WATCHING YOUR THOUGHTS

THE CALL TO GODLINESS in an AGE OF JUDGEMENT – 4

 “We have the mind of Christ” 1 Cor.2:16

“Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus” Phil.2:5

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” Rom. 12:2

“I will put my laws into their minds” Heb. 8:10

“Love the Lord your God with all your … mind” Lk 10:27

“Gird up the loins of your mind” 1 Pet. 1:13

The scriptures above put a very important focus on our minds or, in other words, on our thought life.  Our thought life as Christians needs to be as godly and upright and clean as our actions. Jesus made this very clear when he warned that if a man commits adultery in his heart (a fantasising in his mind) he is as guilty as the one who does so in action.  Our minds are our “think tanks” receiving all sorts of information from all sorts of sources and then processing, analysing, collating and storing it all.  This data forms the substance of our thinking.  Our minds are very good at fantasising and imagining all sorts of actions.  When the data is  good and helpful the imaginings are very helpful, but when it is evil they are very dangerous.  We know that there is not a lot of distance between our thinking and our doing; one leads very quickly to the other!  We need, therefore, to watch our thinking and the data that informs it.  We are called to “Love the Lord our God with all our mind (in all our thinking)”as well as “with all our strength”.

There are two aspects to this demand. The first is that God has made ample provision for us to be able to live with a clean and godly mind.  This is highlighted in the very remarkable and direct statement of Paul in which he says “we have the mind of Christ”.  The mind of Christ certainly did not entertain any thoughts of evil, even though he did know temptation. In fact Satan put temptation in his mind on many occasions, but Jesus immediately rejected them and would not give them any room. We are told we have this “mind of Christ”, a mind able and strong enough to rebuff any temptations we may have, able to reject any evil thought patterns and imaginings that might push their way into our minds, a mind constantly focussed on the things of his Father.  Paul made this remarkable statement for the benefit of all the Christians in Corinth, not just a special few, and it remains true for all Christians.  When he penned it, he was writing to them about the wisdom of God in contrast to the wisdom of men, and saying that the wisdom of God came to them in words and language prompted by the Spirit of God. He went on to say that, unlike the world, they could understand this wisdom because they themselves had received the Spirit of God.  As if to emphasise the point he added the thought that they could understand the things of God because they had “the mind of Christ”.  Paul was simply saying that in receiving the Spirit of God into our lives we receive him into our minds and because the Spirit of God is equally the Spirit of Christ we have the mind of Christ.  However, this presence of the mind of Christ is not there only to enable us to understand spiritual truth, but also to motivate us and enable us to live a godly life.  This then is our fundamental resource for a clean and godly mind – the indwelling Christ through the Spirit. This is not some fanciful theological statement but an objective reality of which we should have some experience.  It is his Spirit in us which “transforms us by renewing our minds” (Rom. 12:2), by giving us “the mind of Christ”.

The second aspect to the call to “watch our thoughts” has to do with our response to this provision of the Spirit.  Paul made another reference to the “mind of Christ in us” when writing to the Philippians, “Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus, who (though) being in his true nature God …. made himself nothing by taking the nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And … humbled himself, becoming obedient to death” (Phil 2:6-8).  This again illustrates the point made above that the “mind-set” of Christ is a godly mind-set, and in this instance particularly one of humility (he was “humble minded”). But there is also an imperative here, “Let this mind be in you”, which constitutes a call for us to actively embrace the mind-set of Jesus. The Spirit of God is our great resource for successful godly living but we all know only too well that as long as we are in the flesh we still have a battle to fight against the impulses of our human flesh and frailty and against the subtle temptations of Satan. Even though we have the Spirit Himself and all the grace of God to help us to victory in this fight, we still have to exert ourselves and overcome. Sanctification is not automatic! Since all depends upon the control of the Spirit over our minds the most important response we can make is to “keep in step with the Spirit”, honour His Presence in our lives, neither quenching the Spirit nor grieving Him, listening to his promptings especially in our conscience.

Paul in Ephesians gives us a good starting point for this: “Go on being filled with the Spirit … sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything” Eph. 5:18ff. Praise and thanksgiving to God are central to a life of godliness since they are central to “walking in the Spirit”. But that means more than singing songs; it means a genuine heart attitude informing such songs. Corporate singing and worship is very helpful here, but simple personal worship can be more powerful at times and is something to cultivate. The best of godly songs are always rooted in scripture, especially the Psalms, which seem to capture and express so beautifully what our hearts need to express. And for that reason, in order to “keep in step with Spirit” the reading and meditation of Scripture is vital. It is, of course, essentially the Holy Spirit that gives us an appetite for praise, prayer and the scripture; our calling is to indulge that appetite and not to quench it!

Another vital area of our response to God’s provision of the Spirit’s presence and power in our lives and minds is to make sure that we ourselves exercise control over what goes into those minds. Our ears and eyes are crucial here. They are the two parts of our body that feed the mind with thoughts and data.  “Hear no evil, see no evil – think no evil!” is an old simple adage and very accurate. In the modern world there is little or no restraint on what pours into our ears and eyes. From a very young age there is so much that we hear and see that is evil. In particular films, media, TV  etc. bombard us with the most unedifying of scenes in the most graphic and explicit of ways and are perhaps the most potent of all influences producing an unedifying impact on us all. Violence and sex are less and less restrained. At the same time the vast majority of novels quite deliberately titillate our minds and stimulate unwholesome imaginings; sex sells. We should not in any way be deluded by the cry that unedifying visuals can be redeemed by their so-called artistic or “cultural” value. God has much that is beautiful and of aesthetic value without it being polluted by what is unwholesome. And we should have God’s mind-set.

In the light of all this Paul’s words to the Philippians stand out as the most relevant, demanding and necessary of challenges:

Finally, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable –if anything is (morally) excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things …. and the God of  peace will be with you”. Phil 4:8ff.

If we seek to apply this admonition with real intent it will lead to a mind untroubled by wrong thinking and harmful imaginings, and enable us “to have our minds set not on the flesh but on what the Spirit desires” (Rom. 8:5). It will also bring a deep peace and satisfaction.

Bob Dunnett

I do hope this resource maybe helpful, and please feel free to print them out for your own purposes.

THE BLESSINGS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

Our last Bible Page looked at the beauty of holiness, and endeavoured to show that when we recognise just how beautiful a godly character is, we shall be all the more motivated to holiness in our own lives. Aspiration for beauty is a noble and powerful motivation, and seeking the beauty of holiness becomes not a gloomy or hard demand but an eager journey toward that all-compelling and desirable beauty of character.

This Bible Page adds another positive motivation to seeking a life of holiness or righteousness, namely that righteousness is the royal road to a life full of blessing and every kind of satisfaction. Indeed it is the only road to a truly fulfilled life: “Blessed are those who act justly, who always do what is right”. God’s promises are always made to the righteous and the godly, and such people will always find those promises fulfilled in their lives, irrespective of their wealth, position, birth or natural gifts. Righteousness as a fountain of blessing in people’s lives is one of the major themes of the bible. This theme can be demonstrated from the lives and experiences of numerous bible characters, but in this bible page we look at one or two simple scriptural affirmations of this truth.  These scriptures speak powerfully for themselves with little comment. They demand constant meditation.

I start with one of my favourite affirmations: “Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” Ps 85:10. Not only is this scripture beautifully poetic, but it speaks to us of something of incalculable importance for our lives – the gift of peace – and links it as closely as possible with righteousness. When two people kiss they express the closest of relationships, they seal the fact that they belong to each other. Righteousness and peace kiss each other because they belong to each other. If righteousness is lacking peace will be lacking. If righteousness is present, peace with be present. A guilty conscience is never at rest, never at peace until guilt is confessed and forgiven. Forgiveness is truly a most magnificent gift of God, bought at the price of the cross, and alone can take away guilt. A guilty conscience can never be suppressed; it can never be relieved without getting right with God and others. The peace of forgiveness is immense. The pathway of holiness is not so much one of striving as of quiet, humble confession and receiving of forgiveness. People may cauterise their conscience by constantly doing what is wrong and trying to make light of it, but they become blank, heartless persons devoid of any real well-being. A wrongly troubled, over-sensitive conscience equally needs an encouraging affirmation of God’s forgiveness and much reassurance, especially from the scriptures.

“Light shines on the righteous, and joy on the upright in heart”. Ps. 97:11. Closely allied to peace is joy. Hard to define, joy is none-the-less a hugely important gift in life. So many people, especially in our wealthy, pleasure-loving modern society still lack any real depth of joy. The most gifted, the most famous and the wealthiest often find it has slipped them by as self-seeking takes over.  The philanthropist, however, points the way to joy in their disbursing to needy and helpful causes, for to give to the needy is very much a major factor in righteous living. Joy brings light into a person’s face and being. Light is the illumination of joy; joyful people radiate such light, and are always a pleasure. But righteousness brings light in another sense, namely light on a person’s pathway in life. The upright person will find they are being guided in their choices and decisions.

Consider the following group of texts:

“The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence”. Prov. 10:11

“The tongue of the righteous is choice silver but the heart of the wicked is of little value”. Prov. 10 20

“From the mouth of the righteous comes the fruit of wisdom, but a perverse tongue will be silenced”. Prov. 10:31

Through the blessing of the righteous a city is exalted ….” Prov. 11:10

These are all affirmations not only of what blessing a righteous person has personally, but of what such a person can bring to other people; the mouth or tongue denotes speaking and so the righteous in their conversations bring life, something worthwhile and wisdom to others. They are able to do that because they seek to be free from envy, jealousy, gossip, self-seeking, lying, uncleanness and the like. They seek to help not use others.

For righteousness and prayer:

“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective”. James 5:16

“Lord, who may dwell in your Tabernacle (Holy Presence)….. the one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous”. Ps 1: 15.

“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears listen to their prayers”. 1 Pet 3 12  

Prayer is a cry of the heart, and God listens to the heart of a person. Words, even in prayer, mean very little if they are not expressions of the heart. Self-righteous, pretentious prayers are of no value and have no outcome. A righteous person is a person after God’s own heart, and seeks what God seeks, and when prayer is the communication of like-minded hearts it is always very fruitful. This was the nature of Jesus’ own prayers. The resource of prayer, heart speaking with God is an immense source of comfort and peace; it renews faith, and assurance that in deep need God can find the answer for us.

Trials and Righteousness:

Many are the trials (afflictions) of the righteous but the LORD delivers him out of them all” Ps. 34:19

“If you law had not been my delight I would have perished in my affliction.” Ps. 119:92

“I know that your laws are right and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.” Ps. 119: 75

It is a matter of great comfort that the Scriptures recognise that righteous people, for all the blessings they experience, still go through trials or afflictions. It is this sort of realism that commends the words of the bible. It seems indeed that the afflictions of the righteous can be at times even extreme in their nature; the church has known many martyrs. And Ps 34 specifically says “many are the trials”; they are not unusual, they can come one after another, even pile up. This is because we live in a world which knows a great deal of evil. Evil is always at war with righteousness, Satan battles with the righteous. But the righteous are promised two things in their afflictions; God will deliver them out of every trial, and God will use every trial to fashion us into a person of an even deeper quality of righteousness. In other words trials and afflictions will be measured and will not overcome us if we keep looking to God and keep prayerful. It is always important to keep that fact in mind and to plead the promise of deliverance in times of difficulty. God is absolutely faithful in this respect. No affliction is pointless for the righteous person; it is permitted because it is one of the most important things in character building. It exposes our faults, reveals our weaknesses and purges them as we struggle to respond. Affliction, handled with prayer and the Scriptures, is immensely strengthening for our faith. It is, of course, very unpleasant; it is frequently not without tears and even perplexity. Its pain is doused most effectively by a constant reading of Scripture.

Our final text is from Titus 2:11: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age”. This is an important text, lest we should be thinking that this bible page is pointing to a life seeking to earn blessing by hard striving after righteousness. Certainly we need to have our mind set on being righteous, but the wonder of the Christian life is that it is “it is the grace of God that …. teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions”. Our righteousness is something that God works in us by his Spirit once we are walking with and following Jesus. The appetite for righteousness is planted in us by the Spirit who is Holy and that appetite is sufficient for our growth.

Bob Dunnett


I do hope this resource maybe helpful, and please feel free to print them out for your own purposes.

THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS

THE CALL TO GODLINESS in an AGE OF JUDGEMENT – 2

Worship the Lord in the beauty of his holiness” 1 Chron. 16:29

 “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment ….Rather it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 1 Pet.3:3

“I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels”. Isaiah 61:10

A week or two ago the Bible Page was about our need to walk in the fear of the Lord; that is to live with a deep awareness of how much God hates sin and evil and a clear recognition of how evil will inevitably bring down his judgement and destruction. And this is not only to be living with a mere mental awareness of his utter rejection of sin, but with a heart which has really apprehended and actually shares in God’s detestation of evil. Evil is ugly and a profound offence to God, and it should be equally so to us if we have his Spirit. This fear of the Lord is a fundamental foundation of holy living.

This week’s Bible Page is about something at the other end of the spectrum and an essential counterweight to the fear of the Lord, namely a need to walk with a deep awareness and appreciation of the fact that righteousness and holiness are things of incredible beauty. They are intensely desirable and are much to be sought after for their own sakes. They need to be seen and pursued as “the pearl of great price”, for holiness and righteousness are at the heart of the Kingdom of God. Unfortunately we are all too often blind to the fact that a godly life is a very beautiful thing and so we do not pursue it as we should.  It is not sufficient to know this beauty of righteous character as a concept; it needs to be felt and recognised in the heart so that we yearn for it. We need to know that this “pearl” is worth giving up all else in order to gain it.

John Wimber wrote a short lyric with a poignant tune beginning with the words, “Isn’t he beautiful; beautiful isn’t he. Son of God; mighty King …….”. He did not spell out what that beauty was; that was left to us who sing it. One wonders what interpretations have been put on the word “beautiful” as the song has been sung. They could have ranged anywhere from the sentimental and banal to a genuinely spiritual understanding of the word as it relates to Jesus. I’m very fond of the song, but I found it was a challenge to my thinking about beauty! What was that beauty? I can find no better answer than the real beauty of the Son of God is in his holiness, his godly, loving way of life, and his love of his Holy Father. The beauty of Jesus was, and is, a spiritual beauty.

Where ever we look in God’s creation we can see something which is beautiful – that is to say something very deeply satisfying, something we long for more of, something we don’t want to leave, and something that touches us at our deepest. The smallest flower, the highest mountain, the calm ocean, the raging sea – all have that sort of beauty. God is beautiful in all things. But, as Job reminds us, “these (his majestic beauty in creation) are but the outskirts of his ways”. In his essential personal being there is something deeper, namely the beauty of his holiness – a moral beauty. It was this that human beings, made in his image, were created to reflect. We were to be naturally beautiful in terms of flesh and blood, but more important we were intended to be spiritually, morally beautiful reflecting his image. That was to be our crowning glory. Sadly we spend most of our time on the natural, physical beauty and show all too often very little appreciation and concern for the moral beauty.

Peter puts his finger very practically and precisely on what this spiritual beauty looks like when he writes in his first letter of a beauty that comes from the “inner self”, and points us to “the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit”, contrasting it with mere physical adornment of “upbraided hair”. He could quite easily in addition have spoken of a patient or a compassionate or a loving spirit. He could have added all the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). They are all beautiful, attractive and endearing to those who have eyes to recognise their beauty. They are the outward signs of the inner self walking in holiness. This sort of beauty in a wife, Peter says, is sufficient to create a longing in an unbelieving husband and draw him into a faith in Jesus through which he might gain the same qualities. Moral beauty is deeply attractive, at least to those who are not completely blinded by their own walk of ungodliness. The truth of this is amply borne out by the number of people who have seen “something” in a Christian that has deeply attracted them and, having come to realise that the quality and integrity of that “something” has come from Jesus, have begun to follow him.

In looking at the beauty of holiness it is worth considering for a moment how much it contrasts with sinfulness, which is ugly. A proper recognition of just how ugly sin is actually provides an important spur in our seeking after righteousness. The tragedy is that we can be massively blinded to what our faults really look like. When we are able to recognise just how contemptible pride and arrogance are, especially when placed alongside genuine humility, we have a further incentive to godliness, a stronger desire that Jesus might purify us through his indwelling Spirit. When we come to see how loathsome deceit and corruption are in contrast to honesty and integrity, and when we see how degrading sexual license is when compared to fidelity and purity we shall move on much more quickly in our pursuit of righteousness. If we cannot see how ugly evil is and can feel no repulsion to it we are in something of a dangerous place. Ungodly behaviour is always unpleasant except to those so tarnished by it that they can no longer see or feel its ugliness. God hates sin; he hates its ugliness. We should hate sin also, even if at the same time we should have compassion for those caught up in it, as indeed God has.

Isaiah’s prophetic words, inspired by the Spirit of God and quoted above, give us two instructive pictures of what holiness looks like. First, holiness is to be compared to the beautiful jewels which a bride wears on her wedding day; she is beautifully dressed, of course, but these shining jewels are the most precious thing, the most attractive thing that adorn her. They sparkle and they beautify. And the bride feels so good wearing them! That’s how God sees holiness. Second, holiness is a very special robe, a rich robe; it is beautiful and it gives status. But this robe is not woven of cloth; it is woven of all the cords that make up righteousness. It is a robe of righteousness. It is this robe with which God longs to clothe us and distinguish us. Jesus spoke of the prodigal son being given a robe by his father on his repentant return home. This son arrived back home with filthy garments, with all the stain of ungodly, ugly and self-centred debauchery still on him, to find that his repentance and turning back to his father brought him to a place where he was forgiven and was presented with a new, clean robe. He had come to his senses, had realized the futility of his sin and its ugliness and was re-clothed in the beauty of righteousness.

The garment of salvation of which Isaiah wrote is what Jesus acquired for us on the cross. It is a garment of holiness, it is exceedingly beautiful, and we are meant to step into it and cover ourselves with it. Think – Holiness is our real beauty.

Bob Dunnett


I do hope this resource maybe helpful, and please feel free to print them out for your own purposes.

THE LOVE OF GOD in the DEATH OF CHRIST

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Mk. 15:34

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross” 1 Pet. 2:24

Along with the Resurrection, the crucifixion of Jesus will always remain at the very heart of our Christian faith. A proper and accurate explanation of the cross will always be the most important issue of Christian faith. It was the crucial need of the bewildered disciples when they first met with the risen Jesus; the crucifixion had been traumatic, bizarre, unjust, brutal, final, and so inexplicable. What was it all about? Jesus responded very quickly to their need, beginning indeed on the very day he rose from the dead. He showed his disciples, by means of the prophetic scriptures, that it was an utterly essential act of love, planned, purposed, prophesied and carried out by God himself in order to bring renewed life and eternal life for humanity. The crucifixion was supreme love in action. It is a matter for great thankfulness that this same teaching he gave to the disciples undergirds and is preserved in our New Testament.

There are many starting points for looking for an explanation of the cross (not least the Old Testament scripture!), but for this study we engage with the words of Jesus himself on the cross, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”  This cry came at the end of the three hours of darkness, at three in the afternoon, just before Jesus died. It was quickly followed by three further cries, “I thirst!”, “It is finished!” and “Father into your hands I commit my spirit”.

What is its significance? The first thing we have to be clear about is that when he spoke of being forsaken by God, he meant exactly what he said. God (his Father) had forsaken him. It is quite gratuitous to suggest that he was suffering from the trauma of crucifixion – a purely psychological/emotional response that blurred his normal thinking. He was forsaken, and he knew it and felt it. God was no longer there for him. He no longer had the fellowship and relationship with his Father that had been the hub of his previous life; he could no longer say, “I only do what I see the Father doing” or “I speak only what I hear the Father saying”. He was “forsaken”, cut off, abandoned, out of sight, out of touch.  God seemed to have finished with him. It was a cry of anguish and bitter despair, a complete loss of hope. Forsakenness which has any perception that one day it will end is not forsakenness.

The question, “Why?” is very revealing. It implies that Jesus had lost the perception of any purpose in the cross. He made it quite clear during his ministry that he would “give his life a ransom for many”, be crucified and then rise from dead. This was his Father’s purpose for his life, he was fully aware of it and he tried to prepare his disciples for those events. He was still much aware of this during the first three hours on the cross, telling the dying thief that he would join Jesus in paradise. As Hebrews tells us, his usual mind-set was, “for the joy set before him he despised the cross”. In other words he could see beyond the cross. But in the final three hours this awareness had gone, replaced by a heart rending “why?”

This can be explained. Jesus was utterly dependent on the presence of the Holy Spirit to give him knowledge of the presence and love of the Father. He was dependent on the Spirit for the revelation of his destiny as a sacrifice for sin, and for the grasp of the prophetic scriptures that mapped out that destiny. But all this was now gone because God had now in fact “forsaken him”, and there was no longer any such enlightenment of the Spirit. Thus Jesus was unable to see he was paying the price for sin, nor that he was for a time the “guilt offering”. All he knew was that he had been abandoned by God, separated from Him. And it seemed final. There was for him no grasp of what was happening to him. This was “darkness” indeed. The depth of the darkness was eerily and graphically portrayed by the physical darkness that came over the land during those last three hours – the sun could no longer be seen, or its warmth and light felt.

There is only one thing, however, that causes such a forsaking and abandonment of man by God, and that is sin. And we have to very clear in our understanding that sin actually does cause abandonment and forsakenness by God, and that it plunges humanity into gross darkness. And we have to be clear also that we are all tainted with sin – it’s in our spiritual DNA. There is nothing in the cry of dereliction to suggest that Jesus felt he was suffering for any sin of his own – he just felt an abandonment that was completely (at that point) inexplicable. Had he felt any sense of personal sin, the cry would have died on his lips! But “he knew no sin”. What was actually happening, even though he simply could not appreciate it at that moment, was that he was “bearing our sins in his own body on the cross”. As Paul put it, “He who knew no sin was made sin for us”. There is no other explanation.

The cry of dereliction was, however, addressed to God; “My God ……” was how it began. Thus even in the midst of the darkness Jesus did not lose his consciousness of God. An abandoned child does not lose the knowledge of its lost parent. That parent still means life and security. Indeed the knowledge that what the child longs for is still there somewhere but can’t be found is what that causes the agony.

It is very natural that Jesus, so utterly soaked in scripture and particularly the scriptures that prophesied his death, should have found himself expressing his condition in the words of Psalm 22:1. But at the same time it is significant that this was the only occasion on which Jesus did not use the more familiar term “My Father”. That relationship was dimmed. If the Spirit had left Jesus he would be struggling for any sense of reality in the word “Father”. What a contrast this is to the words which were very shortly after to fall from his lips and herald his death, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”. At that point the reality of the Father was back, the relationship with Him was restored, and he was safe once more in the Father’s keeping as he died. Just before he commended himself to his Father in this way he cried out “It is finished”. This did not mean his life was finished, or the crucifixion was finished, but that his dereliction, his abandonment, his bearing of our sins had been successfully concluded.

What Jesus suffered as he hung on the cross suffering for sin may be described in a number of ways. “He was punished for our transgressions …. It was the Lord’s will to crush him … his life was an offering for sin … he was numbered with the transgressors … he bore the sin of many” are Isaiah’s prophetic descriptions (Isaiah 53). Gethsemane shows us Jesus clearly struggling with drinking “a cup” of wrath. He was under the judgement of God. The crucifixion reveals, therefore, in the person of Jesus the appalling consequences of sin before a holy God. He became sin for us. Until this truth is fully grasped, and the scriptures are allowed to speak for themselves without any humanistic or liberal sanitising, we can never appreciate fully what Jesus has done for us. We have to face up to words like wrath, judgement, punishment as the true biblical perspective on what was happening as Jesus suffered. To see the crucifixion only in terms of an example of how to suffer in the face of injustice and persecution, or as a sort of gratuitous demonstration of how much God loves us (but with no real objective purpose) is to utterly empty it of its glory. He was a “sacrifice for sin”, a “guilt offering”, bringing “redemption” from the slavery of sin, an “atoning sacrifice” and “propitiation” against wrath. “He who knew no sin became sin for us” 2 Cor. 5:21

It is only when we have grasped this full import of what was happening to Jesus on the cross that we can go on to truly grasp the immense depth of the love of God demonstrated in the death of Jesus. John, that most perceptive and loving of the apostles’, wrote, “This is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” 1 Jn. 4:9. God himself provided the sacrifice. This was no human sacrifice offered to appease a malicious angry God. This was, in a sense God himself propitiating his own anger. In the human realm for a father to give up a son to death for the sake of others is an ultimate in pain and sacrifice. We cannot penetrate or comprehend the pain of God the Father, but its reality stares us in the face. His love is marked by his pain. This is no cheap love that costs God nothing. There is no easy forgiveness because “that’s God’s trade”. Neither can we point at a Father who ordered his Son to die for others, as though the Son had no choice. John also reminds us, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” 1 Jn. 3:16. Jesus himself, alongside his Father, shows us divine love by willingly allowing himself to be a sacrifice for sin. He made this clear to his disciples; “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord“. Jn. 10:17-18. Later, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus rebuked his disciples’ attempt to defend him by reminding them, “Do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” Matt. 26:53 . His was a willing sacrifice, battled through in prayer in the garden.

The Father loved us, the Son loved us, and the Son died for us in the agony of separation between them.

What love! “How, then shall he not with Christ give us all things

Bob Dunnett


I do hope this resource maybe helpful, and please feel free to print them out for your own purposes.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD

THE CALL TO GODLINESS in an AGE OF JUDGEMENT – 1 A shoot will come up from the root of Jesse; The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord and […]