Koinonia in Communion

In 2019, I read Remembrance, Communion, and Hope: Rediscovering the Gospel at the Lord’s Table by J. Todd Billings. I chose to read this book because I have been bothered for a few years by the low frequency with which our church (and, more broadly, the evangelical church) chooses to practice communion. I have never heard an argument against practicing it more. I can only assume that we limit the frequency because of the time it takes during the worship service and perhaps the extra volunteer burden for preparation and clean-up. Billings opens with a wager:

...that a renewed theology and practice of the Lord’s Supper can be an instrument for congregations to develop a deeper, more multifaceted sense of the gospel itself. The fundamental reason for this is not anthropological but theological: the Supper is God’s own instrument for conforming believers to the image of Christ. The Supper is a God-given icon—displaying the Word in signs and actions in the assembled community—an icon that draws us into a divine drama by the power of the Spirit. In this icon, we do not simply reflect from a distance but we enter in, living into our new identities as adopted children of the Father and tasting fellowship with Christ and others in the covenant community.

Billings points out that our "functional theologies" may be different than our "stated theologies." He argues that both "traditional" and "contemporary" evangelical churches have a limited "functional theology" of the Lord's Supper that focuses solely on "remembrance of the cross," failing "to inhabit God's Word more fully." This inward focus of "individual devotion" results in a lack of hunger for "the multifaceted character of the gospel," which is about more than the forgiveness of sins. To address this problem, we need to develop a deeper hunger for God's Word. We need to view Christ the Word as more than a get out of hell free card. We need to abide in Christ for our spiritual food and nourishment (John 6:56).

Billings echoes K. A. Smith, suggesting that we need a counterliturgy of Christian worship to counteract the "secular" liturgies that turn our affections and behaviors away from Christ and His kingdom. We need to form our lives through "the church's distinctive repertoire of disciplines, from singing psalms to daily prayer to communing with Christ at the Supper." Both intellectual memorialism and human-centered revivalism fail to capture "the affective perception of the gospel" in which believers fellowship with God "through the means of Word and sacrament with his people." We ought not "reduce the benefits of the gospel to either forgiveness or transformation." Rather, we ought "to recover a multifaceted sense of the gospel by returning to the scriptural narrative of Israel, as fulfilled in Christ."

In the Reformed tradition, God uses the Supper as a means and instrument of grace, where believers receive the grace through the Spirit by faith. The sacrament or ordinance does not signify the faith of believers; rather, it signifies Jesus Christ. When we partake, we eat Christ's body and drink his blood by the Spirit through faith. Thus, we should focus not on objects but on the sign-action of enacting a communal meal, a foretaste of heaven. Our participation (koinonia) in the blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16) is always horizontal (with other believers) and vertical (with Christ).

To transform our identity "in the triune drama of salvation, then we need a robust and multifaceted remembrance of God's promises...inseparably connected with a present communion with our Lord Jesus Christ mediated by the Spirit...[and] a hope for the return of the same Christ, and the final consummation of creation giving way to the promised kingdom." In fact, the communion at the Supper is "a dual encounter with Christ and with others around the table." During this sacrament or ordinance, we should remember that we are rehearsing the future Supper in heaven, where there as now we will and do touch and taste, enjoying "the embodied fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ."

The Sufferings of a Reformed Galley Slave

Today, I finished reading The Huguenot Galley-Slave: Being the Autobiography of a French Protestant Condemned to the Galleys for the Sake of His Religion by Jean Marteilhe. I started this book two days ago while vacationing in Arizona. Prompted by my church's sermon series in 1 Peter, I started studying 1 Peter on my own last month. In his commentary The Message of 1 Peter, Edmund Clowney mentions a museum display in the mountains of southern France that refers to "the words of a Reformed Christian galley slave: 'My chains are the chains of Christ's love.'" Motivated to learn more about these Huguenot martyrs, I discovered the aforementioned autobiography, which provided a fascinating and humbling glimpse into the suffering of fellow believers. I set out to better understand the nature of suffering for the faith through the eyes of this galley slave, and I achieved my goal. This galley slave wrote, "…the more we suffer afflictions, the more we remember God." 

Throughout his account, Marteilhe shows a steadfast faith that exceeds any faith that I could imagine in the face of such dire circumstances. As a prisoner of the state for 13 years, half of those serving on a French galley, he never waivered from his conviction as that all his steps were in accordance with God's will, even when he missed an opportunity as a 16-year-old to avoid arrest: "But it was God's will that we should remain in this ignorance, so that our constancy and our faith should be put to trial during thirteen years of the most frightful misery in dungeons and in the galleys, as will be seen in the course of these memoirs."

His account should motivate Christian parents not to neglect our responsibility to instruct our children in the Lord: "We replied, that we placed our whole confidence in God, and that we resigned ourselves to His holy will; that we did not expect any human help and that by God's grace, which we should never cease to implore, we would never deny the Divine and true principles of our holy religion; that he must not believe it was through obstinacy or infatuation that we continued steadfast; that it was, thank God, through a firm conviction of the goodness of our cause, and that our parents had taken all possible care to instruct us in the truth of our religion and the errors of the Roman faith, that we might boldly profess the one, and avoid falling into the dangers of the other." Later in the book, he affirms the role of his parents once more: "…thanks to God and to my parents, I have been brought up and very well instructed in the principles of the reformed religion…"

The behavior of Marteilhe and his fellow Reformed prisoners reminded me of Paul and Silas in prison. While in prison, these Frenchmen "had prayers morning and evening," read sermons, and sang psalms, "so that [their] prison was something like a little church." In fact, their witness reversed the so-called conversions of many recent converts in Hayre-de-Grice to Roman Catholicism, who, after visiting these prisoners, recognized their own hypocrisy and, convicted by the actions and attitudes of the prisoners, came to a true faith in Christ.

If these men could face and endure bastinados (lashings to the brink of death), starvation, long marches carrying their 150-lb chains, endless days chained to a bench in a galley, and endless abuse and deceitful neglect by their captors, and yet affirm God's power, grace, and mercy on their behalf, what prevents me from giving all of myself for the sake of Christ, no matter what nature of persecution may follow? As Marteilhe so aptly states, "for when I consider that Jesus Christ, his apostles, and so many faithful Christians have been persecuted, according to the prophecy of their divine Saviour, I cannot but believe myself to be in the right road to salvation, since I am persecuted as they were."

Biblical Worship

The book Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship by David Peterson surveys the entire Bible, identifying themes that are relevant to our worship of God. From my reading of this excellent but challenging text, which includes fascinating analyses of key Hebrew and Greek words used by the biblical authors in the context of worship, I identified five key points, summarized below. 

1. Worship must be on God's terms, not our terms. Peterson's hypothesis is that "the worship of the living and true God is essentially an engagement with him on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible."
2. Worship is a whole-life activity (Romans 12:1-2), not a Sunday morning diversion. Peterson states, "Worship is a subject that should dominate our lives seven days a week. Vitality and meaning will not be restored to Christian gatherings until those who lead and those who participate can recover a biblical perspective on their meetings, seeing them in relation to God’s total plan and purpose for his people."
3. Jesus is the temple and we are his body, so we should honor and care for his body as the Israelites did for the physical temple in the Old Testament. The New Testament proclaims that Jesus Christ in union with his church is the new temple, where God dwells in or through the Spirit. (See, for example, 1 Corinthians 3:11–17 and Ephesians 2:18–22).
4. The Bible has something to say about our liturgy when we meet corporately. From the New Testament, we see that the first century church was preoccupied with apostolic teaching. Paul further emphasized in 1 Corinthians 14 that any words spoken during their gatherings should build up one another. Given the context of the home churches, they commonly shared meals together as part of their corporate fellowship. In addition, prayer was a core activity of their meetings.
5. Worship is more about reverence and respect than awe and fear (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Peterson states, "In the Old Testament, reverence or respect for God is essentially a matter of walking in his ways and keeping his commandments."

How do we as a church body respond to the commands and patterns for personal and corporate worship in God's Word? In 2019, Midland Free's worship arts ministry will be focusing on 24/7 worship, striving to make worship the subject that dominates our personal lives seven days a week. Although our ministry is music-centric, we will be encouraging one another to grow in our knowledge of God, to pray without ceasing, to serve the body of Christ, to give generously, to fulfill God's calling to worship Him in our vocations, and to lead or assist our families in times of worship, in all of these things rejoicing continually and giving thanks to God in all circumstances. The biblical church is one where its members build up one another in love. Together, we, the church, are building up  the temple of Christ's body, one spiritual brick at a time, eagerly "waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13, ESV).

God Is Light

Ever since high school physics, I have been intrigued, even awed, by the properties of light. Light provides at least two metaphors for the nature of God. In the first metaphor, the wave-particle duality of light teaches the concept of complementarity. Depending on the type of experiment used to observe the behavior of light, the human observer can show that the properties of light can be explained as waves or particles. These two different qualities are in apparent conflict, yet they are both true. In the same way, the principles of free will and determinism are both true when applied to our understanding of human behavior under the providence of a sovereign, omnipotent God. Likewise, the hypostatic union, the term describing the complementary attributes of Christ as fully human and fully divine, can be similarly understood.

In the second metaphor, the unique property of the speed of light as a universal constant in all reference frames as expressed in the theory of special relativity provides another illustration of God's nature. Einstein proposed, and many scientists have since confirmed, that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant, regardless of the relative speed of the observer. Likewise, God's standards and character are constant and unchanging—He is immutable. Furthermore, from the theory of special relativity, we know that an object of finite rest mass will increase in mass, decrease in length, and experience a dilation (slowing) in the elapse of time as seen by an external observer who is at rest. In fact, according to this theory, an object with mass cannot achieve the speed of light, because, if it did, its mass would become infinite, its length would become zero (invisible), and time would stand still, making it eternal. By analogy, John's statement that "God is light" has new meaning in light of the theory of special relativity, providing insight into God's infinite, invisible, and eternal nature.

The apostle John makes the simple statement that "God is light" in 1 John 1:5. It thrills me to think that the Holy Spirit inspired John to pen those words knowing that it would take almost two millennia before mankind would fully appreciate their significance.

Aftershadowers

I have been thinking and reading a lot about the church in the past few years, and I have been praying that our local church would be a shining example for our community and world. I have also been thinking about relationships lately, including and especially the marriage relationship. Today, I was reminded of a prophecy that helps me see another link between these categories.

In the Old Testament, Psalm 34:20 says, "He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken." According to the subtitle in the ESV, this psalm is "of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away." In writing this psalm, David is probably rejoicing that God protected even David's bones in this confrontation with his enemy, but he is also extrapolating from his circumstances to the circumstances of the righteous, making many proverbial statements leading up to this declaration of protection as he reminds the reader that "the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit," delivering the righteous out of all their afflictions.

If I read this Psalm on its own merits, I am encouraged to "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8), but I miss another level of meaning revealed by Jesus in John 19:36, where he quotes Psalm 34:20. John is describing the crucifixion of Jesus, when, at the request of the Jews, the Roman soldiers broke the legs of each of the thieves who were crucified with Jesus so that they would die in time to be removed before the Sabbath. When the soldiers approached Jesus, he was already dead, so they did not break his legs. John claims that Psalm 34:20 prophesies this event, but, without John's insight, I would certainly have missed that connection. In fact, in retrospect, my initial instinct is that John was grasping for meaning beyond the original intent of David in writing that psalm. After all, David does not explicitly identify his statement as a prophecy, and the context feels more like an exhortation to God's people to enjoy the benefits of their salvation from God as they live righteous lives.

In making this assessment, I am too near-sighted and too self-focused. I am reading the text to look for a personal application. I have forgotten that Jesus came "that the scripture would be fulfilled." All of the Old Testament is preparation for Jesus, looking ahead to Jesus, the Messiah who would save his people. In particular, Jesus was declared to be the son of David (Matt. 22:41-46) while also being David's Lord. Thus, David was a particularly important "type" of Jesus, his life and words foreshadowing Jesus. David's entire life was intended by God to foreshadow the coming Messiah, including the seemingly small detail that David's bones were not broken in his escape from Abimelech.

Now, I want to connect these concepts to the concept of marriage. In Ephesians 5:23, Paul writes that "the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior." Paul has provided us with an analogy, stating that the husband is the Christ-figure in the marriage relationship. Thus, just as David was used as a type, an example, a foreshadower, of Christ, so husbands are called to be examples or "aftershadowers" of Christ. David's example was not one of sinless perfection, but God used his life and circumstances to prepare his people for the coming Messiah and to explain the Messiah to those of us who live in the present age. In the same way, then, husbands are called to be "aftershadowers" of Christ, reverse prophecies that point back in time to Christ while also pointing to Christ in eternity, loving our wives as Christ loved the church so that the world will see our living examples and thereby "taste and see that the Lord is good."

The God Who Spins

This morning, our congregation opened the singing portion of our worship with these words as a modern chorus added to a classic hymn, Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee:

We sing in jubilation adoration to a joyful King
You are spinning and You are singing
Zealous love over all Your children

Spinning? Huh? What's with that? I couldn't ask our congregation to sing a song about our Lord "spinning" without a clear biblical explanation. So, in preparing for this morning, I did some homework. Thankfully, the writers of that chorus (Charlie Hall and Trent Austin) appear to have been studying their Hebrew. In Isaiah 65:17-19 (ESV), the prophet attributes these words our Lord, Yahweh:

"For behold, I create new heavens
      and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
      or come into mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
      in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
      and her people to be a gladness.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
      and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
      and the cry of distress."

I don't know Hebrew, but my digital interlinear Bible and lexicon tell me that the noun and verb forms of the same Hebrew root word (gyl, גִּיל) are translated joy and rejoice in this passage. Now, here's where this gets interesting. According to Strong, this root means "to spin round (under the influence of any violent emotion)."^[1] Thus, in this verse, the only reference I can find in the Old Testament where the subject for this particular Hebrew verb is God, Isaiah uses the word for rejoice that has a sense of motion, of spinning. 

Now, I know that "God is spirit" (John 4:24), so this sense of motion is likely not within the bounds of the time-space continuum. However, I think God gave these words to Isaiah so that we would understand that this rejoicing is that uninhibited, no-holds-barred, dancing, singing, shouting, whooping, and hollering type of rejoicing that we barely sample just a few times in our earthly existence. Importantly, we are commanded earlier in this same passage, using that same verb, to rejoice forever in God's creation, his people, the church.

I am reminded of my daughter as a young girl. She had an affinity for a particular type of dress, the dress with a full skirt that opened up as she spun around. We called these dresses "spinny dresses." At times, when she could not contain her joy, she would just spin and spin and spin some more in her spinny dress. This childlike expression of unrestrained joy is the heart attitude that I seek as I worship God. I look forward to that future state in the new heavens and the new earth in which I will see my Lord rejoice and be glad in his people, and I will rejoice and be glad with his people. Hallelujah, praise God!

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^[1] Strong, J. (2009). A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible (Vol. 2, p. 27). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.

Real Men Reject Passivity

This Sunday is week two of six in The Art of Marriage, a class Sarah and I are facilitating at church.  The Scriptural focus for this week is Genesis 3, the most important chapter in the whole Bible for understanding the Christian worldview.  This chapter explains why things are as they are, providing the reason for death and suffering but also providing the first glimpse of the gospel.  That glimpse is encapsulated in verse 15,

And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.” (NIV)

In speaking to the serpent, the Lord God (Yahweh Elohim) makes the first messianic prophecy recorded in all of history, the Protoevangelium.  From the beginning of sin, God planned to deliver His people by crushing the head of Satan.

How did humanity find itself in need of a Savior?  Earlier verses in this chapter clearly show the path to sin.  While there are many lessons we can glean from this passage, in the context of the husband-wife relationship, one important lesson strikes me as a husband: Adam is credited with the sin.  Sure, Eve is also at fault, but God curses the ground because of Adam.  All of creation groans (Romans 8:22) because Adam "listened to [his] wife and ate from the tree."  The Hebrew word for listened is shama, suggests that Adam yielded to or obeyed his wife.  He agreed to follow her rather than obey God.

I think Adam's sin is largely the sin of passivity.  Rather than actively asserting God's command and correcting his wife, he passively went along with her suggestion to eat the fruit.  Then, when confronted by God, Adam blames Eve.  He even blames God for giving Adam this woman.  Rather than leading his wife away from sin, Adam passively followed her into sin, choosing a way of life marred with curses and a broken relationship with his creator.

When my son was young, I learned about Robert Lewis's four principles of biblical manhood.  Lewis teaches that "real men" (1) reject passivity, (2) accept responsibility, (3) lead courageously, and (4) expect the greater reward.  Genesis 3 reveals the consequences of failing to be a "real man."  In one brief series of events, Adam disobeyed God by (1) passively accepting Eve's plan to disobey God, (2) failing to accept responsibility for his passivity, (3) following into sin rather than leading away from sin, and (4) accepting a lesser reward rather than expecting the greater reward.  Men would be wise to learn from Adam's mistake by resisting our natural tendency toward passivity.  We must actively and relentlessly pursue our true calling in Christ.