The glory of God in the face of Christ

We had a training session a couple of weeks ago where we were asked to think about what the most important roles Jesus has in God’s plan.

I ended up feeling like most of the topics could be helpfully expounded under two headings:

A. Christ the Image of God
B. Christ the Mediator of a New Covenant

I want to stress at this point that this arrangement is by no means “Doctrine” – it’s not the teaching of the church! There may well be some horrible errors that may come out of this arrangement of the topics.

That said, I think it’s worth presenting, because:
1. It could be pedagogically helpful in our culture to sidestep some of the ontological debates about the Person of Christ by tying up his human and divine aspects under the same headings
2. This arrangement emphasises links with the doctrines of Creation and New Creation (in Heading A) and Salvation (in Heading B), and the links between those doctrines.
3. Applications to the doctrines of humanity and Christian life are more obvious – we are the image of God, washed by Christ’s blood.

Of the two headings above, it is Christ as the Image of God that will be more controversial, since the second heading corresponds pretty well with the traditional heading of Priest in the Prophet/Priest/King triad.

Let me expand what is under each heading.

A. Christ the Image of God

1. The Son of God
   He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. (Col 1)
    
   In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things … He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Heb 1).

 

2. Revelation of God
   In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son … He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Heb 1).
    
   Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14)

 

3. Creator and Sustainer
   He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col 1)
    
   He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Heb 1)

 

4. Better Adam
   Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. (Gen 1)
    
   Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit… Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15)

   By the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Rom 5)

   Christ being a better Adam – a perfect humanity – implies the next two points.

 

5. Perfect King and Judge
   “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Gen 1).
    
   While the first Adam failed to rule creation and so disobeyed, the second Adam obeyed and received all rule and authority, being enthroned in his resurrection:

   The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
   today I have begotten you.
   Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
   and the ends of the earth your possession. (Ps 2)

   “Behold, with the clouds of heaven
   there came one like a son of man,
   and he came to the Ancient of Days
   and was presented before him.
   And to him was given dominion
   and glory and a kingdom,
   that all peoples, nations, and languages
   should serve him (Dan 7)

   He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. (Col 1)

 

6. Goal for the Christian Life
   Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15)
    
   And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Rom 8)
    
   Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Col 3)
    
   All these points combine to produce our final point, that Christ as the image of God is worthy of all praise and honour.

 

7. Object of Worship
   The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 4)

    

   He is the radiance of the glory of God …
   “Let all God’s angels worship him.” (Heb 1)

   The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. (Rev 21)

More briefly, our second heading – Christ as the Mediator of a New Covenant. While there are links between the headings, I’m not sure that this aspect of Christ’s work can be described as an aspect of Christ as the image of God.

B. Christ the Mediator of a New Covenant

Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. (Heb 9)

1. Propitiatory Sacrifice
   Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood (Rom 3)
2. Priest of the New Covenant
   When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. (Heb 9)

    

   Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb 4)

3. Object of Worship
   And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying,

   “Worthy are you to take the scroll
   and to open its seals,
   for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
   from every tribe and language and people and nation,
   and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
   and they shall reign on the earth.” (Rev 5)

Though there are links between the two topics (a mediatorial office is in some respects a prophetic or revalatory office), I am encouraged that two of the key passages on Christ seem to distinguish the ideas in these two headings, but discuss them in close proximity:

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (Heb 1)

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col 1)

In both these passages, Christ’s pre-eminance and God-likeness are discussed in terms of his image, before discussing his mediatorial work as he reconciles us to God through the cross. This also seems to be the broad pattern in Hebrews, with chapters 1-2 establishing Christ as the supreme image of God, and the rest of the book examining the signficance of Christ’s redeeming work.

So this arrangement of ideas appears to be Biblical. Before I get too excited, what are the problems with it?

A couple of thoughts:

• To my mind the distinction between image and Son is pretty blurred, and there may be good reasons for preferring sonship as a heading.
• I haven’t got an obvious place to put the theme of Christ as defeater of Satan (aka Christus Victor).

Thoughts?

Before you respond, why not read over some of those verses again, and offer praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

How to look good naked

Verse 1
God gave me the sunshine,
Then showed me my lifeline
I was told it was all mine,
Then I got laid on a ley line
What a day, what a day,
And your Jesus really died for me
Then Jesus really tried for me

Verse 2
UK and entropy,
I feel like its ****in’ (beeped out) me
Wanna feed off the energy,
Love living like a deity
What a day, one day,
And your Jesus really died for me
I guess Jesus really tried for me

Bridge:
Bodies in the Bodhi tree,
Bodies making chemistry
Bodies on my family,
Bodies in the way of me
Bodies in the cemetery,
And that’s the way it’s gonna be

Chorus:
All we’ve ever wanted
Is to look good naked
Hope that someone can take it
God save me rejection
From my reflection,
I want perfection

Verse 3:
Praying for the rapture,
‘Cause it’s stranger getting stranger
And everything’s contagious
It’s the modern middle ages
All day every day
And if Jesus really died for me
Then Jesus really tried for me

Outro:
Jesus didn’t die for you, what do you want?
(I want perfection)
Jesus didn’t die for you, what are you on?
Oh Lord
(Jesus really died for you) Ohh
(Jesus really died for you)
(Jesus really died for you) Ohh

Above are the lyrics to Robbie Williams’ new single, Bodies. I have to confess I was a keen Robbie Williams fan back in the day. Anyway I thought this was an interesting song – it seems to show a serious head-on collision between 21st century British celeb culture and Christianity.

Perhaps the most striking thing is that Robbie is singing ‘Jesus really died for me.’ But in the second verse it’s ‘if Jesus died for me’. The song ends with the question, ‘Jesus didn’t die for you, what do you want?’.

What’s going on? Is Robbie a born again Christian now or is he singing about a flirtation with Jesus that he ultimately rejects?

It’s difficult to say, but it’s clear that there’s some kind of struggle with Jesus. Initially things look good (V1 and 2), but in V3 the strangeness of Christianity becomes clear (the ‘rapture’ is the idea that some Christians hold that they’ll be ‘raptured’ up to heaven at some point, leaving what’s left of the world to everyone else). It’s true that in many ways being a conservative Christian is a bit like living in the modern middle ages. You think men should be leaders, capital punishment’s God-given, governments should be submitted to, not necessarily voted in, etc. That’s a shock to most modern people’s system.

There’s two ways of hearing the chorus. The first one is that Robbie is exemplifying the concerns of modern pop culture, which, believably, is all about wanting to ‘look good naked’. Robbie wants a perfect body, and he doesn’t have it, hence the struggle with Jesus, who offers his followers little in the way of physical perfection now (at least that’s the feedback I get when I ask the ladies!). Ultimately, Jesus can’t heal our narcissism.

The other way of seeing it – which I just thought of while writing the last para – is that Robbie’s referring to the effects of the Fall, which we happened to be looking at in our bible study group at church a couple of weeks ago. After Adam and Eve disobey God’s command not to eat from the tree of knowledge, they realise they are naked and hide when God comes:

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

(Genesis 3)

On this view, the human condition is all about wanting to good naked, but realising that you don’t – that you can’t stand naked and unashamed in front of God. Even as you look at yourself in the mirror you know you’re not up to much, and that it would take perfection to sort you out. But that’s what Jesus provides: a hope of being able to stand before our Creator, knowing that because of Jesus we are perfect in him.

And in Christ, there is even the hope of having perfect bodies:

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

(Philippians 3)

So maybe Robbie is telling us how Jesus deals with the central problem of pop culture. Rather than Jesus being defeated by our narcissism, as it fails it drives us to him.

I don’t know how honest this song is, and the ending is as ambiguous as the rest of it, with backing singers repeating ‘Jesus really died for you’. But I pray that Robbie, and his generation, would have the humility to recognise that we are not able to ‘look good naked’, and to trust in Christ, who will one day transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body.

That’s my effort at working out what he’s talking about – thoughts? I have no idea what the bridge is about…

All the better for it

I was just sitting on the bench in the garden having lunch, and some thoughts about brokenness and fixing occurred to me.

You see, the bench used to be broken, and looked like a sad tangle of spars. But soon after I moved in we managed to fit all the pieces back together, and drill some screws into it. It’s almost as good as new, and I take an almost absurd pleasure in sitting on it.

It’s the same with my bike. I really enjoy the freedom of cycling around, but for a couple of months I’ve been stranded by a puncture. I finally got round to replacing the inner tube last week. After finishing the process of taking off the wheel, removing the tyre, pumping up the new tube and replacing the wheel, it feels better than ever to be rolling round East London.

It’s like that in the Bible too. In Luke 15, Jesus tells three stories about lost things being found. A shepherd loses a sheep. A widow loses a coin. A father loses a son. But in each story, what was lost is found. And because it is found, life is better than ever. The shepherd calls his mates to say ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ The widow calls her girlfriends to say ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ The father celebrates and kills a fattened calf, saying to his other son ‘It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’

When what we lost is restored to us, life is better than ever. Jesus said ‘there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than 99 righteous persons who need no repentance’.

We all know the hurt broken things can cause. Broken homes and broken relationships look ugly and leave us stranded.

But Christians know that God is a fixer. They know that he’s remaking the world, slotting every broken spar into place. When he’s finished, life will be better than ever. Paul writes to the Romans:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

When broken things are fixed, it’s a beautiful thing. Whatever happens to the broken things of this world, one day the whole world will be fixed. And it will be all the better for it.

Our freedom is sweeter because we were stranded. Our rest will be more satisfying because it was lost.

And God will rejoice in a people who are his, who once were dead, but now are alive. Who were lost, but now are found.

For while you wait

I just wrote an update to the About page, and I thought I’d share it here too:

This blog is called ‘Stay Awake’. It’s all about living the Christian life well, to ensure that when Jesus comes, bringing the new day of the new creation, we’re not found to be slumbering in bed.

We’re the bride, patiently waiting for the bridegroom; the doorkeeper, watching for our master; children of light, living for the Day. We’re awake, sober, armed and ready.

It’s a blog about that little, unfashionable, word perseverence. A small subject in most systematic theologies, but one that really encompasses what the Christian life is all about. It’s about making sure we’re ready to meet our King when he comes.

A broad topic to be sure, and in practice I’ll write about interesting topics wherever I find them. But to stop things becoming too theoretical, and to make sure that this blog builds up I’ve given the categories an escatological cast. To encourage us to live now in the light of the not-yet.

Please do jump in and get involved with what I’m writing – it’s good to have you aboard! Let’s respond to the hope that we have in Christ by encouraging one another, and building each other up.

For the glory of God!