Category: Christ

The simple free throw in basketball is as old as the game itself.  One of the few things that has not changed over the years and is the same at every level of play.  It has always been 15’ from a 19” basket.  Close games are often won or lost by the free throw.  However, free means uncontested not automatic.

Knowing Christ is similar to the basketball free throw.  The privilege of knowing Christ on the resurrection side of the cross is made possible by grace through faith in the person and work of Christ.  Paul refers to this new connection as Christ “in us” and we “in him”. This new reality offers us an opportunity that must be developed.

Knowing the infinite God of the universe may sound wonderful, but it takes effort, practice and skill over time if it is to be realized.  Jesus, along with the other New Testament writers, taught and modeled how this relationship is developed.  In a previous blog I mentioned that Jesus connected knowing him with eternal life.  He made eternal life to be more like a verb than a noun.  Paul challenges us today to take action.  Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called (1Timothy 6:12 NASB).

The process of knowing Christ is similar to how we grow in our knowledge of any living person.  There are four critical elements to “knowing” someone including Christ.

• Mutual respect
• Consistent dialogue
• Shared experiences
• Authentic transparency

Mutual respect

Respect is foundational to knowing and ultimately to loving another person.  The Psalmist reflects on how God views the people he has created.  What is man that You take thought of him…and care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God and You crown him with glory and majesty!”  (Psalms 8:4-5 NASB).

Part of our challenge in knowing Christ is to understand and accept what he says is true of us who are part of his family of grace.  John states we are children of God (I John 3:1-2).  Paul says we are saints.  But what do we say?  Do we think of ourselves as worms or wonderful, vile or valuable, sinners or saints?

Equally important is what we think of Christ – not only in theological terms such as omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, but regarding everyday life.  Most of us have a mental picture of Christ as the good Shepherd, but do we respect him as the person we would take with us into the boardroom or classroom….even picture him teaching a course on physics or psychology?

Dallas Willard identifies this as a major problem for discipleship:

What lies at the heart of the astonishing disregard of Jesus found in the moment-to-moment existence of multitudes of professing Christians, is a simple lack of respect for him.  He is not seriously taken to be a person of great ability.  But how, then, can we admire him?  And what can devotion or worship mean if simple respect is not included in it?  (The Great Omission p 19).

Developing an accurate picture(s) of the nature of Christ is the foundation for respect and true knowledge of him.  (Topics for future blogs).

Consistent dialogue

No friendship develops without mutual and consistent conversation.  It reveals what is on the mind and heart of another person.  Close down dialogue and you shut down the relationship (as most married people know too well).  Without consistent and mutual dialogue with Christ we may have a good theology but a shallow relationship.

We usually understand that prayer and Scripture form this dialogue.  The challenge is to develop this dialogue on a consistent and personal level.  The alternative is a “911” God who we call only when we are in trouble and Scripture becomes a Chilton’s Auto Manual that we look at only when something breaks.

 Shared experiences

Friendships are built one experience at a time.  Being together, sharing adventures, joys, heartaches, and sometimes just the daily routine, builds a relationship.  Shared experience creates a history of trust that can transcend time as evidenced by fraternities, sororities, military units, and sports teams.  As we trust and obey Christ in our daily lives our relationship with him will grow in scope and depth.

Mutual transparency

Christ does not promise to share his heart with casual observers.  Jesus told his disciples:

I no longer call you servants…I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you  (John 15:15). 

A study of the training of the twelve apostles reveals that Christ gradually revealed his heart as the disciples became closer to him.  His first invitation to the disciples was, “Come and see”.  By the time they were in the Garden of Gethsemane, they saw deeply and intimately into the heart and passion of the Savior.

Knowing Christ is a wondrous gift, but it must be developed.  The initiative and the means are from him, but he waits for us to act, to open the door and invite him into a relationship of KNOWING.

Reflection:

What practice (spiritual discipline) do you need to develop that would allow for a deeper relationship with Christ?  What would be a next step to make it happen?

For several months I was having a spiritual conversation with a physician friend of mine.  One day in frustration he said, “I don’t get it.  You (and those like you) talk about a personal relationship with Christ.  That doesn’t make sense to me.  How can you have a “personal relationship” with God?”

His response surprised me and made me think how casually I use that term without thinking about it or explaining it.  It does sound strange.  No other religion claims that its followers can relate to God in a personal way.   Wanting to explain the concept, I realized that the phrase “personal relationship” is not used in Scripture….but then neither is the word “Trinity”.   Although the words are not used the concept of relating to God on an individual and personal level is everywhere.  It would be presumptuous, even preposterous, if it were not taught as a reality.

Since this idea is so central to discipleship, let’s stop and see how it is developed in Scripture.

“Knowing” is a term in the New Testament that carries the idea of a personal relationship.  The Greek word is GINOSKO and Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words explains it like this:

GIN0SKO (GK) signifies “to be taking in knowledge, to come to know, recognize, understand,” or “to understand completely”.  In the NT (ginosko) frequently indicates a relation between the person “knowing” and the object known; in this respect, what is “known” is of value or importance to the one who knows, and hence the establishment of the relationship.

Jesus refers to knowing him as eternal life.   “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).   The implication is that eternal life is more of a relationship than a place, beginning at the moment of our new birth and lasting throughout eternity.  What if eternal life is the relationship we establish now and the essence of our future life in the new heaven and earth?

So how do we know Christ?  What does knowing mean when dealing with God who is both transcendent and invisible?  The Bible even talks about the possibility of knowing him as we would a personal friend.  How is that possible?

We can better understand the meaning of this relational knowing by comparing it with other things we know.

We can know a rock, for example, by studying its composition.  A microscope, chemicals, and diligence can reveal a great deal of knowledge about a rock.  Geologists can give us the history of the rock, how it was formed, and what it can be used for.  But though well informed, we would not claim to have a relationship with a rock.

Knowing a real person who lived in the past is another form of knowing.  A biographer is one who studies and writes about the life of an historic person so others can know about him or her.  Based on the reliability of the historic records used by the biographer, others can get a reasonably accurate picture of that individual.  But even with all that knowledge, the knowing is not on a relational, personal, or experiential level.

The biblical idea of knowing Christ (God) is more than knowing his composition (character and attributes) or the historic story line (the biblical account).  Rather knowing Christ is similar to how we would know another living person except, of course, that he is invisible.

There are four critical elements that are needed to have a personal relationship with another individual as well as with Jesus Christ.

• Mutual respect
• Consistent dialogue
• Shared experiences
• Authentic transparency

There is a danger that our knowing Christ is more like how we would know a rock or an historical figure.  We study and marvel at his attributes.  We explore his story down through the biblical records and become familiar with what he said and what others said about him.  But we may fail to personally know him through developing a life on life relationship.

In our next blog we will explore the above four relational dynamics in more detail.

For further reflection:  Think about the implications of the following presuppositions:

1. God is knowable and delights in being known (1 John 3:1)
2. God has made it possible to know him through the second person of the Trinity (John 1:18)
3. Knowing God is possible but not automatic (Matt. 7:22-23)
4. Knowing God involves revelation, faith, reason, and relationship (Eph. 1:17-18)

The pursuit of knowing Christ must be a firsthand, personal experience.  There is a wide difference between what is true and what we know is true, between what we say is true and what we embrace in our hearts to be true.  The Scripture tells us what is true about God, but only by experience can we know it for ourselves.  God is not satisfied with our second-hand knowledge; he wants us to know him personally.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps 34:8).

The testimony of the saints down through history is that God is good.  But we don’t “know” it until we experience it (taste it) through defining moments in our own life journey.

Growing up in mid America in the 1950s, we rarely traveled outside of the state.  The interstate highway system was just being built and traveling cross-country on 2 lane highways was slow and dangerous.  One year our family got a subscription to National Geographic magazine.  The slick layout and colorful pictures was an immediate attraction to me.  I am not sure I ever read any of the articles, but I sure looked at the pictures.   National Geographic took the eyes of my mind to places I never thought I would see in person:  places like the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Glacier National Park.

The following summer my parents announced that we were going to make a road trip to California.  Five of us piled into a 1952 two-door Chevy and headed west on “Route 66.”

Along the way we stopped and saw places we had seen in National Geographic.  I remember looking down from the edge of the Grand Canyon and standing next to a giant Sequoia tree thinking, “The pictures were great but no comparison to seeing it myself.”

In some ways the Scripture is an inspired National Geographic magazine.  It gives us snapshots of men and women in biblical history who encountered God and discovered something about him.  We read the text and vicariously gain a picture of the reality of God as it is illustrated in the lives of the saints of old.  However, that knowledge was never meant to be a substitute for our own experiences.  We, too, should be taking our own pictures and writing our own stories about our personal encounters with God.

John, one of the apostles who walked with the incarnate Son of God, wrote about this principle in his first letter,

From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands.  The Word of life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen!  And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this:  The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.  We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3 MSG)

John is telling us that he encountered Christ firsthand.  Now he wants his experience to be ours, taking our own pictures and writing our own story.  Too often as Christians we are just reading or telling other people’s stories about their encounters with Christ.  We have not stepped out by faith and tasted the reality of God though our own experience and story.

The familiar story of Peter walking to Jesus on the water is as amazing to us today as it must have been to the other eleven men sitting in the boat.  I am sure they told this story often as they sat around their family dinner tables.  We may be hard on Peter for his lapse of faith when he took his eyes off Jesus and focused on the storm – resulting in more than just wet feet.  But only one out of the 12 ever actually walked on water!  Peter knew firsthand what they could only talk about.

The apostle Paul summarized his spiritual journey in Philippians 3 when he said, “… I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8).  The “all things” were not just his past claims of righteousness but included his present success of ministry.  Paul was not content with his original understanding of Jesus.  He wanted to continue to personally know him in a deeper way both in experience and knowledge.

Along our journey of discipleship, we will encounter storms that threaten our boat.  The stories of how others met Jesus at their point of need serve as good catalysts to strengthen our faith and give us hope.  However, they can never substitute for our own personal encounters with God.  It is vital that we, too, “taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Reflection:

Think of a defining moment in your life when God showed up.  How did he do it and were you surprised?  What is the picture of God that was created by that encounter?

I recently went into the hospital for an outpatient surgery procedure.  I found it interesting how much effort went into insuring they had the right person.  Initially I was asked for my picture ID along with answering personal questions like date of birth, address, etc.  I was then led into the pre-op area where, while checking my stylish wristband, they again questioned me regarding my identity.

Once in the surgery room with all the staff and doctor in place they again asked me my name, DOB, and why I was there.  Then they took a vote!  Really.  One nurse said, “Do we all agree that this is the person he says he is?”  The last thing I remember was their unanimous confirmation.  Understandably, it was important that they had the right person not just the right name.

Although they confirmed my name, they still knew nothing about me as a person.  My name is simply a label that differentiates me from the other 7 billion people on planet earth.   It functions like a relational social security number.  Your name is also very important, but it doesn’t tell me anything about you.  (I would know more about you if you told me your nickname!)

In contrast, names were more than just a label in the biblical culture.  Names carried meaning that often described the person.  Sometimes they were prophetic regarding a future role or at other times, they might simply describe a person’s character.  For example, in the New Testament the disciple we know as Peter (rock) was originally called Cephas (stone).  Jesus gave him a new name that described Peter’s future role as a spiritual leader.

The second person of the Trinity has many names and each one forms a significant portrait of who he is.  The over-arching name is the Son of God which emphasizes his divinity and his eternal relationship within the Trinity.  We could say the name Son of God is like the clothes line on which all the other names hang.  Each of those names is critically important for our faith because it reveals something about the Son of God.  Each one gives a clearer understanding of who he is making it possible to know him and grow in our discipleship on the resurrection side of the cross.

For example, on the resurrection side of the cross the Son of God is referred to as the Lord Jesus Christ which contributes three portraits describing who he is.  The name Lord implies his authority.  The name Jesus or Jesus of Nazareth is the portrait of the incarnated Son of God living among men.  The focus is on his humanity.   Those names are generally understood.

The name Christ, however, is often misunderstood as it is used as though it was his last name rather than a unique portrait of who the Son of God is.  The name Christ is the Greek equivalent to the Jewish word Messiah and puts the focus on his being the anointed One.

Currently the name Christ is probably the most common description given to the Son of God with Jesus being a close second.  However, each of those names gives us only a single portrait of the real person behind the name.  In order to avoid misunderstanding and subsequent error, we must keep the composite of all the portraits in mind.

Jesus said, “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full” (John 16:24).  Jesus wasn’t referring to his name as a label but to his total person.  He wanted them to pray on the basis of his character, authority, and power, keeping in mind all that entails.

The names for the Son of God are portraits of who he is – not labels.  They are a critical way for us to know Christ.  They deepen our understanding and help develop our faith and trust in him.  We will discuss more names of the Son of God in future blogs as we continue to develop a multi-dimensional, composite portrait.  For the purpose of this blog, however, I will use the name Christ as the general name for the Son of God on this side of the resurrection.

Question for reflection:

What portraits are formed in your mind when you think about the names of Christ given in Isaiah 9:6?  In what way do those portraits affect your journey of knowing Christ?

“And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”

The Theory of Everything (TOE, for short) is the long-sought after expression (equation) to explain the nature and behavior of all matter and energy in existence.  This simple and illusive equation “would allow us to read the mind of God.” (Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist, City College, City University of New York)

Albert Einstein, considered to be the greatest scientist since Isaac Newton, desperately searched for 30 years to discover this grand theory…unsuccessfully.  Others have followed in his steps.  Some have given up while others claim that the “superstring theory” (whatever that is) is now the final answer.  But what if the ultimate explanation of everything is not a formula but a person?  What if the theory of everything is not a short equation but Christ, the eternal, second person of the trinity?

You may not have spent much time struggling over the TOE, but you probably have asked about the overarching theme of the Bible: the golden thread that holds life all together.  How you answer that question forms a lens through which you will look at Scripture and interpret life.  For some the thread is personal redemption.  For others it’s mission, God’s holiness, his kingdom, or his glory.

As we consider the adventure of discipleship, I would suggest the evidence indicates the overall theme of Scripture and life to be the revelation of God in Christ.  The Bible is a story of progressive revelation with the New Testament writers revealing the second person of the Trinity (Christ) as the ultimate focus from creation to the final revelation.

As we move along in the timeline of the Bible, God is revealed with greater clarity as Christ takes center stage (Heb. 1:1-3).  John records Jesus saying to the Jews in his day, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life;” (implying …or whatever else you are looking for) “it is these that testify about Me” (John 5:39).

Paul explains, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.   For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things have been created through him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:15-17).

After developing the role of the ascended Christ, the writer of Hebrews addresses the practical, real time application to our journey of faith when he says, “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:1-2).  Among Paul’s final instructions to Timothy is the statement, “Remember Jesus Christ” (2 Tim 2:8).

Even the last book of Scripture begins with the words, “This is the revelation of Jesus Christ”.  Then serving as a warning to every succeeding generation, the angel commends the church at Ephesus for their work for Christ, but rebukes them for their loss of love for him (Rev. 2:4).

It is not a trite thing to say that discipleship is based on the relational centrality of Christ, the second person of the trinity, the Son of God.  He is the focal point of this great epic drama we find ourselves in.  Mission, redemption, kingdom, etc., all flow out of our understanding of Christ, who he is and what he has done.  Discipleship on the resurrection side of the cross puts Christ as the focus and the explanation of everything.  He is the lens through which we see and understand everything else.

Our challenge in discipleship is to make Christ the center and keep him there not just as a cliché, but as a practical reality.   When Christ is the Explanation of Everything (EOE/TOE), everything else fits.  When other things (even good things) slip into that position, eventually something gets distorted.  Our greatest privilege, opportunity, and calling between the resurrection and his final revelation is to discover and know Christ, the One who is and was and is to come.   It is out of our relational intimacy with Christ that transformation, mission, and everything else flows.

Questions for reflection:

1. What are some ways the Scripture expresses the centrality of Christ? (Heb.1:1-3; Rev, 1:8; John 1:1-3; Phil 2: 9-11; Isa. 9:6-7)
2. What are some of the “good things” that can slip in and usurp Christ’s centrality? (Rev 2:1-7)

We are currently looking at the concept of discipleship in order to better understand what Jesus meant when he called us to be and make disciples.

To understand discipleship today we need to look below the waterline at its historical development. Discovering the meaning of a word as a vehicle for communication requires some understanding of the language and context of the speaker.  The farther we are removed from that original setting, the greater the risk of distortion.  The danger is to either read back into the word the current cultural meaning or conclude that what the original speaker had in mind cannot be known. Therefore, we assume the freedom to create our own mental picture.

The biblical term “disciple” primarily comes from the four gospels in the New Testament.  It has limited use in the book of Acts and completely absent in the Epistles.  So what did Jesus have in mind when he used the word?  I would suggest that in reality the concept of discipleship is found throughout the Scripture and that Jesus built on a rich Hebrew heritage, finding expression in the first century as rabbinical discipleship.

Since most of our Bible translations come from Greek texts, the meaning of disciple in the Greek is a good starting point.  The Greek word for disciple is “mathetes” which means pupil or learner.  The emphasis is placed on either the learner or the content being learned.  The problem is that Jesus was not a Greek but a Hebrew.

The Hebrew word for disciple is “talmid” with the emphasis on apprenticeship.  In the Gospel period a talmid was an apprentice to a Rabbi.  The focus was on who the Rabbi was and subsequently what he taught.  A talmid was one who intentionally, consistently, and passionately followed a person and not just a belief system.  Relationship was the key that resulted in learning.  That is why Jesus recruited his disciples with the invitation “follow me”.  Everything flowed out of this relational connect, including behavior, mission, imitation, convictions, etc.

The word disciple is not used in the Old Testament except in Isa. 50:4, but the concept of discipleship is.  It was normally carried out in the context of the family (Deut. 6:6-9).  There are only a few examples of one adult being mentored or learning from another in a relational way (e.g. Moses/Joshua and Elijah/Elisha).

However, the concept of a personal, relational pursuit of God in the Old Testament is found in phrases like “seek my face”, “a man after my own heart”, or “he set his heart to seek the Lord”.  God’s commentary on King David is an Old Testament example of discipleship.

“He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, ‘I HAVE FOUND DAVID the son of Jesse, A MAN AFTER MY HEART, who will do all My will’” (Act 13:22 NASB).  David expressed it from his perspective in Psalm 27:8, “When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, O LORD, I shall seek.”

With the incarnation of Jesus the concept of discipleship moved from seeking to following — “follow me” (Matt 4:19) or “be with me” (Mark 3:14).  To be in the space/time presence of the Creator, to walk, eat, and sleep with him, was no small thing.   In the gospel period discipleship was modeled by those who were actually with him.  He invited and welcomed those who wanted to follow him, learning that to follow him was to become like him (Luke 6:40).

But with the bodily resurrection and ascension of Christ, discipleship has taken on a whole new relational dynamic.  Seeking him and being with him are now the prototypes (below the water line) on which a new expression of discipleship is built.  Discipleship on the resurrection side of the cross means being in him and he in us.  Paul expressed this new relational dynamic when he said that his pursuit was to “know him” (Phil. 3:8).  The change that took place in discipleship after the resurrection was as dramatic as it was after the incarnation.  We will look at some of these changes in the future.

I would suggest that through biblical history the concept of discipleship expanded from “seek him” to “follow him/with him” to “in him”.  Jesus predicted this new relational dynamic in John 15:4 when he said,

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”

“Abide in me” relates to the intimate connection we now have in Christ.  With the ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit we are now in him and he is in us.  Discipleship on the resurrection side of the cross comes from a radically new relational dynamic that allows us not only to know about him but to actually know him (which is a subject we will look at in more detail later).

Questions for reflection:

1. What are some of the changes you can think of that effect discipleship on this side of the resurrection?
2. What are some implications of discipleship that come from the concept “seek my face” or “he set his face to seek the Lord”?