It was Christmas, and I had just attained my teens, a hungry year of malnutrition and rickets, but in my hand lay a valued gift. There I sat, trying to extract my 'merry Christmas' from it and determined to revel in the spirit of the day with my special present, a tin of home-made toffee.
That evening it filtered into my head that chewing toffee was not a catalyst of Christmas joy. This realisation could be early evidence that I had crossed the gap between childhood and adolescence except that millions of adults still think the Christmas spirit derives from comestibles, and from bottles in particular. A TV character once said she wasn't celebrating Christmas so had sent it back to the shop.
However, after I became a Christian, I did not depend on eatables as a source of delight, though perhaps that was because food in the depressed north-east was hardly of delightful quality. Jesus said "Is not life more important than meat?" and I think we had begun to prove it.
My earliest theology was rudimentary but adequate. I knew Jesus had come to Bethlehem, lived, been crucified for me, and gone back to heaven. Only, at 15, I was not surprised that Jesus having been killed left us. (Although of course I knew He had been raised from the dead). I attended regular teaching which in those early years did not reach very high or plumb very deep so I soon picked what everybody knew. It was enough for us to rejoice in salvation. While singing Christmas carols at home around our old American organ, some complained that we sang them as if we meant them. Well we did.
Christmas set me pondering. Aren't they one sided (joy to us, joy to me, joy to the world)? Wonderfully true of course, and the greatest fact about this planet is that Jesus came here. But what about Him and His side? He became human – a stupendous event for Him as well as for us.
So we come to Bethlehem, shepherds, wise men, lowing cattle, and this tiny new baby. A door had opened in Bethlehem's skies and He had come through accompanied by the music and trumpets of ranks of angels. From where, from what vastness? We have heard of a dominion of joy, of glittering-winged angels, lords of ancient worlds, dazzling living creatures, great intelligences, and glorious spirits that populate unknown heights and depths of that other world. This baby had emerged from there, His glory disguised in gross flesh. Incarnation!
This is shattering drama. The implications are beyond human imagination. "The Word made flesh"! The greatest Bethlehem impact was not on us, but on Him, the babe in the manger straw. What we must see is that what impacts God impacts all things. Thinking about that, the incarnation was a Divine event that crashed across the entire universe. It is an ocean of truth to explore. God's view of Christmas is deep and imponderable. How did the Father "feel", surrendering Jesus to us? He is infinite God. Did He 'feel' it at all? Could it really 'cost' the Almighty and unchangeable Creator anything?
One thing we know. The Father not only gave us His Son, but meant it as a supreme sign of His love. If it cost God nothing, how could it show He loved us? A gift that costs nothing proves nothing. God had made the world just by saying "Let it be!" Was the miracle of Jesus in the same category? Obviously not. What value would that express?
Jesus was never the product of a word. He was THE word, born to the Virgin by the eternal passion of a God bent on saving His world. "O generous love", unknown, incomprehensible. The truth is we will never know what this gift actually did to God. The human can never encompass Deity. Yet, we know He expended all He had. This is the Christmas mystery for which we adore Him.
God gave. He could not give meanly. Infinite God can only give infinitely, to the utmost. Jesus is the declaration of His immeasurable greatness. What a gift Jesus is! Even God was proud of Him. "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased". He is the love gesture of the Sovereign Majesty of the Almighty, and worthy of our praise.
God didn't loan Jesus. God doesn't do things on a temporary basis. He has no pre tem or occasional interests, no one-off phases, no past, no yesterdays and no dispensations. What He ever was, He is for ever. The greatest paradox and mystery is how the unchangeable God became Man, and became what He wasn't. But "great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh." 1 Timothy 3:16.
Putting on manhood He never cast it aside. He didn't doff humanity like a diver taking of his suit after a plunge into an alien element. The greatest name in heaven and earth today is Jesus Christ, a human name, and "Jesus Christ (is) the same yesterday, today and for ever".
Time after time the New Testament names Him as the undying Mediator and changeless Man Christ Jesus. "There is one God and one mediator between God and men, THE MAN Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). He presents us to God as Man and presents God to us being Himself God, always 'this same Jesus".
Such a transcendent mystery of God becoming Man, the mystery of the Person of Christ, God's most profound act, shakes all creation. It is like looking into the face of God. Deity suffering human experience. The old deists' "natural religion" said " God's in His heaven and all's well with the world" - their two-tier world. That isn't our world. Christ has tied heaven and earth together, the Divine and the physical. On Calvary He outstretched His arms, his feet off the earth, and His head lifted to heaven, bound us all in the bundle of life with Himself and made us citizens of the Kingdom of God. What lies beyond it?
This cross-over of God and man is the second phase of creation that was always intended. "The lamb was slain from the foundation of the earth" (Revelation 13:8). The earth was God's stage, made for Jesus, on which eternal redemption would take place. He was not an after thought or an emergency measure. He always was the keystone to the complexities and architecture of the Divine purposes arching eternity.
When God became man, it happened in Bethlehem but it was the epi-centre of a cosmic earthquake. The Lord of all things affected all things, impregnating them with a new reality, new forces and new possibilities. Healing, restoration, resurrection and cleansing are planted in earthly soul. Today has become the day of salvation! Powers of regeneration are part of the new order of spiritual potential. Forgiveness flows in our mundane channel. The explosion of life in Christ's tomb ripples for ever across the universe, bringing the death of death.
This Christmas time, that is our world, Christ-visited. Ring the bells! Disguise the drab day with the prettiest decorations! Eat, drink, cast off dull care, rejoice and be glad in the Lord, let all creatures in heaven and earth rejoice! The Lord has done it! He has wrought salvation and His victory is ours.
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ART AND GREATNESS.
Professional musician friends told me they plan a classical arts festival at Oxford in 2004 as a means to promote the Gospel, mainly music, an art form well commended and also commanded in Scripture.
I play instruments, but what about art? Exodus 20:4 says "Thou shalt not make unto thee any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth". Well! Most readers of IWT will know, I have "made the likeness" of many things "on earth", in some 2000 landscape sermon illustrations painted in church and on TV, also a few portraits. So, the First Commandment? Because of it, Israel produced no great artists, only musicians.
Recent bereavements took away my pleasure for music and painting. I could not bring myself to pick up a brush, open my violin case, or sit at a piano. But, at the moment I find these activities demanding my attention again. Why? God given instinct insists on them.
Of course, I quoted only part of the First Commandment. It continues "Thou shalt not bow down they self to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God". So in defence I don't paint a mountain or a person to bow down and worship them!
Now the fascinating truth is that for thousands of years very few owned any kind picture. Then came photography. It developed and a practical method was found by W.H.F. Talbot. So recent that it was after my grandfather was born. Photography swiftly brought a world revolution. Today we are swamped with pictures, photographs, films, television, videos, prints. I have a colour photo of myself taken by mobile phone! "No likeness of anything in heaven or earth"? We have the likeness of everything on earth!
Moses law came when he was dragging Israel reluctantly out of idolatry. It was the way of life throughout the earth. Israel had known nothing else. Men drew and carved and then worshipped what they produced. It always surprises me when my brush produces likenesses. Possibly pagans credited it to spirit forces investing the work.
However, it is incredible but pictures are in many people's minds the real world. If you don't watch "The Street " you don't know what is going on in the world. Fictional characters are the most important. Television determines who is "great". It presents super humans. But it is false greatness, hollow glory, pseudo fame for doing nothing except being seen on screen.
Films and television produce the likeness of things on earth. Then - the world bows down to them. "Stars" appear, stars of the sacred turf, stars of stage and Hollywood. Millions adore them, with a frightening similarity to religious worship. Never since the Pharaohs have men and women been treated so much like gods and as if it was a religious rite, , vast wealth is laid at their sacred feet.
Baseball players in America paid about £1 million a year, went on strike for more. In politics the main plank in the platform of one political party was the re-distribution of wealth. It has been quietly omitted. The government approved the national lottery handing large portions of the national wealth to non-creative people but the new 'great' of the screen are honoured with titles and wealth as if they were the heroes of war.
God's First Commandment was against "likenesses" because they drew false worship. How near is that danger now? Our technology brings grossly undeserved fame to mortals often with small talent, and often whose personal lives will not bear looking into. These are the new 'great, whose fans are excited even to touch them, but whose character is such I would not touch them with a padded gloves.
This world of pictures is part of the world system which Christ resisted. We are not to be conformed to it, but to the godly standards and ideals of greatness, with Christ the supreme role model. True greatness is not fame and fortune, but love, humility, and selfless service. Jesus coined the word Mammon for money as if it was a devil.
The Bible I think praises only one person as 'great' an unknown farmer's wife in Shunem. ( 2 Kings 4). She had no great riches, no stunning talent. The Bible describes only her extraordinary and courageous faith and that alone brought her the supreme Bible accolade of greatness. "Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom?"
Few of the truly great appear on television. Their way of life doesn't suit the character of broadcasting. They follow Jesus, serving everywhere, dedicated, humble, living for others, seeking no reward but Christ's 'Well done!" They are the bringers of decency, peace, hope and succour to the least and lowest. Paul described them "Unknown yet well known, as poor yet making many rich".! Disciples, martyrs, witnesses, missionaries, preachers, scholars, teachers, doctors, nurses, venturing where nobody but Christians will dare.
If Hollywood wants great drama, let it turn to the annals of the Christian church, beyond all the ferocity of a money- crazed world and the hyped and pseudo famous, and look again at the noble armies of Jesus. . But - how great are we?
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BIBLES I HAVE KNOWN
It is Christmas, so let me tell stories. The technical bit comes at the end. It happens that stories about Bibles seem to represent chapters in my life.
At seven in an Anglican mission Sunday school I handled my first Bible, glossy backs and red edges. Religion and the Bible were then to me alien and incomprehensible, my family being sceptical of religion. The Bible's peculiar book titles, Ecclesiastes, Chronicles etc were a giggle. We breathed on the glossy backs of the Bibles and drew silly faces in the condensation.
Years passed. A large volume had been deposited in our attic as part payment of a debt by a crazy old man. He used to read it to his wife while swearing at her and forcing her to eat out of a pig trough. He died, once he was buried she died of joy. The whole street talked of his secret hoard of money. My widowed mother with six of us at school, one day thought of that Bible and suggested it hid his wealth. I was allowed to explore. Enthusiastically I brought it down and laid it on the table.. The covers were wrapped in heavy brown paper, layer after layer, and sewn tightly with black linen. It looked hopeful as a place where he could have concealed high value banknotes. Each wrapper removed increased our expectation and excitement. Then the last thick wrapper. There nestling next to the original hard back was - nothing, absolutely nothing!
That Bible was a financial let down. Soon after, however, mother and I were converted and learned that Bible did contain inestimable treasures.
My next chapter began with a parallel AV/RV New Testament which I proudly gained as a prize for a long essay on prophecy. Encouraged, I invested sixpence a week for a large Schofield reference Bible. Then using Anstey's "How to Study the Bible", Idid a six months study stint, two hours before work each day. It gave me my first grasp of the Word. But Schofield, and I a Pentecostal, did not agree.
My next new Bible found me a Bible college student. Came my first proud preaching appointment. Dressed like Principal George Jeffreys, I emerged on the world with my new Bible. It was loose leaf, bound like a ledger with sermon notepaper exactly the same as the pages interleaved and along with them. The mighty thoughts with which I hoped to astonish my congregation were written on that fixed-in sermon notepaper. The hour came, but, horrors, that kind of Bible never lays flat. On the reading desk it immediately closed and would not stay open. My notes were lost, hid somewhere among the thousand pages, beyond discovery. Desperately I thumbed to find them but in vain. The next day, abjectly embarrassed by my (first) pulpit disaster, I found them.
My greatest Bible chapter began 14 years later. Influenced by a visiting preacher, I began to read the Word, not a chapter, but the whole volume, over and over and over again. I still do. It changed everything for me. Psalm 119:50 said His Word quickens us. I threw off years, found new energy, drive, fitness, my mind surged with new ideas, and my preaching became so faith filled that it filled also my church - revival took place. Life began for me when I took the Bible for myself.
Living by the Word is what Jesus meant saying "Give us this day our daily bread" - the Word of God. We read the Word and it becomes our daily bread by His Spirit,
Now – the technical bit I promised. Going back to 17, I had become fascinated with Textual Criticism and learned how our English Bible rested on ancient manuscripts mainly from either eastern or western churches, that is Antioch or Alexandrian. Some regard Alexandrian manuscripts as suspect, possibly tainted with Gnosticism. They omit the last eight (Pentecostal) verses of Mark found in the eastern orthodox documents.
Correspondents have written me denouncing modern versions as Alexandrian, and advocating the AV alone. What is the truth? Scholars have continued sincerely to do honest work on the vast mass of Biblical manuscript material now available. I would say that today there is not a ha'porth of difference in the Greek text worry about. I am confident His Word comes through whatever text is used.
Except, except! We have an academic epidemic of new translations. They need caution. One method of translation renders the meanings of the Greek as translators believe they understand it. This is "dynamic equivalence", giving us an equivalent of the Word. The Greek words are followed perhaps to a large extent but the general aim is not the actual Word, but the equivalent, in effect paraphrases. Td doesn't make them invalid They do carry enormous research and meaning and I use of them myself especially the NIV.
The alternative method keeps close to the Greek words to respect verbal inspiration. The peculiarities, ambiguities and cultural colour of the original Bible writers, their personal character and idiom are retained, not changed to explained them,
The NIV, probably the most popular Bible at present, is helpful, excellent and readable. It is a "dynamic equivalent" Bible, reading very similar to the AV but much of it is translated by paraphrase. For reading it is good, but not for teaching. It tells us what the translators think God meant, rather than what He actually said. Words are introduced not found in any Bible manuscript. The first of our English Bibles, the Authorised or King James Version rests on only a few ancient manuscripts, but the translators believed it was from God, and they worked to preserve in English the original words and spirit.
However some new versions anger me. They support private viewpoints, such as the liberal outlook, or the feminist, or the politically correct. I bought four copies of the much advertised New Revised Standard Version and discarded them for their politically correct alterations of God's Word. Some are worse and have been banned by evangelical churches in America. The liberal attitude making the Bible a vehicle for their own modern fashions, current thought and to suit pressure groups is an abomination. The great purpose of Gods' Word is to confront and challenge the fashions, unbelief and predilections of the world. Making the Bible to conform to the mish-mash of present ideas is betrayal. The world needs a rock, the true word of the Lord.
My own work is to explore Bible truth. I need experience and every tool possible. I search for the insights of scholars and others. I pray daily for the Holy Spirit to guide me into all truth and I can honestly say that His word is greatest joy in life.
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THOU HAS MADE ME TO LAUGH
A BBC radio discussion has remained in my mind. A member remarked how serious and humourless Jesus was. Lord Hailsham demolished him, quoting instance after instance of Christ's wit. It reminded me of a lecture I heard by the late Dr. Norwood of the Methodist Women's College, similarly showing how humorous Jesus could be. .
If brevity is the soul of wit then Christ's words are like the Bible says apples of gold in caskets of silver. He would not always answer questions because it was a waste of words. Take the Sermon on the Mount and one of His pithy remark "Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted". To listeners then, it put things in a nutshell so neatly it would make them smile. Certainly it didn't bore them. "They heard Him gladly." Much in those three chapters is so out of the normal. "If your eye offends you puck it out". Spoken with His graciousness and that voice, the greatest sound ever heard on earthy, they would see His smiling eyes and realise it was truth expressed with the brevity of in humour. Jesus startled hearers with laughable absurdities conveying truth unforgettably People loved to hear Him because His speech was seasoned with the salt of brevity, wit and charm.
Dr. Norwood told us about the proverbial camel going through the eye of a needle. He amused us with explanations he had heard. The camel being camelhair rope, for example. He was especially entertaining about the camel passing through a narrow gate at the side of the main city gate. In fact, there never was such a gate at all. By such absurdities Jesus heightened people's understanding. He talked about a man with a bit of dust in his eye being treated by a man with a 'beam' in his eye – a whole plank. If we don't laugh at a man walking around unconscious of a plank in his eye, we don't know how to read Christ's words.
There is the idea that laughter is not for serious believers and God isn't funny. Well, I have prayed for many sick people, and I do a lot of smiling because of His wonderful and often hilarious blessing. God made this world, and the fun, laughter, merriment didn't generate themselves. God put it all there, the play into young creatures, like the mother and two fox cubs rollicking on my lawn, and those squirrels such a nuisance but such comedians in their antics. A duck and drake began visiting my garden this year, my first close encounter with ducks and I laughed and laughed over them. Even the goldfish flashing in my garden pool don't make us miserable but always put a smile on everybody's face.
I find the world is intensely interesting. God gave us risible faculties and fills the world with situations to match, My work is with theological issues and again and again the humorous strikes me. Christmas is the time to be glad. It was God's humour to let Roman emperors kid themselves while a babe in a crib fresh born in a minor part of their empire had a destiny the Caesars and Augustus's could never imagine. The Emperor Nero's name is now used for dogs.
God is a fountain of joy. We have everything to laugh about, Perhaps it should become more obvious?
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