The following is an abbreviated version of a story from R.C. Sproul’s book The Holiness of God. While his words are better, I cut some detail to fit my self-imposed word count parameters.

“I had the assignment of teaching a freshman Old Testament course to 250 students at a Christian college. On the first day of class I went over the course assignments carefully. This course required three short papers. I explained . . . that the first paper was due on my desk by noon the last day of September. No extensions would be given except for students who were physically confined to the infirmary or who had deaths in their immediate family.”

“On the last day of September, 225 students dutifully handed in their term papers. Twenty-five students stood, quaking in terror, full of remorse. . . . I bowed to their pleas for mercy. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you a break this time. But, remember, the next assignment is due the last day of October.’”

“The students were profuse in their gratitude and filled the air with solemn promises of being on time for the next assignment. Then came the last day of October. Two hundred students came with their papers. Fifty students came empty-handed. They were nervous but not in panic. When I asked for their papers, again they were contrite. Once more I relented. If you are late for the next paper, it will be an F.”

“[O]n the last day of November . . . one hundred and fifty students came with their term papers. The other hundred strolled into the lecture hall utterly unconcerned. . . . I picked up my lethal black grade book and began taking down names.” [He started marking an F for each student who did not have the paper.]

“The students reacted with unmitigated fury. They howled in protest, screaming, ‘That’s not fair!’”

[Sproul responded,] “I see. It’s justice you want? I seem to recall that you were late with your paper the last time. If you insist on justice, you will certainly get it. I’ll not only give you an F for this assignment, but I’ll change your last grade to the F you so richly deserved.”

“The student was stunned. He had no more arguments to make. He apologized for being so hasty and was suddenly happy to settle for one F instead of two. The student had quickly taken my mercy for granted. They assumed it. When justice suddenly fell, they were unprepared for it. It came as a shock, and they were outraged. This, after only two doses of mercy in the space of two months.

R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God, 124-26.

Too many of us expect God’s mercy at every turn and protest in the face of justice. We forget that while God is bound by His holiness to maintain justice, He is never obligated to grant mercy. That’s precisely why it’s called mercy.

Take a moment to ponder the ways God has withheld (or is withholding) the F you deserved. And once again appreciate the wonder of God’s mercy.

The Old Testament prophet Joel is one such example.

While scholars are unsure about the exact time of Joel’s life and prophecy, we can set the context with some accuracy. The nation of Israel had already been divided into two nations: Israel to the north and Judah to the south. His words of prophecy follow a time of increased physical suffering as the nation lost their harvest to a swarm of locusts. These pests had destroyed everything.

On the heels of this great calamity, God speaks a word of eventual judgment and eternal hope that has been illustrated by this plague.

¹²“Yet even now,” declares the LORD,
“return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
¹³and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
¹⁴ Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering
for the LORD your God?

Joel 2:12-14 (ESV)

Immediately following the loss of their crops, what is God’s word for Israel? Return to the loving, gracious God in genuine repentance and hope He relents from destroying you completely.

The reaction feels contrary to our current cultural climate. Suffering generally produces doubt and questions and anger and bitterness and pride. But one of the foremost responses to disaster in the Bible is repentance from sin. It is not merely that all suffering is the direct result of sin. Rather, suffering gets our attention. Suffering often leads to the type of introspection that reveals sin.

In the moments of the most intense physical or emotional pain, turn to the Lord in genuine repentance and receive the grace and mercy only God can offer.

God as Father was foreign for them and it seems is somewhat foreign to many people today. But as J.I. Packer points out, our adoption as sons is a crucial aspect of our new relationship with God.

“If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father.”

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 201.

Consider of few of Packer’s thoughts about adoption…

-         “Adoption… is the highest privilege that the gospel offers” (206).

-         Adoption provides the lens through which the “entire Christian life has to be understood” (209)

-         It “shows us the greatness of God’s love” (214).

-         It “shows us the glory of the Christian hope” (216).

-         It “gives us the key to understanding the ministry of the Holy Spirit” (219).

-         It “shows us the meaning and motives of “gospel holiness” (221).

-         It “gives the clue we need to see our way though the problem of assurance” (223).

-         “Adoption… is the basis of Christian conduct” (210).

-         “Adoption… is the basis of Christian prayer” (211).

-         “Adoption… is the basis of the life of faith” (212).

Much like the Pharisees, our struggle to live in right relationship to God may very well stem from our inability to grasp the magnitude of our adoption as children of God.

Jonah 1:17a (ESV)

The biblical story of Jonah is a popular one. Almost every church-going adult and child and many unchurched people can recall the basics of the story. God tells Jonah to travel to an evil city (Nineveh) and call the people to turn from their sin. Jonah finds a boat sailing in the opposite direction and hops aboard. God sends a storm that threatens to destroy the boat. After a great deal of panic among the crew, Jonah admits that the storm is punishment from God for his disobedience. He asks the men to throw him overboard and they happily oblige him.

At this stage many people believe God sends a big fish (probably a whale, but the Bible is not clear here) as a further punishment for Jonah’s rebellion. It’s a last line of suffering for the unruly Jonah.

However, the fish was actually an instrument of salvation.

In asking the men to toss him overboard, Jonah was inviting his death. He was abandoning the relative safety of the boat for the certain doom of the sea. Jonah was not looking for salvation; he was accepting death. His defiance incensed God. The God of the storm was coming after him. The ridiculous attempt to out-run God was foiled. He had nowhere to turn.

Yet God was not quite finished with Jonah. God used the storm to change Jonah’s direction, but He was not prepared to let it take Jonah’s life. In the midst of the raging storm, God uses a large creature to rescue Jonah from death. The big, probably scary animal swallows Jonah. The fish must have been frightening, but the storm was even more ominous. Without the whale, Jonah’s story ends in the sea.

After 3 days Jonah was saved from the whale, but first he was saved by the whale. Often God uses the scary and difficult to rescue His people from the eternally disastrous. Has God ever spared you from the storm by sending you into a whale?

Take a moment or two to consider the ways God has used a difficult circumstance to rescue you from an even more disastrous one.

Some contemporary explanations of church ministry include discipleship as one of four or five aspects. However, setting discipleship beside service and evangelism misunderstands this term altogether. More than just one of many emphases for ministry, disciple-making is the single focus of ministry in the New Testament.

Near the start of Jesus’ earthly ministry, He called twelve men to follow Him. These men, commonly known as the disciples, walked with and learned from Jesus. He clarified and extended the call to countless others during his brief earthly ministry, but his focus would never shift elsewhere. Jesus never shifted from making disciples (or life-long followers) out of this small group of men.

In fact, a more accurate understanding of the New Testament realizes that teaching about subjects like Christian service and evangelism is a facet of discipleship. In other words, for a believer to learn how to use his gifts to edify the Church was part of developing as a disciple, not a separate category of his development. All New Testament exhortations are – in one way or another – for disciple-making

Jesus’ final commission to His closest disciples highlights this primary thrust for ministry.

But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:16-20

Before examining the commission itself, notice the role of worship in this event. When Jesus’ closest disciples saw Him, they worshiped. Finally seeing Jesus in full deity, their reaction fulfilled His single purpose: they worshipped God.

On this foundation of placing ultimate value on God (as manifested in Jesus), the disciples learn their dominant strategy for all future ministry: to make disciples. Much can be written about this pregnant text, but the clear command from Jesus is a call to continue the ministry He started in them. He exhorts them to do what He had done with them.

Therefore, Christian ministry must be patterned after Jesus’ earthly ministry by pointing people to value God supremely and to follow Jesus absolutely. Ministry – and by ministry I mean everything from preaching to ministry coordination to outreach to administration to staff leadership to community involvement to small group Bible studies to pastoral counseling – must lead people to exalt God and follow Jesus.

Worship is a popular word in modern Christendom. During what might be called a worship revolution it seems an artist’s odds of selling a million copies of a Christian album increase greatly with the inclusion of this word in the title. At the risk of seeming trendy, worship accurately summarizes Jesus’ purpose. His ministry was devoted to directing men and women to value God above all things making Him the sole Object of their affections. Jesus’ earthly ministry, first and foremost, revealed God so that He might be exalted among men.

The heart of the Prologue in John’s Gospel presents a deeply theological statement about Christ and his ministry. First, Jesus is God. Second, Jesus became a man. Third, Jesus revealed God’s glory. Or more directly, Jesus “has explained” God to us (John 1:18 NASB). His life, and by extension His ministry, was a revelation of God to man so that we might exalt or worship or value God supremely for who He is and what He has done.

Furthermore, Jesus’ prayer on the eve of his crucifixion makes this truth abundantly clear.

¹When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³ And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. ⁵And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

John 17:1-5 (ESV)

The path through Jesus’ opening of this prayer informs our understanding well. First, Jesus’ desire for God’s glory is evident (see verses 1 and 4 respectively, “glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you” and “I glorified you on earth”). Second, Jesus made God known in the world by giving eternal life. He gave “eternal life” to people and this life was a relationship with the Father through the Son (see verse 3). Third, this two-part task of revealing God and reconciling people to Him was the “work” of Jesus. Verse 4 is the summation of his thought as therein Jesus combines his purpose (to glorify God) with his work (to give eternal life to men).

Jesus’ ministry, therefore, revealed God and called people to know and value Him (and his ways, his love, his kingdom) above everything else in life. All genuine Christian ministry will follow this pattern by leading people to know and value God above everything. Ministry that elevates people is not Christian ministry. Ministry that caters to earthly desires is not Christian ministry. Ministry that is distracted by temporal concerns is not Christian ministry. Christian ministry, first and foremost, exalts God.

Moreover, Christian ministry must be judged by the degree to which it exalts God. Does it make known the truth about Him? Does it encourage people to amazement at His greatness? Does it explain His character? Does it foster worship of God? Does it call people to value God above their lives, their families, their jobs, their possessions, and their hobbies?

Take a few moments to answer these ten questions and consider what type of church member you are. (These questions are not original as I have based them on the primary emphases in a helpful book.[1])

1.      Are you an expositional listener? Proper sermon digestion requires “listening for the meaning of a passage of Scripture and accepting that meaning as the main idea to be grasped for our personal and corporate lives as Christians” (20). Healthy churches are built with men and women who discipline themselves to hear God’s word in a way that fosters understanding and obedience.

2.      Are you a biblical theologian? A believer’s first and greatest calling is to ‘know God.’ Do you know what the Bible says about God? Are you committed – through systematic study – to pursuing this knowledge of God?

3.      Are you gospel saturated? “Apart from the gospel, the church has nothing to say – that is, nothing to say that cannot be said by some other human agency” (39). Have you so immersed yourself in this story that you order your life around it’s truth?

4.      Are you genuinely converted? Salvation brings life alteration. Is there obvious fruit in your life of a genuine life change?

5.      Are you a biblical evangelist? The call for a disciple is to be a disciple-maker. Are you active in sharing the gospel with others?

6.      Are you a committed member? Church membership is a vow taken before God to participate in the life and ministry of a local church. Have you broken that vow through inconsistent attendance, a failure to give, or a refusal to serve?

7.      Do you seek discipline? Church membership involves mutual accountability. Do you humbly seek and receive the loving correction from others?

8.      Are you a growing disciple? Healthy churches grow from healthy church members. “It’s impossible to divide the well-being of a church member from his or her spiritual growth and discipleship” (83).

9.      Are you a humble follower? “Leadership in the local church is established by God for the blessing of his people” (103). Do you follow God’s leaders with wide-open hearts, eager obedience, and joyful submission?

10.  Are you a prayer warrior? Perhaps the best way to support the ministry of your local church is to beg God to accomplish what mere men cannot.

The Bible offers a simple answer to these difficult questions: Jesus’ coming and dying provided the ONLY sufficient solution to an infinite problem. Thus far I introduced two important aspects of God’s nature and the obstacle created by man’s sin. Last time I explained that in this world three realities are colliding: God’s perfection, man’s imperfection, and God’s love. This collision brings God to the point of finding a way to satisfy His perfection and love in the face of man’s sin.

Again, His solution satisfies four necessary requirements.

1.      The need for a sacrifice.

2.      The need for a human sacrifice.

3.      The need for a perfect human sacrifice. Again, the sacrifice is required because of God’s absolute perfection. If the sacrifice was not perfect, it could not have accomplished its purpose. The primary reason I cannot die for the sins of my neighbor or brother or children is that my death will only pay the penalty for my own sin. I cannot die for you because even if I tried I would only be dying for myself. Imperfection cannot be offered as a means of satisfying God’s perfection. Thus, imperfect people are disqualified from being a sacrifice for other people’s sin.

4.      The need for a perfect person to make the perfect human sacrifice. Similarly, if the person offering the sacrifice is imperfect, he taints the sacrifice. Again, the sacrifice must be perfect or it tarnishes God’s perfection. So in order to preserve the purity of the sacrifice, it must be offered by a perfect priest.

So… why Jesus? Only Jesus could satisfy all four conditions. He could die as a sacrifice. He could die as a human sacrifice. He lived a sinless life so He could die as a perfect human sacrifice. He offered Himself by dying willingly so the sacrifice would not be tainted by a human priest.

Romans 3:26 summarizes that Jesus died “so that [God] might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” In a way He could never accomplish without Him, God satisfies His justice and His mercy perfectly in the death of Jesus.

Why Jesus? Because there is NO OTHER WAY!

The Bible offers a simple answer to these difficult questions: Jesus’ coming and dying provided the ONLY sufficient solution to an infinite problem. Thus far I introduced two important aspects of God’s nature and the obstacle created by man’s sin. Last time I explained that in this world three realities are colliding: God’s perfection, man’s imperfection, and God’s love. This collision brings God to the point of finding a way to satisfy His perfection and love in the face of man’s sin.

His solution satisfies four necessary requirements.

1.      The need for a sacrifice. The right or just punishment for sin is death. Every person who sins deserves to die. In order for God to uphold His perfection He must punish all sin with death. Again, if He were to overlook sin, His perfection dissipates and He forfeits His “God-ness.” Because of a person’s sin (or his inability to live in faith and obedience to God) he earns death. Therefore, for a person to live God allowed something to die in his place: a sacrifice.

God revealed this truth in the Old Testament through a sacrificial system that used animals. While animals cannot pay the debt incurred by man’s sin, God allowed men to use the system as a way to recognize their sin and foreshadow a better sacrifice that was coming. There is much more to say here, but for now understand: the only way for man to avoid the death he deserves is for someone to die in his place.

2.      The need for a human sacrifice. To satisfy God’s perfection the sacrifice had to be an equal trade. While the Old Testament animal system was symbolic; it could not be effective. An animal cannot pay for the sin of a person. The trade must be even. And this issue is no matter of “fairness” to people. This issue rests on the perfection of God. His perfection has been offended and the right or just reaction is to require the life of the offender.

Two down… two more to come.

The Bible offers a simple answer to these difficult questions: Jesus’ coming and dying provided the ONLY sufficient solution to an infinite problem. Last time we began the answer with two important aspects of God’s nature and the obstacle created by man’s sin.

Before we can address the solution to this quandary, we must establish man’s contribution to the problem more firmly. Most people are happy to accept an infinitely perfect and loving God, but they fail to see the real problem introduced by man. Their misunderstanding of the situation emerges from a failure to grasp sinfulness.

From Adam forward all men and women have rejected God and His standard of perfection. Even if you believe that people are basically good, you must admit that even the basically good people aren’t perfect. All people – by virtue of their imperfection – raise an obstacle between themselves and God because their imperfection contradicts God’s perfection.

On the basis of God’s absolute perfection and man’s inability to maintain absolute perfection, every person is separated from God. Thus, three realities are colliding: God’s perfection, man’s imperfection, and God’s love.

God wants to know us, but He must deal with our sin. He has three options.

1.      He could forget about humans altogether and move on.

2.      He could ignore our sin and accept us anyway.

3.      He could find a way to satisfy His perfection and His love.

The first two options present additional problems because each forces God to offend one of the two aspects of His nature I introduced last time. The first requires Him to ignore His love. The second requires Him to ignore His perfection. Therefore, the rest of the answer to our original question (Why Jesus?) centers on God’s plan for satisfying His perfection and love.

More to come…