In Defense of Liturgy

This is probably the best defense of liturgical worship I have ever heard (so far). It almost persuades me to become a Presbyterian. Almost.

Commentary on "The Gospel in the Context of the Trinity"

From a discussion between fellow believers on Facebook:

Bro S asked: "Do you think God can commune with people who are 'positionally' righteous (i.e., righteous in Christ) but not personally righteous (i.e., righteous in their own actions)?"

JLV responds: Being positionally righteous is what gives you the power and motive force (i.e., the indwelling Holy Spirit) to be personally righteous. If you have a complete lack of personal righteousness, I would question your positional righteousness.
Still, I understand and agree with you that are actions can affect our communion with God, but only as a hindrance or a help; they can neither abolish nor establish it. Christ's Atonement makes you positionally righteous, and thus reestablishes the communion man lost at the Fall. Your personal righteousness only serves to strengthen or weaken (or keep stagnant) that communion.

Bro JS asked: "Can one be 'personally' righteous in this life?"

JLV responds: We can be "personally" righteous, but only because we have been made "positionally" righteous. Remember, any righteous action we do is not us, but God working in and through us.

Bro JE asked: "Just curious about your phrase 'but are destined to stay separate from Him forever, which is the true meaning of Hell.' I understand that separation from God is part of hell, but there is a definite punitive aspect of hell, and that punishment must be meted out. That punishment only intensifies the abandonment...or the abandonment intensifies the punishment. They go hand in hand."

JLV responds: I do believe that there is a punitive aspect to Hell, and that the punishment and abandonment go hand in hand. However, I've believe that the punishment and abandonment are so hand in hand that they are one and the same.
For me, 'separation from God' is not merely a separation in regards to proximity (i.e., God's here and you're there). It is a complete severance from all that is good in the universe (i.e., God). God is the source of (and His very nature is made up of) all good things (e.g. the fruits of the Spirit). To separate from Him is to be separate from those things and bound to their opposites.
God is light; to be separate from Him is to know only darkness. God is love; to be separate from Him is to know only hatred. God is peace; to be separate from Him is to know only confusion and chaos. God is joy; to be separate from Him is to know only sorrow. Etc., etc. My definition of Heaven is absolute communion (i.e., complete unification) with God; thus, my definition of Hell is absolute communion (i.e., complete unification) with not-God. To be bound in an intimate and total way to God is heaven; to be bound in an intimate and total way to everything God is not is hell.
Therefore, the abandonment is the punishment because it is a complete severance from God and thus a complete unification with all He is not (e.g., darkness, hatred, chaos, sorrow, etc.). When we desire God, our desire becomes our reward; when we desire not-God, our desire becomes our punishment.

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

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

Mysterious Ways

"...His visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men; so shall He startle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at Him, for that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they consider." Isaiah 52:14, 15

The Atonement was something you could not have guessed. It is true that both Jew and Gentile knew that the divine required sacra fices (though perhaps for different reasons); it is equally true that the Gentiles went so far as to say that a god could be a sacrifice. However, that the God of gods would come emptied of His authority and glory, His coming void of all candor or ceremony or splendor, coming disguised as an ordinary man, easily confused with and replaced by any other man, coming to be rejected and murdered by His own creations and worshippers in a sacrifice that was equally void of all candor or ceremony or splendor; that is something no priest or myth maker could have conjured. The Atonement is less like a myth and more like real life because it caught everyone by surprise. We who have heard the story over and over again are no longer surprised; but to those who experienced first hand, it was the shock of the century.

There is a reason that God's ways and workings are often described as "mysteries," i.e., truths that are hidden for the moment (not, as some would say, the unknowable). God's ways are "mysterious" in that they are not only hidden but also true, i.e., real and actual. We linger on their 'hiddenness,' but forget that they are true ways, true workings, ways and workings that exist in absolute Reality and that will work themselves out into relative reality at appointed times. That is why what God does catch us so off guard: they are not only hidden, but also real, like real life, like reality; and reality is something you could not have guessed.

"We who watch Your Story unfold,

Are gloriously surprised at every turn..."

-Jon Vowell

The Everlasting Father

"Ye shall not go out with haste, nor by flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard." Isaiah 52:12b

The salvation of the Lord is an absolute salvation, as immutable as His will. There are no cracks in the armor or loopholes to exploit. When you are in His salvation, in His will, where He is, then there is peace and joy: "Ye shall not go out with haste, nor by flight." There is never any grounds to act out of fear anymore, for it is God that leads you ("go before you") and protects you ("your rear guard"). He makes the way and He keeps the way. Where He is, there is home. He is the ever present fireside.

We who are within the will of God, we who are saved by the finished work of Christ, have no reason for fear. Read Isaiah 43:2 and let all fears be silent. The leadership and guardianship of God is absolute. The only dangerous place is outside of His leading and guarding. If we, however, are in His will, within His leading and guarding, from whence, then, comes frets and worries? They are ludicrous, as ludicrous as Israel's fears in the wilderness; there, God's salvation was indeed an absolute salvation, His promises absolute promises, His presence an absolute presence. Therefore, as we can ask by what right did they doubt the God who is there, so too we must ask ourselves by what right do we doubt the God who is there, who will never leave or forsake us, who ever leads and ever guards us?

"You lead and you protect.

You are the everlasting Father.

May your all-consuming Love

Lay all my fears to rest..."

-Jon Vowell