Jared Longshore's Blog, page 24

No Reasoning Out of a Swamp

It really is something that Jesus Christ told his disciples that it would be advantageous to them if he left them (John 16:7). Take this truth in as if you were there with our Lord and you will see just how outrageous those words must have seemed to them. Jesus tells them, “If I don’t go away, the Comforter will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him unto you.” “Well, Lord,” they must have been thinking, “how can it be more advantageous for us? We have seen you walk on water. You have heald the sick. You’ve cast out demons. And then there was the time you raised Lazarus from the dead. We just don’t understand how your departure will make things better.” “Right,” our Lord responds, “you do not understand. But you can believe.”

Petecost reminds us that we live by faith not by sight, we live by faith, not by complete understanding. By all means, you can reason from the things Christ says. You can reason to your heart’s content from the Word. But you cannot sit in the swamp of unbelief and reason your way to the Word. Jesus smiles at one of the disciples, saying, “You don’t understand? Well, you’re definitely not going to understand if you don’t start by believing what I’m telling you.”

Pentecost kills the sin of stagnant, swampy unbelief. The Spirit is Living Water. And He will flow. It is not your job to keep up with Him. You could never do that. He’s not some stream running along beside you. He is a stream that has been poured out in your hearts. Your job is to trust the Word and ride the river.

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Were I an Epicure

Take not his name, who made thy mouth, in vain:

It get thee nothing, and hath no excuse.

Lust and wine plead a pleasure, avarice gain:

But the cheap swearer through his open sluice

Lets his soul run for nought, as little fearing.

Were I an Epicure, I could bate swearing.

George Herbert, Perirrhanterium

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Not by the Jaws Alone

Jesus said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever” (John 6:51). Now, a sensible man asks, “OK, where is this bread and how might I eat it?” It is not enough for me to reply, here, look, the bread is right here on the table. Eat this and you will live.” There is plenty of truth in that statement and there is no error in it. However, I have not said enough because this sensible man replies, “But hasn’t the true bread ascended into heaven? Isn’t the bread that I really need up there?”

Yes, the bread that we really need is up there, and that is why we must come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ at this table. The only principle of unity available to man indeed is outside the world. And, likewise, the only bread that can nourish man to eternal life is outside the world. It is an other worldly bread that cannot be accessed by the jaws alone. But it can be accessed, for the just shall live on this heavenly bread by faith.

This living is what you must do, and not only at this table. Here we ascend to heaven and feed upon the Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father. And what you do here you must learn to do everywhere and always. Yes, it is a mystery. But it is a mystery thoroughly revealed, as Ephesians tells us, God has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6). The high calling upon you is to live on earth in ascended fashion, which means to live on earth in communion with the ascended Lord, so come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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A Visible Word

Christ’s kindness to us is seen in that He has left us not only with words that we hear, but also words that we see. Israel was shown God’s covenant love as the LORD went before them in a pillar of cloud to lead them. And the new testament tells us that all Israel was baptized in that cloud, fathers, mothers, and children alike. So it is in the new covenant, baptism is a sign of God’s presence upon us, to lead, protect, and seperate us from the unvelieving world. This visible word points to the True Word Himself, who is in heaven, and in whom is all of our hope.

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Ascended Wisdom

You can find at least three types of people. The first group is unmotivated and unambitious people. They are not raising money for start ups and they would be terrible in your college recruitment department, “Come join our college and we will make you, slightly below average.” 

The second group has the ambition. They are eager for knowledge and success, but their whole enterprise is fueld by the wisdom from below, the kind that is earthly, sensual, envious, bitter, devilish, and riddled with strife. It is full of the pushing and pulling that marks much of the American entreprenurial spirit and the men who abide by this wisdom go home needing a whiskey, or porn, or some bit of indecent entertainment to take the edge off of their work day.

The third group is what we are aiming for and it involves the people who live by the wisdom from above. James says that this wisdom is “ first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 1:17).

The trouble is, if we are honest, we would put most of those qualities in the first group, the unproductive one. We say to God, “We’ve got two roads, Lord, which would you like us to take? We can be mediocre, a bit on the lazy side, while being pure, peaceable, gentle, and easily intreatable. Or, we can get into the fight. We know how to hustle, but you have to understand, that we will show the competition no mercy, and gentle, well, that really won’t be in the equation.”

Those who talk that way are missing what it means to live by that wisdom which comes from above. “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you?” James asks, “let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom” (James 3:13).

You say, “Look, that is impossible.” Well, it is not impossible. But it does require getting the wisdom that comes from above, where Christ has ascended.

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Boredom Is a Heresy

Boredom is a heresy, declaring God was wrong when he saw the goodness of the world.

R. J. Snell, Acedia and Its Discontents

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Sacrificial Table

Sacrifice is essential to any true community. If everyone is only taking and drinking, and no one is being poured out like a drink offering, then eventually the wine which gladdens the heart of man will run dry. Put another way, Paul said that death was at work in him and life in the recipients of his ministry. No death in the apostle, no life in others. Put yet another way, if everyone only wants to be loved and no one sacrificially loves others, then there indeed will be no genuine love among that people. None given and none received.

Even those in the secular world are beginning to see the necessity of sacrifice for genuine community. And we should thank the Lord for that light which He has given to some. But, any attempt to sacrifice for others apart from this sacrificial table is doomed to failure. There is no life in a zero-sum sacrificial community. In about three days that approach will turn into a sacrificial redistribution program, with a democratically elected commission informing Jones that he has more life at work in him than Thompson so he must sacrificially pour himself out for the commission which will ensure that the benefit is granted to Thompson’s account. 

No, there is no true community apart from the communion of the body and blood of Christ. Here is the sacrifice that informs all sacrifices. And not only by way of example. At this table, you are not simply being reminded, as by an illustration, that you should pour yourselves out for one another. At this table, the chief sacrifice is poured out for you. Here you partake of the One in whom all things consist, in whom all things live. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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100 Billion Lighter and Faining for the Swine Food

Out there in the future, the grandchildren will ask us why we plunged them into such a murky clam chowder. The poor kids might have been able to swim out of a soup. But we are hellbent on the chowder, one that has sat on the stove for too long. The latest installment of this kind of thing was the 100 billion dollar foreign aid package recently passed by Congress. But this recent bit of folly only indicates the real trouble we will pass down to coming generations. The 100 billion itself isn’t the poison. It is an indicator of the poison.

I say the 100 billion itself isn’t the poison because I well know there are men out there with intel the average citizen does not have. A military strategist could likely explain how necessary the money is and how most of it is going to build our own military infrastructure and whatnot. My point does not need to contest those. My point is that our nation is the prodigal son three months into his bender when he still had enough money in the bank to keep him from chewing on the pig’s husks. But everyone knows that the boy is in trouble. Everyone can see the bad decisions. Mrs. Margaret, the local dairy farmer, is praying for the lad, hoping he will wise up.

The wisdom we should consider at the moment is twofold. The first fold involves the principles of just war. The second concerns what is required that we would abide by those principles. The first is a matter of the mind, the second, a matter of the heart. 

Principles of Just War

The principles of just war have been developed over centuries and they are still friendly guides. Just War thinking falls into three categories: 

(1) Justice in going to war. 

(2) Justice in war. 

(3) Justice in finishing war.

The principles involved in justly going to war include legitimate authority. Uncle Bob the plumber can’t declare war on North Korea. “Ah,” you say, “you don’t know my Uncle Bob.” Yes, I see, let me rephrase. Uncle Bob cannot declare war on North Korea while simultaneously meeting this “legitimate authority” standard of just war. Next up is just cause. No going to war because the nation next door gave you a wet willy. Just cause requires that you are defending citizens’ lives and livelihoods, or righting wrongs. Right intention comes next. Even if you have a just cause, you must add to that right motives if you’re going to war righteously. Follow these up with war being the last resort, having a likelihood of success, and ensuring that the ends justify the means (the money and the dead men really have to be worth it). That’s six principles in all in the first category. For a helpful sketch of these principles, and the ones coming in the next two categories, see A Basic Guide to the Just War Tradition by Eric Patterson.

The principles involved in justly waging war include military necessity. Once you are in the thick of it, you must do everything necessary and just to win the battle. No dragging war on because of the increased cash flow. Then there is proportionality. You cannot take out three guys on a hill with an atom bomb. Discrimination wraps up the third category. In short, don’t shoot the non-combatants.

Justly ending war requires order. You have to be able to govern the area after all is said in done. On this point, you might ask, can Zelensky really govern Crimea if he were to take it back? Justice comes next. This justice requires punishment of war crimes, restitution, and the like. Finally, there is conciliation. Come to terms publicly and sign the treaty, the equivalent of shaking hands and buying the other guy a beer.

Those are the principles and they are straightforward enough on the surface. But it takes all of two seconds to see the age-old question set before us: Legitimate authority, says who? Just cause, defined by what dictionary? The objectives of a particular war must be worth the men’s lives. And where is the scale upon which we can weigh such a value?

The trouble is that all of these principles involve justice. This justice is apparently the thing that our prodigal nation could not find if the blindfolded lady walked up to them on a Saturday in the park and slapped us in the face with a strong backhand. You can tell that we know nothing of this justice by a glance at the recent riots on college campuses. The reality is that you cannot get at justice without heaven, and more particularly, being reconciled to the God who dwells there.

George Washington has a pertinent word—”The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.” Saint Augustine does us one better. In a very Christian Nationalist sentiment, he responded to Cicero’s definition of commonwealth by essentially saying, “If Cicero is right on the terms, then pagan Rome simply wasn’t a real people but a mob. Here he is in toto—

“Where there is no true justice there can be no ‘association of men united by a common sense of right’, and therefore no people answering to the definition of Cicero. And if there is no people then there is no ‘weal of the people’, but some kind of a mob, not deserving the name of a people. If, therefore, a commonwealth is the ‘weal of the people’, and if a people does not exist where there is no ‘association by a common sense of right’, and there is no right where there is no justice, the irresistible conclusion is that where there is no justice there is no commonwealth. Moreover, justice is that virtue which assigns to every one his due. Then what kind of justice is it that takes a man away from the true God and subjects him to unclean demons? Is this to assign to every man his due?” (City of God, 19.21)

Say it with Augustine: No justice, no peace. No true God, no justice. And here we have the foreign policy of Christian Nationalism: Christ is the Lord of war. This foundational claim will certainly cause those Columbia University professors to set their hair on fire. But, come to think of it, they have already set their hair on fire because, I will say it again: No true God, no justice, and no peace. You will have Christ as the Lord of war, or you will have Lord of the Flies.

The real culprit in all of this is likely Hugo Grotius. He sent us down miles of bad road with a simple hypothetical. In his The Rights of War and Peace, he posited that natural law would exist without God. Given his Arminian tendencies, he essentially taught that natural law finds its source in human nature. As Reuben Alvarado put it in The Debate That Changed the West, according to Grotius, “The natural law is not dependent on God for its content, nor for its existence, but only for its implantation in us.” This is a very Pelagian idea in which God gives man capacity, but does not give him the will and action itself. You can hear the residue of Grotius’ thought in Washington’s quote above. Grotius would likely be just fine with our first president’s claim. We need the rules of order and right that heaven has ordained. Yes, so far so good. But how do we obtain those rules? Is it merely a matter of having eyes in our heads? Being smart? Following in the footsteps of our recent forefathers who worshipped at the throne of reason? How is that working out for us?

Let me put it to you another way. Kings reign by wisdom—”I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions . . . by me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth” (Proverbs 8:12, 15-16). Now, you might say, disagreeing with Augustine you might say, that we could get some competent Turk to obtain this wisdom and keep our sons from dying on a foreign battlefield in a senseless war. But this same wisdom says only a few verses later, “The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was” (Proverbs 8:22-23). 

Do you really want to claim that this is not an allusion to the Wisdom, the Word Himself through whom all things were made and in whom are found all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? Do you want to go the way of Grotius and claim that this wisdom would exist apart from and without the Creator God? 

All of this shakes out to a very simple and full-proof gospel. Christ is Lord. You will kiss the Son or kiss the void. Man wants a wisdom machine, not a Living Wisdom. Man wants paint by numbers just war theory. He wants a just war thingamajig, one that will receive all of the relevant data on one end, run a mathematical equation, and pop out a right answer on the other. He wants this because it would enable him to carry on without repenting. 

But lower-case wisdom comes from upper-case Wisdom. And if you will not be reconciled to the latter, then you will not abide with the former. Christ is Lord of all, and that includes war. We are becoming weak and dumb because of our idolatry. Man becomes like the idols he worships, deaf, dumb, and blind. And while it is true that the iniquity of the Americanites is not yet complete, while it is true that the prodigal son still has some greenbacks to spend, there is a full measure, and we are well down the road toward that squanderer’s situation when he “fained to fill the belly with the husks the swine did eat” (Luke 15:16).

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Grace Upon Grace

In his gospel, John said that it is of Christ’s fullness that we not only receive grace, but grace upon grace. This abounding grace appears in God’s words to Abraham that he would not only be God to him; but He would also be God to Abraham’s children after him in their generations. The sign of that covenant promise was circumcision, which was given to Abraham’s children as much as it was given to Abraham. Likewise, in the new covenant, God has promised that His covenant is for us and our children, and likewise the covenant sign, which is baptism.

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Unzipping the Anxiety Luggage

Jesus told us that in this world we will have trouble. So it is not a sin to have cares and concerns. But, it is a sin to hold on to those cares and concerns. The world deals them to you. And then you must deal them to God. The Apostle Peter has said so: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). This is the plague of the prideful man: He’s doomed to carry around his cares. They are too important. And he is too important, to hand them over to any other.

Now there is a difference between casting your cares upon  mighty God, and simply unzipping your anxiety luggage before Him in prayer, only to zip it back up and take it with you after you have spoken with Him. “Why Lord, don’t I feel the freedom of being carefree?” “Well,” He replies, “That freedom would require you actually handing them over.”

You might object to this with something like, “Well, I simply want to be responsible. I want to make a plan. I like fixing problems.” That’s fine and good. The problem is not you taking responsibility. It is the weight, the stress, the worry, then the coping mechanisms, and the way you are trying to manipulate the people around you to solve whatever trouble you are all twisted up about. All of that goes away when you hand the care itself over to the Mighty One.

But, you cannot merely go to the Lord for advice about dealing with your worries. There must be an actual transaction. You must hand Him your worries, and He will hand you His peace.

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