Absurd Clergy, Awesome Christ

You may have noticed that clergymen in 18th-19th century British novels are often absurd characters. Mr. Collins in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a good example of this. 

Mr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great politeness by the whole family. Mr. Bennet indeed said little; but the ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed neither in need of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself. He was a tall, heavy-looking young man of five-and-twenty. His air was grave and stately, and his manners were very formal. He had not been long seated before he complimented Mrs. Bennet on having so fine a family of daughters, said he had heard much of their beauty, but that, in this instance, fame had fallen short of the truth; and added, that he did not doubt her seeing them all in due time well disposed of in marriage….

They were not the only objects of Mr. Collins’s admiration. The hall, the dining-room, and all its furniture, were examined and praised; and his commendation of everything would have touched Mrs. Bennet’s heart, but for the mortifying supposition of his viewing it all as his own future property. The dinner, too, in its turn, was highly admired; and he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellence of its cookery was owing. But here he was set right by Mrs. Bennet, who assured him, with some asperity, that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen. He begged pardon for having displeased her. In a softened tone she declared herself not at all offended; but he continued to apologize for about a quarter of an hour.

I do not think it is possible to really read Pride and Prejudice without grins and periodic guffaws (or more feminine giggles, if you are a lady). Mr. Bennet later compliments Mr. Collins on his talent for “flattering with delicacy,” and the ridiculous rector explained:

“They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time; and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible.”

Of course, Mr. Collins was an Anglican—what the Presbyterian Mattie Ross in Charles Portis’s mid-20th century American novel would derisively call a “kneeler”—but his horror at reading novels would have found approbation among the Scottish Covenanters, even if they would have never approved of him.

By tea-time… Mr. Bennet was glad to take his guest into the drawing-room again, and when tea was over, glad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies. Mr. Collins readily assented, and a book was produced; but on beholding it (for everything announced it to be from a circulating library) he started back, and, begging pardon, protested that he never read novels. Kitty stared at him, and Lydia exclaimed. Other books were produced, and after some deliberation he chose “Fordyce’s Sermons.”

Of course he did. If you fail to get the joke, look up the two volumes published by James Fordyce (another Presbyterian) in 1766. Whether you scowl or chuckle, you will know who you are in the story.

Now there is a good reason that clergymen are portrayed as somewhat ridiculous in these novels, and it is not only that some of the authors were a bit worldly in their character. It is that clergymen often have been ridiculous. Like Mr. Collins, they can sometimes be stuffy, self-important, and ingratiating. Many of them were, and are, absurd. If I had a dollar for every minister I know who is slightly effeminate, I would have a lot of dollars.

Now compare this image to the OT prophets. How does Mr. Collins measure up to Moses, Elijah, or Jeremiah? Can you imagine Amos amusing himself in his downtime by “suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions”? What about the meek and gentle Jesus whose hands were strong and calloused from carpentry and who was known to flip over tables and run people out of the Temple with a whip on occasion? (We have been assured by our theological betters that the Lord would not have used the whip on any people. He only waved it around to scare them.) How would Mr. Collins and his brand of winsome, womanish, womanizers compare to the apostle Paul, his body scarred from being whipped and stoned, his eyes dim and his voice quiet but his pen sparking like fire? What might we say about Polycarp, Ignatius, Athanasius, St. Nick, St. Patrick, John Knox, and John Paton? The truth is God’s men throughout history have been men, not soft bellied milquetoasts who happen to be male.

The fact is that Christian religion in the West has been increasingly feminized for centuries. Listen to the difference between the ancient psalms and medieval hymns and the 19th century revival tunes. Can you understand how we now have contemporary “Christian” music that sounds like a Taylor Swift song? In most churches that I have served over the last 25 years, the women were the backbone of the congregation. That is no longer true where I serve now, and I hope it never will be again. Thank God for strong, faith-filled women who pray even when their men don’t, but when Israel’s strength lies in their women, something is dreadfully wrong.

Can you imagine Mr. Collins confronting King Saul, rebuking his disobedience, and then grabbing a sword and hacking King Agag into pieces? Father Mapple would have keelhauled him, Agag that is. I can’t imagine what he would do with someone like Mr. Collins. He probably would have simply walked away in disgust.

Dads, be a model of strong, masculine godliness for your children every day in your home. Take your children to church every Lord’s Day, and lead them in worship. They need to hear you sing, not timidly and not like a woman, but like a sailor, like a warrior, like a king. They need to hear you say, “Amen!”, to see you follow along in your Bible and pay attention during the sermon. They need you to ask them about it when you return home to see what they learned, because you are expecting them to learn, and they need to know that you are excited about what you are learning too. They need to see you smile and laugh, enjoying the fellowship of the saints, not scowling and dour. They need to see that the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Moms, help your children understand that Christianity is not a ladies’ social club where men are invited. This is God’s kingdom and ruled by a mighty King. Your sons are warriors, your daughters are shield maidens, and they are arrows in the hands of a warrior to be aimed, drawn, and fired downrange.

Brothers and sisters, it is an awesome privilege and duty to which we are called by our Lord. We need to bring the proper mindset. Christianity is not ridiculous, even if some of its representatives and popular portrayals may be. Laugh at the absurdity of weak sauce versions of Christianity, but do not let them determine your perspective or participation in the joyful service of the King. When Paul commanded the Corinthians to “quit like men” (play the man or be strong, 1Cor. 16:13), he did not mean pretend to pull a hamstring or get in touch with your feminine side, and he addressed that exhortation to the women too. It is for all of us, sons and daughters, to serve manfully, live joyfully, fight honorably, and die bravely. Boldly rejoice in Christ Jesus, the risen King! --JME

God’s Book and Great Books

The Great Books are central to humane learning and study of the liberal arts. While there will remain some dispute over exactly which books ought to be in the canon of Great Books, the list contains those volumes which have most profoundly influenced western civilization over time. They include works by Plato, Aristotle, and Aeschylus; Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas; Nietzche, Marx, and Freud. The Great Books include philosophy and poetry, theological treatises and plays, scientific works and novels. All have contributed to human understanding; each one has captured some aspect of human learning in the pursuit of wisdom.

Ultimately, however, the Great Books can only be a mirror, summary, and exposition of the truth found in the greatest book of all, God’s Word, the Bible. Jesus affirmed in his High Priestly prayer: “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). The Scriptures are “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2Tim. 3:16-17). Moreover, “every word of God proves true” (Prov. 30:5), “the words of Yahweh are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times” (Psa. 12:6), “the entirety of [his] word is truth” (Psa. 119:160). The Bible’s claim is not merely to be true but to reveal and be the truth, objectively. Therefore, to whatever extent truth is found in the Great Books, it is a reflection and elaboration of truths made known in the Bible.

This is not to say that the Scriptures reveal all the truth that can be known. The Bible affirms that God’s glory is known both in God’s Law (Psa. 19:7-11) and in the natural world which he created (Psa. 19:1-6). Therefore, truth may be discovered outside of the Scriptures, but not which is contrary to the Scriptures. “God is responsible for all good things: of some, like the blessings of the Old and New Covenants, directly; of others, like the riches of philosophy, indirectly” (Clement of Alexandria, 169). Students of the humanities may plunder the wealth of the Greeks and Romans, Stoics and Epicureans, sufi and samurai, even skeptics, in a manner reminiscent of Israel’s plundering of the Egyptians (cf. Origen, 177-179).

Wisdom may be acquired in various ways: from personal experience, from shared human experience, and from hearing God's Word with godly fear. But perfect wisdom, true wisdom, comes from divine revelation received in the fear of God (Prov. 1:7; 9:10). The “wisdom of this world” is actually foolishness insofar as it contradicts godly fear and divine revelation (1Cor. 1:18-2:16). As Clement of Alexandria rightly observed: “The Savior’s teaching is sufficient without additional help, for it is ‘the power and wisdom of God.’ The addition of Greek philosophy does not add more power to the truth” (175). Worldly “truth” that defies biblical truth is not true. Worldly “wisdom” that shuns the fear of God is not wise. But to say that extra-biblical literature is unnecessary is not to say it is unhelpful. Unbelievers may be very wise, in a worldly way, and there is much that can be learned from them in the Great Books and the story of their lives. But their wisdom and insight can never match or correct the perfect wisdom and truth revealed by God in the greatest book of all, the Bible.

How then are we to read and learn from Great Books? We must do so by reading them through the lens of God’s book. As Basil the Great counseled young men in the 4th century: “You should not surrender to these men [authors of great literature] once for all the rudders of your mind, as if of a ship, and follow them whithersoever they lead; rather, accepting from them only that which is useful, you should know that which ought to be overlooked” (182-183). The insights of the best ancient authors are like “the reflection of the sun in water” (Ibid.), the sun itself being God’s own revelation. Basil goes on to describe how one ought to imitate what he finds to be virtuous in pagan literature and shun what is evil (183-187). He admits that “we Christians shall doubtless learn all these things more thoroughly in our own literature” (187), referring to the Christian Scriptures, but the great theologian and Church Father recognized the opportunity and advantage of learning virtue from the pagan writers whose works amply illustrate it (188).

Many will demur and insist that the Bible is, at most, only one more contribution to the great conversation and not the greatest of all. But this is not the general consensus of the last two thousand years during which even skeptical and agnostic authors have acknowledged the foundational nature of Scripture’s influence upon western civilization and the crucial role it has played in informing western thought. Whether the Bible’s own testimony of itself is accepted or not, the impact it has had is undeniable. A student of the humanities would do well to read with the Bible in one hand and the Great Books in the other. The one who does so may soon discover that in God’s own revelation “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).

–JME

All quotations are from The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being, edited by Richard M. Gamble (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2017).

The God Who Knows the Way Out of the Grave

Revelation 11: The God Who Knows His Way Out of the Grave

Resurrection Sunday, 2021 -- Reformation OPC (AZ)

Introduction

What do you suppose the Devil hoped to accomplish? We know Satan put it into Judas’s heart to betray Christ. The plot of the Jewish leaders was clearly demonic, and the indifference and cruelty of the Romans who collaborated in Jesus’ crucifixion can only be the behavior of those whose hearts are in bondage, whose eyes are blind, and whose bodies are under the influence of dark forces that lie beyond the vision of our eyes. Satan orchestrated the betrayal, arrest, and execution of the Son of God, yet he knew Jesus was the Son of God. He was under no illusions. Every time Jesus came near a demonized person, the demon would rush forward, confess or acknowledge him as the Holy One, and submit to his commands. Even the demons believe and tremble. So it is not as though the Devil was ignorant of Jesus’ true identity. It cannot be that he imagined he could destroy the divine, eternal Son of God. What, then, was the point of the cross?

Contrary to imaginative portrayals of the passion, Satan didn’t know what Christ was doing in offering himself to die. He did not understand that this was an act of propitiation. He did not see that by killing the God-Man he was actually slitting his own throat and guaranteeing the ultimate triumph of God’s kingdom. These truths were announced in the Hebrew Bible, yes, but they were hidden in plain sight. The angels longed to understand what God foreordained, they longed to see it, because they did not understand it. No one but the Trinity did, until it was accomplished.

Satan must have believed the cross was to his advantage, and I assume it was because he thought the same things about the kingdom of God that all the Jews did: that it would be an earthly kingdom established at Jerusalem. Perhaps he could not end the Son of God, but he could crush any change of him ruling as a King like David. Or so he thought. So he threw Jesus into the briar patch, which as it turns out is exactly where the Lord intended to go all along.

The Event on Which Everything Depends: The Resurrection of Jesus

The resurrection of Christ is the story that never gets old, the story we should recount to our children, our grandchildren, and ourselves for as long as we live. It is the story of our Exodus, the true Passover, the day God overcame sin, death, and the Devil forever. The victory was won, the kingdom of darkness was decisively defeated, and the salvation of God’s saints was assured.

The facts of the story are simple. On the third day after Jesus’ crucifixion, early on the first day of the week, Christ rose from the dead and left Hades in a glorified, imperishable body. The stone which sealed the entrance of the tomb was rolled back, an angel descended in power, and the guards who watched the grave fainted with fear. When a group of women arrived a short time later, the guards were gone, and they found the open tomb but not Christ’s body. Angels appeared and spoke to them. They ran to find the male disciples and were met by the risen Jesus before they got very far. When the men finally arrived, they saw a tomb that was unoccupied but not empty. The burial wrappings that had been left behind and the face cloth that was neatly folded testified that this was not a robbery or mystery but rather the fulfillment of prophecy. Christ really was alive. He appeared to many disciples over the next forty days, meeting and eating with them and speaking of the work they would carry on after his ascension to the Father. He would be absent in body but would be present with them through the Holy Spirit who would come and empower them in their work of proclaiming and establishing God’s kingdom.

Some wise fools imagine the resurrection of Jesus is merely a fantastic tale, an origin story whose real value and power lies in symbolism disconnected from history. We all know, of course, that people don’t really rise from the dead. Resurrection is only a metaphor. What’s important is to understand what it means. Never has someone come so close to grasping truth only to miss it at the last second. Of course resurrection is a metaphor; it’s repeatedly used that way in Scripture. But it isn’t Christ’s resurrection that is the metaphor. Christ’s resurrection is the reality that all of the other resurrection metaphors point to. We are raised with Christ in regeneration and baptism, not bodily, true enough, but spiritually. But if there is no historical resurrection, there is no metaphor. Anyone who thinks he can have a metaphorical resurrection without an historical one only proves he does not understand how metaphors work.

The Bible presents the resurrection as a historical reality. It was a real event two thousand years ago. It was prefigured by many other historical types of resurrection, and it is associated with many metaphorical comparisons and theological applications. But make no mistake, if Christ was not raised, then Christianity is a false and pointless religion. You might as well be an Epicurean, or if you are more inclined to discipline and virtue, a Stoic or a Buddhist. But if Christ did not really rise from the dead, then there is no forgiveness of sins, no hope of life after death, no transcendent point to anything you do here. We are bags of highly evolved meat, monkeys pretending to live meaningful lives, stardust colliding with stardust and trying to convince ourselves it is important.

And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. (1Cor. 15:14-19)

The Christian faith, the Christian Church, and the meaning of the world ultimately depend on the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. If Jesus was raised, then there is a God, we are made in his image, and we will one day answer to him. If Jesus rose, then all of the dead will rise again one day and exist forever either in the glory of the new heavens and earth or in Hell. If Jesus is alive, then we have pardon, peace, a purpose for living, and power to do so, because we have a Mediator with God in the heavens. But if he was not raised, life is pointless; we should all just go home.

The Church’s Story: Death and Resurrection

These are the facts of the case, and it is important that we recite them on a regular basis. We need to be clear on the centrality, priority, and necessity of the resurrection of Jesus. But today we are looking at Revelation 11, and you may be wondering why. There’s no explicit reference in that chapter to the resurrection of Christ, though his crucifixion is mentioned in v.8. But surely you will have noticed the implicit comparison between the experience of these witnesses and the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is not a coincidence that they rise again on the third day, though the three and a half days have an even broader significance than just that analogy. I want to think about Revelation 11 with you today because it is a study in the Church’s life, ministry, and history in miniature. This is our story: death and resurrection, just like Jesus.

There are many different interpretations of the Book of Revelation, and I do not intend to get down in the weeds today and deal with all the interpretive questions. Depending on what you think about the date, context, and perspective of the book, you may interpret this chapter in many different ways. But the lesson I want to draw out of it should be acknowledged by every school of thought, so that no matter what you think the specific context is, the broader application remains.

In the chapter we have several important events. First, the Temple is measured. This draws on an earlier prophecy in Ezekiel 40-43 in which the eschatological Temple was measured, and it is consistent with a common feature in biblical prophecy in which before judgment is poured out, God assures his people that he knows them, marked them, and will keep them through the storm. Second, there is a prophecy that the holy city will be overrun by the nations for forty-two months. Here we are reminded of Psalm 79:1-3:

O God, the nations have come into Your inheritance; Your holy temple they have defiled; They have laid Jerusalem in heaps. The dead bodies of Your servants They have given as food for the birds of the heavens, The flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the earth. Their blood they have shed like water all around Jerusalem, And there was no one to bury them.

Third, the two witnesses are introduced and described. They are associated with the olive trees and lampstands found in Zechariah 3-4 and wield power like Moses and Elijah. The story is then told: how the witnesses prophesy, the beast rises out of the pit and kills them in the city of wickedness, their bodies are left exposed on the street, the world rejoices over their death and exchanges gifts in merry celebration of the silencing of God’s messengers, then God raises the two witnesses from death, they ascend into heaven, and judgment falls on the City of Man.

Who are these two witnesses? Some may associate them with future, end-times characters, but they are clearly described in ways that associate them with God’s prophetic witness throughout redemptive history. Moses and Elijah, the two olive trees, the two lampstands, the King and Priest in Zechariah who stand before the Lord and who are opposed by Satan. The two witnesses are the testimony of the Law and prophets, and by extension, the faithful Church as a witness to the world.

“In [Jesus’] death, the entire Covenant community and its Testimony lie dead in the streets of Jerusalem, under the Curse.” -Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, 283

But look at what happens. Just when it seems the cause is defeated, the prophets silenced, and all hope lost, what occurs? Resurrection. The witnesses rise. The Church rises. Satan tried to defeat Christ, but he failed. He tried to destroy the Church by means of persecution, but it grew stronger. Revelation 11 is a picture of the Church in the present age living in the power of the resurrection. We have been raised with Christ to eschatological life. We may be killed, but never conquered.

“Through the resurrection of Christ, the Church and her Testimony became unstoppable. In union with Christ in His Ascension to glory (Eph. 2:6), they went up to heaven in the Cloud, and their enemies beheld them. The Witnesses did not survive the persecutions; they died. But in Christ’s resurrection they rose to power and dominion that existed not by might, nor by power, but by God’s Spirit, the very breath of life from God.” --Chilton, 284 

“The story of the Two Witnesses is therefore the story of the witnessing Church, which has received the divine command to Come up here and has ascended with Christ into the Cloud of heaven, to the Throne (Eph. 1:20-22; 2:6; Heb. 12:22-24); She now possesses an imperial grant to exercise rule over the ends of the earth, discipling the nations to the obedience of faith (Matt. 28:18-20; Rom. 1:5).” --Chilton, 284

The Religion of Resurrection

Christianity is a religion of resurrection. This is not true of any other world religion, nor of false religions that represent themselves as if they were Christian (e.g. Mormons). Hinduism is a religion of reincarnation, Buddhism a religion of ethics, Judaism and Islam religions of tradition carried on by formal practices. We’re not merely identifying doctrines in these cases but defining characteristics. Resurrection defines Christianity. It is more than just a tenet of the faith. Yes, we believe in Jesus’ historical resurrection. Yes, we believe there will be a general resurrection of all the dead on the last day. But resurrection is more than just events on a timeline: it is the defining character of the Christian Church and of her faith.

The title for our sermon today is The God Who Knows His Way Out of the Grave, and that language is taken from The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton. This is one of Chesterton’s most important works, an historical apologetic for the Christian faith and one of the major influences to C. S. Lewis’s conversion. In his Prefatory Note, GKC explains the thesis of the book “is that those who say that Christ stands side by side with similar myths, and his religion side by side with similar religions, are only repeating a very stale formula contradicted by a very striking fact.” Everlasting Man argues that Christ is the true myth to which all other make-believe myths only point or echo.

In the last chapter, Chesterton describes the five times in history the Christian Church died.

“Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave. … Europe has been turned upside down over and over again; and … at the end of each of these revolutions the same religion has again been found on top. The Faith is always converting the age, not as an old religion but as a new religion." --G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, 250 

“The Faith is not a survival…. It has not survived; it has returned again and again in this Western world of rapid change and institutions perpetually perishing. Europe, in the tradition of Rome, was always trying revolution and reconstruction; rebuilding a universal republic. And it always began by rejecting this old stone and ended by making it the head of the corner; by bringing it back from the rubbish-heap to make it the crown of the capitol.” --GKC, 252 

“At least five times… the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died.” --GKC, 255

Pay attention to what Chesterton says there. Think about how it relates to what we saw in Revelation 11. The Christian Church can be killed; it cannot be conquered. It may lie slain in the street as the wicked dance and celebrate with delight, but it will rise again. Death could not hold the Son of God, and it will not be able to hold his Body, the Church, no matter how violently the Evil One tries to put it down. The Church’s history is not characterized by persistence in the face of adversity. It is characterized by death and resurrection, again and again. The Church lives in the power of Christ’s resurrection throughout the present age.

Who would have believed the Church could survive early Roman persecutions? Christians were martyred in gruesome and malicious ways. Yet rather than being stamped out, Christianity spread like wildfire. Tertullian rightly said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” In the Middle Ages the visible Church became corrupt in many ways. Doctrines of men and human traditions obscured the purity of the Gospel in many places. Church offices were bought and sold while leaders were corrupt in their morals and doctrine. Could the Church survive this pollution? Would orthodoxy perish under the weight of error? Chesterton says in the same chapter (p.251):

“I suspect that we should find several occasions when Christendom was thus to all appearance hollowed out from within by doubt and indifference, so that only the old Christian shell stood as the pagan shell had stood so long. But the difference is that in every such case, the sons were fanatical for the faith where the fathers had been slack about it.”

Now being Roman Catholic, Chesterton would not see the Reformation as part of the providential pattern of resurrection and rebirth--he actually cites the Counter-Reformation as evidence of it--but he recognizes the medieval Church seemed to die under the influence of error and apathy, but time and again the Church rose with the resurrection power of Christ working in her by the Holy Spirit. It’s not that the Church survived every battle. She simply would not stay dead. She lives in Christ.

The Eucatastrophe of Human History

The resurrection of Christ is only the greatest in a series of acts God loves to perform. The Bible and human history are full of examples of salvation suddenly being accomplished in the climatic moment of disaster and destruction. The Lord waited until the Israelites were pinned between the Red Sea and the Egyptian army before he parted the water and enabled the people to walk through on dry land. He waited until the barbarians were literally at the gates of Samaria and Jerusalem multiple times before saving the cities from destruction. Other times he brought salvation not at the last minute but an hour after defeat. God’s kindness in Joseph’s life always seemed to show up a good while after his persecutors did their worst. Where was God’s deliverance when Job’s flocks and herds were raided and his children were all killed? Why didn’t the Lord protect David from Saul slandering and hunting him as a criminal? Jonah was thrown in the sea, eaten by a fish, and at least figuratively (I think actually) died before God saved him by induced vomiting. We love the stories of how the Lord protected Daniel in the lions’ den and his three friends in the fiery furnace, but have you noticed God didn’t send angels to protect them until they were already in those places?!? You may say God’s timing is perfect, but I’d say the record indicates it is usually running late, sometimes very late! If the Lord is so eager to protect and preserve his beloved, you must find some way of explaining Jesus’ behavior in John 11. When he heard his friend Lazarus was gravely ill, the One who healed so many others stayed two more days where he was. He did not go to his friend until Lazarus had already died! I hope these examples, to which many could be added, suffice to show God does not save merely at the last minute. He often saves after whatever we hoped to be saved from has already happened. That is what happens on the cross. The Father saved his Son, not from death but by death. He rescued his Church, not by sparing them from judgment, but by bringing them through judgment in Jesus’ hellish experience on the cross.

We need a term for this phenomena, and since there wasn’t one in English, Professor J. R. R. Tolkien created one in his well-known essay, “On Fairy-stories.” He called it eucatastrophe, a compound word he created from the Greek parts for good and destruction.

“The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous ‘turn’ (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist', nor 'fugitive'. In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief. 

“It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the ‘turn’ comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.” --J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories,” The Tolkien Reader, 85-86

Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, recognized that the whole story of Christ was a Eucatastrophe, a sudden and miraculous grace that springs from nowhere, saves the whole world, and brings joy to the heart of everyone who hears and accepts it. The difference is that while the Gospel is a kind of fairy-story, this is the true story, the one which all other fairy stories are meant to point us to.

“The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: ‘mythical’ in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the ‘inner consistency of reality’. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.” --Tolkien, 88-89

Pastoral Application and Conclusion

God loves to bring salvation out of disaster, and understanding that helps us know how we are to live in a world that seems constantly poised on the brink of disaster. We must recognize we have been here before, the Church has fallen to false doctrine, immorality, idolatry, and persecution. The Church has died, many times, but because she died with Christ two thousand years ago, she will always live again. Death cannot hold her, because it did not hold him, and the Church is his Body, united by the Spirit to the never-dying, immortal Son. The Church may descend to the grave, but she serves a God who knows his way out of it.

Christians in the West are living through a difficult moment--though if our brethren in the ancient Church or even in parts of Africa and Asia today could see our circumstances, they might wonder what we are complaining about! Nevertheless, we see what is happening in our nation, in our culture, and even in the visible Church, and it is right to be concerned and alarmed. We see a level of self-destructive insanity that cannot be maintained. It must and will end, either in ruin or revival. We might readily say with the Psalmist: “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (Ps 27:13). But we do not lose heart, because we know that we will see his goodness. We do not hope in political victories. We do not trust in conservative policies. We do not rest in earthly resources. Our hope and comfort is in the risen, reigning, and returning Son of God.

“We do not pretend that the fate of the world is in our hands. That way lies madness, being a burden that no human being can bear. Yet, we are not condemned to resignation and quietism, still less to despair. We are not the lords of history and do not control its outcome, but we have assurance that there is a lord of history and he controls its outcome. We need a theological interpretation of disaster, one that recognizes that God acts in such events as captivities, defeats, and crucifixions. The Bible can be interpreted as a string of God’s triumphs disguised as disasters. Those events seemed to say not only that people and nations have failed but that God has failed. Only the prophetic word that both explained historical events and provided assurances that God is the lord of history could dispel the terror borne by such an appearance.”

--Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, 304

Mountains Dripping with Wine

This is an excerpt from a sermon on Joel 3:18-21 (May 17, 2020--ROPC-AZ)

And it will come to pass in that day
That the mountains shall drip with new wine,
The hills shall flow with milk,
And all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water;
A fountain shall flow from the house of the LordAnd water the Valley of Acacias.

--Joel 3:18 (NKJV)

“My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learned in the nursery. I generally learned it from a nurse--that is, from the solemn and star-appointed priestess at once of democracy and tradition. The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared with them, other things are fantastic. Compared with them, religion and rationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally wrong. Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me, at least, it was not earth that criticized elfland, but elfland that criticized the earth.”

--G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Whitaker House, 2013), 48-49

Most of us are grown-ups and, therefore, too mature to take the language in v.18 too seriously. Mountains don’t drip with new wine. Wine comes from grapes, and not without a lot of cultivation and work by the vinedresser! Hills don’t flow with milk, and we are all scientifically astute enough to know that milk isn’t really good for us anyway. The text obviously means that this is a place of abundant blessing, nothing more. And we are exactly right, and also completely wrong.

I am not going to dogmatically assert what the new heavens and earth will be like. How could I? The Bible does not allow me to do so. Yes, the language of mountains and hills here is symbolic of abundant blessings and joy, and no, I am certain human language and concepts are limiting factors in this revelation. How can God describe to us what is, from our vantage point, indescribable? You cannot imagine colors you have never seen or shapes you have never known. How are we going to understand what the New Creation in its consummate expression is like? The Lord is using language and figures that are familiar to us, words and ideas we can understand, to help us imagine, albeit analogically, that this really is a wonderful place God has in store for us.

I will, however, offer a mild objection to the dismissive way we treat such language and symbolism which appears so frequently in the Bible’s poetry and prophecy. It’s because we “know better” than to take these images literally that we seem at times not to take them seriously, and yet they may be much closer to the reality than we have truly considered. I don’t imagine the streets of heaven are literally paved with gold, but I do wonder whether gold in our world does not resemble in some way whatever those streets are made of. Maybe the faces of the four living creatures around God’s throne don’t look exactly like a lion, calf, man, and eagle, but is it impossible to believe that maybe lions, calves, eagles, and men somehow resemble the faces of those creatures?

What if the stories are true, not in a woodenly literal manner, but also not in a merely mythological way? Why do we have so many fantastic stories of spirits and demons, of magic and miracles, of heroes and dragons? What is it that the human race remembers and anticipates across many civilizations, cultures, languages, and generations? Pagan mythology is distorted in many ways, and I am not suggesting ancient myths and fairy tales stand on par with Scripture. Scripture is the real, the true, the standard, and every other story is only a reflection, an echo, a distortion, a memory of the real story God wrote in history and on every heart. But I am suggesting it is not a coincidence these stories connect in so many ways, poetic and otherwise, with the recurring features, themes, and promises of the word of God. It is because ultimately there is one story, and every story that men have ever told has in some way been an attempt to realize or retell it.

We are too wise to believe in fairy tales, too mature to read them. We have studied science in school, so we know how things really work. This would be the same science class where we learned that this planet and all life on it evolved through a process of undirected mutation, that there is no God, or at least, no need to believe in one, and that faith may be well and good but science deals with facts and enables to us know what is true. We may have rejected the atheistic naturalism we were exposed to in those classes, but we adopted more of its worldview than we might realize or care to admit. We are too wise to believe that mountains could ever drip wine, and maybe in the new heavens and earth they won’t. But what if they did? Is that really so impossible to believe? Is it more difficult to believe that they do than that God could become a man, die on a cross for sin, and then rise again on the third day? How can we believe the story of Jesus is true and not believe everything else the Bible says is plausible? Doesn’t the resurrection of Christ make all of it fair game? Are we really supposed to sit in judgment of the story, or are we to read and hear it with delight, waiting and hoping for the day when what the stories described can finally be seen?

Even if the mountains don’t drip wine, whatever we find to be true will actually be better. We are living right now in the shadowlands. We don’t know exactly what it will be like when we arrive in our new country, but we have heard the stories, and not just in Bible class. We’ve been hearing them all our lives. Every encounter with truth, beauty, and goodness in the present age was only a signpost, pointing us further down the road, suggesting that something even better certainly lies ahead. We could analyze the figures, track down their literary and historical origins, and debate the various interpretive options for wine from the mountains and hills full of milk. But that would miss the point, and it would take all of the fun out of these passages. God didn’t place this here for you to dissect like a frog. He placed it here to excite and comfort you, to give you a taste of the joy that is to come.

There will be no lack of joy and abundance in the new heavens and earth. If even the mountains drip with wine, can you imagine there being any lack of bread? Wine and milk are not necessary for existence--we could survive on bread and water--but they are key features of a life filled with an abundance of joy. There will be no drought, no dryness, no desert conditions in that place where God’s glory dwells. A fountain shall flow from the house of Yahweh, and it will water all that land so that the valley is always damp and green and fertile. --JME

Five Books Every Christian Should Read

It is important to read good books. Some of you may not like reading at all, or you may only enjoy reading things that are light, easy to understand, and entertaining. That is okay. The Bible does not say you must read heavy, hard to understand books to go to heaven. But good books challenge our thinking and expand our horizons in ways that no other form of media ever can. Good books are those that are worth reading and thinking through more than once, books that help us ask better questions, books that excite our imagination and help us to think carefully and clearly. Which books belong on such a list is, admittedly, subjective, but here are five books I think every Christian, young or old, simple or sophisticated, would benefit from reading…more than once.

1) Knowing God by J. I. Packer

This new classic will help you think more carefully, deeply, and biblically about the God who has revealed Himself in creation, canon, and Christ.

2) The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

Okay, this is cheating. The Chronicles are seven books, but Lewis’s series will capture your imagination as few other writers can.

3) The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

This little book presents a helps us think about the eternal consequence of human choice and the awesome reality of both Heaven and Hell.

4) The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

Bunyan’s allegory of the Christian life is food for the soul. You may find it easier to read in a modern English version the first time.

5) The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

This is a powerful, historical account of Corrie’s experience hiding Jews during WWII and being sent to Nazi concentration camps. This may seem an odd choice for a Top 5 list, but I find myself frequently referring to it and recommending it when counseling and discipling others.

            These are not necessarily my favorite books, and many others could be added or substituted on the list. But these are the five I most often recommend, those I often return to in my own library. They cannot compare to the importance of Scripture, but next to the Bible these may be some of the most important books you will ever read. –JME

Why Study Literature?

Why Study Literature?

The study of literature, particularly classic literature, is important for human development and essential for a complete education. Literature is part of the record of mankind; it preserves our history, cultures, adversities, triumphs, and imagination. The study of good literature is particularly important, writing that has stood the test of time and exerted significant influence. Good literature challenges the reader. It stretches the mind, broadens the horizons, increases the vocabulary, improves verbal and written articulation, and inspires the imagination. No student can expect to achieve her potential or accomplish a significant and balanced education without developing the practice of intentional, disciplined reading.

It is important for Christians to include secular literature and works of non-Christian faiths in their reading. The apostle Paul was acquainted with the secular and pagan literature of his day, and he quoted from it in both his writing (Titus 1:12) and his preaching (Acts 17:28). Familiarity with secular and non-Christian literary sources is important for several reasons. First, it challenges the believer’s worldview, compelling her to weigh what is believed against dissenting worldviews and contrary evidence. A faith which cannot survive such testing is either immature or seriously lacking in apologetic and rational support. Second, familiarity with secular literature provides a bridge to unbelievers in the world. Reading widely allows the believer to discover points of commonality between Scripture and the surrounding culture. These similarities can become opportunities to introduce the Christian faith to outsiders and to share the gospel. Third, believers should read outside their own faith to be truly honest in their life and confession. Christians expect non-Christians to be willing to consider the evidence for Christianity; shouldn’t the followers of Jesus be willing to do the same by reading the literature of and considering the evidence for atheism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and materialism? Reading a book written to refute non-Christian values is not the same as reading the original sources. Believers would not want unbelievers to form their conclusions about theism simply by reading Richard Dawkins, but Christians are sometimes guilty of doing largely the same. Finally, reading broadly is important for Christians who believe all truth is ultimately rooted in the person, work, and revelation of God. The truth which originates with God can be discovered in all kinds of literature beyond the explicitly spiritual. Good literature invites the believer to see the Bible’s assessment of the human condition and quest is, indeed, accurate. The Scriptures may inspire and instruct faith, but secular literature can reinforce what was first learned in holy writ.

--Joel M. Ellis, Jr.

October 2012