The Purpose-Driven Light (The Gospel According to Isaiah, Part 4)

"Then said I, 'Here am I! Send me.'" Is. 6:8

It is not that we are just saved from damnation, though God knows that would be bounty enough. We have not simply been granted a free pass on Hell. What has also happened is a transformation: we have been made new, refashioned into a completely new creature. That is why salvation has sometimes been called "conversion". We often think of conversion as an intellectual realignment, but (if you remember your science books) it is actually more like a fundamental realignment. The very substance of our being has changed, and subsequently our desires and direction change. We have been set on a new path, given a new journey and new destination. I say "new" journey and destination, but it is really the old journey and destination: the journey of mankind walking with God deeper and deeper into God. Communion with God was our original purpose, a purpose lost and refound. It is only "new" to those of us who happen to be walking around at the moment.

The point cannot be stressed enough: in Christ we new life, not just a spot in heaven. That is the great truth of salvation: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new. We are crucified with Christ, and yet we live; yet not us, but Christ who lives in us. And the life we now live in the body we live by faith in the Son of God. God has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. Now we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that we should show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light. In times past we were not a people, but we are now the people of God; and because He who called us is holy, so we ought to be holy in all manner of living. For He died for us all that we who live should not henceforth live unto ourselves but unto Him who died for us and rose again.

Now our life is hid with Christ in God, and we are the temple of the living God, as God has said, "I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Therefore we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, being not conformed to this world but being transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we may discern what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that we might have life and life more abundantly. And herein is eternal life: that we might know Him, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (II Cor. 5:17; Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:13; I Pet. 1:15, 2:9-10; II Cor. 5:15; Col. 3:3; II Cor. 6:16; Rom. 12:1-2; Eph. 2:10; John 10:10, 17:3).

Christianity was never about fire escapes, and Jesus is so much more than a bus pass out of Hell. We have not just been called out of darkness, but also in to light. A living Light, full of purpose, and we are one with that purpose. We who are saved and being saved have a call, a commission, a meaning radically different from the ways of the world, for life ought not and cannot be the same once you are known of God.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

In Christ Alone (practical Christianity as explained by an orthodox rebel)

"For Christ also has suffered once for sins, that just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit...[and He] has gone into Heaven, and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to Him. [...] For inasmuch then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind, for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." I Peter 3:18, 22; 4:1-2

Peter laid down the precedent that we should be different because we are different (1:15, 23). He then unpacks that precedent, explaining what is our purpose and identity (2:9, 15-16). He then gives some practical examples of being different, relevant both to his time and (in many ways) ours (3:1-9). Now he comes to the end of the matter, and that ending is about the beginning, i.e., the foundation for the precedent that he began with. We have seen that we are different as well as what that difference looks like, but the question remains: on what grounds are we different? Granted that we have been changed into new creatures and thus should act accordingly, by what right, power, or authority have when been made new so that we might live new? The answer that Peter gives is the Gospel.

Christ died and rose again "that He might bring us back to God" (3:18), and since He has brought us back to the One who is holy, so we ought to and can be holy as He is holy. Thus, the Christian's one foundation is Jesus Christ the Lord, not just in matters of justification but also in sanctification and glorification. In truth, the whole of salvation belongs to Christ, and none belongs to us. This is an essential truth that we lose constantly, for how often, day-by-day, do we attempt to live holy lives in our own strength and power? And how often do we inevitably fail and wallow in the mire of self-pity? We would be free and much happier if we would understand and embrace the truth that the Christian has neither the right nor the power to be holy on his or her own.

Neither the right, because we have done and could have done nothing to save ourselves. All of our best intentions and best-laid plans crumble into ruin before the awesome ledger of God's perfection. Holiness could not be purchased by us, for all of our currency is filthy rags. Not only are we broken cisterns, but all of our wells have run dry. We will never earn holiness, but rather we must accept it as a gift from the one who has it, viz., Christ, who has become our righteousness (II Cor. 5:21). Thus, we have no right to glory except in Him (I Cor. 1:30-31). Nor the power, because we have neither the strength nor the will to be holy, for it is a divine attribute, and we are mortal, made of dust. Only a holy quickening (Eph. 2:4-8) could make us fit to live the life of God (Rom. 8:10-17; Gal. 2:20).

So you see, though we are different and ought to live differently, neither the right nor the power to be different was ever ours. It has been bought with a price, therefore we glorify God, who has made us fit to be partakers of His difference, and that is the key. The difference that we are and that we live and can live in Christ does not originate in us but in God, for He alone is holy. He alone is not like us. He alone is God. And He alone has raised us to walk in newness of life, to sit together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, to be holy as He is holy. So let the final word of those who are holy be this: I will not boast in anything---no gifts, no power, no wisdom; but I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. We have gained from His reward, and by His stripes, we are different. Now and forever. Amen.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Those Who Are Different (practical Christianity as explained by an orthodox rebel)

"...for you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that we should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.... Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.... For so is the will of God, that with well-doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men --- as free, but not using your liberty as a cloak for maliciousness, but as the servants of God."
I Pet. 2:9, 11, 15-16

In chapter 1, Peter set down a precedent that we (as Christians) are to be different because we are different (vs. 15 & 23). He then spends the first part of chapter 2 unpacking that difference and then the rest of the book on putting that difference into practice. Though his applications are somewhat unique to his time, the precedent and subsequent unpacking are universal.

The first thing that the precedent entails is our purpose, which is laid down in 2:9 when Peter says that we should "show forth the praises" of God. In the Greek, "show forth the praises" is "aretas exangeilhte," and it literally means to revel/proclaim the heroic and mighty deeds of someone (specifically God, in this context). Herein is our purpose as those who are different: we are to tell God's story, especially in regard to our own lives. He has done heroic and mighty deeds, namely rescuing us from the kingdom of darkness and translating us into the kingdom of His Son (Col. 1:13). We will not hide such things away, but rather we will show them to the generation to come, proclaiming the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He has done (Ps. 78:2-4). Thus is our purpose: to proclaim God to be the hero that He is, both at our salvation and in our day-to-day sanctification.

The second thing that the precedent entails is directly related to the first. It is our identity, which is laid down in 2:16 where Peter says, "As free, but not using your liberty as a cloak for maliciousness, but as the servants of God." In the Greek, "free" is "eleutheros," and it was the word for a "freeman". In the ancient world, a "freeman" was someone who had been a slave or debtor but had been set free by someone (usually their master). Thus, even though they were legally free, they always considered themselves indebted to the one who had freed them, living to freely serve them out of love and gratitude. Herein is our identity as those who are different: we are the freemen of God, who has set us free not for freedom's sake, but so that in our freedom we might live unto righteousness (I Peter 2:24b; Rom. 6:18), which is the truest expression of our gratitude and love as well as the truest proclamation of who God is: the Righteous One who has set us free.

Perhaps now you are beginning to see the whole picture. We are the freemen of God, and as such we are the "servants of God," and we live to show forth the mighty, heroic deeds that our Lord has done, viz., saving us from the power of Sin and the wrath of God. That is who we are and what we do, being those who are different. We are free, but our freedom is a means and not an end, a means to give ourselves in love to the one who freed us, and to praise Him, and to show forth His praises to those who are as we once were: enslaved to Sin in dungeons of darkness, never knowing the freedom to love and serve God.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Believe Your Beliefs (practical Christianity as explained by an orthodox rebel)

"...but as He who has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of living...being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever...." I Peter 1:15, 23

Christian living is holiness and nothing less. It is not bare morality that we are after but God-likeness, for holiness means (esp, in the Greek) the unique attributes that make God separate and unique from Creation, i.e., the attributes that make God God. Unfortunately, holiness too often boils down in people's minds to mere rule keeping: dotting i's, crossing t's, and checking off all the boxes. A vigorous duty for duty's sake. That is not holiness, however, but legalism. Holiness is not about keeping the rules because they are rules. Rather, holiness is about being different because you are different. In other words, you are not trying to be a good little boy or girl because you know that you should be. Instead, something has fundamentally changed inside, a foundational transformation wherein you feel compelled to live and act and be this, that, and the other. It is as if another life has been birthed within you, which makes perfect sense if you have been "born again". You have died, and now Christ lives within you (Gal. 2:20). Therefore, you are commanded to be holy because the holy God dwells with you. You are commanded to be holy because that's what you are. Thus is the truth and the mystery.

The trouble with modern Christians, however, is that they don't believe anything anymore. It is a strange tragedy, but it is still a fact. We are in possession of incredible truths, truths that purport to involve themselves down to the most practical scruples of our lives, including how we eat and talk and behave towards others. We have been told that we have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit of the Almighty God of the universe, a gift bestowed upon us because that same God became a man and died, and in dying defeated death. Now by faith in that outlandish yet true victory, we have been "made new," born out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light (Col. 1:12-14; I Peter 2:9b). As such, we walk as aliens and strangers amongst a perverse and crooked generation, among whom we shine like the stars (Phil. 2:15). These are the truths of our holy religion, and yet we treat them like inconsequential abstractions, fanciful thoughts for the occasional Sunday. In the pews we are Christians, but in life we are all practical agnostics. Brothers and sisters, these things ought not to be.

The truths that we believe are not mere thoughts and abstractions. They are practical and actual realities of our day-to-day lives. A holy God has actually called us to His actual holiness, and He actually died and rose again so that we could actually be holy in the here and now, and He has actually given us His actual Holy Spirit so that we can actually live that holy life in the here and now. The question is, do you actually believe that? Even now, wherever you are sitting? Do you believe that you are possessed by the Spirit of God, and that it is He who has called you to be holy, and that it is He who works in you to fulfill God's good will (Phil. 2:13)? If not, then why not? What obstinance or obstacle bars your way? Whatever it is, pray to God that it is removed. Life is never the same when you finally believe your beliefs.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

On Christ (a contra mundi by an orthodox rebel)

"[Seeing] the exceeding wickedness of men, and how by little and little they had increased it to an intolerable pitch against themselves..., He took pity on our race, and had mercy on our infirmity, and condescended to our corruption...." -St. Athanasius

He would not abandon the miry clay, but took unto Himself a body of clay that He might consume and undo the mire and sanctify a people unto Himself.

He would not abandon us to death, but has made a way out, breaching as the forerunner the veil between us and life everlasting.

He would not abandon us to the nihilistic reign of Sin, but became Sin for us so that His Father might strike the fatal blow of his wrath and leave us untouched and unscathed forevermore.

He would not abandon you to the sin that so easily besets you, but instead would infuse you by divine transplant with the presence of His divinity, transpositioning your frail body into a Temple of God where sweet communion imparts sweet satisfaction and strength.

He would not abandon you to narcissistic fear and doubt and anger, but will make you brave because He is brave, and believing because He is faithful and true, and at peace because He is your peace. You belong to a new world now. You belong to God and He belongs to you, because Christ has opened the door, breached the wall with his bare hands, blood-stained and unrelenting.

He has not abandoned us. Say it loudly to the dark night of this world: God has not abandoned us, because Christ has come and is coming again.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

God is not a Democrat (an observation by an orthodox rebel)

"Love is not an attribute of God, it is God; whatever God is, love is. If your concept of love does not agree with justice, judgment, purity, and holiness, then your idea of love is wrong. It is not love you conceive of in your mind, but some vague infinite foolishness, all tears and softness and of infinite weakness." -Oswald Chambers

"Love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more.... Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire." -George MacDonald

Our society's long-standing shallow view of tolerance has produced a strong internal notion to accept ourselves and others "just the way we are". This is not necessarily a bad thing. Outer appearances should in no way be a litmus test for a person's dignity and value as a human being, and ofttimes what certain callous persons refer to as "flaws" in others are merely quirks that serve as facets to a person's unique and individual essence. Christian orthodoxy sets a standard for human worth that is simpler and yet higher than such paltry things as looks, education, status, class, race, gender, or even behavior. That standard is the imago dei, which we all meet simply by being born. It is God who determines are value, and no one else.

That being said, God's standard and our toleration are both double-edged swords. The latter is so, because it would have us believe that "who we are" (or who we make ourselves to be) is as good as it will get for us, and the idea that we should "love ourselves" means that we should just be satisfied with what we get. The former, however, knows no such satisfaction. Who we are is valuable, but who we are is not the end. We are what we are, but we are not what we ought. For there is another doctrine of Christian orthodoxy called the Fall, and if it says anything at all, it says that we are not who we ought to be. Herein lies the danger of our self-satisfaction: to be content with a categorically valuable and yet lesser state of being when there is a higher one available to us; and God is saying, "Friend, go up higher."

Judging people by our shallow personal standards is wrong, but not because people are ultimately "fine the way they are". Rather, it is wrong because (as stated before) we are not the judge of human value: God is. We "judge not" because we are not the judge; but (much to the chagrin of our postmodern society) there is a judge, and though He loves us for who we are (i.e., the imago dei) He also loves what we ought to be. There is an excellence of existence for which we were created for, an excellence that is nothing short of God Himself, for it is His glory that we have fallen short of (Rom. 3:23).

A democracy cannot stand excellence, and it is an unfortunate element of modern society (which worships at the altar of democracy) that we would rather view excellence with suspicion and tear it down to our level than aspire and try to ascend to its. We sense that there is something intrinsically undemocratic about glory, about perfection, about holiness; but unfortunately for us, God is not a democrat. He is a King and a Father, and He will see His children be like Him. Not for His sake, but for ours, so that we may finally know the infinite satisfaction in being what we ought, of being like Him by knowing Him fully and absolutely and intimately forever and ever. That is life more abundant, and it is available to everyone born in the imago dei. God's hand is stretched down towards us all. It is a human hand, riven and strong; and know this: it is only our self-centered, democratically fueled sentiments that claim no higher standard than their own private one, it is only our shallow toleration of our self, that will make us spit at the grace of God.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Homily 22: Your Little Foothill (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"And they took offense at Him." Matthew 13:57a

Have you ever seriously considered Jesus' rejection by His hometown? Those who supposedly knew Him the best ("Is this not the carpenter's son?" vs. 55) did not know Him at all ("because of their unbelief," vs. 58). They had a preconceived and well entrenched conception of Jesus, and they had grown quite familiar with their conception. Thus, when the real deal came thundering into their lives, they were "astonished" (vs. 54) and offended. How dare Jesus step outside of our conception of Him! How dare He defy our notions and self-made expectations! How dare He indeed.

There is a saying that "absence makes the heart grow fonder," the inverse implication being that familiarity makes the heart grow stale. That is not true in regard to God. If our heart is growing stale, it is not because we have grown too familiar with Him. Rather, it is because we have grown too familiar with what is not Him, with some cheap imitation and concocted notion. Christ and the scriptures reveal God to be the fountainhead of infinite Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, the summation of all perfection, the source and aim of all desire, and the author of salvation. No heart can ever grow stale by going deeper and deeper into His presence. Staleness doesn't come because we know God too well, but because we have grown comfortable with what is either not Him or less than Him. In this way, we indeed fall short of the glory of God.

The real danger, however, is manifested in Jesus' hometown crowd. It is one thing to grow familiar with a false or incomplete image of God. It is quite another thing to grow fond of that image, so fond that when the real God comes bursting through your life and upsets your misconceptions you become offended by Him. How dare God not be what I want Him to be! This is the same trap that the Pharisees fell into. They stood in the tension between the God they wanted and the God who is. Blinded by their own conceptions, they rejected the God who is. When unbelievers do this, they damn their souls. When believers do this, they stunt their sanctification. They come to a certain spot in their relationship to God and say, "There can't possibly be anything higher than this," and so they take the foothills over the summit, an unfortunate state of affairs that only a God-sent avalanche can cure. Are you small enough in your own eyes to see God for the mountain that he is, or will He be forever your little foothill?

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011