This morning I am continuing my journey of examining the non-rational aspects of the Gospel. What I mean is that at the very heart of the Gospel is a truth so profound that it offends our rational senses, our thoughts of how things should be, and seems too good to be true. In life, we usually find out that something that seems to good to be true, is indeed too good to be true, and putting our hope in something like that will lead to disappointment, or worse. In my choice of reading today I decided to shy away from Paul's logical fare and look at 1 Peter, not that he is illogical, but he certainly writes with less philosophical logic.
Here are the verses I am reflecting upon this morning - 1 Peter 1:3-12 NIV:
[3] "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, [4] and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, [5] who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. [6] In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. [7] These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith---of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire---may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. [8] Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, [9] for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls."
[10] "Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, [11] trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. [12] It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things."
Yesterday I was pondering the types and shadows, the themes that God introduced hundreds if not thousands of years before they were seen fulfilled, and today Peter is writing about the Prophets speaking about something they didn't fully understand or know how it would be presented. Prophets like Isaiah were writing 600-700 years before Christ Jesus was born, Abraham lived close to 2000 years before Christ. Each had revealed to them promises and themes that clearly spoke of a future time, and while they would have probably tried to understand what they heard, their ability to logically frame these things was quite impossible.
I like to look back on the history of the United States to get some idea of the passage of time, for even back to our earliest visit by Europeans, America is not even 500 years old. Western culture was alive and well in Europe much before this and while much has changed in the 500 years, we find no one from those days predicted, nor prophesied accurately about how our culture would evolve, or the revelations that would come to light in the ensuing years (at least not that I am aware of). There is a popularly known non-religious prophet named Nostradamus, who wrote a bunch of loosely interpreted predictions that have been twisted into all sorts of fanciful fulfillments from everything to the Nazi 1000 year reign to the attack on the world trade centers. Most were undated and about wars, earthquakes, and other worldly trauma ( I haven't read them, just summarizing recent commentaries) and while this seems interesting we find many similar verses in scripture, which predated his works by hundreds if not thousands of years.
What makes the Gospel so amazing to me is the utter illogical nature of it! I have written before of how this Gospel just doesn't match anything we, as humans, would think up for how an all-powerful, universe creating God would enact salvation upon the population of a planet. We have all sorts of ancient mythology dealing with gods and demi-gods, whether Greek, Roman, Norse, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, or Eastern, and I am unaware of any story that resembles the Gospel of Grace (note: again I am not an authority on any of these ).
Sorry - I just wonder off down a path that I could keep pursuing, but this draws me away from the focus verses today. Going back to Peter, He starts out with our "new birth", something which Jesus spoke of with Nicodemus. We are invited into the relationship with Christ, which results in us becoming a "new creation", one born of the Holy Spirit. While outwardly we look the same in our spirit-man we are transformed. In this transformative work, which is a free gift (Grace) from God, we become co-heirs with Christ Jesus, the Messiah. Our salvation is from sin and death and our invitation is to live the "heavenly life" that Jesus demonstrated to the world. We access all of this through faith at His invitation. The Lord laid the ground work for all of this through prophetic verses scattered throughout the Old Testament Prophets and writers, and while they wrote the verses, the authors never could comprehend the fulfillment of these words found in Christ Jesus. The looked intently into the future and were unable to see the time or nature of Christ.
We find this best represented by the common thinking of what the Messiah was going to do for the Jewish people. They were expecting a new king who would reign over all, defeating their enemies, establishing another earthly kingdom. The apostles were so understanding of this Messianic role, that they couldn't understand that Jesus was going to be betrayed, suffer and die, for this made no sense in their messianic understanding. We find even after His death and Resurrection, this thinking evident in the following, "Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”( Acts 1:6 NIV).
Peter is essentially laying out this same message, that this amazing Gospel is true, and even though our prophets wrote about it they didn't understand it, but now we are making it clear to you. The Gospel of Grace requires faith and nothing else. This faith requires us to step past our logic, past our thinking of how the Messiah should act, or how an all-powerful god would save us. We struggle with this and Paul writes about the "foolishness of the cross:" in his first letter to the Corinthians 1:18-21 NIV:
[18] "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
[19] For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
[20] Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? [21] For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."
My prayer today is that all those that struggle with the irrational nature of the Gospel would not stumble over this, but that they would lay down their need to understand everything, and accept the unexpected beauty of this Gospel! God Loves you as you are, has made a way for you to have relationship with Him, offers you the free gift of salvation, and only asks that you believe this truth!
Oh Lord, break through the walls of intellectualism! I pray that You would astound us once again, even as You did during your 3 years of public ministry, with unexplainable signs and wonders, miracles and healings that force us to reconsider our thoughts about You and our worldview.
Amen and Amen!
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