The Pastor's Pen

This coming 4th of July celebrates not only the Independence and beginning of America but it celebrates as well, a tectonic shift that took place in the prevailing wisdom of the day. The unique American ideal was that Freedom and Equality could be held in equal tension. Moving into the 19th century Europe believed that freedom and equality could not coincide because freedom meant that some would succeed and others would fail. Therefore, in order to have equality, freedom must be curtailed.

De Tocqueville, wrote that America had indeed been able to make both work. Why? Because America did not interpret equality as “sameness” as the Europeans did. For Americans, equality was defined through the Puritan theology of equality of worth, not equality of wealth, possessions, land, etc.

This is pertinent today because liberals view freedom and equality as on either/or condition. The government must invoke equality, identified as sameness and in order to do so freedom must be curtailed. Conservatives believe that freedom and equality can exist because equality means equality of worth not outcome.

In the Old Testament, images of God were strictly forbidden (Ex. 20:4; Dt. 27:15) because nothing could capture the complete reality of God.  Therefore, it would lead to confusion.  Among Israel’s pagan neighbors, images of a god served not only as objects of worship but as a means of controlling the god.  Prohibition of images therefore served to protect against false realities of God and the belief that somehow God could be manipulated.  It is somewhat striking then that Paul, a Pharisee, would use such a word (Col. 1:15), in reference to Jesus and His relationship to God.  He would only have used such a word if he were convinced that Jesus represented the full reality of God.

A little further in Colossians Paul adds that all the “fullness” of God resided in Him.  What did he mean by this.  Here the imagery is that of the presence of God coming down and “filling” the Temple(Ez. 10).  When God’s presence filled the Temple there was no part of the Temple that was absent of God.  In the same way God filled the person of Christ.  By using the terms that Paul does he leaves no doubt that in the person of Jesus we have both God and man.  Not just a god, but the God.  Therefore, the claim that Jesus was a lesser god is not substantiated by Scripture.  Neither is the claim that the deity of Christ was a fabrication of the Constantinian church supported by the biblical evidence.  Rather, in Jesus, we have the exact representation of God.  God has come to man and shown us what He is like through the person of Jesus.  Those who believe in Jesus through faith; they shall be saved.

Timothy Keller in his book, “The Reason for God” has written what I believe is a keen insight with respect to the truthfulness of Christianity. He states, “Christianity has within itself remarkable power to explain and expunge the divisive tendencies within the human heart.”  No other religion or non-religion can explain the continued divisiveness that plagues humanity.  With all man’s great accomplishments the one that most eludes him is the ability to end once-and-for-all the enmity that has proven so destructive of humanity and the desire for community.  It is Christianity alone that provides the key to unlocking the enigma of human violence.  Yes, there have been atrocities performed in the name of Christianity.  But Christianity as we find it in the New Testament and proclaimed in the Apostolic preaching of the cross provides the reason and solution to man’s greatest struggle.