The Battle Is the Lord's

The Battle Is the Lord’s.  When we imagine ourselves inside the narrative of the Bible, which is generally a profitable exercise, we often cast ourselves as the protagonist. So, when Peter walks on water, we frequently assume the role of Peter in our mind. When Daniel prays from the lions’ den, we rehearse what our prayers might have been along with Daniel. When Esther risks her life to make an unsolicited request of the king, we sympathize with Esther. This enveloping quality affirms the power of story and the nature of Scripture’s profitability “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). But statistically, geographically, and rationally, at our default setting we probably have more in common with the antagonists: with the villagers who are glad when Jesus sails away with his friends, with the bureaucrats who support legislation which their bosses tell them to support, with the troublemakers who forced Esther into a dangerous scenario in the first place.

When David selects a stone out of his shepherd’s pouch, I am most likely part of the rabble on Goliath’s side. Before Christ graciously interrupted my story, I was the Gentile, blasphemer, and scoffer who had grandiose plans back in Philistia once these silly roaches were squashed on the battlefield. Not many of us are heroic. Not even David knew that he was the hero of the story when he brought lunch to his older brothers. Heroes don’t presume heroism. Heroes think of themselves humbly and accurately: “And David said to Saul, ‘Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine’” (1 Sam. 17:32). Saul’s servant never sees himself as Saul’s successor.

Deftly, David never claims that he would prevail over Goliath but that God will do the fighting. “Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he had defied the armies of the living God” (1 Sam. 17:36). That’s perhaps the biggest part of this hero story, David’s willingness to go with the foundational understanding that “the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Sam. 17:37). It is straightforward.

David does not win by shirking trends in conventional warfare, believing in himself, or carving his own path to victory. David wins by openly hiding. “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust” (Psa. 91:2). David stands apart but never alone. “For by you I can run against a troop” (Psa. 18:29). David knows that he is nothing, that only God matters, which in God’s kingdom is something rare and precious. “He chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds” (Psa. 78:70). David succeeds by faithfully deferring his case to a higher court. “For the battle is the Lord’s” (1 Sam. 17:47a). David survives by ceasing to save his own life but trusting the Lord to fight for the Lord! “And he will give you into our hand” (1 Sam. 17:47b). 

The Love of Christ

The Love of Christ (Eph. 3:14-21)

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,

16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

He Breathed His Last

He Breathed His Last.  “On the physical death of Jesus Christ,” an article which appeared in the March 21, 1986, edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association (Vol. 255, No. 11, pp. 1455-63) is annual reading for many during Holy Week. There are many ways to download this article for free or read it online, including: https://www.godonthe.net/evidence/on-the-physical-death-of-jesus-JAMA.pdf.

A medical review of the torture of Roman crucifixion is unavoidably gruesome since the Romans engineered it for maximum gore. “The actual cause of Jesus’ death, like that of other crucified victims, may have been multifactorial and related primarily to hypovolemic shock, exhaustion asphyxia, and perhaps acute heart failure” (p. 1463). “He breathed his last” (Luke 23:46) is entirely consistent with the medical cause of death by crucifixion. Asphyxia happened but Jesus was not a passive victim. Jesus actively permitted his death to happen, a feat which only he could do. He laid down his life just as he foretold, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:18). 

Invented by the Persians and advanced by the Carthaginians, crucifixion was perfected by the Romans to humiliate and prolong the execution process of its worst criminals and enemies of the state. Women and children were generally exempt from crucifixion, as were Roman citizens, unless they were soldiers who deserted. Roman citizenship is why Caesar Nero (54-68 A.D.) crucified Peter (upside-down) but beheaded Paul (humanely). Yet, crucifixion was prefigured in Deuteronomy 21:22-23 where, after executing a person who had openly rebelled against God, the community was instructed to hang his corpse on a tree (outside the camp) in effigy. Due to the threat of polluting the good land, the corpse must not hang on the tree overnight. The reasoning behind this especially brutal practice, Moses stated plainly: “For a hanged man is cursed by God.” He got what he deserved is the unavoidable take-away.

It was this divine cursedness of the executed that colored in the lines of Isaiah’s prophecy of Messiah, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted” (Isa. 53:4). Paul connected those two references to the cursed, hanging man in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” 

To hasten the death of the crucified, the Roman soldiers broke their victims’ legs, eliminating their ability to exhale. “Adequate exhalation required lifting the body by pushing up on the feet” (p. 1461). When the soldiers came to break Jesus’ legs, they found that he was already dead (Luke 19:33). The soldier’s spear thrust to Jesus’ side, therefore, did not kill Jesus but confirmed his death, since separation of the blood and the water (plasma) happened post-mortem (John 19:34). That Jesus’ death came in only six hours, as opposed to several days, was so surprising to Pilate that he sought verification from the centurion (Mark 15:44).

He Lays Down His Life

He Lays Down His Life.  A gnarly debate rages about the specific composition of a human being. Long before Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung disagreed about the id, ego, and superego, Plato and Aristotle famously wrangled over interaction of the body, soul, and spirit. Similarly, C. S. Lewis enthusiasts cannot curb the general population from ascribing to Lewis the quote, without any proper citation, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” Theologians, too, square off against each other over tripartite vs. bipartite anthropology, humans having three parts (body, soul, and spirit) or two parts (material and immaterial). While that multidimensional debate will endure past this 500-words-or-less devotional, it is interesting and insightful to notice that Jesus’ death involved all three of those terms: body (soma), soul (psyche), and spirit (pneuma).

Repeatedly, Jesus foretold the disciples that he must suffer and die physically (Matt. 16:21; Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22). “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up … but he was speaking about the temple of his body” (John 2:19, 21), his soma, his skin-suit. Jesus said from the cross, “It is finished,” and he “gave up his spirit” (John 19:30), his pneuma, life-breath. Jesus also anticipated his psychological death: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). That which the Good Shepherd lays down is his psyche. Psyche denotes the fullness of one’s personality, the same word Jesus uses at Gethsemane: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matt. 26:38). At the cross, Jesus lays down his individual personhood: mind, emotions, heart, will, passion, even his reputation.

Body is easy to differentiate but soul and spirit legitimately overlap most of the time in Scripture. In those few times when they are distinguishable from each other, the soul is the self, the core of one’s identity that exists either at enmity with God or in fellowship with God. The spirit, however, is the animating power that God breathes into the nostrils of humans (Gen. 2:7). Thus, the human spirit comes from God, whereas the human soul relates to God.

A closely related third term for life, zoë, brings us back to the Good Shepherd. Zoë means eternal life. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10), which is the same term Jesus uses of his divinity, “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25) and “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). It is important to understand that Jesus did not lose his zoë-life at death, because he is the zoë-life. In his divinity, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and forever” (Heb. 13:8). In his humanity, his body (soma) died, he laid down his human self (psyche), he gave up his human spirit (pneuma). At his bodily resurrection, he built up that which was destroyed (soma), he took up again that which he laid down (psyche), and he received back that which he gave up (pneuma). His material and immaterial humanity entirely died, was buried, and rose up again.

Now Concerning Spiritual Gifts

Now Concerning Spiritual Gifts.  Except for one vague commendation, “[You] maintain the traditions” (1 Cor. 11:2), Paul rebuked the church at Corinth in many specific ways. Often marked by the phrase, “Now concerning,” Paul listed ten errant practices in the church. They were: [1] forming political factions (1:12), [2] suing each other (4:3), [3] failing to exercise church discipline (5:11), [4] engaging in unbiblical divorce practices (7:1), [5] steamrolling over other Christians’ consciences regarding eating meat sacrificed to idols (8:1), [6] disregarding gender roles (11:2), [7] abusing the Lord’s Supper (11:20), [8] misusing the spiritual gifts (12:1), [9] marginalizing the resurrection (15:1), and [10] waffling on their commitment to donate money for the persecuted saints struggling in Jerusalem (16:1). 

In terms of word count, the largest problem that Paul addressed at Corinth was their practice of spiritual gifts (12:1-14:40). In a nutshell, they were using the spiritual gifts to compete with one another instead of serving one another. In a word, they lacked love. The famous Love Chapter in the Bible (13:1-13) intentionally bridged the disconnect at Corinth from God’s overall concept of spiritual gifts in the body of Christ (12:1-31) with their exercise of spiritual gifts in the worship assembly (14:1-40). Paul urged them to follow “a more excellent way” (12:31) by abandoning their demonstrable immaturity (13:11): “Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy” (14:1). Love governs spiritual gifts. 

The issue at Corinth was their faulty prioritization of the gifts. What was emphasized at Corinth for its wow-factor was the individual’s use of the gift of tongues (think: performing). But what should have been emphasized at Corinth for its growth-factor was the gift of prophecy (think: teaching). “The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church” (14:3). Building up oneself seems to be high-level satire by Paul, an oxymoron, since edification, by definition, is collective. By comparison, if not self-contradictory, edifying self is an immature motive for the assembled church where the explicit purpose for gathering is to edify one another (14:5). If not entirely sarcastic, “speaking into the air” (14:9) is definitively less valuable in the church than “speaking to people” (14:3).

Both were good gifts given by Christ, but prophecy was better for inside the Christian gathering than tongues. Tongues were better for outside the assembly in evangelism and missions because the gift of languages catalyzed the proclamation of the gospel among the nations. Prophecy offered everyone in the congregation increased clarity about God’s character and his will, without depending upon an interpreter (14:27). The gift of tongues got the people into the church through conversion. The gift of prophecy grew the people up in the church through discipleship. Such is the force behind Paul’s evaluation: “Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue” (14:19). “Let all things be done for building up” (14:26).