Did the witers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY - EYEWITNESS

THE BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?

EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

GOD - MAN
Is Jesus really God?

RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?

SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?

TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.

SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.

FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?

GUIDANCE
How does God guide?

REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.

BORN AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?

SAVING FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven

ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?

TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?

MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.

THE CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the new millennium.

PURPOSE
How can I find a great purpose for living?

IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of God.

SELF-ESTEEM
How can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.

LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.

THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.

Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.

Enduring trials by grace

Another strong emphasis in the New Testament concerning the blessings we receive from grace is the ability to cope with the pressures and trials that life so often brings our way. Whether it be the supplying of our daily needs or the giving of sufficient strength in times of unusual pressure, we are constantly told that the grace of God is adequate for the situation.

Two words Paul uses tp describe the experience of one who has learned to live daily in dependence on the grace of God are “content” and “sufficient”. In his letter to the Philippians, he expresses his appreciation for the concern they have shown for him in his imprisonment. He says, “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (4:11-13). The words “gives me strength” could equally well be translated “makes me able”. The emphasis is not so much on Christ giving strength to achieve anything, but Christ enabling us to cope in any situation. Paul had “learned the secret “ of coping, no matter what experiences he faced. Whether dealing with the stresses of ordinary daily living or enduring extraordinary pressures, he knew the secret of contentment.

Another who had “learned the secret” was Fanny Crosby, author of over 8,000 hymns. Made blind accidentally in infancy, she was only eight years old when she wrote:

Oh, what a happy soul I am,

Although I cannot see,

I am resolved that in this world

Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy

That other people don’t!

To weep and sigh because I’m blind,

I cannot, and I won’t.

Second Corinthians is a great letter on the subject of facing suffering and trials. In his first chapter Paul speaks of being “under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself” (v. 8). In chapter 12 he mentions a severe affliction, which he describes as “a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me” (v. 7). Whether this was some chronic infirmity or not, we cannot be sure. It may have been the infirmity he mentions in his letter to the Galatians where he refers to an illness that apparently severely affected his eyes (4:13-15). Three times he prayed for deliverance. However, God’s response was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). It was Paul’s awareness of this grace and his dependence upon it that enabled him to say, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest upon me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak then I am strong” (v. 9, 10). It is clear from this passage that God’s grace, in this context, has more to do with the free supply of strength from the indwelling Spirit, than the mere offer of forgiveness.

Here we see a most important principle. Our weaknesses and difficulties can give us a positive advantage if, through them, we learn to depend on the grace of God. In The New International Commentary on the New Testament, Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Philip Hughes wrote, “Every believer must learn that human weakness and divine grace go hand in hand together.” He goes as far as to say:

Indeed, the abject weakness of the human instrument serves to magnify and throw into relief the perfection of the divine power in a way that any suggestion of human adequacy could never do. The greater the servant’s weakness, the more conspicuous is the power of his Master’s all-sufficient grace.

And this is not an easy lesson to learn. As John Calvin said in his New Testament Commentaries:

Men have no taste for it [God’s power] till they are convinced of their need of it and they immediately forget its value unless they are continually reminded by the awareness of their own weakness.

So often we fail to experience the contentment with all the experiences of life that Paul had found, no doubt either because of our unwillingness to face up to our own weaknesses, or because of our lack of trust in the goodness of God and the availability and sufficiency of his grace. It is trust and submission and the awareness that whatever God allows in our lives, he is fulfilling his loving purpose of transforming our characters and building his kingdom, that enable us to experience the peace and contentment of which the New Testament speaks (see Romans 8:28-30; Hebrews 12:4-12). The seventeenth century Puritan Samuel Bolton wrote in The True Bounds of Christian Freedom:

God has thoughts of love in all He does to his people. The ground of his dealings with us is love (though the occasion may be sin), the manner of his dealings is love, and the purpose of His dealings is love. He has regard, in all, to our good here, to make us partakers of his holiness, and to our glory hereafter, to make us partakers of His glory.

Can we believe it, even when we don’t understand what is happening to us or why? “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). It has always been Satan’s strategy to get us to question God’s goodness (see Genesis 3:1-5; Job 1:6-11). His methods have not changed.

This understanding of the need to face our own weaknesses and realise that the permanent victories in life come only from grace is a lesson that has been well learned by many in Alcoholics Anonymous and the Recovery Movement. Bill Wilson, the co-founder of AA, reached the unshakeable conviction, now a canon of twelve-step groups, that an alcoholic must “hit bottom” in order to climb upward. He wrote to his fellow strugglers:

How privileged we are to understand so well the divine paradox that strength rises from weakness, that humiliation goes before resurrection: that pain is not only the price but the very touchstone of spiritual rebirth.

Paul urges Timothy to “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1). It is not being strong in dependence on our own resources, but in confidence in God’s ability to see us through. When Paul was “under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure,” he added, “this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8, 9).

The availability of this grace to all believers is wonderfully expressed by the writer of Hebrews. He (or she!) declares, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (4:14-16). In my book Why Did Jesus Die? Unearthing the meaning of the Cross, in the chapter ‘The cross in the Gospels’, under the subheading “Gethsemane”, I have given good reasons why Jesus can empathise with our weaknesses. As the nineteenth century Scots theologian Dr John Brown said in An Exposition of Hebrews:

The truth is, He not only can be touched [with our weaknesses], but cannot but be touched. The assertion is not, It is possible that He may sympathise; but, it is impossible that He should not.

Notice that the throne of God, which was once the throne of wrath and judgement (Revelation 6:15,16) and the throne of fear and awe (Isaiah 6:1,5), is now the “throne of grace”. It is a throne we can “approach …with confidence”. Indeed, the way is now open to live twenty-four hours a day in his presence and we are welcome to “draw near…with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:19-22). Like a loving father who enjoys the presence of his children, God longs for our company. It is the “blood of Jesus” (v. 19), now our high priest, that makes the difference.

The writer of Hebrews tells us we may receive “mercy” and “grace” from this throne (4:16). Paul often seems to use these two words interchangeably. However, J. L. Dagg, in Manual of Theology, says they are usually distinguished as follows: “[God’s] goodness, exercised toward the unworthy, is called grace; toward the suffering, it is called pity, or mercy.” Louis Berkhoff elaborated further on mercy in his Systematic Theology, as follows: “It may be defined as the goodness or love of God shown to those who are in misery or distress, irrespective of their desert.”

One of the most remarkable testimonies I have come across of depending on the grace of God to cope with suffering is that told in the January 2008 issue of Decision magazine by Irmhild Bärend. Irmhild is the editor of Entscheidung, their German edition. In November 2004 she had a fall which injured her spine and left her unable to use her legs and arms. She describes her physical situation as follows:

I was always a swift person—quickly moving, thinking, acting, helping. Now others have become my hands and feet. For every small task, I have to ask for help: a runny nose, hair falling on my face, an itch on my ear—a thousand movements of the hand that I always took for granted and now can’t do any more … and never can do again. I’ve become a transparent person; almost nothing is left that I can call completely my own.

However, she is thankful that “God protected my head and put his angels around my mind” and leads a most active life, editing manuscripts, writing articles, attending meetings and counselling others. The Lord gives many opportunities to share her faith and give encouragement to others. She says, “24 hours a day are usually not enough for me.”

She tells how much the prayers of others have meant to her and shares the following secret of her wonderfully positive spirit:

Only God knows how He talks to any one of us. That has to be sufficient for me. In the Bible there are three words that have come to mean a lot to me: forgiveness, salvation and grace. Grace is my keyword. Every morning God’s grace is available to me, and I experience it anew.

What grace to have faith in Christ and to lay myself in God’s hands again and again, to rely on the fact that He knows how I feel because He surrounds me on every side (Psalm 71:21).

It’s so amazing to talk about the adventure called faith. Even though I cannot use my fingers and hands, God uses me. That is my great joy!

Annie Johnson Flint, author of some of our well-known hymns, was another who learned to draw on this supply of grace. As a young adult she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis that left her progressively crippled and eventually unable to rise from her bed. To alleviate pain and discomfort, she rested and slept on soft pillows. Her body developed serious bedsores and finally she suffered the ravages of cancer. Yet her attitude through all the struggles with pain and confinement was that of submission, faith and trust in God to give her the grace and strength she needed. With pen pushed through gnarled fingers and held by swollen joints, she continued to write her verses, which provided solace and comfort for herself, her friends, and the world. The following are two of her verses:

He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,

He sendeth more strength as our labors increase;

To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,

To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources

Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,

His power no boundary known unto men;

For out of His infinite riches in Jesus

He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

God hath not promised

Skies always blue,

Flower-strewn pathways

All our lives through;

God hath not promised

Sun without rain,

Joy without sorrow,

Peace without pain.

But God hath promised

Strength for the day,

Rest for the labour,

Light for the way,

Grace for the trials,

Help from above,

Unfailing sympathy,

Undying love.

John Blanchard, in Truth For Life: A Devotional Commentary on the Epistle of James, says:

So he [God] supplies perfectly measured grace to meet the needs of the godly. For daily needs there is daily grace; for sudden needs, sudden grace; for overwhelming need, overwhelming grace. God’s grace is given wonderfully, but not wastefully; freely but not foolishly; bountifully but not blindly.

And there is more to come in the future. Peter tells us to “set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming” (1 Peter 1:13). God’s grace will never run out, even when “we have been there ten thousand years”, as Newton’s famous hymn, ‘Amazing Grace’, has it. We are living in between the ages, the “now” and the “not yet”. “Now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet [1] been made known” (1 John 3:2). As John Stott says in Calling Christian Leaders:

Fundamental to New Testament Christianity is this ambiguity of the church. We are living between the times, between what he did when he came and what he will do when he comes again, between kingdom come and kingdom coming, between the ‘now already’ of kingdom inaugurated and the ‘not yet’ of kingdom consummated.

[1] Italics mine.

In the meantime, there is nothing better we can do to please him than to trust him fully to supply whatever we need for all that he expects of us.

And we must never forget the undeserving nature of this grace. It is underlined in the story of the healing of the centurion’s servant in Luke 7:1-10. The Jewish elders pleaded earnestly with Jesus: “This man deserves to have you do this” (v. 4). Their emphasis is on deserving. However, the centurion himself had a different attitude: “I do not deserve to have you come under my roof” (v. 6). Even so, his request was granted.