The Hiddenness of God

In Five Festal Garments, Barry Webb points out the theological significance of the account of Esther during the Persian Empire:

God is present even when he is most absent; when there are no miracles, dreams or visions, no charismatic leaders, no prophets to interpret what’s happening, and not even any explicit God-talk. And he is present as deliverer. Those whom he saved by signs and wonders at the exodus he continues to save through his hidden, providential control of their history. His people are never simply at the mercy of blind fate or of malign powers, whether human or supernatural… He remains committed to the welfare of his people, and working out all things for their good, even when he is most hidden.

The Worth and Excellency of a Soul

Love is that powerful and prevalent passion, by which all the faculties and inclinations of the soul are determined, and on which both its perfection and happiness depend. The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love. He who loveth mean and sordid things, doth thereby become base and vile; but a noble and well-placed affection, doth advance and improve the spirit into a conformity with the perfections which it loves.

Henry Scougal

The Meaning of Life

Life means relationships:  with God, men, and things.  Get your relationships right, and life is joy, but it is a burden otherwise.  It is natural to love life, and against nature to want it to stop; yet today, as when Christianity was born, many experience life as such a meaningless misery that their thoughts turn seriously to suicide.  What has gone wrong?  Probably relationships.  Though depression may have physical roots and yield to physical treatment, disordered relationships are usually at least part of the trouble, and for a full cure these have to be put straight.

What does that involve?  Social workers know how lack of meaningful human relations wastes the spirit, and try to bring help at this point.  That alone, however, is less than half the remedy.  True joy comes only through a meaningful relationship with God, in tasting his love and walking in Christ’s way.  This is the real dolce vita, the life that is genuinely sweet and good.

 

J.I. Packer

 

Consider this:  Why in the world is solitary confinement used as a punishment for crime?  It is because, as Packer insightfully explains, a meaningful life does truly consist of being in caring relationships with people.

What the Word is About

Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us. 

Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal.

Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void not knowing wither he went to create a new people of God.

Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me,” now we can look at God taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, “Now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us.”

Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.

Jesus is the true and better Joseph who, at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them.

Jesus is the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant.

Jesus is the true and better Rock of Moses who, struck with the rod of God’s justice, now gives us water in the desert.

Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer, who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends.

Jesus is the true and better David whose victory becomes his people’s victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.

Jesus is the true and better Esther who didn’t just risk leaving an earthly palace but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who didn’t just risk his life, but gave his life to save his people.

Jesus is the true and better Jonah who was cast out into the storm so that we could be brought in.

Jesus is the real Rock of Moses, the real Passover Lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so the angel of death will pass over us. He’s the true temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true light, the true bread.

The Bible’s really not about you – it’s about him.

Tim Keller

The Paradox of the Gospel Life

Let me learn from the paradox

that the way down is the way up,

that to be low is to be high,

that the broken heart is the healed heart,

that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,

that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,

that to have nothing is to possess all,

that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,

that to give is to receive,

that the valley is the place of vision.

Arthur Bennett

Nothing New Under the Sun

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

Ecclesiastes 1:9-10

I hardly doubt I will say anything new.  But I hope to capture and weblog thoughts, quotes and reflections that help make sense of this life under the sun in light of the gospel until the forever-life to come in the presence of the Son.