What's going on here?

An angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to [Joseph] in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins." Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

See, the virgin will become pregnant

and give birth to a son,

and they will name Him Immanuel,

which is translated "God is with us."

When Joseph got up from sleeping, he did as the Lord's angel had commanded him. He married her but did not know her intimately until she gave birth to a son. And he named Him Jesus. (Matthew 1:20-25, my bold)

Joseph obeys the angel and names Jesus "Jesus", but Isaiah said "they will name him Immanuel" - there's different names there! What's going on?

Immanuel comes up once in Isaiah 7 (quoted in Matthew 1), and once more in Isaiah 8 (describing the size of the devistation left behind by the Assyrian army - it'll even reach the end of the Immanuel's kingdom).

The whole idea of "Immanuel" is rather scary - judgement is sure to happen.

• The people of Israel are shocked that Moses has spoken with God and not died.
  

  Look, the LORD our God has shown us His glory and greatness, and we have heard His voice from the fire. Today we have seen that God speaks with a person, yet he still lives. But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us and we will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer. For who out of all mankind has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the fire, as we have, and lived? (Deuteronomy 5:24-26)

  In verse 28 God affirms that they are speaking truth.

• Unclean things defile the tabernacle and that means death - nothing unclean or sinful can go near it.
  

  You shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst. (Leviticus 15:31)
  The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. (John 1:14)

Something needs to happen if we have Immanuel: "God with us", and we survive that encounter. We need Jesus: "God saves" to enable God to be with us, without killing us. It is only by him saving us from our sins that we can have Immanuel.

Yes Jesus is called Immanuel - by Christians over the centuries - but not by Joseph, who gives Jesus the name that is the key to unlocking the other stuff. Not Terrance the teacher, Henry the healer, Percy the prophet, nor Mike the miracle worker, but Jesus the saviour. He is those other things, but that's not his badge, not how God, through the angel and Joseph, wanted him to be labelled!

What is Christmas all about?

It's about the incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, God becoming man.

But why do that?

There is only one thing God couldn't do without becoming incarnate in a body. Die.
Athanasius said:

The Word perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father's Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death.
On the Incarnation chapter 2 paragraph 9.

Why die?

This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" — and I am the worst of them.
(1 Timothy 1:15)

To save sinner, Jesus had to die to stop death winning, fulfilling the law and carrying it's curse in our place, offering himself as a sin offering to propitiate (turn aside God's anger) for our sins. It had to be a human body, as it was human flesh that needed saving:

Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father.
On the Incarnation chapter 2 paragraph 8.

[God] condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin's domain, and as a sin offering, in order that the law's requirement would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4)

There are other reasons why the incarnation is great:

1. God is able to sympathise with our weakness as he's been tempted (see Hebrews 4:15)
2. We can know what love is:

   God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9+10)

3. That the Devil might be destroyed.

   Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, He also shared in these, so that through His death He might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the Devil
   (Hebrews 2:14)

4. We need not fear death
   

   Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, He also shared in these, so that through His death He might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the Devil — and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.
   (Hebrews 2:14+15)

5. To give us an example of true humility
   

   Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross.
   (Philippians 2:5-8)

6. God is fully made known through the person of Jesus:
• We have an image of the invisible Father, that we can see, in the Son (see Colossians 1:15)
  

  No one has ever seen God. The One and Only Son — the One who is at the Father's side — He has revealed Him.
  (John 1:18)
  if we know the Son, we know the Father
  (John 14:7)

• We see God's Glory

  we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
  (John 1:14)
  For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness" — He has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
  (2 Corinthians 4:6)

Introverted Intuitive Feeling Perception

That's what this site (HT:glenscriv) decides is the personality type of my blog, and therefore me. I think it's a reasonable match.

Having this personality means I'm more likely to take personality tests.

Wikipedia on INFP personalities.

I would give my feelings on this, but I don't want to. My personality explains why.

Faith

Do we understand faith? Do we really get what faith really is? I don't think many Christians, let alone people in general, do actually get it. They make faith a feeling, something we do, rather than an object, a thing we have been given. They make their faith the stand point of their salvation, rather than Jesus - that's faith in faith, which is rather recursive and inward looking (and our faith is rather untrustworthy). Faith looks outwards to it's object.

What is faith?

"Complete trust or confidence." (Oxford English Dictionary definition 1)
"Faith is God's work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God... Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favour that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God's grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith." (Martin Luther, from his introduction to the Book of Romans)
"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

It's not a vague feeling that something is true! I think when confronted with these definitions, the cry of the Father of the demon-possessed boy "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:22) comes into play for so many of us.

What does it do?

It's a pipe where grace can flow!

"You were also raised with [Jesus] through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead." (Colossians 2:12)
"for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith." (Galatians 3:26)
"For by grace you have been saved through faith." (Ephesians 2:8)
"in [Christ] we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him." (Ephesians 3:12)
"that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith" (Ephesians 3:17)
"we might receive the promised Spirit through faith." (Galatians 3:14)
"the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." (Romans 3:22)
"the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." (Romans 3:24-25)

Through the pipe of faith, we receive all the blessings of God: redemption, resurrection, the Spirit, adoption as sons of God, salvation, Christ dwelling in our hearts, boldness and confident access to the Father, God's righteousness and because "The one who by faith is righteous will live" (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, alternative translation) then also life (though I've already kind of mentioned that).

How do we get faith?

It's a gift:
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8 NIV)

It's offered to disciples:
"And Jesus answered them, "Have faith in God."" (Mark 11:22)

It's delivered, once for all, to believers:
"the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints." (Jude 2)

It doesn't come from ourselves:
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8 NIV)

It is founded (and perfected) by Jesus:
"Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2)

If I have a piece of post delivered it doesn't come from me and it is mine unless I go to the effort of getting rid of it (which I have the choice of doing) - there's no work in receiving it. It's like something being placed in my pocket - I have the choice to keep it there, however while it is a work to remove it, it involves no effort to keep it there, belonging to me.

Faith isn't a work, isn't something we produce, it's something we receive without effort. We cannot boast of our faith, only boast in the object of that faith, who gave us that faith in the first place.

Our standing point, our place where we find assurance cannot be in how much we believe and trust in God, that's not even the faith we've been given. The way we get conviction of things unseen is by following that pipe of faith to where it's all coming from. We find assurance in the trustworthiness of God, rather than anything to do with us. As John Newton wrote "The Lord has promised good to me, his word my hope secures".

Happy Reformation Day!

On this day, 491 years ago, a monk called Martin Luther pinned up, on the church notice board (which happened to be the door) of the Church in Wittenburg, 95 Theses.

These Theses were all about the problem of indulgences, the selling of bits of paper, signed by the Pope, granting time off purgatory for you or a dead relative. As Tetzel (the indulgence commissioner for Germany) said "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from purgatory springs." - Tetzel even had a price list for different sins, and allowed indugences to be brought in advance of a sin. The Pope used this money to build St Peter's Basilica in Rome. Indulgences 'removed' the need for repentance.

Luther, in his Theses challenges the right of the Pope to forgive sin, the whole Catholic Doctrine of Penance - that you could do certain things (give money, look at some relic, attend a Mass, go to confession and do some rosary prayers) and have your sins forgiven. Luther realised that those things did nothing, and gave false hope. He was still very Catholic at that point, but he was disgusted at the practises of the Roman Catholic church at that time - the defrauding of the pious in return for false assurance.

Here's Baldrick giving the Archbishop of Canterbury (Edmund the Black Adder) the run down of what the market is (sadly cut a bit short)...


Yes there were 2 Popes for quite a while, and both declared the other to be the Antichrist!
Luther joined in the fun - he circulated a pamphlet inviting people to come and look at some 'relics' he had - Theology Network has a list.

The main reason the 95 Theses were important is that, in order to defend his case, Luther had to read the Bible - the Pope took 3 years to respond, and by that time Luther's Theology had massively improved. He was a completely changed person by 1520, understanding Justification and not being rather scared (and bugging of his priest by confessing every tiny sin) - actually being a Christian. In 1520, Luther wrote "On the Freedom of a Christian" which opens:

A Christian is a free lord, subject to none.
A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant, subject to all.

The 95 Theses aren't great in and of themselves, but what they started in Luther (searching the Scriptures) changed him, and then what Luther had learnt changed Europe, added to greatly by other's work (it certainly wasn't just him). Political things (like the Pope and Henry VIII not getting along due to Henry's wanting to annul his marriage as illegal), technological advances (the printing press), scholarly works (Erasmus' Greek New Testiment) and many other things all worked together to overthrow the captivity of people by the Church - stuck in Latin that many priests could even understand, or pronounce properly, stuck in false hope and also false fear. Tons of things worked together to return Biblical Christianity to the world (after a short absence - only in 1514 had there been a report to the Pope saying that there were no more Bible-believers, that they had finally been defeated), and it returned in a big way.

Justification

Theology Network has today put up this "Table Talk" with John Piper about Justification. Listen to it!

Here's a quote from Luther on this glorious truth reflecting on his conversion (and Romans 1:17):

"In it the righteousness of God is revealed," that had stood in my way. For I hated that word "righteousness of God," which, according to the use and custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they call it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner.
...
At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, "In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, 'He who through faith is righteous shall live.'" There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.

The bit (in the Table Talk) about if teaching about the atonement was just about forgiveness of sins (in the last 5 minutes), then it's like we're forgiven as a past event and now got to be good to make it, got to justify ourselves was especially helpful. It helped me understand where the Mormon missionaries were coming from yesterday when I questioned a passage of the Book of Mormon that they gave me, where it talks about Christ's death removing the curse of the fall and making us free to choose good or bad, and us being on probation because of it. Yes - probation, basically they believe that God is going to see if we are good enough to make it! But you expect Mormons' to have a false gospel - how many 'protestants' have that heretical view? Rather a lot: that we have to be a 'Christ-follower' obeying Christ to be saved is very common, thanks to the neo-pietists and semi-pelagians that infest the English and American churches today.

Yes faith without works is dead - but the works are fruit - because we are saved we will do them. We don't have to prove our faith to God - he gave us it, he united us with Christ, clothed us in Christ's righteousness, he hid our shameful lives in Christ. We have to prove it to ourselves, of course, to give assurance - that we have the down payment of the Spirit, that we have been worked in by the one who will finish what he started, due to his faithfulness. Our good works assure ourselves that God is working in us, rather than assuring God that we are worthy of him. It's getting things the wrong way round - the wrong view of 'because we want to be saved, we will obey our Lord', rather than 'because we are saved, we will want to obey our Lord'.

Without Justification, we can have no assurance - thank God for this gift of his grace, that we get what we don't deserve: the righteousness of God. God looks at Christians and sees obedience "to the point of death, even death on a cross." - he sees Jesus' obedience, not our disobedience.

Jesus fulfils the law...by being more infectious than the disease!

Leviticus and Numbers are full of strange laws concerning 'clean' and 'unclean'. These describe how eating certain animals, touching dead things or mould, having skin diseases or bodily discharges and so on makes someone unclean for a time and makes them unable to be part of the camp for a certain time. If you touched, or where touched by, someone unclean then you were also made unclean (Numbers 19:22)

In the desert, when hundreds of thousands of people are all in close proximity, it's good for avoiding disease. Once in the promised land, it was a reminder of the holiness of God, but far more a ceremonial thing.

Jesus fulfils these regulations in the first 7 chapters of Mark by:

• Touching someone with a skin disease (1:40-45)
• Being touched by a bleeding woman (5:25-34)
• Touching a dead child (5:35-43)
• Explaining what real uncleanness is (7:14-23)

He touches/is touched by several unclean people, and what happens? Instead of the uncleanness spreading to Jesus (like Numbers 19:22 and common sense would suggest - clean stuff becomes not so clean when it touches dirty stuff, not the other way around - some sort of washing is needed), Jesus' cleanness spreads to that person. The leper in chapter 1 asks to be made clean, and is. The bleeding woman is healed and the little girl gets up, not dead any more.

Real uncleanness is a matter of the heart - nothing going in can defile, only that which comes out. What goes in goes into the stomach (there's your eating animals allowed - explicit in the text (7:19b)) and passes through - out into the toilet. It's what comes out of the heart that makes people unclean - "evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, lewdness, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness" (7:21-22).

Funnily enough, his 'what makes people unclean' come just before he goes and deals with Gentiles - the Syrophoenician woman, the deaf and dumb man (and others) and the 4000. Gentiles were considered unclean as well, and he's removed all the restriction.

Therefore we don't need to worry about falling foul of the clean/unclean rules because Jesus is willing and he can make us clean (Mk1:41). We don't need to worry about food laws, nor cleaning pots (more than is necessary to stop bacteria), or being Gentiles, as those things don't make us unclean. Rather the fulfilment of the laws about clean/unclean is found in Mk 7:20-23. That it's sin that makes us truly unclean - thankfully Jesus deals with that too - both in our justification and sanctification.

What's great is that Christians don't have to go through purification rituals to approach God, or even to be with his people. They've already been purified, washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.