Nathanael Szobody

Jesus in All Time

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We are told in the New Testament of all the prophecies which Christ fulfilled, and pastors rightly teach us God’s revelation in the Old Testament with the understanding that Christ fulfills the covenant made with Abraham and at Sinai.

However we need not play time gymnastics reading Jesus into the Old Testament, nor is it necessary to see in every Old Testament passage a cryptic reference to Jesus or the New Covenant. Rather According to Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1 Christ is God’s plan for the fulness of time to unite all things in himself through the cross.

Taking these passages in conjunction with John 1 where we are explained that the essence of Christ is God’s creating and communicative Word even before he took on flesh as the man Jesus, we see that there is not always a need to start at the cross and work back in time. Rather, wherever God’s Word is spoken, wherever we see God calling a people for himself and uniting them, wherever we see God creating or communicating, or forgiving, or interacting in any way with people, there is the Christ working to accomplish his plan for all time.

This is not to say that the cross loses any of its significance; it is the mystery of God’s plan! And it would be foolish to talk of shadows and pictures without teaching the reality that they look forward to. All these things are looking forward to the time when Jesus Christ will die and be raised, but the plan and the working out of it is always there in all time. Jesus Christ the Word is indeed all we know of God, and all that has ever been known of God.

What I propose is not that we somehow are trying to force Christ into passages where he is not, but rather that to approach Old Testament passages with the aim of finding the person of Jesus or reference to sacraments or other particular New Testament themes is to have to narrow an understanding of Jesus in not first recognizing the timeless and eternal plan of God begun in creation and continuing in all eternity to have a relationship with his people–all people–through his personal Word.

Colossians 2:1-4

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“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face…”

Uh oh, here goes Paul’s ego again.

“…that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love…”

Ok, so that may work. If people who are fighting amongst themselves hear of someone else who is suffering for them all it makes their dissagreements seem rather petty–and an insult to the one giving his all for them! Even more, even those who are not in any particularly grievous relationship, when they hear of Paul’s trials and all the pain he endures to “present everyone mature in Christ” certainly this would move their hearts to see the value in one another that is put in them by the sufferings of Christ. Well, now I’ve got the warm fuzzies; why don’t we just all love eachother?

“…to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery…”

Huh? First, how does ‘being knit together in love’ give me assurance of understanding anything, or of knowledge? But forget even that; what’s God’s mystery? Paul sure is setting his audience up for a big disappointment if he doesn’t deliver on that. He doesn’t say ‘a’ mystery, but the mystery of God.

“…which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

This is quite a claim. Christ is the mystery of God, in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and I am supposed to be able to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of this mystery by having the warm fuzzies about Paul’s hardship?

“I say this so that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.”

So Paul is setting up in opposition here the power of the unity of the body of Christ to persuasive arguments that lead to anything but a stronger unity in love as the body encourages one another.

There is no doctrine does not directly support the unity in love of God’s people. For the very identity of the church, it’s very life, the very connection that we have with the eternal and the only truth to be known is Christ crucified for all people in all time for all eternity. This is the encouragement that we have for one another and the doctrine that knits us together.

If anyone should teach anything, whether it be in scripture or not, that is not beneficial to building up in love then it is not completely true–or atleast it cannot be known to be true. For according to this passage all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery is being knit together in love. This is the plumb line and guarantee that Christ will be glorified in all our teaching: if, when judged according to scripture to be consisent with God’s revelation, it encourages the hearts of the believers to love one another.

Pray Without Ceasing

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We ought always to pray is the same as saying: we must always desire eternal things, the temporal things which serve the eternal, our daily bread of every kind and for every need, life in all its fulness earthly and heavenly.

–A. G. Sertillanges

The Intellectual Life

Lead Us Not Into Temptation But Deliver Us From Evil

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What is it about temptation that leads us to believe that it is some force outside of ourselves that attacks us? Certainly Satan is called the Temptor, but his temptation is only in the suggestion. He is an accuser. He levels the charge at us and leaves our flesh to keep working on us.

He accused God of hiding the truth from Eve. When he tempted Christ he presented the sin to him, but when Jesus responded with scripture he had to move on; there was nothing else for him to say!

And so it is in our own lives. As we pray for God to deliver us from evil, not leading us into temptation, we are in fact turning our hearts toward the one who counters our accuser. In the very act of praying we refuse the attacks of Satan, for the prayer which we pray is not our own, but the words of Jesus, the living word who intercedes for us before the Father on our behalf.

Satan knows that sin is slavery, and thinking of sin is slavery of the mind. When we refuse to dwell on the temptation, either its attractiveness or the despair that its guilt drags us into, and turn our eyes on the deliverer of sin and death, the battle is already won! For the word is active in every way; it is active through the promises in scripture to reassure us, it is active in revealing the nature of temptation and how our flesh is what gives it real power (James 1). And it is also active in its meaningful repetition as we pray the words that our savior taught us to. We are not repeating an ideal situation, a Daddy-do list, a statement of what should be if we were spiritual enough. No, when we approach our God in faith and adopt his words as our own, the request that he gives us to pray is already answered and being answered!

Is not the deliverence from evil in turning from our sin in humble repentence and relying on the grace of God poured out to us through faith in the death and ressurection of his Son for the salvation from slavery to that sin? Is not the very request “Do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil” that very thing; a turning from the power of sin and death and relying on our maker for all spiritual provision? Know this: the power for the salvation from sin is not just in the acknowledgement of God and Christ, but in the abiding in Christ. This abiding comes about when his word dwells in us. When you pray, speak to God what he has spoken to you, and you will have eternal life.

The Gospel for Relationships

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In every relationship we must be attentive to two concerns. We must be concerned with what is to be taught or learned, and, more importantly, we must be concerned with how to go about doing this in a manner that builds up the relationship. We have no choice but to consider what is required in a relationship, but it is ultimately our joy and the fulfillment of our lives to live the gospel in each and every experience we have in the contact with those near to us.

Leviticus 10, a Prayer

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Our Father in heaven, may your name be most feared and loved in the eyes of your people. You come from your heavenly throne to your beloved and chosen ones and give yourself to them. You reign among your creation for the sake of your glory. So may you be sanctified by those who are near you and glorified among all the people.

You give us your life in the creation of our being and formed our souls in the mystery of your plan. You seek us when we are, wandering from the love of your communion and setting up the abomination of ourselves in your place. We not only reject you as our God, but reject what you put in us that makes us people. We flee sacrifice of the self, loath love that has eyes only for the beloved, hoard what is not ours rather than giving what has been lavished on us by your grace.

But by your mercy your forgiveness is unending. You seek us not as the master of a runaway slave–though master you are and slave is all we will ever be, be it slave to the freedom to love, or slave to the death of our sin. Nor do you pursue us with the veangance of wronged lover–though love is what you are and wrong is all that we have repaid you with.

Rather your veangance and justice are poured out on the Most Beloved that the Beloved might love the hater and thus consume both the hatred and the its death in one mighty act by the power of him who is all in all, the first born of all creation, and the first born of the dead, the one who is an all consuming fire, becoming that which the fire consumes so that in all things he might be preeminent and thus making peace by the blood of his cross.

For Nadab and Abihu, priests unto God and representatives of your people, offered unto God that which did not come from God. They offered the pride and arrogance, the folly and insult of human nothingness to the eternal God who is the author of all things. In a mockery of the sacrifice that God desires–the sacrifice of his own self given to and for us–they gave what was godless and empty; their religiosity and false piety. And for this they were consumed. As their souls were already consumned by the death of human self-governance so their bodies were consumned by the eyes of him who seeks the glory of his governing Word. What they offered was not a sacrifice but a rebellion and an abomination to the very word sacrifice. The incense they gave, meant to be the prayers of a people wholy given up to their maker, was used as an expression of a people consumned with their own naked selves.

But praise be to you oh God, we have a greater priest who goes before our God and father offering the blood of his own life to you who are the author of that same life. And the incense he burns is the prayers of his Holy Spirit, the holy power of God for the humble repentance and patient perseverence of his people. He is the seal of our inheritance in Jesus Christ until we acquire possession of it in eternal dependence of him through whom and for whom all things were made.

So now give us this spirit of worship, that our sacrifices might be pleasing to you as we grow in the knowledge and spiritual insight, understanding the depths of your will that has been revealed to us who believe in Jesus. May our prayers to you be the humble and contrite spirit of those who have been consumed by the eternal fire and been purged of all pride and guile in order that they might be raise by the power of the Holy One to be presented before you blameless and above reproach. And may our lives be those of complete sacrifice unto you who demand nothing less our all and give nothing less than your own self. For in this is your glory known.

The Humble Acceptance of Praise

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So great is the righteousness of that man who receives his virtues from the Spirit of God, that he loves his very enemies, and so loves them that he desires that his haters and detractors may be turned to righteousness, and become his associates, and that not in an earthly but in a heavenly country. But with respect to his praisers, though he sets little value on their praise, he does not set little value on their love; neither does he elude their praise, lest he should forfeit their love. And, therefore, he strives earnestly to have their praises directed to Him from whom every one receives whatever in him is truly praiseworthy.

— Augustine

To refuse praise out of a desire for humility is to deny the Christ in us. For if one praises out of love, then to receive it is humility and love toward the one who praises. It is the act of being the body to accept, both the virtues from God, and the praise of it that is to the glory of God.

Every Spiritual Blessing

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Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Every spiritual blessing? How can that be real? Why don’t we feel like we have been given every spiritual blessing? I still suffer loss and sadness, pain and frustration, selfishness, exhaustion, and do not feel in the least bit spiritual. Where are the blessings? It’s fine to preach a great sermon, an eloquent exposition on the nature of God and his rich grace that gives us all that we need, that gives his own life to save us from sin. These things can be said and believed, but speak to me of blessing and I ask “why don’t I feel it?” And to what purpose if I don’t feel it?

…even as he chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Certainly, we are his holy people, but we are clearly not blameless! Is the blessing failing to do its work? But the blessing is not to make me superficially happy, it is to change my spirit before God. But in what way? I have repented and still repent; the question remains: how do I see this blessing in reality, in real time working real things?

In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Here’s the ground work: what ever God does in and for us, it is to the praise of Jesus Christ and his work of love! It is his act of predestination, his adoption, his will and the it’s for his praise as he blesses us in the beloved. If this blessing is for the sake of Christ how does it effect us still?

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

United with God! All things in heaven and earth are to be united in God! So this is why we have every spiritual blessing; for surely in God himself is found every spiritual blessing, and it is in him that we are to be made one according to his purposeful plan.

Lavish, what a word! His grace has been lavished on us! But this lavishing is not random or just for our feeling of fulfillment, it is according to his plan. God is generous because he purposes to be with wisdom and insight. He is intentionally generous about his grace, because he is intentional about bringing about the unity of all things in himself, and in himself is an abundance beyond measure.

But this all for the fulness of time, and in the mean time we have been given his Spirit “who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”

In this we see our nothingness, for all that we have been made to be and all that we are in Christ is not us but God’s masterful plan. And yet, we are everything! For God’s masterful plan is us! So be encouraged, though you weep and are without strength and do not feel in your flesh the power of the blessing given. For God has a plan and he does not fail. We move on because we have this hope which is incorruptible.

Mean time, the purpose of God’s plan is to make us holy and blameless before him. This is the greatest of spiritual blessings; indeed it is every spiritual blessing, for holiness is the life of God that gives and keeps on giving to sustain the life and joy of his creation. For this reason it is in love that we were predestined. And in this we see that even in this life of pain, we are receiving every blessing. For the sufferings of Christ are dwelling in us and transforming us through the tears to be a people who knows how to live for another, disregarding the shame of the cross for the joy set before us in the one who bore it and in whom the fulness of God was pleased to dwell so that we might be pleased to dwell within the fulness of God.

All-Consuming Fire; Quite Efficiant

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“And he is the head of the body, the church. 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, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

If God desired to unite all things in himself, that is all things, then what do we think of the powers of evil? Only a few verses before (in Colossians 1) it is written that all things were made through Jesus and for him. We are talking about everything that has been created. This includes Satan. What is meant by “all things?”

Religion and Ethics

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Morality must be defined as those actions which sustain and improve life. In an atheistic framework this can be the only definition for society. For outside of the survival of the species there is no standard for actions.

For the one who believes in God, morality is that which sustains life. But there is a different definition of life. Life is defined as a communion with the presence of God. For all things come from him and, in him, hold together. Therefore if actions are to be ordered for the good of all things, they must be ordered in a manner that reflects God’s presence.

The only way one can make a dichotomy between deontological ethics (ethics based solely on what God says) and teleological ethics (ethics which are purely practical and look to the outcome of one’s actions) is if one has not a working definition of ethics or of God.

All things come from God. In and of themselves they are nothing but empty shells, for they were meant to be filled with God