Hope in Truth
I am writing you these instructions so that…you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
—1 Timothy 3:14-15
You mustn’t tell me that God finds it very difficult to love sinners. If you were to prove that, or at least lead me to believe it’s true (by how you treat me when I repeatedly fall, or by what you teach me), you would obliterate any trace of hope in me. I’d immediately weaken and I’d die long before I die.
A sensitive and troubled soul, Frederick Myers, poured out his profound anguish in his poem, The Last Appeal.
O Somewhere, somewhere, God unknown,
Exist and be!
I am dying; I am all alone;
I must have Thee!
God! God! My sense, my soul, my all
Dies in the cry:
Sawest thou the faint star flame and fall?
Ah! It was I.
The scriptures say God loves the ungodly and the weaklings, but there are scholars who can out-talk me and say the verses in Romans 5 aren’t as simple as they look. “We mustn’t turn God into an ‘amoral loving machine,’” one of them said to me. Sigh!
If you are to be my teacher, and I want you to be, invest the time, skill, and energy God has blessed you with in uncovering the massive truths that are the throbbing center of the Christian faith. Truths that come to an unending climax in Jesus of Nazareth who said, “I am the truth!”
I don’t know much, but I know this: We mustn’t reduce Jesus to the status of some kind of nice, kind, and morally fine man. By God’s unacknowledged grace, there are millions of kind and compassionate people, but there’s no one like the sinless Jesus who delivers humans from an evil world and an empire of darkness (Gal.1:3-4; Col.1:13); He came to destroy him that had the power and sting of death (Heb. 2:14; 1 Cor. 15:55). He chooses to reign amidst His enemies as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, far above all principality, power, might, and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world but the world to come (Eph. 1:19-23).
Yes! Jesus is a bull elephant, and it’s tragic if we harness him to a tinker toy. He came to engage in a war of worlds (John 12:31). Humankind needs His warm, sinless beauty, but it also needs the church to proclaim His power and that He is able to save to the uttermost. He can do just that. “We are reconciled to God by His death,” says Paul “and we shall be saved by His (resurrection) life” (Rom. 4:25; 5:10; 1 Cor.15:14-19). He died 2,000 years ago, rose immortal, and hasn’t been dead since, nor will He ever die again!
When earth’s lights are fading and stricken men call
To say less than God is to say nothing at all.
Life’s ultimate hour cries for ultimate power
Only God is enough!
“Look at us,” said Peter and John (Acts 3:4, 12). And the cripple did, thinking they’d give him what he needed most—money! He was wrong. Knowing the story, we know better and think they were going to give him physical health, and we’re wrong, too. With what these two had to offer, had they given him sacks of gold, a song to dance to, and moved on never to see him again, they would have robbed him. The mortal Bo Jangles stopped dancing a long time ago; death put an end to it. They gave him Jesus and one day he will dance and praise God, and nothing will stop him. Death will be dead! Sometimes the Church must be bold to say, “Look at us!” But if it offers no more than what is offered by generous social clubs, the Church is robbing humankind.
Because they gave him the living Lord, they gave him a new vision of God. A case could be made that God cared nothing for this man and millions like him. Something like 14,600 days carrying, sitting, begging. Every day, same thing, ‘unanswered’ prayers, useless, that’s how he’ll die! Then God turned up looking like two ex-fishermen. He’d been watching and listening all along.
They gave him a new vision of himself. The fact that God “came by” meant he was not a useless lay-about, a crippled bag of begging bones. Edward Young, prominent churchman and poet (died 1685) got it right when he said: “If a God bleeds, He bleeds not for a worm.” (See Acts 20:28.) Jesus not only reveals what God is like in the incarnation; He became one of us (Heb. 2:14; Rom. 8:3) and is still one (1 Tim. 2:5)! In Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, He reveals what God thinks of humans when in Christ He seeks reconciliation. (Who is it He didn’t bleed and rise for?)
They gave him a new vision of his fellow-sufferers and a new story to tell, a new song to sing and a new dance to dance.
“Yes, more than forty years I sat there. You know me; everybody knows me. I had pretty much given up. You know what I mean. You know too that I can’t tell you that you are going to be healed, but I’ll be back regularly to see you and we’ll talk. I’m not His ‘pet’. He has no ‘pets’, so my blessing means He sees you too and all our friends here. Your day’s coming. Don’t give up!”
“Don’t look at us,” they said to the astonished crowd. The generous, kind and wisely practical church as it engages with the lonely, homeless, hungry and oppressed needs (does it not?) to tell those they bless, “Don’t look at us!” What they ultimately need is worlds beyond us. What the church does best is beyond it! It images Him, as best it currently can, in embodiment and in its teaching of spellbinding doctrinal truth. There is no full embodiment of love for our neighbor unless, as Jesus would have it, there is first the loving commitment to the one and only true God. The worst face of humanism is its dismissal of God and its denial of social justice to all the raped and plundered poor of all the former forgotten ages.
To wisely and gladly offer food and clothing and homes to the impoverished and hurting is beautiful and right! Along with those we will tell them, “Don’t look long at us—we represent God who sent us to tell you that He sees your anguish. He sees the lifelong, suffocating oppression, how truth is kept from you, and He wants us to tell you that a day is coming when all wrongs will be righted. He raised Jesus Christ from the dead so you can be sure of that (Acts 20:31). We’d love you to come to know Him and tell your family and friends about Him. So, hope! You’ve never had much, but a new world is coming. There’s life beyond this life; immortal, filled with adventure, joy, peace, mystery and everlasting righteousness.”
Holy Father, sanctify your church by your truth; your embodied truth, the Lord Jesus, and your inscripturated truth, the Holy Bible. This prayer in the blessed savior’s name.
Jim McGuiggan is a native of Belfast, North Ireland. In addition to his work as an author and teacher, Jim is a dynamic and provocative speaker. His care for people makes his writing and speaking meaningful and useful as he presents the truths of the scripture, the love of Christ, and practical lessons for daily life.