Fanning the Flames

“And Jesus summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me’ “ (Mark 8:34).

The idea that we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus as an over and over or ongoing exercise is one of the most popular discipleship teachings.  So it behooves us to ask the question, “Is this really the point of Jesus’ words?”

Jesus introduced us to His gospel message in Mark chapter 1, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).  “Repent” (change your mind about how one is made right with God) “and believe in the gospel” (the good news that we are made righteous and our sins are forgiven when we believe that Jesus died in our place).

With this introduction, let’s return to the three parts of our red letter saying.

“Deny himself.”  How do we deny ourselves?  By no longer believing in ourselves to save us.  No longer trusting our ability to follow the Law or muster up enough self-righteousness to be saved.  By trusting only in Jesus, we deny ourselves.  We deny our self-effort as being enough to attain salvation.  It is a one-time choice to believe the gospel.

Remember, the requirement if you are going to do it on your own is perfection (Matthew 5:48).  We can’t do perfection.  But Jesus can and Jesus did for us.  We deny ourselves when we say and believe, “I can’t, but Jesus did.”

If you believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ, your self is now fused with Christ.  You are called to embrace, not deny, this self; your new self created in the likeness of God, holy and righteous.  “And put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Ephesians 4:24).  Why would you be called to deny this self?  When you have placed your faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, you no longer need to deny yourself.  Instead, you now have an incredible freedom to be yourself; to live into all the newness of your new self, your new united identity with Jesus.

“Take up his cross.”  We often see “taking up our cross” as bearing some kind of burden in this life; a suffering of some sort.  An uneasy sacrifice to be made.  But to Jesus’ first century hearers, a cross was much more serious.  A cross only had one purpose.  It was an instrument of death.  Jesus is foretelling something we only see clearly in the apostles’ later teaching.  “Come join me in My death.”  A cross can only mean one thing; death.

How do we join Christ in His death?  “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?  Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;  for he who has died is freed from sin” (Romans 6:3-7).

The invitation to take up our cross is the invitation to our salvation experience.  You took up your cross when you believed the gospel message.  You took up your cross when you died and were buried with Christ.  You are now described as “he who has died”.  Cross = death.  And we don’t die over and over.  We don’t die daily.  It’s done.  It happened the minute we were saved.

Finally, “And follow Me.”  Following Jesus was a fact of life for Jesus’ first century disciples.  Jesus called many of His early followers with the simple command, “Follow Me.”  After the day of Pentecost, however, we no longer see the writers of the rest of the New Testament using “Follow Me” language.  That’s curious.  What happened at Pentecost?

The Spirit came and indwelt the disciples of Jesus.  And since His coming, we are no longer Christ followers.  “Following” suggests a separation or a distance between you and Jesus.  Jesus is up ahead and we follow behind.  But there is no separation.  Since the coming of the Spirit, your spirit is fused with Jesus.  We are now “Christ living His life through us-ers.”  I develop this idea in much more detail at this link.  Here is a short summary to whet your appetite.

If we keep thinking of Jesus as outside of us, then we will think we have to do something to get to Him, to stay with Him, and to follow Him.  But if we think of Him as He is, happily at home inside us, then we will look for Him there.  And the sheer beauty is that when we look for Him there, we will find Him.  We will find Him in us full of life and love and joy; a life, love, and joy that we have the pleasure of expressing as He lives His life through us.  Christ is the one who came to us and who stays with us.  There is no following at a distance, no matter how small.

Around 140 A.D. a church bishop named Marcion published a canon of Scripture that left out the Old Testament as well as any reference to it in the gospels and the letters of Paul.  It appears he was motivated by his inability to reconcile the character of the God of the Old Testament with God the Father as revealed by Jesus Christ.  His final product was a severely edited gospel of Luke (no Matthew, Mark, or John) and ten abridged letters of Paul.  He was excommunicated from the church as a heretic.

Marcion’s angst is still with us today.  Ten years ago, Christianity Today magazine dedicated an entire issue to the theme of “Grappling with the God of Two Testaments.”  But it doesn’t have to be this way.  When we understand the huge differences between the old and new covenants, when we understand the unveiling of the salvation plan of God that was completed in Jesus, when we stop trying to mix the Old and New Testaments as pathways to the Christian life, when we understand the facets of God’s character revealed under each covenant, when we recognize the old covenant as out dated and obsolete (God’s words, not mine), then we will see how the big picture fits together.

The church fathers in the second century, in direct response to Marcion, said that the New Testament does not supersede the Old Testament, but stands beside it to form a complete set.  I am not one to quibble with the church fathers, but one of the claims of the New Testament itself is that it DOES in fact supersede the Old.

The new covenant proclaims itself as completely different and better than the old.  The book of Hebrews is a thirteen-chapter dissertation on the main idea that Jesus is better.  Jesus is better than the angels, Jesus is better than the Old Testament prophets, Jesus is better than Moses, Jesus is better than the Law.  And the new covenant introduced by Jesus is superior to the old covenant.

The provisions for righteous living are far superior under the new covenant than under the old.  The whole book of Galatians is based on this idea.  The Law was nothing more than a schoolmaster, condemning us and pointing out our sin.  But this ministry of condemnation, identified by Paul as the old covenant, has “come to an end” (II Corinthians 3:11).  It has been replaced, not added on to, by the new covenant; a covenant described as the ministry of life, the ministry of the Spirit, the ministry of righteousness, and a ministry that “is ongoing and remains” (II Corinthians 3:6-9).

As a first step in elevating the new covenant to the place it belongs, I think we should flip things around in our Bible publishing.  What I mean is, let’s publish our Bible with the New Testament first and the Old Testament second.  Let’s publish our Christian Bible with the Christian message first.  Let’s print the new covenant – our current arrangement with God – first, and include the old covenant second as a prequel or appendix as it were to the new.  Don’t you think that the Christian Bible, if it is to represent the Christian message, should start with the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ?

What do you think?  Do you like the idea of publishing the New Testament first in our Bibles?  It is an approach that is not that uncommon in literature or film-making.  Think about the Star Wars franchise, for example.  As you recall, Episodes 4, 5, and 6 – the heart of the story – were produced first.  Episodes 1, 2, and 3 were produced many years later as a prequel.  If it had been shown the other way around, starting with episode 1, would the impact have been the same?  Would we have lost interest long before the pivotal quote, “Luke, I AM your father”?

Just a thought, but it causes me to wonder if it is an unfortunate part of our Bible publishing that one has to read through 931 chapters of the Bible before hearing God say, “Jesus, I AM your Father.”

After writing 37 posts about the Old Testament, I will wrap things up with this disclaimer.  I don’t spend much time in the Old Testament.  I don’t often read, teach, or preach from the Old Testament.  And here’s why.

The old covenant is the SHADOW, the new covenant is the REALITY.  The old covenant contains the MYSTERY, the new covenant is the REVELATION.  The old covenant points to the PROMISE.  The new covenant is the FULFILLMENT.  Why would I spend much time in the shadow, the mystery, or the promise when the reality, the revelation, and the fulfillment are waiting for me to explore, understand, and live?

Because we have been taught that all Scripture is of equal importance – even in this new covenant age – we think that we need to be reading and teaching from both the Old and New Testaments to proclaim the whole counsel of God.  But if you have been following this series, especially posts 1 through 4, you know that the old covenant is obsolete, over and done (God’s words, not mine in Hebrews 8:13 and elsewhere).

But what do we see in our evangelical churches?  We often see a pattern of teaching through a book of the Bible from the Old Testament followed by a book of the New Testament and back and forth we go.  Unless you are preaching Christ in the Old Testament, you are wasting the time of your congregants.  This approach only leads to mixed covenant confusion.

Please hear this … the old covenant is over!  Its promises of blessing and curses.  Its Law as a guide for living a God-honoring life.  Its calling out for the presence of the Lord to come to us.  Its stench of death.  All of it.  The old covenant is over.

I beg of you – teachers, preachers, church elders – focus on the REALITY, the REVELATION, and the FULFILLMENT of the new covenant.  This is the reality that your audience needs to understand.  This is the reality that your people live in today.  This is the reality they need to embrace to live the victorious Christian life.

I am not here to disparage the Old Testament.  I am just saying, “Let’s keep it in its proper place in the progressive revelation of God; its proper place as home to the promise of the coming Messiah and His salvation.  It is NOT the standard for Christian living.”

But what about an Old Testament sermon on the character of God, for example?  Don’t we learn some valuable things there?  An Old Testament explanation of God’s character will always fall short in giving us the full picture.  Where do we find the most complete revelation of God’s character, of God’s glory?  In the face of Christ!  “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6).  We see the most complete expression of the glory of God in the face of Christ.  Jesus said it this way, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Think back to Exodus chapter 34 when Moses requested of God to see His glory.  God effectively said, “No”, explaining that no one could see His glory and live.  So God hid Moses in the rock, covered him with His hand, and passed by so that Moses only saw God’s back.  But Moses did eventually see God’s glory; 1500 years later at the Mount of Transfiguration, in the presence of Jesus.  When Moses and Elijah appeared with the glorified Jesus in the gospels (Mark 9:2-8), what did Moses see?  He saw the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus.  It took a face-to-face with Jesus to finally see the compete glory of God.

The Old Testament can never stand on its own in explaining the character of God, how to live a God honoring life, or how the blessing of God works.  It is out dated and obsolete regarding any of these issues.  We NEED the reality, the revelation, and fulfillment explained for us in the New Testament to finish the picture.

Christianity is Christ.  It is right in the name.  Christianity is NOT the rules, laws, or principles of the Old Testament.  Jesus Christ is the face, founder, and sole source of our faith.  One way we could help folks understand this is if we published our Bibles a bit differently.  I will explain next time.

Remember those TV ads from when you were a kid?  They were always promoting something that was “new and improved”.  New and improved struck me a few days ago when I was thinking about the old and new covenants.  We know that the new covenant is new – it’s in the name – and we know that it is an improvement over the old covenant.  The book of Hebrews outlines some clear covenant comparisons and spells out for us what is “better” about the new covenant.

• Jesus brings a better hope (Hebrews 6:19-7:19),
• Jesus is a better priest (Hebrews 7:21-8:2),
• Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant (Hebrews 8:4-13),
• Jesus is a better sacrifice (Hebrews 9:11-28),
• Jesus is a better offering for sin (Hebrews 10:1-16), and
• Jesus’ new covenant is built on better promises (Hebrews chapter 11).

With all the “better” that the new covenant brings, why are folks hesitant to embrace all of the promises and provisions of the new covenant?  Why are we still drawn back to an old covenant mindset and practice.  Why do we try to mix the two covenants together?

Let’s examine the old and new covenants as if they were laundry detergent.  I am going to use Tide as our laundry detergent, not to promote a product, but as a useful shorthand for laundry detergent.  The old covenant is what I call “original Tide”.

So how does the laundry process work with original Tide?  Generally speaking, we notice that our clothes are beginning to smell bad or have become dirty with spills or stains.  So we wash them with our original Tide.  They clean up well.  The smell good.  They look good.  We are good to go for another week, month, or whatever.  At any rate, it is a bit of a job to do this laundry process over and over.  But it is a job that needs to be done if we want clean clothes to wear.

Now let’s say the Tide people come along with a “new and improved” Tide.  But this Tide is unlike any “new and improved” that you have ever experienced.  Here is how it works.

When you wash your clothes for the first time with new and improved Tide, they stay clean for the rest of your life.  You never have to wash these clothes again, ever.  Washing your clothes just one time in new and improved Tide produces clothes that are always fresh, always clean, completely free of stains or offensive odors.  In fact, you can’t mess this up if you tried.  There is nothing you can do to these clothes that would ever have them required to be washed again.

On top of that, these washed one time in new and improved Tide clothes will never wear out.  They will never need to be replaced.  For the rest of your life, these clothes will smell fresh and look perfectly clean after just one washing.

Is that a laundry detergent you would like to have?  Well, I can see that you want to say “yes”, but I also see the skepticism in your eyes.  And those eyes are saying to me, “No thanks, Jay.  There is literally no way this kind of power could exist in a laundry detergent.  It is impossible to create a detergent this new and improved that my clothes would never need to be washed ever again.  I will pass on this crazy idea.  I will stick to my original Tide and my usual laundry routine.”

Why would someone turn down the new and improved Tide?  Because it sounds too good to be true.  And believing that it is too good to be true, they pass on the opportunity.  Do you see the analogy with the new covenant?

Under the old covenant, sin was an ongoing issue.  Sins needed to be confessed.  Punishment needed to be handed down.  Sacrifices needed to be offered.  Acts of penance needed to be carried out.  And it was an over and over pattern that needed to be repeated just like the job of washing our clothes over and over again.  And for some reason, we feel like this is just the way things are, the way things should be, the way the spiritual world works.

But under the new covenant, all of this “over and over” has been removed.  Jesus died once for all, exchanging His righteousness for our sin; sin that He has taken away for good.  “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:21).  God calls this great exchange a thorough, one-time, washed clean.  “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

Do you see the picture, clearly explained throughout the New Testament?  You have literally been washed clean by the one-time sacrifice of Jesus and your embrace of His gospel message.  You have been washed clean by the one-time cleansing of the new and improved new covenant.  You are now identified as righteous (Ephesians 4:24), holy (Colossians 3:12), blameless (Colossians 1:22), clean (Acts 15:9), and perfected (Hebrews 10:14) in Jesus.

But just like our laundry analogy, we often see this picture of grace as just too good to be true.  And I get it.  It seems too supernatural, too out there, too other worldly, too impossible to be true.  Do not let your skepticism stop you.  Do not let what you have been taught about some connection to the old covenant stop you.  Do not let “too good to be true” stop you.

Yes, it sounds too good to be true.  BUT IT IS TRUE!  All of it is true.  All the promise and provision of the new covenant is true.  And it is being given to you by the grace of God.  Believe it, receive it, embrace it, and soak it in.  It is yours, free to everyone who believes!  And yes, no more wash cycles required!