Faith for Faith

The life of a Christian must be to the world an odd existence. For the Christian life, when lived properly, is a life that is lived backwards rather than forwards. For while the rest of the world attempts to live life to its fullest at the present time (or as the old Latin phrase puts it, carpe diem), the Christian lives his life in the light of his future Hope, namely that Day when his faith shall become sight and when he receives his glorified body and lives forever in the splendor and the joy of the glory of his God. It is what Mark Driscoll labeled it, reverse engineering, for our lives here on this earth are to be “engineered” in such a fashion that our blessed Hope is demonstrated and fulfilled by our lives.

The apostle Paul puts it this way: “In this hope [viz. the redemption of our bodies] we were saved” (Rm. 8:24). For the salvation of our Gospel is laid in store for us in Eternity, when we who bear the curse of Adam shall be ridden of our dead bodies and rise as Christ rose by the glory of the Father (cf. Rm. 6:4). This is the glorious Promise and Hope that our God has granted to us, and it is a Promise and Hope that transforms our lives here upon this planet.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | 1 Comment »

For those who follow the Lord, the commands of the Lord may seem counter-intuitive. For those who marched around Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, the command by the Lord to march around Jericho and to shout on the last day to overcome the city likely did not happen without a few raised eyebrows. Nevertheless, the Israelites, in one of their rare moments of complete obedience, did not grumble but trusted the Lord without hesitance. For this reason, the Israelites prevailed over Jericho and moved onward to obtain the Promised Land which the Lord had already given into their hands.

Though today, the people of God will not be called to march around a city to accomplish its ruin, they are called to live a life that is as counter-intuitive as was the battle plan against Jericho. For many of the great commands of our Lord: “Lose your life that you might gain it” (Lk. 17:33), “Sell your possessions so that you might have treasure in heaven” (Mt. 19:21; cf. Mt. 13:44), “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” (Lk. 20:25), and “Seek to live peaceably with all men” (Rm. 12:18), etc.–all these go against what is preached by the world and what is ingrained in our natural minds and instincts. For the world tells us to seek for our life in this age, to hoard up for ourselves treasures in this world, to fight against paying taxes to the governing authorities, and to stir up discord for the sake of our rights. And if we are found living as Christ commanded rather than as the world commands, many eyebrows will be raised in the process.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Just a Thought | No Comments »

The apostle Paul declares, “To live is Christ; to die is gain” (Php. 1:21). Regardless of where he is in life, the Christian is drenched in hope, and when he dies, his hope will be realized. Therefore, death for the Christian is the passage into eternal Delight in his Savior, and should not be something that is feared, but it should be something that is waited for with eager expectation, for, “If we have died with Christ [by baptism], we believe that we will also live with him” (Rm. 6:8). Therefore, today, I remember my Inheritance in a sonnet I composed some years ago:

Sonnet I

My belovéd Death! far too long have I
Been unfaithful to thee, giving Diblaim’s bed
To blind Desire and feigned Hope in thy stead.
Yet, how could I’ve known thee, hid ‘hind the lie
Of dye-drenched grayed hair and suppresséd sigh?
Seeing thee a foreign tyrant, I fled
From thy distance-blurred image to wed
One less loving to escape thy ill-bye.
I was deceived! Thou art not ill, indeed
Thou art the balm for my indifferent heart!
Come nigh to me (not too close!) and impart
The power thou gavest Keats in his age.
Breathe into me, sweet Death! cause me to bleed,
Fix my gaze past thee, my might never assuage.

Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Poetry | No Comments »

Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord (Rm. 12:11).

Following quickly upon the heels of the apostle’s exhortation to let the love of Christians be genuine, the apostle admonishes the church at Rome to “Not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.”

The exhortation is one that chastises complacency in the Christian’s life. For, as the apostle intimates earlier, this life in this present age fails to compare with the Life promised to us in the age to come. More than that, this present passing age has great consequence upon our future Life, for how one conducts himself in this life dictates and declares where one’s true hope rests. For this reason, the apostle writes earlier:

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Fridy Night Bible Study | No Comments »

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city (Heb. 11:13-16).

Driving home from the work the other day, I spotted a bumper sticker on the back of some man’s truck which said in essence, “God gives freedom to those who are willing to die to protect it.” This sticker echoes the sentiment of many who call themselves Christians in America, who love their country dearly and who have gone to fight or have sent sons or daughters to fight for the sake of this country. And, on the surface, our freedom is a great gift accomplished by those who were willing to die for their country, for because of their sacrifice, we live in relative freedom and from fear of attack and persecution.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | No Comments »

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God (Heb. 11:5).

The story of Enoch is one of the more interesting in the Genesis narrative, not necessarily because of his life, but because he did not see death. We find in Genesis 5 that Enoch walked with the Lord, and he did so all the days of his life by his faith in the Lord. Therefore God was pleased with Enoch, and, in his good pleasure, took Enoch so that he would not die.

The testimony of the life of Enoch is a great one indeed, for Enoch’s taking from this earth by the Lord at the relatively young age of 365 demonstrates, first, where Enoch’s hope rested. Had Enoch desired this life and its present luxuries, he would have likely lived, at those before and after him, past nine hundred years. However, as it was, Enoch’s greatest treasure was the Lord, and the Lord saw fit to give him the desire of his heart, expressly God himself.

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | No Comments »

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him (Romans 8:16,17).

Concerning ourselves, there is not a more shocking reality than our adoption as sons into the family of God. While we, in our own imaginations, might contrive a God that would spare us our due penalty out of love or might contrive, as the prodigal son did, a Father who would hire us as a servant out of pity, our adoption by the Father as sons is totally off the radar.

The most significant part of this reality is our adoption as sons. All of the saints of God, regardless of their sex, have been adopted as sons into the family of God. The gender of the phrasing is significant, for our adoption as sons entails an inheritance whereas an adoption as a daughter would not. And this inheritance is no petty inheritance (as if an inheritance from God could ever be!), but is the very inheritance of Jesus Christ, God’s one and true Son! The Apostle writes that we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ his Son–the same Son to whom the Father gives the nations as his inheritance in Psalm 2:8. What a glorious thought!

But, the Apostle also writes, “[We are] fellow heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” As glorious a thought being fellow heirs with Christ is, equally sobering should be the phrase, “provided that we suffer with him.” The Apostle says that our sonship and our subsequent inheritance are contingent upon our suffering with Christ in this life. How foreign a concept that is to the American Church!–to us who strive to live our “best lives now” and who try to minimize and eliminate all suffering in our lives.

“What is the nature of this suffering that Paul is writing about?” “How do we suffer with Christ?” These are all valid questions that we need to answer if we desire any amount of surety with regards to our sonship and inheritance, for if we do not suffer with Christ, we have no reason to expect an inheritance. Here are my thoughts on these questions:

Our Sufferings are to be Voluntary and Intentional
I am afraid that the typical American Christian would interpret the sufferings of which the Apostle speaks as strictly those that come upon us for being named with Christ. To that Christian, the sufferings in our cultural context would perhaps fall along the lines of being ridiculed for the Gospel or losing a job for being a Christian–things that are possibilities in America but are not very likely. To him, suffering is a passive thing–something to be endured if encountered but avoided if possible.

I believe however that our sufferings should be, well, more like the sufferings of Christ. In his life, Christ suffered in countless ways. Passively, he was ridiculed and harassed by the Jews who did not believe, but most of his sufferings were sought intentionally. He intentionally deprived himself and became a man; he intentionally humbled himself and washed the feet of his disciples; and he intentionally gave himself up to be nailed upon a cross and there intentionally bore our sins. Therefore, if we are to suffer with Christ, we must be intentional about our suffering.

We Suffer with Christ When We Suffer for Our Brothers
Christ said, “Greater love has no one that this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Our lives, in order to reflect the life of Christ’s, must be a laying of them down for the sake of our friends. We may not ever be called to die in the place of a brother or sister in Christ, but we are all called to regard each other as better than ourselves. I firmly believe that Paul gives so much praise in his letters to the Macedonians because they got this. They understood what it meant to regard their brothers in Christ as better themselves, and they proved it by joyfully giving beyond their means and out of their extreme poverty. They were the epitome of suffering with Christ.

How do we suffer with Christ, or do we at all? Do we intentionally seek to suffer for Christ’s sake, and do we intentionally seek suffering by regarding our brothers and sisters in Christ as better than ourselves? We had better find definite answers to these questions, for our sonship and inheritance are contingent upon them.

Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | No Comments »