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

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

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

Now and Forever

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee. [...] For Thou hast delivered my soul from death; wilt not Thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?" Ps. 56:3, 13

It is called the life of faith for a reason. Salvation is a unique and extraordinary moment, but what about all the moments afterwards? You trust that Christ will stand with you at the judgment seat; do you trust that He is standing with you while you seat in your seat right now? You believe that God has delivered your soul from death; do you believe that He will deliver your feet from falling? You believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and have been saved (Acts 16:31); do you now believe that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it (Phil. 1:6)? If we are honest with ourselves, we would say that we very much believe the formers and very much doubt the latters on a day-to-day basis.
We are subjective beings. We experience circumstances and people in ways that (in some sense) are unique unto ourselves. However, that does not mean that our subjectivity is always right; more often than not, it is flat-out wrong. We often respond to situations in ways that are contradictory to what is real: we doubt when we should believe, we worry when we should trust, we hate when we should love, love when we should hate, grieve when we should be joyful, sing when we should mourn, etc. God has revealed to us what is real, and our subjective selves must be bound to His objective revelations, so that we may not be tossed about by our unreliable human emotions and wisdom.

-Jon Vowell

The Paradox of Man

"God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them turned aside; they are altogether become corrupt. There is none that doeth good; no, not one." Ps. 53:2-3

The scriptures give some positive views of man that we must not lose in these new dark ages. One view is that man is made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27) and thus has intrinsic value (Gen. 9:6). Another is that possibility of man's future glorification (Rom. 8:18, 19). As important as these positive views are, the negative view is just as important (if not more so). Mankind is fundamentally valuable, but is also fundamentally lost. Too many modern creeds (both the religious and secular) account for only one reality or the other. Man is either a purposeless worm or a would-be god. Only the Christian doctrine captures all of the facts into one truth: man has the capacity to do good and the incapacity to be holy.
Truth is essential paradoxical, and the truth about mankind is that we are a paradox: the totally depraved image-bearer of God, an intrinsically valuable damned sinner. The modern world would rather make us a god or an animal; in either case, a dehumanization occurs, for man as man is ultimately abolished. God came to seek and to save man, because it is man who is lost and in desperate need of God's holiness and love.

-Jon Vowell

The Only Remedy

"Ye are they that forsake the Lord...therefore I will number you for the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter, because when I called, you did not answer, [and] when I spoke, ye did not hear, but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.... Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind; but be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." Isaiah 65:11, 12, 17, 18

Desolation and glory are not mere abstract principle; they are a part of rugged reality. All the moral motions within men, whether they know God or not (Romans 2:14, 15), cry out in testimony against us. We know (beyond all contentless academic posturing) that there is a right and a wrong, and that those who do evil will be punished, and those who do good will receive reward. Desolation on the wicked (vs. 1-7, 11-16) and glory to the faithful (vs. 8-10, 13-16) are two immutable facts not only of Christian philosophy but also rugged reality, as real and as practical as the ground beneath our feet.
As I have said before many times, desolation is the only pathway to glory, not only in individual lives (as in justification and sanctification) but also in universal existence. In order for the creation to be restored to the glory it was created for, it will mean the desolation of all that is not-God; that is one of the great facts of the book of Revelation. Dies irae is not an arbitrary assignment; it is a necessary remedy, the only remedy. In order to bring out the finest gold, all the dross must be removed; and the deeper the dross is, the hotter the fires must be.
It is the heritage of humanity to know that true happiness and joy is only possible with the destruction and desolation of all evil things. Those who decry God's wrath against the wicked are neither enlightened nor wise; they are fools who deny core elements of the very reality that they claim to be a part of. If the wicked perish with wickedness, so much the worse for the wicked. We should indeed pity them, but we have lost all of our sense if we demand that God end all of our miseries and then turn right round and condemn Him for doing so.

"We are cured, wounded,
Made whole or destroyed,
And destined only
For fire or Fire..."
-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

Biblical Christianity

"Your iniquities have separated you from your God...and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment; and He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His arm brought salvation for Him, and His righteousness sustained Him...the Redeemer shall come to Zion..." Isaiah 59:2, 15, 16, 20

Much that passes for 'gospel' these days does not fit the biblical criteria, and it is a biblical criteria. Orthodox teaching on salvation is not a New Testament anomaly; it is a foundational theme of the whole of Scripture. Even in this ancient prophecy, which we today like to think says 'nothing about nothing,' even it contains the familiar formula. We are sinners (vs. 3-8), and our Sin has separated us from God (vs. 2). We cannot save ourselves and get back to God (vs. 9-16a), so God brought salvation to us (vs. 16b-20). That is not a New Testament thing; it is a Bible thing.

We must beware of those who claim disharmony in the Bible. We must be stiffly embattled against those whose 'gospel' comes under the guise of Christianity, yet carries none of the marks of Scripture upon it. Those who undermine or discount Scripture in any way are our enemies, no matter who they are or their intentions. Anything that tampers with man's true condition and man's only hope must not be tolerated. We must call anything that takes away from the firm, biblical teachings of man as a great sinner and Christ as a great Savior by its proper name, i.e., heresy. It is absolutely astounding how amiable we are towards things which will damn men's souls, and anything that undercuts Scripture by preaching another gospel (whether it be prosperity, social, love, or liberation) damns men's souls by leading them away from eternal life. Scripture alone is good news; all else is the smoke and mirrors of Hell.

"We gather together

And claim two things:

That Christ, the Mighty Maker died

For man the creature's sin..."

-Jon Vowell

"...house of prayer for all..."

"...my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people." Isaiah 56:7

The openness and availability of salvation is unlimited. Those who claim that the atonement was not meant for all speak falsely:

"The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come,' and let all that hear say, 'Come,' and let him that thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." (Revelation 22:17)

"Everyone that thirsts, come ye to the waters, and he that has no money, come, buy, and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." (Isaiah 55:1)

It is true that the way of salvation is narrow, and few find it (Matthew 7:14), but it is in no way true that the gate doors are locked to all but the few. The way that leads to life is open to whosoever will come.

"Ye have made [my father's house] a den of thieves." (Matthew 21:13) Think of the true context that informed Christ's white hot fury. The temple was to be "a house of prayer" freely open to all, but the moneychangers had come and stamped a price of admission on the requirements. "Pay my price, and then Come." Really now: is Christ's reaction to this any surprise? Salvation is a free gift of grace to all, and those who would dare stamp a price on it or exclude any from it are thieves, and in league with the Thief that comes only to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10).

"'For all people,' dear Lord.

More beautiful words

Have never been spoken..."

-Jon Vowell

Grace in the Context of the Trinity

"Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God...[Let] the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord our God, and He will have mercy upon him and abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." Isaiah 55:5-9

The mystery of grace sneaks up on us now and again. That the Holy Almighty pardons guilty sinners is a truth that is oft given mouth service in our minds, but if we ever seriously considered its implications we would fall on our faces as one dead. The glory of God's trinitarian nature of Holiness and Love is that He has made it to where He can separate the sinner from Sin and bind the former to Himself in whole communion and cast the latter into outer darkness. The mystery of grace is that it is the fullest expression of God's holiness and love. It is a matter of grace that not only are we saved, but also that Sin is destroyed, never to plague us again. That God's immutable character did not produce our utter destruction (either by annihilation or leaving us to our own vices and devices), but rather our utter salvation through the redemption wrought by God in Christ, such a fact should boggle our minds into thunderous worship, for grace is truly amazing.

"Mysterious grace, mysterious ways

The sweetest song that turns

Unworthy wretches into

Sons and daughters of God..."

-Jon Vowell

Terror and Beauty in Salvation Freely Offered

"Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1

"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

The absolute 'freeness' of salvation can be the biggest single stumbling-block for most people. Every other religion in the world requires a human price-tag for salvation. Facets of 'Christianity' still hold to it (e.g. Roman Catholicism). True and traditional Christianity, however, understood only one requirement asked of men, and that is "Come," come and take what is being freely offered.

Man thought of salvation as some sort of unreachable gift, as though it was perched atop a mountain of thorns, and none could truly survive the quest to reach it. Christianity comes alone, however, and presents salvation like samplers at a dinner party, to which we have all be invited, and God is walking about with salvation on a silver platter asking each and every one, "Salvation, sir?" "Salvation, madam?" All the while, we stand about with the simple yet terrible choice: accept or reject; take salvation freely offered, or reject it and leave. Salvation's 'freeness' is equally beautiful and terrifying: as easily as we could accept it, we can just as easily reject it.

"Can it be true that

Salvation is paid in full

And there are no more

Hoops to jump through

Anymore...?"

-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

The Haunting Pain

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way...." Isaiah 53:6a

The correct view of Sin is wrapped up in those last three words: "his own way," i.e., not God's way. Sin is anything that is 'not-God,' i.e., neither of Him nor leading to Him. Sin is not doing wrong things; it is doing not-God things, and even seemingly rational, noble, or beautiful things can still be not of God. We err if we think and preach that men are sinners because they act wrongly; men are sinners because they act 'not-Godly'. Mere moralizing can solve wrong actions, which is why Christianity is not mere moralizing; something deeper is needed to deal with a lack of God-likeness. If men behave badly, send them to the moralists. If men are not God-like, however, send them to a savior, someone who can save them from themselves, from their "own way."

Your view of Sin affects your view of the gospel and, consequently, its presentation. The Gospel of Christ is 'good news' because it deals with something deeper and more necessary than the superficial fact that men behave badly. Christ's gospel cuts to our fundamental being, i.e., we should be like God, but we are not. We should be holy as He is holy, but we are not. The haunting pain of mankind is not that we do wrong but that we know (somehow, someway) that we are wrong, that we have strayed from the true way to our own way, and we have become lost in the worst kind of prison, i.e., ourselves. The gospel is good news only when it is set in that context. Christ has come so that we may lose ourselves and regain God, lose our way and regain the true way.

"We are wrong and

You are Right.

You took our wrong

To make us Right.

You became like us

So we could be like 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

The Shield Against the Death Strike of the Universe

"Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner; but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished." Isaiah 51:6

I have addressed elsewhere that the universe is dying and taking us with it, and that as such artificially produced immortality is a fairytale for grownups. If the universe goes down in flames (or freezes, or crunches, or "runs away"), then we go down with it. I would like to state here that such a position is not only thoroughly rational, but also (as should be expected) thoroughly Christian. "Heaven and earth shall pass away," says our Lord. Christianity has always asserted that, even if there was no apocalypse, the universe would perish anyways.
"My salvation shall be forever." Christianity has also always asserted that there is an immortality beyond our universe, an immortality given by the hands of Infinity Himself. Thus is the biblical teaching, and thus is the Christian doctrine: there is a God who is there, infinite and personal, independent from and yet involved in this universe that He has made, and He has brought immortality (read: salvation) to us in the palms of His nail-scarred hands. We reject such a gift at our own peril, for it is not a choice between one belief and another, but between the real and actual clinging to either the infinite-personal God who is there and not silent, or the dead and dying universe that will fade away. In its place will be a redeemed and restored universe, with all deadness removed; will ye be among the dead?

"All things are made new
Only in You.
Outside of you, all things wax old,
Like filthy rags..."
-Jon Vowell

This is Redemption: The Greatest Need

"[God] will make [Israel's] wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord...." Isaiah 51:3b
"So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning...." Job 42:12a
"And He that sat upon the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new....'" Revelation 21:5a

Redemption is restoration, and restoration is the greatest of human needs. Though the unbelieving man or woman may be a bit fuzzy on the particulars, there is nonetheless an underlying uneasiness within the human race, a restless certainty that all is not well. Now, two things need to be said about that last sentence: (1) This is not abstract psychology; it is a rugged fact of humanity: to be human is to know that something is wrong. Perhaps one does not know exactly what, how, or in what way things are wrong, but they know there is something wrong. (2) This is not stating the obvious. People may say, "Sure the world is messed up; just look at the news," and they are right. However, that people know that something is wrong does not merely mean that they know that bad things happen; it means they have a disturbing feeling that things are wrong, that at rock bottom all things (good, bad, and neutral) are wrong, damaged, abnormal, not the way it ought to be. It is not just bad things that feel wrong, but all things that feel wrong, including ourselves. Whatever or whoever has been wronged and it whatever way, it is the greatest human desire that things be rectified and reconciled.
God satisfies this greatest of human needs by telling us in his factual, propositional, revealed Word exactly what went wrong and how it can be fixed, i.e., the Fall and the Cross: a real, space-time evil that mankind perpetrated and thus inherited; and a real, space-time solution that God instituted and mankind can either accept or reject. Acceptance means restoration: of man to man, man to himself, and man to God. Rejection means...well, nothing. Things stay the same, i.e., things stay wrong; and mankind is left unsatisfied.

"Our greatest need, oh God,
Our greatest need is You,
With us; us back to You.
Our greatest need, oh God
Is Immanuel..."
-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