrews 2:14, 15) Jesus came to do battle with the god of this world.
(2) Messiah's coming would be a different kind of battle, a new kind of war. Many in first century Palestine were looking for bloody revolution at the hands of the Messiah. Then Christ comes and tells them that the Kingdom of God will come on the shoulders of the poor, the mourning, the meek, the hungry and thirsty, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers, and the persecuted (Matthew 5:3-12). Oh, it was to be a revolution, but not of swords. It would be a revolution of subtle subversion through submission. By submitting to your enemy you somehow subverted their power and authority and heaped coals of fire upon their heads. Matthew 5:38-42 is a study case of this (if you look at it with a first century Jewish perspective). It was an inward revolution: something would change in a person so that meekness, humility, and submission would be the weapons that conquered the world. That is what the whole of Matthew 5-7 is saying.
The change Jesus was bringing was an inward change, the battle an inward battle. A fire would fall amongst the people, a new Spirit would fill them, and change them into new kinds of warriors, in a new kind of war. This change would bring division (Matthew 10:34-37; Luke 12:49-53), hatred (John 15:18-25); all the sounds of warring hearts.
Messiah came as a warrior to fight a new kind of war. It would be a war of two kingdoms, one darkness and one light. The darkness would have power, hatred, and violence; the light would have meekness, humility, and submission, and somehow the weapons of the light would subvert the weapons of the dark. This is what Messiah has done: through death He destroyed death, and He has given us the same mission and the same power. May we remember that we fight a new kind of war; not of swords, but of Christ in us.