“Jesus is perfect theology!”
- Brad Jersak
“I
want a Christianity that looks a lot more like Jesus.”
-
Kevin Giles
For
too long we have talked like all authority resides in the paper and ink of the
Bible. Yet, when one reads the Bible, the Bible says everything in it points to
Christ who has all the authority and power. It seems like it is easier to find
certainty in a book or one’s interpretations of that book than in Jesus Christ.
It is easier to say one is biblical condoning various attitudes, prejudices,
and bad behavior because one can find bad attitudes and bad behavior all over
the Bible. In other words, it is easy to be biblical but very difficult to be
like Jesus.
The book of Matthew ends with Jesus’
great commission of sending his disciples to go into the world and to make
other disciples like Jesus. This command is impossible without the
ongoing-indwelling presence and power of Jesus inside the believer (Matt.26:20).
All of us are called to follow Jesus commands and be like him is what the
commission is all about. Somehow we have turned it into be like our church
tradition, be like our culture, be like our version of oneself. The whole aim
of the Bible is to turn wayward children into sons and daughters of the
Most-High-God. God wants all of his children to look like Jesus.
The context of this commission is by
the statement, “All authority in heaven and earth is given to me” (v.18). Did
you catch that? All authority above and below and for all times is given to
God’s Messiah. All other authorities derive their authority from Jesus who gets
his authority from God. All worldly powers and authorities are rival
authorities competing with Jesus to be first and supreme. The Bible also says
all these competing authorities will one day bow to him (Phil.2:10-11).
Even the Devil has authority that is
permitted from God. People are fooling themselves if they think the Devil has
no authority to wreck havoc and ruin upon planet earth. The signs of the
enemy’s destruction are all around for anyone to see. The Devil’s authority is
permitted for a season and then it will end. When the devil took Jesus up on a
high mountain, he was not lying when he said, “To you I will give all this
authority and their glory (the kingdoms of this world), for it has been
delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will (Luke 4:6). Conflict, war, violence,
battles are viewed as spiritual battles that take place on earth. Where actual
physical conflict and war is so graphically depicted in the Old Testament, it
is spiritual warfare that becomes the new focus in the Newer Testament (2
Cor.10:4-5; Eph.6:10-11; Rev.12:7).
Our battle is not against flesh and blood, other people, but against the
spiritual evil powers and forces behind structural and personal evil
(Eph.6:12). We no longer pick up the sword to fight our battles but we use the
spiritual weapons of love, faith, and patient endurance and prayer for God to
fight the battles in the heavenly places. What happens there pours down to
earth in ways we can never foresee or imagine.
Jesus resisted the Devil and his temptations
and by his authority, we can do the same. Jesus calls all of us to resist temptations
and to surrender ourselves to God and God will fight our battles for us as we
enter into the fight of faith. Faith is never easy or cheap and comes with great
cost. The only thing Jesus will be looking for when he comes back is for people
who have been exercising his gift of faith in the world (Lk.18:8).
Jesus even gives us power over the Devil and demons and disease (Lk.9:1).
Jesus followers are to proclaim God’s kingdom of love, joy, peace, and
salvation to all people healing people as they go (Lk.9:1-6). How is it that
some people only see condemnation, criticism, and spiritual pride when they
look at people who claim to follow Jesus today? Have we followed the letter
without following the spirit of the Scriptures? Have we possibly fallen into
the same trap of the religious leaders who thought the Scriptures, salvation,
and security was only theirs to dispense to others as they please?
The gospel of Jesus is good news, not bad news. The kingdom of God
Jesus knew his time was short and his
brutal execution was not that far off in the future. In one of the most
beautiful and powerful prayers in the Bible, Jesus prays this high priestly
prayer.
“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify
you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to
all whom you have given him (John 17:1-2).
This
prayer in John 17 is Jesus’ last great prayer for his disciples was for their
complete unity and oneness and they would be sanctified in the truth of Christ.
Jesus followers would be so clothed with Christ that people would see Christ
the hope of glory in them and not just the face of human weakness but the power
of God.
It is amazing how modern day
Christians have transferred the power to give eternal life to themselves rather
than Jesus. Every time people of faith claim they know who are in or who is out
with God, they bring shame and barriers to the Gospel of Jesus. Every time
people of faith speak about insiders and outsiders, they miss Jesus’ all
inclusive kingdom message that Jesus is the one who gives eternal life to
whomever he pleases and it is not up to us to take that mantle away from him.
Jesus is the authority, not us. Jesus is the authority even over the Scriptures
and Jesus himself was selective in which Scriptures represented him and his
heavenly Father the best.
Even government has no authority over
Jesus. Any authority the government has is derived authority that comes from
God. Government can do the will of God (Rom.13) as much as oppose the will of
God (Rev.13). Christ followers need discernment from above when to resist and
when to submit. When Jesus was handed over to Pilate to be crucified, and
Pilate says to Jesus, “Do you not know I have the authority to release you and
the authority to crucify you” (Jn.19:10), he is referring to the authority of
the State or governmental authority. I love Jesus response here in verse
eleven.
“Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no authority over me unless it has
been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the
greater sin.”
The
greater blindness and sin rested with the political religious leaders and chief
priests of Jesus day. They have always killed their prophets and rebelled
against God when God was doing something new for his chosen people. The issue
for believers today will always be Caesar or Christ? Either it will be nationalism
and devotion to one nation or the supremacy of God’s kingdom over all kingdoms?
All authority over heaven and earth resides in Jesus because He is Lord and
Savior over all of creation.
No comments:
Post a Comment