In his Introduction to seventh edition of his lectures on The Atonement (1875), R. W. Dale adds further insight to the implications of Jesus’s willful obedience in the Garden and on the Cross.  I find in it my shortcomings and my hope, my willing spirit and my weak flesh.  Dale tells us that our life is bound up in the life of Christ, that His life might be ours:

“Our whole conception of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ rests upon our faith in His Divine dignity. He was the Son of God. But He was also the Son of man. That it should have been possible for a Divine person to reveal Himself under the conditions of human nature, and in a human history, is very wonderful, and throws an intense light on the vast possibilities of perfection which belong to our race.  These possibilities are still more gloriously illustrated when we discover what, indeed, seems to me to be implied in the Incarnation, but is also distinctly affirmed in the New Testament that the life which dwelt in Christ is the true life of man, that we were created in order that this life might be ours. Hence, while the Lord Jesus Christ is the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of His Person, He is also the visible manifestation of the glory of human nature, the “idea” and prophecy of its moral and spiritual excellence, and of its true relation to God. He is God’s “Word” to us; and there is a sense in which He is also our “Word” to God. He reveals God to man; I will not say that He also reveals man to God ; but He is the true root of the human race; the life which is in Him is to be in us if we confess His authority and trust in His love; so that what He is may be described as expressing, not, indeed, what we are, or what we shall ever be, but the transcendent perfection towards which, through the life we receive from Him, we are to be for ever approaching.

When I, a sinful man, come to God through Christ, I acknowledge that I am not what I ought to be, nor what I desire to be. Christ is at once my condemnation and my hope. In Him I see the ideal perfection of my nature, and it stands in vivid contrast to my sin.  But in Him I also see the revelation of that absolute trust in the Father, that faultless loyalty to the Father’s authority, that delight in doing the Father s will, which, though in inferior forms, may be manifested in me, if I receive the life which is His supreme gift.”  [Atonement, pp. lvii – lix]

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One of the results of my focus on the Agony-Trial-Crucifixion-Resurrection is a growing appreciation (connection, respect, awe, thankfulness, etc.) of the humanity of Jesus Christ.  As one of my pastors said a couple of weeks ago, consider the type of man Jesus must have been to command the respect of professional fishermen.

I confess that I often mentally compartmentalize (i.e. intellectualize) God’s acts of mercy and grace toward mankind.   I get caught up in the great truths about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for instance, as the Maker and Sustainer of all creation (Col. 1:15-17) that I do not think enough about Jesus Christ, the Son of Man.  I err, I think, by unconsciously attributing more weight to Jesus’s divinity when I consider the events leading up to the cross.

All that to say, that I am learning “again for the first time” about what it cost the Son of Man to pay my sin-penalty.  The “manliness” required for Jesus to courageously endure suffering and death astounds me and stands in stark contrast to my own manliness.   What was the source of His resolve?

We learned from Cyril that Jesus was a unique kind of human being.  What, though, enabled Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, to go to the cross?   Did the agony in the Garden hint that the Son of Man acquiesced (“accept something reluctantly but without protest”) to the will of the Father, suggesting He had second thoughts?  What difference does any of this make (i.e. what are the implications) for those who become children of God through faith in Christ?

Maximus The Confessor (580 – 662), gives us insight as he considered Jesus’s words in Gethsemane.   Dr. Wilken writes:

“For earlier writers, the words of Jesus’ petition, “Father, if thou are willing, let this cup pass from me” (which seemed to imply that the Christ could act in opposition to the will of the Father), were understood as hypothetical.  Maximus, however, asks whether the second part of Christ’s prayer, “Not what I will, but let your will prevail,” makes sense if the words “let this cup pass from me” were not spoken in earnest.   At the same time he notes that the most significant feature of the account is that Christ did drink the cup.  What Christ says is, “Not what I will,” but “Let your will prevail.”  Do the words of Jesus, asks Maximus, express “shrinking back” from what lay before him, that is, refusal to drink the cup? or do they represent a supreme act of courage and assent?  For Maximus, Jesus’s words express neither resistance nor fear but “perfect agreement and consent.”  As a man, acting in freedom, Christ submitted to the will of God by conforming his human will wholly to God’s will, and in this way demonstrated “the supreme agreement of his human will to the divine will which is at the same time his own will as well as that of the Father.”  …   Christ’s humanity, then is most evident in the garden:  “If the Word made flesh does not himself naturally as a human being and accomplish things in accordance with his human nature, how can he willingly undergo hunger and thirst, labor and weariness, sleep and everything else common to man?  For the Word does not simply will and accomplish these things in accordance with the transcendent and infinite nature he shares with the Father and Holy Spirit…. For if it is only as God that he wills these things, and not as himself being a human being, then either the body has become divine by nature, or the Word has changed its nature and become flesh by abandoning its own divinity, or the flesh is not at all in itself endowed with a rational soul, but in itself completely lifeless and irrational.”   Note that Maximus uses almost uses the same formulation about Christ’s will as Cyril did about the Resurrection.  Cyril had said, “If he conquered as God, to us it is nothing,” and Maximus says, “If it is only as God he wills these things,” then his flesh is “lifeless and irrational.”  In short, if Christ does not have a human will he cannot be fully human.  …”  The Word himself shows clearly that he has a human will just as by nature he has a divine will.  For when he became man for our sake, he pleaded to be spared from death, saying, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me’ (Matt. 26:39).  In his way he displayed the weakness of his own flesh.  Those who saw him recognized that his flesh was not imaginary, but in fact he was a genuine human being.”   Of course Maximus does not suggest that Christ’s human will could have been set in opposition to the will of the Father.  Yet he gives full weight to both parts of the petition, the request that the cup be removed and the decision to drink the cup and act in accord with the will of the Father.  So fully did Christ’s will conform to the divine will that his will can be said to be godlike:  “It is clear that his human will is wholly deified, in that it is in harmony with the divine will, for it is always moved and formed by it.  His human will is in perfect conformity with the will of his father when as a man he says, “Let not my will but thine be done.”   In Maximus’s hands Christ’s act of will became a decisive moment in the history of salvation.  It had long been affirmed, following the Scriptures (God “wills all men to be saved” [1 Tim. 2:4]), that the eternal Son of God, in concert with the Father and the Holy Spirit, had willed the salvation of humankind.  But Maximus now discerns that at the moment of his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ the man willed the salvation of the world.  He cites the word from 1 Timothy to highlight the distinction between the divine will from eternity (which was, of course, also the will of the divine Son) and Christ’s human will in action during his passion.  The words “not my will, let yours prevail” were said “in a human fashion” by Christ to his God and Father.  This leads Maximus to the triumphant affirmation that Christ by his obedience as man “willed and carried out our salvation.”   It is often said that the divine plan of salvation depended on Mary’s free assent to the word of the angel.  The work of salvation is a work of God, but it could not be carried out without the cooperation of human beings.  After Mary heard the word of the angels she said, “Let it be to me according to your word.”  This fiat, this “let it be done,” made possible the Incarnation of the eternal Son in the womb of the Virgin.  Maximus proposes that there is another fiat in the gospels, another “let it be done,” the agony of the man Christ, in which Christ, by accepting his suffering and death, wills the salvation of mankind,  Just as the plan of salvation required Mary’s “yes,” so it also needed Christ’s “yes,” for it was only through Christ’s passion and death that the world’s salvation could be accomplished.   The acceptance of the cup of suffering was Christ’s free act.  That salvation which the eternal Son had willed “in union with the Father and the Holy Spirit,” Christ now wills as a man, and in this way shows himself to be a new kind of human being.  The human will is not less human but more human because it is in harmony with the divine will.  Like Cyril, Maximus wishes to say that Christ showed us a “wholly new way of being human.”  ….  [Early Christian Thought, pp. 128-131]

As I type and re-read this material, I am again caught up in wonder and worship of Jesus Christ who went willingly to the cross as a man (fully human) to accomplish that which he willed before “the Word became flesh” (fully divine).  He not only “shows himself to be a new kind of human being,” but shows us a “wholly new way of being human, … not less human but more human because it is in harmony with the divine will.”   This makes me long more to make His will my will because anything else is to be less human.

“Lord, make me willing to be willing to do your will.”

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I find reading early church history sometimes feels like walking through tall weeds.  It’s easy to forget what’s at stake and how God is writing a larger story for His glory.   I have bushwhacked for a couple of weeks trying to develop context for two quotations from Dr. Wilken’s book, Early Christian Thought.  (This is not his fault as a writer, but my inadequacy as a communicator.)  The more I read and wrote the weedier it got.  So, at the risk of minimal context, I offer two excerpts from Dr. Wilken’s book that have caused me to consider anew what Christ has done for me and who He’s making me.

In the chapter discussing the Incarnation and the question before the early church regarding whether Christ had one or two wills (one divine and the other human), Wilken writes:

“When Cyril [of Alexandria] writes his commentary on the Gospel of John, he sees another dimension of the Resurrection.  The Resurrection was evidence that Christ was a unique kind of man.   Christ, he writes, “presented himself to God the Father as the first fruits of humanity….He opened up for us a way that the human race had not known before.”  Before Christ came into the world “human nature was incapable of destroying death,” but Christ was superior to the tribulation of the world and “more powerful” than death.  Hence he became the first man who was able to conquer death and corruption.  By showing himself stronger than death, Christ extends to us the power of his Resurrection “because the one that overcame death was one of us.”  Then Cyril adds the sentence, “If he conquered as God, to us it is nothing; but if he conquered as man we conquered in Him.  For he is to us the second Adam come from heaven according to the Scripture.”  This is an extraordinary statement and to my knowledge unprecedented.  Cyril asserts that Christ triumphed over death because of the kind of human being he was.  His human nature makes Christ unique.”  [Early Christian Thought, pp 120-121]

Continued . . . .

I have the privilege of serving among a team of godly men in shepherding Roswell Community Church.  I am often humbled to see God at work in and through my brothers, as each brings his unique gifts and experience in loving service to Christ and this particular expression of His Church.

Yesterday one of the men shared an excerpt from Calvin’s Institutes.  (I was impressed that he’s reading Institutes!)   It described for me the interplay of mind and heart, obedience and response.  It also convicted me that I have a lot of heart-work to do.

“… What avails it, in short, to know a God with whom we have nothing to do? The
effect of our knowledge rather ought to be, first, to teach us reverence and fear; and, secondly, to induce us, under its guidance and teaching, to ask every good thing from him, and, when it is received, ascribe it to him. For how can the idea of God enter your mind without instantly giving rise to the thought, that since you are his workmanship, you are bound, by the very law of creation, to submit to his authority?—that your life is due to him?—that whatever you do ought to have reference to him? If so, it undoubtedly follows that your life is sadly corrupted, if it is not framed in obedience to him, since his will ought to be the law of our lives. On the other hand, your idea of his nature is not clear unless you acknowledge him to be the origin and fountain of all goodness.”   [Calvin, John. The Institutes of Christian Religion (Illustrated), Bk1, Ch2, Sec 2]

One of my goals during Lent is to learn and love more of Christ by reading, meditating, and praying about the events surrounding the Crucifixion and Resurrection.  The Cross is proof that God is “the origin and fountain of all goodness.”  I don’t adore God enough for His goodness.  I suspect I’m not alone.

1. When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of Glory died;
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

2. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
save in the death of Christ, my God;
all the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.

3. See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown.

4. Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

Hilary of Poitiers showed us that the Resurrection opened to us a new way of thinking about God.  As I’ve thought about this, I’ve also prayed about this, asking the Holy Spirit to draw me deeper in mind and heart to the meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I don’t think it was by chance that the discussion has centered around the Resurrection in the weeks leading up to Easter.  (I wish I could say that I had scheduled it that way, but I’m not that organized.)

In my research of another pivotal figure in understanding the Incarnation — Cyril of Alexander, I came across a blog by Orthodox theologian, William Witt.  In his academic article entitled “The Trinitarian Structure of Resurrection Faith,” he articulates one of the reasons learning historical theology attracts me, equips me, and leads me to worship.

With regard to the Resurrection, Witt writes that we have to decide “…the question of whether or not the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are constitutive* of our salvation, whether Jesus actually creates and makes possible a salvation that would not be possible otherwise, or rather whether Jesus’ mission is illustrative of something that God is doing elsewhere or perhaps everywhere in creation as well.”

In other words, was (is) Jesus unique, essential, and able to accomplish our salvation before God, or was he just a good man who serves as one example among others for “right living?”  Sounds like the type of question that a CNN anchor will ask a panel of “experts” during Easter.  The “expert” dialogue will show that the fundamental theological doctrines that evangelical Christians take so much for granted today were hammered out in an intellectual, political, religious and cultural environment that was not so dissimilar to our own.

“But who do you say that I am?” — Jesus (Matthew 16:15 ESV)

“This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.  And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:11-12 ESV)

Cyril of Alexander will help us further understand just how unique, essential and able Jesus was to accomplish our salvation.  In the meantime, the question before me (and you) is how am I to live in light of who I am, and who I am becoming, because of my faith and life in the Resurrected One.

Am I “educated beyond my obedience?” Am I well trained both in knowledge and duty, having “head knowledge” and an adequate religiosity that hides a cold heart?  Am I of those whom Jesus repeats the accusation from Isaiah “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (Matthew 15:7-9)

Or does my heart leap (or at least do I want my heart to leap) at the thought of what Jesus has done for me?  Do I live out of the truth of the Resurrection (and all that it includes)?  Do I obey in response to the One who loves me most of all?

Lent began this week.  I am asking God to use this season to teach me, convict me, forgive me, and change me by the power that Resurrected Jesus (see Ephesians 1:15-23).  I pray you do too.

*Constitutive — (a) constituent; making a thing what it is; essential. (b) having power to establish or enact.

1.  Witt, William. “Non Sermoni Res.” The Trinitarian Structure of Resurrection Faith, February 11, 2009. http://willgwitt.org/the-trinitarian-structure-of-resurrection-faith/.