It’s Supposed to be a “Personal” Relationship

I’ve been thinking a lot about the lack of depth and experience in our personal relationships as well as the lack of experience in our relationship with God. Evangelicals have basically coined the phrase, “personal relationship with God,” but when pressed further about its experiential meaning, the answers merely revolve around the forensic (legal) language of substitution, atonement, imputation and propitiation (all of which I hold firmly). I understand that Christianity has been a battle for ideas, especially in the early years and during the time of the Reformation but we have become polemicists (masters of disputation and debaters of ideas) instead of children of God who deeply experience our Heavenly Father and so there is no one there for our hearts. So, because our leaders and teachers are great at defining the battle over the ideas of the gospel, we have learned and followed but the results have been that we have largely missed the God of the Gospel. Oh how easy it is so easy to accept ideas about God as a replacement for an experience of Him. Even the language of the Scriptures is rich with experiential language calling us to koinonos (an intimate companion, mutual sharer and partaker) and its derivative,  koinonia (communion by intimate participation) with Him.

Listen to and experience the intimate language of John’s first epistle,

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—  that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship (koinonia) with us; and indeed our fellowship (koinonia) is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Facebook’s effect on Relationships

Earlier this week, I heard from a missionary friend overseas who privately commented regarding my blogposts from Monday and Tuesday. With his permission, I will relate some of our conversation. He said that he has seen that particularly the generation of younger 20’s and early 30’s seem to be struggling with an inability to build true relationships with others. He and his team felt that young people are substituting social networking for real relationships and that because of this they lacked the real ability and skills to connect with each other on a personal basis. The effect of this substitution is that so many more young people are feeling lonely and isolated. He also said that the irony seems to be that this generation craves community but they turn to social media as their source of community which is no real community at all and they are left wanting.

This is not to completely debunk the social media phenomenon which has great potential to connect people in ways that we were never connected before. (i.e. – my friend reads my blog from a link on a social media website and sends me a message about it via the same social media.) But my friend and I agree that social media is not intended to replace normal relationship building and emotional bonding. It is not the primary way to connect us to others, it is only an add-on or a layer of connection.

I love technology and I love social media. They are not the problem. The problem is that our hearts turn these media into a counterfeit for koinonia so when we look to facebook to be our relationships, we miss the real thing. Could it be that once again our own hearts are our downfall and that we are naturally moving to lesser desires not greater ones? Could it be that we are becoming satisfied with the “relational connections” and “friendships” that social media provides and we are losing our appetites for the real thing? Likely this is one more example of what CS Lewis said in His Weight of Glory address,

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Thoughts on longing to go deeper

Today I am more connected than ever before. You can contact me via my three phone numbers, my four email addresses, instant messenger and my skype account. Did I mention that you can also facebook me, send me a tweet, or even comment on my blog? Oh, and I am also available for lunch today. But while there is this 360° communication field about me that is available 24 hours of every day and there is more information about me, the way I think and my preferences available for public consumption than ever before (just google john estorge or request me as a friend on facebook) I struggle more to be truly known and to truly know others than previous generations.  Could it be that my virtual connectedness has become a substitute, even an unrecognizable counterfeit for true connectedness to others and to God?

As I talk and counsel with folks in their forties down to their teens, what lies behind all of their struggles is a lack of healthy inter-connectedness to God, self and others. What is missing is an experiential knowledge of God, self and others. A.W. Tozer comments, “We have substituted theological ideas for an arresting encounter; we are full of religious notions but our great weakness is that for our hearts there is no one there.” While I may know facts about God, do I really know Him? And when I need Him, which should be daily if I really knew myself, does my heart even know how to find Him?  Once again in our relationship with God and others we have substituted the knowledge of ideas and facts for true experiential knowledge.  Maybe I’m weaker than most, but my heart can’t survive in a world where ideas are substituted for experience. Johann Arndt adds, “There are many who suppose that Theology is merely a science, or an art of words, whereas it is a living experience and practical exercise. Every one now aims at acquiring eminence and distinction in the world; but no one is willing to learn how to be devout.”

My heart longs for a greater inter-connectedness and mutual experience of koinonia with God and others. I desire to participate with God and others in genuine, experiential ways.  To have communion by intimate participation, to know and be known by God and others. This is what He desires for us. This is what is wrapped up in koinonia. And I’m afraid we’ve settled for less.

A deeper experience

We translate the greek word, koinonia using words that have become almost meaningless to us today. We use words like “fellowship” “participation” or even “partaking.” Sometimes we will use an even more ambiguous word, “communion” These words don’t really do justice to the meaning. I have attempted in the past to draw attention to the word and even attempt to re-define it as “communion by intimate participation,” which might temporarily arrest us to look again but I admit that my definition has only minimal impact on how we could view our connection with God and each other.

But the Biblical writers intended a greater inter-connectedness and mutual experience for us in the use of this word. And to a world that experiences life, relationship, connection and even church from behind a firewall, grasping the intended experience of koinonia with God and each other is crucial lest we continue down a path to a surrogate society of isolation where we are only virtually connected to God, church and others. We are living in a reductionist society of ideas and virtual realities and while we can explain our realities better than we ever could we have a lesser experience of them.

Julie Canlis in her book Calvin’s Ladder cites Owen Barfield in saying,

“When a Greek person living in the classical world experienced the world around him, he did not do so via a system of ideas about his experience but instead felt an “extra-sensory link” between what he saw and his own self… The participation of the ordinary man was a livelier and more immediate experience… . This was due to the koinonia-consciousness of the classical world (which persisted in varying forms right up until the scientific revolution).”

To the Greek world of the first century, Koinonia was the way to experience the world now. Koinonia was originally understood in the context of a historical setting when  individuality and the boundaries of self were not harshly drawn and we cared more about what we experienced than merely about the ideas that described our experience. George Hunsinger  underscores the importance and elusiveness of koinonia for us today.

“Koinonia means that we are not related to God or to one another like ball bearings in a bucket, though a system of external relations. We are rather, something like relational fields that interpret, form, and participate in each other in countless real though often elusive ways. Koinonia both as a tern and as a reality, is remarkable for its range and flexibility and inexhaustible depth.”

More tomorrow

He descended into Hell

In the Garden of Gethsemane, we find Jesus like we’ve never seen Him before,  “greatly distressed and troubled” and saying, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” Then He prays, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36) Jesus does not shrink back here from His impending physical suffering and death, but rather from the dreadful tribunal of God and the Judge armed with inconceivable vengeance. And as He comes to His Father in the garden for a taste of Heaven instead is forced to face the horror of Hell and it was almost more than He could bear.

“This cup” which Jesus asks the Father to remove was a normal Old Testament metaphor for the wrath of God as a punishment for sin. God declares, “You will drink a cup large and deep, full of ruin and desolation and you will tear your breasts.” and “You will drink the cup of his fury and will stagger.” (Cf. Ezekiel 23:32-33; Isaiah 51:17,22) That’s what Jesus was going to experience in His death, the incomparable, unprecedented suffering of wrath and abandonment. What is this cup? It is Hell! In the cross, Jesus had a rendezvous with Hell.

The Bible, though not clear on the details, talks about Hell as a real condition of complete hopelessness and agony and is the suffering that arises both naturally and legally from sin. As Paul says in Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin is death” and that death is the endless torment of Hell. This is precisely the payment which Christ pays. Jesus goes through Hell, the experience of complete separation from God and complete spiritual disintegration. From the time in the Garden through His burial, Jesus’ emotions are like a ship on a stormy sea seeking to stay on course. The cup from which He drinks contains the full vehemence and fierceness of God’s holy wrath poured out against sin. It is intended for sinful humanity to drink. It’s my cup, your cup.

When Jesus saw the wrath of God exhibited to Him, as he stood before the tribunal of God charged with the sins of the whole world, he could not avoid shrinking back in horror from the deep abyss of death. He was struck with horror at the divine curse and was so distressed at the scene that after seeing it the Father dispatched an angel from heaven to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43). Jesus was victorious over sin, death and hell but it was not without a FIGHT. He fought for you, He endured hell for you and in the process Jesus was loosing the pangs of death (Acts 2:24).

Jesus descended into Hell for you and me. This is, what Calvin calls, “a useful and not-to-be-despised mystery of a most important matter.” The church fathers all spoke of it and it is a tenet of the Apostles’ creed which is a summary of our faith, full and complete in all details. “He descended into hell” is not a detail that we can leave out for if we do much of the benefit of Christ’s death will be lost. This is an expression of the spiritual torment that Christ underwent for us. If Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual. Instead He went through the severity of God’s vengeance to appease His wrath and satisfy His just judgment. So he had to wrestle with the very armies of hell, the dread of everlasting death and eternal punishment. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). His wounding, crushing, chastising and striping were more than the pains of His physical flogging, crucifixion and death. It was the FULL punishment due to us for sins entering into the condition of Hell for us.

See other posts on Jesus in the Garden:

Jesus found hell rather than heaven opened for Him
Jesus took our grief upon Himself
The Most uncomfortable scene in the New Testament

Jesus found Hell rather than Heaven opened before him

Jesus received a glimpse of the horror and terror of His death while He was in the Garden of Gethsemane that sent Him reeling. He was “greatly distressed and troubled” and even said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” Later  “he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him” (cf. Mark 14:32ff). Jesus was deeply affected by grief and sorrow, seized with anguish, trembling, collapsing, sweating profusely and fainting half-dead with sorrow. The very anticipation and foretaste of what he was about to experience threw His soul into violent agony.

Based on this scene we can learn mostly through deductive reasoning that what Jesus faced in death was more than the sum of the emotional pain related to the abandonment of his friends and the physical pain of the torturing of his enemies. In His death, Jesus would enter into the spiritual reality of cosmic abandonment by the Father which He would experience in time and space.

We can’t imagine this kind of pain, sorrow and dread. As He faced His death, He knew that it had in store for Him something much more sad and dreadful than normal death. If death were merely a passage out of the world, he would have no horror or terror about it, but instead with the enormous load of our sin pressing down on Him, in the garden he gets a glimpse of as Calvin says, “the dreadful tribunal of God and the Judge armed with inconceivable vengeance.” Is there then any wonder that the dreadful abyss of destruction tormented Him so grievously with fear and anguish? Jesus must face FULL JUDGMENT.

So, confronting the deepest agony of Calvary Jesus said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36) In his commentary on the Gospel of Mark, William Lane wrote,

The dreadful sorrow and anxiety, then, out of which the prayer for the passing of the cup springs, is not an expression of fear before a dark destiny, nor a shrinking from the prospect of physical suffering and death. It is rather the horror of the one who lives wholly for the Father… Jesus came to be with the Father for an interlude before his betrayal, but found hell rather than heaven opened before him, and he staggered.

Jesus took our grief upon Himself

Yesterday, I began to unpack the most uncomfortable scene in the New Testament. (See yesterday’s blog here). In the gospels we’re regularly confronted with the tremendous power and dignity of Christ who was the judge of the earth, the eternal Son of God. He is the absolutely assured of His sonship to the father yet he trembles at death with more fear than humans much weaker than him. He is different than we have ever seen him and if we think about it, it bothers us. More on this scene…

Jesus led them to a place called Gethsemane, a place that was a familiar hangout for him and the disciples, not to conceal himself but so the betrayer could easily find him as The Savior had made a voluntary rendezvous with Death. Then Jesus began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” (cf. Mark 14:32ff)

Jesus has talked about his death before without a display of grief or sorrow, but now his secret feelings are abundantly displayed. There is a terror that strikes his mind that appears inconsistent with the divine glory of Christ. How could the Christ be seized with trembling and sadness?

We shouldn’t be ashamed that our Savior should experience fear and sorrow because Christ has taken on the total reality of the incarnation, not just an appearance of it. Christ must take on grief that he might overcome it so that through trust in Him, grief and sorrow would not overwhelm us. Ambrose, one of the early church Fathers says this,

“I not only don’t think that there is any need of excuse, but there is no instance in which I admire more his kindness and his majesty; for he wouldn’t have done so much for me, if he had not taken upon him my feelings. He grieved for me, who had no cause of grief for himself; and laying aside the delights of the eternal godhead, he experiences the affliction of my weakness.”

But he doesn’t want to face this experience. There is something more at stake here for Jesus as we peak back into the scene in the garden, “And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.” Jesus was deeply affected by grief and sorrow, seized with anguish, trembling, collapsing, sweating profusely, later fainting half-dead with sorrow and as Luke reports, perspiring with the most severe anxiety with sweat like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22:44). A darkness comes over his eyes, He is sinking, He is breaking even before the flogging and crucifixion. The very anticipation and foretaste of what he is about to experience throws his soul into violent agony.

But why the agony when so many others have faced death with courage?

The most uncomfortable scene in the New Testament

Now There are at least three scenes in the New Testament where attentive Christians feel uncomfortable  about how their Savior acts because it seems that he actions are unbecoming of the God-man:
-The Cleansing of the Temple – We think He’s just too angry and Jesus shouldn’t get angry.
– The Miracle of Changing Water into Wine- The excessive provision of fermented drink makes us uneasy.
-The scene in the Garden Gesthsemane – as Jesus faces his death, he seems to lack the courage that mere mortals have displayed in facing their deaths.

During the Marian Persecutions by Queen Mary (aka Bloody Mary) Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer were burned at the stake for their faith in Oxford, England, 1555.
They were tied side by side, and when the fire was lit at their feet, Latimer said (famously):
“Be of good cheer, Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day, by God’s grace, light up such a candle in England, as I trust, will never be put out.”  (that’s courage!)

At roughly the same time, John Bradford was burned at the stake with John Leaf.
As the fire was being brought, he said to Leaf, “Be of good comfort, my brother, for we will have a merry supper with the Lord tonight.” Both Bradford and Latimer raised their hands and prayed as they burned.

There are many more similar accounts of Christian men and women who died for their faith with peace in their hearts. Just read Fox’s Book of Martyrs. Now contrast the confidence and joy of these martyrs with the agony, anguish and fainting of Jesus who is clearly shaken by his sufferings. In the gospels we’re regularly confronted with the tremendous power and dignity of Christ who was the judge of the earth, the eternal Son of God. He is the absolutely assured of His sonship to the father yet he trembles at death with more fear than humans much weaker than him. He is different than we have ever seen him and if we think about it, it bothers us.

But why?  Tomorrow I’ll begin to unpack what Sinclair Ferguson calls, “one of the most sacred and solemn scenes in the entire Bible.”

Heaven breaks into earth during the Lord’s Supper

The presence of the Lord’s body and blood in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper is real though spiritual and mysterious. This koinonia, communion by intimate participation (Cf.1 Cor. 10:15-17), with the body and blood of Christ  is not a mere object lesson or heightened remembrance about a gift, it is the body and the blood.

When we gather for Lord’s Day worship, we have a mystical experience with our union with Christ. In worship we are ushered into the heavenlies by the Holy Spirit having come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem where innumerable angels gather festively, this is the assembly of all who are enrolled in heaven (Heb 12.22-24). This is not a spatial transportation of our disembodied souls into heaven, but a breaking in of the age to come upon this present age by the Holy Spirit who indwells and maintains our union with Christ in heaven. Already we are mystically united to the body and blood of Christ through faith so our participation in His body and  blood in the supper is an experience of this mystical union.

In the Lord’s Supper, we feast on Christ by the person of the Holy Spirit, partaking of Him not by the mouth, but by the Spirit through faith. But make no mistake, we really are partakers of His true body and blood by the working of the Holy Spirit. Now you might ask, how does this exactly happen? Well, with John Calvin, we will say, “It’s a mystery. We cannot explain it, but we believe it.” Our partaking of the Lord’s Supper is a spiritual connection with the past work of Christ on the cross but also with the present spiritual work of Christ, alive in Glory. So while Christ is not bodily or locally present in the Supper (His Body is only locally in heaven since His Ascension), the entire person of Christ is yet spiritually present and His Body and Blood are enjoyed in true fellowship with Him.

The Lord’s Supper is a life-giving, grace-imputing influence to the believer by the  power of the Holy Spirit which is accessed by the believer’s faith recognizing the Body of the Lord in the elements and accompanied by real cautions against a casual or indifferent attitude (cf. 1 Cor. 11:27-29). While it is quite a mystery something very real, spiritual and efficacious is happening in the grace received in the Supper of an ever closer fellowship with Christ and ever increasing assurance of Salvation.

Four Views of the Lord’s Supper

We’re all familiar with the words instituted by Christ on the evening of the First Lord’s Supper. Paul gives these words in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26,

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Historically, the church has developed different understandings of the meaning of Christ’s words, “This is my body.”

  • The Roman Church teaches a view called transubstantiation where the substance (what the thing is in essence) of the bread and wine transform into the physical body and blood of Christ. In Rome’s view the essence of the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ while its accidents or appearances to our senses remain like bread and wine. So, even though it looks, smells, and tastes like bread and wine, it is, according to Rome, in its essence the physical body and blood of Christ, miraculously transformed.
  • In his view of the Supper called Consubstantiation, Martin Luther attempted to describe the nature of the bread and wine in concrete metaphysical terms by saying that the fundamental “substance” of the body and blood of Christ are present alongside the substance of the bread and wine, which remain present. In this view, the substance of Christ’s body and blood exist in, with and under the simultaneously-existing substance of regular bread and wine. Thus, the body and blood of Christ are truly received in the Lord’s Supper making it a means of grace for the Christian’s sanctification.
  • Most evangelicals hold to a view espoused by Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli which is called the Memorial view. This view denies the bodily presence of the Lord in the Lord’s Supper and seeks to give a figurative interpretation of the words of institution. The Lord’s Super is seen primarily as a commemoration or a heightened remembering, but is virtually an empty memorial. It is not an experience with the body and blood which are in heaven and therefore not a means of grace.
  • Most don’t realize that there is at least one other important and widely- embraced view of the Lord’s Supper that just might capture the real intentions of the Savior’s words. This is the view articulated by French Theologian and Swiss Reformer, John Calvin called the Real Presence which is more of an intermediate view between Rome and Luther on one side and the Memorialists on the other. Importantly, Calvin’s view of the Real Presence keeps Christ’s body in heaven at the right hand of God until His glorious return therefore rejecting that there is a transformation of substance or essence of the elements. But he also rejects that all we are doing is remembering a past event using merely empty symbols and figurative language. Calvin’s view insists on the real, though spiritual presence of the Lord in the Supper. The Lord’s Supper is an actual means of grace which is a way or agency that the Lord uses to impart His sanctifying grace to the Believer who in faith enters the Lord’s Supper. The Real Presence teaches that the believer does receive Christ’s body and blood in the Supper as Scripture plainly teaches. This is not a mere figurative or metaphorical receiving, it is a REAL RECEIVING. Only Real Faith can conceive That the Holy Spirit unites Christ’s body and blood with the elements even though they are separated by space.

More on the REAL PRESENCE tomorrow….