Experts In The Law (part 5)

So in the fourteenth chapter, when Jesus makes reference to a meal table that will be at least partially occupied by experts in the law and Pharisees, and Luke writes about the way in which Jesus was noticing how some guests chose their places of honor, and then Jesus is heard speaking about humility and exaltation, those that hear this do so with ears that have also just heard Jesus make reference to a messianic banquet, wherein Jesus has used words about the last becoming first (exaltation) and the first becoming last (humility).  These two things cannot be disconnected.  Furthermore, because the fourteenth chapter begins with Jesus challenging the experts in the law and the Pharisees, and because there is no change of setting until the seventeenth chapter, there is every reason to believe that all that follows from that initial, unresponded to challenge is at least tacitly directed to those same groups. 

After making His previous point, within a setting that has been informed by a messianic banquet reference, a challenge to the experts in the law and the Pharisees, and a rather instructive parable, Jesus goes on to offer instructions in regards about engagement in table fellowship “to the man who had invited him” (14:12a), saying “when you host an elaborate meal, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (14:13).  Jesus then offers up a parable of a banquet (doing so while at a banquet) in which the man who made invitations ends up inviting “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame” (14:21b).  The man in the parable even takes it one step further, as he sends his representatives “out to the highways and country roads” to “urge people to come in” (14:23b). 

This not only amplifies the words of the thirteenth chapter while also reinforcing the personal instruction that had been on offer by Jesus to the one who invited Him, but the punctuation of the parable, in which the subject of the parable exclaims “For I tell you, not one of those individuals who were invited will taste my banquet” (14:24), also dramatically illustrates the last to first, first to last, exaltation to humility, and humility to exaltation motif that frames this section of Luke.  In addition, it brings an interesting clarity to what had also been heard in the thirteenth chapter, which was a statement about those left out of the messianic banquet, in which they say “We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets” (13:26), to which the Creator God (presumably) replies “I don’t know where you come from!  Go away from me, all you evildoers!” (13:27) 

The ongoing and escalating conflict between Jesus and the experts in the law and the Pharisees, along with Jesus overt challenge to them just a few verses later, function to make it quite clear who it is that is the point of reference in such statements.  The previously mentioned delicious irony is to be found in the fifteenth chapter, because after Jesus, who is living, working, and speaking in such a way that indicates that He is indeed the Messiah (while Luke’s audience has already heard the confession of Jesus as Messiah), makes His points about the people that were participating in meals.  While remembering that the setting has not changed and that Jesus appears to still be at the same meal mentioned in the first verse of the fourteenth chapter, the “Pharisees and the experts in the law” complained that Jesus was welcoming sinners and eating with them (15:2). 

Describing David, Seeing Jesus (part 3 of 3)

The Psalmist insists, however, that “a violent oppressor will not be able to humiliate him.”  It may have appeared that Jesus had been successfully oppressed and humiliated by death, but this was not the case.  There was a Resurrection.  Those that commented on it saw it as a vindication.  They saw it as a glorification.  They perceived it as an exaltation.  By His Resurrection, it came to be understood that Jesus was made to defeat death.  Now, with that defeat, the oppressor has become the oppressed, with Jesus having gained victory for Himself and for the kingdom of God that was now to extend itself forth upon the earth.  Jesus has been shown forth to the appointed Son-of-God-in-power by the Resurrection.  With this, He comes to be recognized as the unquestioned King and Lord of all. 

Though it will still be unfortunately at work in the world, because there is a hope for a general resurrection because of Jesus’ Resurrection, the once powerful oppressor that had ruled the thoughts and minds and emotions of mankind, has been stripped of its power and holds sway over the lives of the Creator God’s people no more.  Indeed, because of the Resurrection, the New Testament authors insist that the Holy Spirit, through the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus (He is Lord) that is and tells of the Creator God’s power and faithfulness, somehow gifts a faith that shows forth as a public and trusting allegiance to Jesus as Lord of all.  The attendant renewal and transformation of the mind, so that the place once occupied by death and all that death brings in its train, is now occupied by Jesus.  Accordingly, it is thoughts of Him and being in His service, along with a contemplation of the Creator God’s mission for the world, that now rules the thoughts, the minds, and the emotions of men and women that are now understood to stand free. 

With the Resurrection and the hope for resurrection that it sparks, together with no real fear of death as exhibited by countless willing martyrs down through the centuries, it can be said that death has lost its sting and the violent oppressor is de-toothed and de-clawed.  The enemy that sought to humiliate, is now itself humiliated, as the covenant God speaks through the Psalmist and says “I will crush his enemies before him; I will strike down those who hate him” (89:23). 

Though the Psalmist presents the reader with these words in association with David, the ultimate view that is provided, as the Psalms are viewed through the apex of the Scriptural narrative that is the Christ-event, is most definitely that of Jesus, as one is able to find a portion of the Gospel message when the Psalmist goes on to report the Creator God, following the defeat of this once vicious and all-conquering enemy, as saying “I will appoint him to be My firstborn son, the most exalted of the earth’s kings” (89:27).  Is Jesus not referred to as the King of kings?  In regards to the statement concerning the firstborn son (a royal title), of that son the covenant God of Israel says, “I will always extend My loyal love to him, and My covenant with him is secure” (89:28). 

Jesus is to be understood as the culmination of the covenant that began with Abraham, and the restoration of the covenant that God made with Adam.  In Him, that covenant remains secure, and all those that call Him Lord, and who order their lives according to that approbation, can stand secure in the knowledge of their redemption and the hope of their joining Him in the restored creation at the final consummation of the kingdom of God, in which the Creator God’s people are allowed to humbly participate in this day.  God’s promise, to “give him an eternal dynasty, and make his throne as enduring as the skies above” (89:29) was sealed by the Resurrection, and made manifest by His people, in believing union with Him as He works through them to be the people of His kingdom, so that the will of the Creator might be done on earth as it is in heaven.    

Marring Of A Servant (part 3 of 4)

The point has often been made that it was the uniqueness of the claims of those labeled as “Christians,” which was that Jesus---the One Who had been crucified at their hands---was the resurrected and presently living Lord of all things, that caused Rome, which was itself a culture and society open to any and all gods as long as they were content to stand alongside the divine Caesar, to persecute those who believed in Jesus and confessed Him as King---to “gird herself to fight Him (Jesus) to the death.” 

The world’s powers will rarely brook any challenge.  In that world, it would simply not do to have the absolute power and god-ness of the King of Rome to have his position that demanded absolute allegiance challenged by a man who had been executed as a state criminal by being put to death on a Roman cross.  The Caesar, and Rome itself, could not have its honor challenged, nor would it share its honor, with a purported King and His purported kingdom that had already been publicly shamed to the highest degree.

Considering this from the post-Christ perspective of the suffering servant, it is noted that Isaiah goes on to write that “Kings will be shocked by his exaltation” (52:15c).  This naturally follows from his statement that the servant “will succeed!  He will be elevated, lifted high, and greatly exalted” (52:13).  Owing to the shaming that Jesus had experienced, exaltation, success, and elevation would not naturally spring to mind. 

When one consider Jesus’ exaltation, it is quite natural think of Paul’s statement in Romans that Jesus “was appointed the Son-of-God-in-power… by the Resurrection from the dead” (1:4)  As if it was not startling and shocking enough that a man was claimed to have been raised from the dead, with countless lives completely transformed and re-oriented around what were referred to as “many convincing proofs,” as Jesus was recorded to have “presented Himself alive” (Acts 1:3), but as it relates to the shock of kings, the declaration of Jesus as “the Son-of-God-in-power,” which flew in the face of the Caesar’s claim to be and recognition as the son of god, this exaltation and declaration was earth-shattering.  With this talk of kings being shocked at the servant’s exaltation, Isaiah might very well be alluding to a popular Psalm, in which the Lord “strikes down kings in the day He unleashes His anger” (Psalm 110:5b). 

Jesus’ exaltation as King of kings could quite easily be understood as a striking down of kings.  This would not necessarily mean that they were struck down to death, but that they were struck down from their self-determined loftiness, divine self-understanding, and worshipful self-centeredness.  Not only would such self-determinations have been true of the Caesar in the days of Jesus, but it would have been true of those that were understood to the world’s rulers in Isaiah’s day as well, as powerful kings afforded themselves god-like status, expecting and receiving unquestioned allegiance and worship from those that they ruled. 

In consideration of the unleashing of the Lord’s anger, as spoken of in the previously quoted Psalm, one could  take a look into the effect of Jesus’ death and Resurrection and determine that the enemy against whom the Lord’s anger was truly released, especially when viewed in the light of the great Resurrection passage of the fifteenth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, was death.  Because death was the chosen weapon of kings and rulers, and because they held the power of death over the heads of their subjects, would they not be summarily stunned (shocked!) at the defeat of death that was reported to have been achieved at the exaltation of the servant that seemed to have been defeated by death itself? 

Though those that followed Jesus would certainly succumb to death, and though when thrown to the lions or burned, they certainly did not appear to have defeated death, the way in which so many embraced death or did not fear death as they looked forward to the world of the new creation and the resurrection of the righteous dead, served as an indication that death held no power over them.  They were willing to be marred as was the servant.   

Foolish, Weak, Low, Despised, Nothing (part 2 of 2)

Having communicated these things about those who are called to be image-bearers of the Creator God, primarily through imitation of the Christ that was shamed and despised, and asking his brothers and sisters in Corinth to reflect on their own calling, Paul appears to quickly shifts his focus away from his readers and away from himself.  He once again looks to the Lord Jesus, the Christ.  As that is said, we must remember the context that he has created for what he is writing, that being the message of the cross, its inherent foolishness, and the stumbling block of a crucified Christ (Messiah).  Keeping that in mind then, as we return to the text, we are able to clearly see that Paul speaks of Jesus (and His cross) as he goes on to write, “But God chose what the world thinks foolish to shame the wise, and God chose what the world thinks weak to shame the strong.  God chose what is low and despised in the world, what is regarded as nothing, to set aside what is regarded as something” (1:27-28). 

We are often taught to see ourselves here, making this a personal application when this should most likely not be the case.  As Christians, we regularly pull these words from out of their context and wear such things as badges of honor: speaking these words with some type of feigned humility and referring to ourselves as foolish and weak and low and despised and regarded as nothing.  This is obviously not intended.  Paul delivers his discourse on the cross in a world that does not see the cross as a charm or a trinket or a thing of beauty.  It is the cross, and the preaching of the cross as the paradoxical place of the enthronement of Jesus and of His true exaltation (when the cross is supposed to be a place of the parody of power and mock enthronement of kingly pretenders that have over-stepped their bounds), that shames “the wise,” “the strong,” and “the something.” 

Where all honor is stripped from a person, placing them within the ranks of those that are low and despised and making them “nothing,” that is where Jesus is made God’s “something,” receiving all honor.  Where the ultimate weakness of a challenger to worldly power is thought to be demonstrated, and where the powerful reassert their power and put it on display for all to see, that is where Jesus is revealed as the truly powerful.  Where it is thought that the foolishness of royal pretenders is sealed, as they hang on the cross, that is where one is to learn what true wisdom looks like, and it looks like the self-sacrificial life of the Man from Nazareth.  Yes, in these words, Paul preaches Christ crucified, and with his later suggestion of imitation, reveals just what form such a life may take. 

Of course, it is possible that we don’t really believe it when we make the application of these words personal, so ironically, they become a source of pride.  Worse, alongside Paul’s talk about “human wisdom” and the like, as it is extracted from its context, such thinking becomes an excuse for laziness, for the eschewing of the pursuit of knowledge, and for remaining in a state of ignorance.  With that said, is it not better to see these words, in the context of what we find in this first chapter of Corinthians, in full reference to Christ? 

The message of Christ’s cross was and is foolish, but it is what God chose and continues to choose to shock the world and reverse the notion of what is truly wise.  Was it not our Lord Jesus that allowed Himself to be subjected to the weakness of the torture and the suffering of the cross?  It cannot be said enough that in His day, there was nothing more despised than the cross.  Those who went to the cross were understood to be attempting to overthrow all that was good and right.  Those that hung on the cross were those that had the last nail, so to speak, driven into their backwards thinking that had them reaching to or for something that was structurally outside their grasp and their place.  As was previously said, crucifixion was not something that was mentioned in polite company.  It was an instrument of torture and terror and control.  Yes, one who hung upon its frame was the lowest of the low.  In the Roman empire, Caesar sent men to the cross to show that they were nothing, that they had no power, and that he was the locus of power---worship him.  When Jesus went to the cross, He took that very thing that Caesar used to show forth the nothingness of those who dared opposed him, turned Caesar’s own symbol of power against him, set aside the man that was himself regarded in that day as savior, lord, and son of god, and in His Resurrection that provided the final validation of His way of life, showed forth that He was the true Savior, Lord, and Son of God.