Then God Went Up From Him

God appeared to Jacob...and blessed him...Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him.
Genesis 35:9, 13

One moment Jacob is in direct communion with the living God. And then the next moment God is gone. No, in a sense God is not gone because God is with Jacob wherever he goes (Genesis 35:3). But there is a sense in which God is gone. After meeting with Jacob to speak directly to him, God goes up from that place.

I wonder what Jacob must have felt like in that moment directly after God went up from that place. Lonely? Wishing that more of his life was lived consumed by majesty in the direct presence of God? That's how I would feel.

In fact, that's how I often feel.

Some mornings my communion with God makes me feel as though I'm standing in front of a burning bush. And yet on many mornings--most mornings--it feels like even though God had been right there in my room with me the day before, today God has gone up from me in this very place where he had spoken with me.

And often times it's discouraging. I wonder if Jacob felt discouraged in that moment. I wonder if he said or wanted to say, "LORD, where are you going? Wait LORD! Come back!"

Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. We don't know. The Scriptures don't tell us what he felt or said after God went up from him. But they tell us what he did: he set up a memorial in that location so that he would always remember that God really did appear to him in that place and he worshipped God by making an offering.

And that's how we must live our lives. We must, as it were, set up pillars to remember the God who has so powerfully manifested Himself to us because otherwise we forget. Our sinful nature will tomorrow tempt us to forget today's grace. And we must offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, this our daily act of worship, regardless of how we feel.

Because the reality of the life of Jacob is that those moments where God appeared to him were few and far between. Jacob lived most of his life with God having gone up from him, in the seemingly mundane lifestyle of "trust and obey"... day...after day...after day.

It was only into that life of discipline and faithfulness, continually clinging to the promises of God, that God was pleased in infinite grace to more manifestly reveal Himself to Jacob in what for him must have been cherished moments of grandeur and majesty. But Jacob couldn't initiate those especially holy moments no matter what he did. It was for God to initiate where and when He would appear to Jacob.

This greatly encourages me. When it seems like God has gone up from me, this is not abnormal. This is the norm. And, learning from Jacob, I can take heart, set up my pillars, and offer my worship to the Lord, knowing that even though He may have gone up from this place, He always answers me and really is with me wherever I go (Genesis 35:3). I do so eagerly looking forward to those days when God in His mercy will once again more manifestly, intimately, and powerfully reveal Himself to me and always ultimately anticipating that glorious day when God will fully and finally appear, never again to go up from us in this place.

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

One Way We Are Conformed To The Image Of Jesus

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Romans 8:29

Romans 8:29-30 paints God's purposes in redemption from beginning to end on the canvas of history. In eternity past, God set His love upon a people [foreknew them] because He wanted them to fulfill a purpose, to have a particular destiny [predestined them]. This purpose is clear. In all that God does in the lives of the people He has chosen from eternity past, He is working toward the ultimate goal of conforming them into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is God's ultimate reason for everything He brings into the lives of His people.

So, as those who are sons and daughters of God, nothing should be more important to us than that we be conformed to the image of Jesus. God's ultimate goal for our lives should be our ultimate goal for our lives.

Believing this should cause us to pray for God to conform us to the image of Jesus. And it should cause us to think about how it is that we ourselves pursue, or work out (Philippians 2:12, 13), being conformed to the image of Jesus.

What does it mean to be conformed to the image of Jesus? One way we might answer this question is to say that to be perfectly conformed to the image of Jesus is to be a perfect mirror reflection of who Jesus is in the way He thinks, speaks, and lives.

He [Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God... He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell...
Colossians 1:15,18, 19 (emphasis added)

Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. And we are to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Our destiny is to be a perfect image of the perfect image of God.

How is it that Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God? Because all the fullness of God dwells in Him. Everything that God is, Jesus also is, fully and perfectly. All of the attributes of God are found in Jesus.

And when Jesus rose from the dead, He became the firstborn of a new race that would resemble Him and make Him to be preeminent in all things because everything about His people would point to Him. Through the parallel ideas of Jesus being the firstborn, it's clear that Romans 8:29 is Paul's way of saying to the the Romans the exact same thing he says to the Colossians in Colossians 1:18b. God's ultimate goal in the lives of His people is to conform them to the image of Jesus Christ so that in all things Jesus Christ will be preeminent. In other words, God's ultimate goal in the lives of His people is the glory of His name through Jesus Christ.

If God's ultimate goal for our lives is to make us a perfect reflection of Jesus, and all the fullness of God dwells in Jesus, then another way to say it is that God's ultimate goal for our lives is for all the fullness of God to dwell in us just like it dwells in Jesus.

So now the question becomes, how do I become filled with more and more of the fullness of God? Paul tells us through one of his prayers exactly how it is that we come to be filled with the fullness of God:

I bow my knees before the Father...that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:14-19 (emphasis added)

This prayer is packed with rich petition. But there are a couple of things that are particularly relevant. Paul's ultimate goal in this prayer is that the people he is praying for be filled with all the fullness of God, which essentially means that they be conformed to the image of Jesus. There is a line of progression in his prayer that builds up to this goal of being conformed to the image of Jesus and something in particular that he directly connects to our being conformed to the image of Jesus: our knowledge of God's love for us. Paul prays that the Ephesians grow in their understanding and experiential grasp of God's love for them because there is a direct connection between their experiential knowledge of God's love for them and their being filled with all the fullness of God (same phrase used to describe Jesus in Colossians 1:19!). The more they are growing in experiencing God's love for them, the more they will grow in being filled with the fullness of God. Or, to say it another way, we can only grow in being conformed to the image of Christ to the extent that we are growing in our experience of God's love for us.

Jesus knew that His father loved him (John 5:20, John 17:24). He knew this perfectly. That's why He is filled with all the fullness of God. He's not like us. So often when we say we know that God loves us we are speaking about something we know intellectually rather than something we know experientially. Jesus experientially knew that His father loved Him and He knew this perfectly. None of us experientially knows Gods' love for us perfectly and I would argue that it is this failure to know God's love for us perfectly that is the root of all of our sin. If we had perfect experiential knowledge of Gods' love for us, we wouldn't sin. That's why Paul and Jesus (John 17:26) pray for us to have perfect experiential knowledge of God's love for us.

Yes, as God's children, for most of us the knowledge that God loves us is more than just intellectual. It is intensely experiential. But no matter how high our experiential knowledge of God's love for us is, God's love for us is still higher. No matter how long, God's love is still longer. No matter how deep, God's love is still deeper. No matter how broad, God's love is still broader.

And so we must labor to know ourselves loved by God more than we currently know. Oh, how He loves us! And as we grow in our experiential knowledge of God's love for us, we will at the same time be becoming more and more conformed to the image of Jesus. This is one way (and perhaps the main way) we grow in being conformed to the image of Jesus: by growing in our grasp of God's love for us. We must continually grow in our grasp of God's love for us because we will never grasp it fully enough in this life.

But one day, we will know that love perfectly, we will be filled with the fullness of God, we will be conformed to the image of Christ, and we will no longer sin. In other words, we'll be glorified.

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Romans 8:29-30

So please grant us, Father, according to the riches of Your glory to be strengthened with power through Your Spirit in our inner beings, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith--that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God, that we might be conformed more and more into the image of Your Son, who perfectly knew from eternity past Your love for Him that cannot even be described by dimensions because it transcends every dimension. In Jesus' name, Amen.

The Christian Husband's Painful Pleasure

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...
Ephesians 5:25 (emphasis added)

The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the church—read on—and gave his life for her (Ephesians 5:25).

This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is—in her own mere nature—least lovable. For the church has no beauty but what the bridegroom gives her; he does not find, but makes her, lovely.

The chrism [anointing, consecration] of this terrible coronation is to be seen not in the joys of any man's marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and sufferings of a good wife or the faults of the bad one, in his unwearying (never paraded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness: forgiveness, not acquiescence.

As Christ sees in the flawed, proud, fanatical or lukewarm Church on earth that bride who will one day be without spot or wrinkle, and labors to produce the latter, so the husband whose headship is Christ-like (and he is allowed no other sort) never despairs. He is a King Cophetua who after twenty years still hopes that the beggar-girl will one day learn to speak the truth and wash behind her ears.

--C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, p.105-106.

Jesus...for the joy [pleasure] that was set before him endured the cross [pain].
Hebrews 12:2

Out of the anguish of his soul [pain] he shall see and be satisfied [pleasure].
Isaiah 53:11

Like Jesus, the sweetness of a husband's pleasure in marriage emerges from the depths of the pain he endures for the sake of his bride. It doesn't get weightier than that.

HT: Desiring God Blog

The Doctrines Of Grace

It was these beliefs which were the source of his zeal.

The doctrines of our election, and free justification in Christ Jesus are daily more and more pressed upon my heart. They fill my soul with holy fire and afford me great confidence in God my Saviour.

I hope we shall catch fire from each other, and that there will be a holy emulation amongst us, who shall most debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus. Nothing but the doctrines of the Reformation can do this. All others leave freewill in man and make him, in part at least, a Saviour to himself. My soul, come not thou near the secret of those who teach such things...I know Christ is all in all. Man is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him to will and to do of His good pleasure.

Oh, the excellency of the doctrine of election and of the saints' final perseverance! I am persuaded, till a man comes to believe and feel these important truths, he cannot come out of himself, but when convinced of these, and assured of their application to his own heart, he then walks by faith indeed!...Love, not fear, constrains him to obedience.

To Whitefield the doctrines of grace were not separate tenets, to be accepted or rejected one by one, but a series of truths so joined together as to compose a great system of theology.

...

Though he sometimes used the word Calvinism, he did not give great place to it. He made much more of the fact that the views he held were those he had discovered in the Bible and he more frequently referred to them as the doctrines of grace.

Such strong and solemn convictions must perforce have their part in Whitfield's public ministry. As long as he had held to these doctrines with lesser understanding of their importance, the policy of 'Silence on both sides,' which he had suggested for John Wesley [who abhorred the doctrines of grace] and himself, seemed advisable, but now that he saw them to be so essential to the whole Christian revelation, he had no choice but to preach them. 'Henceforth, I hope I shall speak boldly and plainly,' he wrote, 'and not fail to declare the whole counsel of God.' This might entail conflict with some of his dearest friends, but he was quick to assert that his part therein would be only on the basis of presenting the Scriptures: 'Election, free grace, free justification...I intend to exalt and contend for more and more; not with carnal weapons -- that be far from me -- but with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God! No sword like that!'

--Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield Biography: Volume 1, p.407, 409

No sword like that. Amen, brother.

God Cares About Your Body

After Rob and I began discussing the healing of the soul and the healing of the body last week (see comments), Piper weighs in:



So whose side does he take? Rob's? Mine? Both?

(Not that there are any sides as long as we trust Jesus =P )

(And not that his opinion is the right one...)

More Than Sufficient...

But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?" He said, "But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.
Exodus 3:11, 12 (emphasis added)

Significantly, God does not answer Moses' surface question by reassuring him of his educational background, leadership potential, or other talents that might qualify him for this job. To Moses' question, "Who am I?" God responds with, "I will be with you." The promise of divine presence is more than sufficient for all challenges and obstacles. Moses' qualifications are irrelevant--God will make it happen. The promise of divine presence signifies the transfer of the holy, consuming fire from the bush to Moses and his people.

--Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach, p. 364.

Election and Embracing Suffering

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
John 15:18, 19 (emphasis added)

In addition to trusting and worshiping the covenant-keeping God, the beneficiaries have to embrace the darkness attendant to their election. In [the case of Old Testament Israel they had] to embrace the hardness of Pharaoh's heart just as the people of God later embraced the hardness of the Roman Empire and of the Holy Roman Empire, even to death, and as the Mennonites embraced the hardness of Stalin. Christ warns, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you" (John 15:18-19). The chosen have to embrace that truth in order to participate in God's salvific work.

--Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach, p. 359.