The Doctrine of Human Beings

Scripture: Genesis 1.27; Romans 5.12-14; Matthew 5.38-48


“It all stems from your childhood..” My wife, and psychologists who are paid for their observations, are often heard to say that or imply that. And I think there is a good bit of truth to that as well. I think that some of the bad things we do, that we are most ashamed of, and that mark us and our character are things that happen before adulthood, things that may not seem world-shaking now, but back then, boy, they did!

I’ve told the story before about how I lost a bet on the playground and “had” to go play a prank in the neighbor’s garage. I was caught “red-handed” as they say, and I had to apologize to the family and make amends. Now, I used to tell that story at summer camp about every year to elementary and then junior high campers. It got to the point where my staff used to joke about it, “here comes the Pool Story.” It became a cliché, a cute little story, but see, when it happened, it wasn’t cute. It initiated waves of guilt in me and real soul-searching, as well as some major-league rationalizing and self-pity. It is one of my earlier memories of when I realized that I was a sinner, that I was very capable of knowing what is right and then doing otherwise.

Another story that I have, that I don’t recall ever telling, happened years later when I was a freshman in college. My whole dorm practically was freshman guys – that should tell you that with time on our hands, we would do completely pointless, stupid, and destructive things. Like one day a couple guys two rooms over from ours decided to remove some of the ceiling tile in their room and climb up into the rafters. After doing that they realized they could drop down into any room on our wing of the dorm they wanted. So as I sat there in my room studying, (at least that’s how I remember it), a couple of those guys came down through my ceiling into my room. We were all very excited about this development. We thought of other ways that this discovery could be applied to everyone’s benefit. For example, one guy suggested we could carry large wooden planks and then sheets of plywood up there and create another living space, you know for study and such. Then another guy suggested we could probably get a keg up there, you know for study. The possibilities were endless.

One afternoon when the dorm was pretty quiet and most everybody was in class, I was alone in my room and I got the idea that I could go over to the room of the guys who had first dropped in on me. They weren’t there and I knew that they had this cool stereo and I wanted to dub some tapes of theirs. So that’s what I did. I went into their room without their permission and knowledge and used their stuff. I later told one of my roommates I did this, who told those guys, who weren’t happy about me going into their empty room. I rationalized it by saying they had done it first. But again, I felt sneaky, I felt weasly, I felt wrong. At the time I was a leader in our campus Christian fellowship; I taught Bible Study. I didn’t party like those guys did. But I also knew I had no moral authority over them. I wasn’t any better than they were. I just shoulda known better.

To be Human is to be a curious mixture of good and evil. Why is this so? According to Genesis 1.27 we were created by a good God in God’s image. Among the creation, we humans reflect most clearly the image of the invisible God. God invested a lot in Adam and Eve. And Genesis also tells the story of their Fall into sin and separation from God. That Original Sin “infected” the nature of the whole human race.

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned. . .for many have died through the one man’s trespass. . .” Romans 5.12,15

“Sin lurks deep in the hearts of the wicked, forever urging them on to evil deeds.” Psalm36.1

“Oh this propensity to evil, how did it creep in to cover the earth with treachery?” Eccles.37.3

Just how evil human nature is and how much remains of that original Imago Dei is open to speculation. And that has been the discussion of theologians for ages, from Augustine and Pelagius to Calvin and Wesley to the present day. Calvinists say we are “totally depraved” that there remains very little left of the image of God in us, and that we are not capable of freely choosing good, that God’s help is needed even for this choice. The Wesleyan-Arminian tradition says that humanity is fallen but we retain still a freedom to choose good or evil.

The whole of Christian doctrine and tradition agree on this matter, however, humanity is fallen and “can’t get up” of its own volition. Events of the past two thousand years would seem to back that opinion.

In Zen Buddhism “man enters the water and causes no ripples.” In the biblical view he causes ripples that never end. Man leaves behind both good and bad marks in history, but he is not a zero. He remains infinitely precious in God’s sight despite his folly and perversity.

What is also clear is that no amount of commands, rules, or guidelines will guide humanity back on course. I came across an interview with author Kurt Vonnegut on television the other day. Vonnegut, a self-described agnostic and humanist, wondered why there is a big push to have the Ten Commandments displayed in public places, but no one is talking about the Sermon on the Mount. No one wants to see or hear Jesus say, “Blessed are the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.” Vonnegut makes a good point. I think no one wants to hear those words because, much more than the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes show us how far wrong we’ve all gone. They show us how messed up our lives and our world is. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not commit adultery - We agree to these rules. We still break them, mind you, but we can still agree they are good to have around. But Jesus seems to suggest something much more radical is needed.

“You’ve heard that it was said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. You’ve heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. . .You must be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Perfect? How can I be perfect when I can’t even be good?

One evening an old Cherokee chief told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

The other wolf is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee chief simply replied, “The one you feed.”

We all want to be good. We want to do right. But that other wolf is ravenous and constantly grumbling and growling to be fed. Who will deliver us from this battle? How can we ever win?

Outside help is needed. And that is the subject of next week’s message – the Doctrine of Salvation.

The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12.1-13; John 15.26-27; 16.12-15


“Some people say miracles don’t happen everyday, but they do!” Forrest Gump exclaimed. Miracles are signs that an all-powerful God is also immanent, that is, aware and involved in our lives. Miracles are simply God bending the rules that He made in the Creation; and on very rare occasion miracles are God breaking the rules.

But is this so unexpected? A friend just loaned me a wonderful little book called Dinner With a Perfect Stranger. The premise is this average guy gets an anonymous invitation to meet someone at a nice restaurant. Out of curiosity the guy shows up and sits down with another average guy in a business suit who, in the course of conversation, claims to be Jesus. Obviously, our guy is looking for the joke, the gag, maybe put on by the guys in his office. But no one comes out of the kitchen laughing, no one shows to take credit. What’s more, this “Jesus” turns out to be fairly knowledgeable of his life and is a pretty interesting dinner companion. Our guy suspends his disbelief, but asks “Jesus” to prove who he is. Jesus answers that with, “What could I do to prove to you that I am God?” And to be honest, the man can’t really think of anything that would erase all of his doubts. More on this in a bit.

The Nicene Creed says, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.” And it follows that if God is God – if He is the “Lord the giver of Life,” then He can still act and He can still speak to this world.

The Holy Spirit is God still acting and speaking to us and to our world. One of the titles given to the Holy Spirit by Jesus is “Counselor.” The Holy Spirit is God counseling us and guiding. He is “the Spirit of Truth.” So in other words, in you belong to Christ, then Christ’s Spirit belongs to you. The Spirit is trustworthy. You can know that God is talking to you and that it not just something that you’re making up in your head. I mean, this is pretty crucial. But you can know the difference between God’s thoughts, your own thoughts, and the Enemy’s thoughts.

Jesus tells us that He has much more to say to us, and the disciples could take it all in at once. And we probably can’t either. So there is this mandate from the Lord for an ongoing revelation to his people. God will continue to speak. The Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. Now, there is a caution involved here: not everything that comes down the pike in religion or psychology or any other field of inquiry is “ongoing revelation” from God. That might seem obvious to you, but it bears repeating. The Holy Spirit still speaks but there is a consistency and there is a character to the Spirit’s words.

The Spirit never tells us anything that contradicts the character of God or the continuity of His revelation in the Scriptures. The apostle Paul touched on this immediately in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul was responding to some pagans who claimed a “secret knowledge” or revelation from God that others weren’t privy to. They were called Gnostics, which means “to know.” The problem with these possessors of secret knowledge was that some of their revelation contradicted the revelation of Scripture and what the Christian community knew to be the character of a Holy God. Now, how do you tell someone you don’t believe them when they say, “God told me this.” How do you prove to someone that God didn’t say anything to them? How do you prove to someone that they didn’t hear the voice or have the dream?

It’s like the woman who woke up one morning and told her husband, “I just dreamed you gave me a diamond necklace. What do you think it means?”

“You’ll know tonight,” he said.

That evening, the man came home with a small package and gave it to his wife. Delighted she opened it to find a book entitled, The Meaning of Dreams.

It’s difficult. Maybe you don’t prove to someone their experience is invalid. But you do point to the consistency and continuity of God’s witness to us. You ask, “Does this really sound like God? Is this a dream He might give? Is this consistent with what He has spoken through the prophets, and especially what He has revealed and spoken through Jesus?”

Paul put it this way, “No one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

To give you another example: Say you have had problems with self-esteem, and you get those thoughts running in your head, thoughts of inferiority and unworthiness – it’s like a tape player in your head and it’s the same track over and over again – thoughts that say, “You are stupid. What were you thinking when you applied for that job? They’ll never hire you.” You might try to push the pause button on that player and ask yourself, “If I believe that God has purposes for my life, and I should try to listen to the voice of God in finding and fulfilling these purposes, does this really sound like “guidance” from God? Would God ever say, “You’re stupid.”?

There are other examples, issues of the day, that revolve around the question of God’s ongoing revelation – and I’m talking big issues like gay marriage, abortion, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ even; these all center on how you say God speaks through the Holy Spirit. I say there is no contradiction between the past revelation of God found in the Bible and the ongoing revelation given through the Holy Spirit to the Church. Does the Church have the discernment to listen to the Spirit, and does the Church have the courage to speak wisdom to a culture that may not recognize the authority of the Speaker?

The Holy Spirit is most clearly heard and vitally experienced in the context of spiritual community. Many people will say they know God is real and even speaks when they look at a sunset or see salvation in some kind of life-changing event or crisis, like 9-11. But it’s amazing how infrequently we look to nature for inspiration, though according to Romans chapter one, God clearly speaks there. And it’s a blessing that disasters don’t strike more often than they do. We ignore God’s most consistent and reliable voice when we don’t listen to our brothers and sisters in the community of faith called the church.

When the guy sits down with Jesus in the restaurant and Jesus reveals his true identity, part of the guys disbelief and surprise rests on Jesus appearance – not a long-haired, bearded, flowing robe type, but rather a thirtyish businessman in suit and tie. He doesn’t believe God would look this average. And neither do we. We miss out because God speaks to us through the average people and the average events of our daily lives. Becoming a spiritual person is simply learning how to listen to the voice of God in our daily routine and conversation. This most readily happens when we are in regular contact with other believers who share our desire to hear God.

“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” Paul is talking about the church here. In the church, the Holy Spirit gives gifts so that lives will be transformed, so that people will be healed of sins destruction, so that real community will be born. Paul makes it clear that the Holy Spirit doesn’t only speak through the preacher or the Apostle, but through the teacher, the administrator, the helper, and the one who needs healing.

“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts. . .they form one body. So it is with Christ. . .and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”

We cannot become all that God desires us to be without the church. We cannot hear God’s voice speaking without the church. We cannot experience the Spirit’s power without the church. We cannot fulfill God’s purposes in our generation without the Church.

What are you doing to listen to the Spirit’s voice in your life? How are you seeking community in the body of Christ? What is God saying to you in your life right now?

Christianity 101: The Doctrine of Christ

Scripture: Isaiah 531-7; Colossians 1.11-20; Philippians 2.1-11; Matthew 21.33-46


The doctrine of Christ can be boiled down to these two propositions, and then a third:

1) Jesus Christ is the true human being (Son of Man) by which all human beings should be measured.
2) Jesus Christ is God. To be Son of God is unique to Jesus – no one else is Son like He is.
3) And finally, being in the very unique position that Jesus is in, being fully human and fully God, He is the bridge to bring a lost humanity back to the Creator.


You can see how if either of the first two propositions are not true, then the third comes under serious suspicion as well, and probably cannot be true either. Let’s examine all three propositions in a little detail.

There is a scene in the Gospel of John where Jesus sits down at a village well in Samaria and asks a woman for a drink of water. Don Miller says, “this is like a known evangelical Christian going into a gay bar and asking a man to buy him a beer.” Ya know, it just wasn’t done. And yet this woman doesn’t walk away in fear, scorn, anger, anything expected. She stays and talks to Jesus and ends up telling him her life story. She later goes and tells her friends, “You have got to meet this man. He told me everything there is to know about myself.” And apparently, in this woman’s eyes, it was a good thing for Jesus to know this. Again Miller comments, “through this system of defense Christ walks with ease, never seeming to fear that He would do damage by rummaging around in the tender complexity of a person’s identity. Instead, He goes nearly immediately to our greatest fears, our most injured spaces, and speaks into those places with authority.”

I trust Jesus with my secrets. And I’m not the only one. He has a way with people. I think it has something to do with the proposition that not only does he know what it’s like to be human, but He knows what’s it’s like to become human as the Creator intended Adam and Eve’s descendants to be.

People like being around Jesus. The wedding reception, the party of notorious people at the tax collector’s house, none of these parties stopped when Jesus arrived – they got better. People were attracted to Jesus, even though by all accounts, he wasn’t attractive for the reasons that we sometimes think make people attractive. He wasn’t handsome. Though it should be said he wasn’t the effeminate will-o’-wisp that some in the church have made him out to be. He was strong and forceful – remember Him cleaning out the Temple in anger over their greed? But he was no Brad Pitt in his looks. No, Jesus was attractive for other reasons.

Here’s the thing: Jesus didn’t care about the stupid stuff that many of us care about. Remember the Lifeboat theory, where everything’s a competition in his life, where you live, where you work, what you drive? Jesus couldn’t care less about that stuff. He finds “the things humanity finds valuable worthless and absurd, and to the person in the lifeboat, Jesus would seem to see things backward.”

It’s that way because Jesus is trying to show us that for the moment, things are backward and upside down and in reverse order in this world. He comes to turn the world around with His kingdom. “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first,” he says.

And then there is proposition two – not only is Jesus the Real Human Being, but He is the real God. He is not only a prophet but He is God in all divinity and transcendence and immanence and all those characteristics we attribute to the Holy One. Listen to the parable of the landowner in Matthew. The vineyard is rented out to tenant farmers for a time. The landowner sends his servants (prophets) to collect the fruit due him, but one by one the landowner’s servants are abused, beaten, and killed. Last of all, the landowner sends his own son, “surely they will respect him.” But the wicked tenants scorn the heir, take of hold him and kill him.

An ominous question follows: When the owner of vineyard returns, what will he do to those tenants?

In this case, we are reminded of what a precarious position we are in – what do we do about this Jesus? Certainly, we cannot patronize him, or ignore him forever. And beware those who would reject him! He is no mere man only.

In Philippians chapter two you have this famous passage known as the Kerygma, a summation of who this Jesus is, “who though he was in form (and nature) God, he did not consider his preexistent status something to cling to, but instead, Jesus emptied himself, and took the form of a slave, being born a human ( humbly he came to the world he created goes the song) he continued to humble himself in obedience, even to the point of death, and the worst kind – death on a cross.” Remember last week how we said that God is humble? We don’t know the half of it.

“The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many.”

I am so far away and apart in goodness from the Son of God, and yet I am not half the human he is either.

Maybe that’s what Chesterton meant when he said “all of human history comes to an intersection in the Cross.” There is simply no one more crucial than Jesus the Christ. The only One who can truly be called “good” is the One who has willingly paid the price of death for the sins of humanity.

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, “ John the Baptist called out to him.

These are just propositions, you know. Philosophy, theology, the stuff of religion. They are interesting for some, and they may even move others. But this is what moves me, and this is what really matters:

Jesus is the only being I have ever met that I wanted to worship.

I want to worship this true human, this true God, this Jesus.

Why am I a Christian? I am a Christian because of Jesus. Is there any other reason?

The Doctrine of God

Scripture: Hebrews 11.1-6; John 14.6-9; Job 42.2

My earliest memory of believing in God is sitting in the pew of my church on a Sunday morning when I was say five or six. It was a comfortable place for me in that my mother sat next to me with her arm around me and my grandfather sat on the other side of me, giving me pink Canada mints. I remember the smell and taste of the mints, and the smell of those pews and the scent my mother. I remember the sounds of the organ and my pastor’s face, and I remember at times being interested and at times being bored. But above all, I remember times, maybe not often but there nonetheless, when I got the sense that all of us there, myself, my family, the other people in the pews, the pastor, we were all in that room, but we weren’t the only ones in that room. Someone else was there too. And I came to understand that Someone else was God.

The Bible never tries to prove that God exists. The Bible simply says, “If you would please God you must believe that He is.”

Think of it from God’s perspective. What if you had to prove to others that you exist? I remember an old M.A.S.H. episode where Radar O’Reilly has lost his dogtags and has to prove his identity to a superior who doesn’t know him. “I’m O’Reilly.”

“How do know?”

“Cause I’m me.”

And that is answer is just about the answer that God gives to Moses in the Exodus passage. Moses asks, “Who should I tell them you are? What name should I give them?”

“Tell them, “I am Who I am.” I’m God. I’m me. What else can be said. What else needs to be said. A few things for our purposes.

In that answer you can hear God speaking of Himself as a distinct Being, a Person. One writer has described God as the Personal-Infinite. Another way of putting this is God is Transcendant and God is Immanent. My boys have asked me how can God be up in heaven and here with us and in Williamsport with grandma and so on. . .a good question. To say God is transcendant is to say He is distinct from the creation and not bound by time – God is an eternal present – I AM. To say that God is immanent is to say that He is not some distant Primal Mover or Supreme Being but as Augustine said, “is nearer than hands and feet, “ or as Luther put it, “God is closer to everything than anything is to itself.”

God is holy love. Holiness is not just God’s morality but is his Being, He is distinct from the Creation in Character. Obviously it was possible for the created to sin and fall. For God that is impossible. “For my way are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts,” says the Lord. He is “the Father of lights, in whom there is no shadow.” (James 1.17). In other words, God is absolute goodness, and must be feared and revered by mortals. It’s like the church league softball player getting to meet Albert Pujols or Alex Rodriguez. They realize they are not only in a whole other league, but a whole other country. God’s holiness and God’s love are held “in tension” if you will, not in tension for God, but in tension in our experience and limited minds. How can someone be both absolutely pure and good and absolutely merciful, forgiving, accepting and loving? The only person we know like that in our experience is, well, God.

God is all powerful but uses His power in humble fashion. Here is another puzzler put to me by the mind of a five year –old theologian. “Can God hold up the world?” Yes. “Can God destroy himself?” No, God cannot do something absolutely illogical or contrary to His character. God is self-limiting theologians say. I say God is humble. You see this in the doctrine of the trinity, where Father points to Son and Son points to Holy Spirit and Holy Spirit points to Father and Son. A divine and humble community. Maybe the church should be like that.

God has made the creation and human beings in such a way that it is possible to believe, in fact, almost hard not to believe, but it is also possible to not believe in the creator of everything. God has given us the freedom of choice, to believe and to obey. He is has not overwhelmed the world with his power and might. To Moses he said, “If you get that good a look at me you will drop dead.” In this sense He is Deus Absconditus, the hidden God. And that brings me to the Big Question!

“If God is all good and God is all powerful and God is all knowing, how come when God knows people are suffering He doesn’t seem to do anything about it?”

There is a story of a community that experience massive flooding like we have seen recently in the Gulf. This community had just enough warning that a huge flood was coming that most of the residents got out in time. But there was a stubborn old man who refused to leave his home. As the flood waters advanced on his neighbored emergency personnel came by and warned him to get out immediately. The man refused and simply prayed, “God help me in my time of need.” Soon the water had engulfed his home so that he had to move to the second floor. A rescue boat came by and shouted up to the man, climb out and we will take you to safety but the man refused. He simply prayed again, “Lord, help me in my time of need.” Soon after the waters had risen past the the second floor until the man had to climb out on his roof to stay alive. While on the roof a rescue helicopter came by and threw down a later to offer a flight to safety. The old man shook his head and waved them off until they left. He kept praying, “God help me in my time of need.” Soon after the flood rose and swept that man off the roof and into eternity. The man stood before God and had the temerity to ask this question, “Lord, didn’t you hear me praying all that time? God answered. “I heard your prayers and I responded three different times: I sent you a warning. I sent you a boat. I sent you a helicopter. Welcome to paradise.”

Albert Einstein said, “God is subtle, but He is not cruel.” To believe in the goodness of God when life is cruel is a key distinction and a sign of faith. The classic story of Job is believed by most scholars to be the first part of the Bible written. That should tell us maybe God is aware of the problem of evil. After Job goes through all of this testing he comes to this statement of faith, “Lord, I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be stopped.” And Job continued to place his life and trust in God.

To believe in God as God summons us is to place our trust in God and love Him as He loves us. To not only call out to God in crisis and ask, “Why this pain?” But to call out to God in joy and ask, “Why all this pleasure?” Faith is to hope and belief and receive the love of a Father for His children. In fact, Father is the image that the Bible and Jesus Himself uses most often for God. A father doesn’t need to prove his existence to his children, he merely needs to love them. The Bible is the Father’s love letter to his children A Scotsman was once asked the reason for his unbridled optimism and joy to which he responded, “Ahh, the Father, he love me. He loves me.”

Remind yourself of that today and this week. Ahh, the Father, He loves me. He loves me.!