A Deo Lumen

“Man is now by nature a great, but tragic figure. Like some character in a Shakespearean tragedy, he still stands on center stage, but bears the marks of his own tragic destruction.”
- Sinclair Ferguson

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RECAP
As I have had time to reflect further, I see now that Ferguson’s statement succinctly captures the theological and existential tension underlying my posts and associated comments related to American Idol here and here.

In my first post, I asserted that “going the distance” was the decisive factor in the American Idol winner, because deep down people have greater respect underdogs and those who take the greater risks. KR provided that counterargument that no, people are generally superficial, and David Cook won AI not for “going the distance” but for “sex appeal” to the female audience.

The ensuing back-and-forth was a reminder to me of what happens when my heart gets ahead of my head, and when I fail to root such discussions to the clear teaching of Scripture. In some sense, both assertions are legitimate. After reading Ferguson’s Children of the Living God this weekend, I see the proper categories to make sense of this.

REFRAME
Our theological categories come from Romans 1, Ephesians 2, and Genesis 1. Romans 1 tells us that a fundamental characteristic of life outside of Christ is the systematic suppression of truth, even about yourself. According to Ephesians 2, this rejection puts us under the dominion of our sin.

Human sin is blindness of the most willful and self-destructive kind. What could be more tragic?

There is deep irony in this tragedy. When we willingly reject God and His Word to assert our own independence, we reject the only source of truth about ourselves, about the tragic realities facing us, and about God’s solution in Christ. What could be more troubling?

Alienation is the key word John Stott uses in his commentary on Ephesians to describe our lives in supposed independence from God. By rejecting God’s revealed truth in our consciences, in nature, and ultimately in Scripture, we alienate ourselves from God our Creator and from one another, our fellow creatures.

Sin sells us a bill of goods. It may feel like man has traveled some great distance in becoming more secular and less religious over Western history (and in many ways, this trend towards individual thoughtfulness and away from dogmatic acceptance of false claims in the name of religion has been good–most notably in the Protestant Reformation), but this is a sham. The further we get from God, the further we get from ourselves.

“Nothing is more dehumanizing than this breakdown of fundamental human relationships,” Stott sadly states.

Genesis 1:27 tells us why it is so dehumanizing: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created Him, make and female He created them.” We were made to be like God. And in a proper God-man orientation, we can have a proper man-woman orientation. By implication, all human relationships function properly and beautifully when we are rightly related to God.

RESOLVED
Jesus Christ came in the flesh to resolve this tragic alienation from God, others, and self due to our sin. 2 Corinthians 5:21 teaches that He was made to be sin, though He knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. While there are unsearchable depths to this idea that Christ was made to be sin, the main idea is what John Stott calls Divine self-substitution. It is the distance Jesus traveled in order to reconcile fallen men and women to our Maker.

From God. In the Incarnation, the Son of God left the pure pleasure of eternal fellowship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit in order to become a man. He did not need to subject Himself to the natural challenges of human life on earth, much less to the righteous wrath of God that is due us. In the Passion, when He prayed that the cup of God’s wrath be removed from Him, all He heard was the deafening silence. His cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is the climax of the alienation Christ experienced from God, indeed the climax of all human alienation ever experienced.

Jesus experienced this alienation so that God could adopt us as sons and daughters. May we constantly consider the distance He traveled in leaving heaven to become man and endure the Cross for us. He joyfully traveled that distance for us, so we should be always motivated with joy and no reluctance to bring His truth and love to others, whatever the cost to ourselves.

From others. As the only sinless person on earth, He experienced a kind of alienation and loneliness that we cannot imagine. Being fully God, Jesus was and is love. The nature of love is to pour oneself out for others. While this led him to Calvary for us, He had no true peers to truly understand Him. His loneliness must have been most difficult, given His pure heart of love and desire to share His deepest feelings about Himself and His mission as He felt them. We enjoy many of them now in Scripture, but as He walked, He was alone.

In light of this, we can consider the depth of His prayer life with the Father, and how personally hurtful and alienating it must have been to hear God’s silence in response to Christ’s prayers in Gethsemane. By His death, His disciples, His people, and His Father had abandoned Him to death, death for us. This is another way in which He became sin for us.

Should we not remember the alienation Christ endured for us when we are tempted to join with others who discuss or laugh at things we should not? Should this devotion to Christ not preserve us from compromising and joining in that common but crude talk that so often surrounds us? May we be fueled by a sense of honor for the alienation of Christ, who for our sake chose to be most profoundly alone. I think this is what Dr. Piper is after in calling us “outside the camp.” Thomas Hughes dives deep into this in his 1879 classic The Manliness of Christ.

From self. On the Cross, Jesus bore the guilt for our sin, which produced the most profound of all self-alienation. In Bible Doctrine, Wayne Grudem states, “Jesus was perfectly holy. He hated sin with his entire being. Thought of evil, of sin, contradicted everything in his character.” I can hardly imagine what it must have felt like for the eternal, perfect Son of God to be nailed to the Cross, bearing in Himself the guilt for my sin. As God “imputed” my guilt to Him, He can now impute Christ’s righteousness to me.

(As Grudem describes it, “imputing” means that God thought of my guilt as being Christ’s, which made it in Jesus’ direct experience, truly His.  And Christ was crucified for it.  In the same way, God thinks of Christ’s perfect obedience, or righteousness, as being mine, and on this basis–not my sin–God now relates to me.  And I am adopted for it.  This is the Great Substitution!)

May we never forget how Jesus, in becoming sin for us, endured such unfathomable alienation, in order to enable a Holy God to adopt us as His very children.

RESTORE
One reason why the reformed doctrine of the atonement is so beautiful and so vital is that it resolves this tension of our true identity. As Ferguson stated, “It sets us free from the world’s anxious quest to ‘be somebody.’ Being a new creation in Christ means we are free from that, and instead we have been made full heirs with Christ of God’s eternal love!

So, back to the concept that started this entire exploration, I see that proper view of “going the distance.” It begins with seeing the distance Christ traveled in alienation, so that a Holy God can adopt a sinful fool like me as His son. From there, I see the distance I must travel through a disciplined life to be conformed to Christ by obeying God’s truth in Scripture. As I do this, I turn the tables on my self-deception, and I can be increasingly restored to my true self, to a more faithful image-bearer of God. From here, the distance I must travel is to bring the news of Christ’s alienation and restoration to others, in a loving, truthful way.

Part of this context of self-discipline, means I should have a great appreciation for anyone, even on a show like American Idol, who travels a difficult distance to achieve their goal. In enduring difficulty to achieve important things in our lives, we display something of the infinite transcendence of God. Seeing this common grace in others should also produce a deep appreciation and respect for them, and a solid starting point for building a relationship, and upon that foundation, sharing the truth and love of Christ.

Furthermore, there is much that Christians can learn from non-Christians about self-discipline and sacrifice to meet one’s objectives. This too is a strong platform for friendship with others, even those who strongly oppose our Christian beliefs.

As much as non-Christians don’t want to hear the hard truths of the Christian message, isn’t there much that non-Christians can learn from Ferguson’s insight? Why try to “be somebody,” whether to prove someone else wrong, or to gratify some desire for a greater self-concept? Why not allow the saving grace of God to enter the equation?

RESTATE
The Christian message cannot be understood apart from the wrath that Christ endured for us, but we proclaim it to our non-Christian friends because our desire is for you to experience the pleasure of being adopted as a child of God, and to be free from alienation from the truth about God, others, and themselves.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). If you don’t know the freedom of having God as your Father, you only need to travel a short distance to become one. Repent of your many sins against Him, and submit your life to His Son, Jesus Christ. This means you must have faith that His alienation, atonement, and resurrection were for you! On this basis, you will then be restored to right relationship with God, others, and self.

There is nothing more amazing. Trust me, I have run hard after all manner of selfish pleasures. They were fun for some time. But now, through the saving grace of Christ, I experience true and satisfying achievement, despite any distance God places before us. This is what it means for our Father to treat us as His sons.