The Eleventh Mark of a True Disciple of Jesus

True disciples take up the cross and die daily to this world, renouncing all things and people for the sake of Christ.

Jesus said:

“^{26} If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ^{27}Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple…. ^{33}So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26–27, 33; ESV)

Three times Jesus repeats the words “cannot be my disciple.” He means what he says and repeats it lest anyone think otherwise. True disciples must take up the cross and die daily to this world, renouncing—always in principle and sometimes, if God leads, in reality—all things, all people, and even their own lives for the sake of Christ.

What does Jesus mean by “hate”?

Jesus uses the word hate here in a hyperbolic, figurative way to emphasize a point. This wording was an idiom in his culture that meant “love less.” It meant to love one thing so much less than another that there was no comparison.

We know that Jesus is using the word hate figuratively because he commands elsewhere in Scripture not to hate. He commands elsewhere to love all people including our family members. He tells us to give thanks for the good things he has put in this world including its righteous pleasures. He commands us to seek our own eternal good in ways obedient to God.

For example:

First Timothy 5:8 says, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (ESV)

Ephesians 5:28 says, “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself” (ESV). Here God commands men not only to love a family member, but also to be motivated to do so partially by self-interest.

Titus 2:4 says: “Train the young women to love their husbands and children” (ESV).

First John 2:9, 11 says: “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness…. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes” (ESV). Similarly, see 1 John 3:15 and 4:20.

First Timothy 4:3–5 says that some false teachers “forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.” (ESV)

The world

The New Testament says strong things about the world and how true disciples must relate to it.

Jesus said, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:25, ESV)

This verse helps us understand why Jesus taught what he did about being ready for his Second Coming. When he comes again, our reaction to his coming shows what we love most, whether we most love our lives in this world or whether we most love our Savior and his Kingdom.

First John 2:15–17 says: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (ESV). According to this Scripture, love for the Father and love for the world are mutually exclusive.

James 4:4 says: “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (ESV). Scripture does not describe God’s true children as his enemies. James uses language meant to cause the deepest possible alarm in his hearers.

Explaining the Parable of the Soils, Jesus said, “As for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.” (Luke 8:14, ESV) The soil with thorns was one of three soils in the parable that describe people who end up with crop failure, who ultimately are not saved.

True disciples and the return of Jesus

Our readiness for the Second Coming of Jesus and our attitude toward this world are joined. Jesus warned:

“Just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.” (Luke 17:28–33, ESV)

Lot’s wife

Jesus says that what happened to Lot’s wife is important. It is a picture of what will happen to many at his Second Coming. True disciples of Jesus cannot follow in her steps.

Her story begins with the angels urgently trying to get Lot and family to flee from Sodom and Gomorrah, two wicked cities on the brink of incineration. Genesis 19:15–26 says:

“As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.’ But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought them out, one said, ‘Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away….’ The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”

She is exhibit A of a false disciple who loves the world and has not died to life in the world. At the Second Coming of Jesus, a “Lot’s wife” believer in Jesus would gaze at the things of the world she regretted losing instead of joyfully lifting her eyes to Jesus in the air.

The power of the cross of Jesus in renouncing the world

Jesus says that true disciples must renounce any love that competes with their love for him. Luke 14:33: “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

According the Webster’s dictionary, to renounce means to declare one’s abandonment of a claim, right, or possession; to give up, refuse, or resign usually by formal declaration. Christians make that formal declaration by being baptized in water, symbolizing their choice to die to self and this world and to live for God and his will.

Renouncing the world is not easy. We need God’s help, and he gives it in fullest measure. That help comes in our conscious decision to unite with Jesus Christ in his death on the cross.

The apostle Paul wrote: “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6:14, ESV)

The New Living Translation gives a helpful paraphrase of that verse: “As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died.”

Because Jesus unselfishly died for me, I have the motivation to die for him. He has given the example. He gave all for me. How could I hold anything back from him? Through his example and by his power living in me, true disciples of Jesus can renounce this world and everything in it so we might have Christ. He is worth infinitely more than anything in this world.

April 13, 2020July 15, 2021

How to Atone for Your Sins

You cannot atone for your sins. But there is hope.

I learned how to drive in a red Volkswagen Beetle that had a four-speed stick shift. The stick shift was fun. I felt like a race car driver. Decades later I bought a Chevy Cavalier with a stick shift, with which I commuted to work on Chicago expressways. That stick shift was not fun, because in rush-hour, stop-and-go traffic, I would have to push in the clutch pedal and go back and forth between first and second gear dozens and dozens of times. In hot weather, in a car for 45-minutes, without air conditioning, after a taxing day at the office, that stick-shifting felt like more work than I wanted to do.

So here’s something you now know about me: living in Chicago, I won’t buy a car with a stick shift. Not for an incredibly low price (unless I intended to buy the car and immediately sell it at a profit). Not if the car had every comfort and luxury available. A stick shift is a deal breaker.

Atonement

Similarly, there’s something you need to know about God and his ways. This is absolutely who he is, and it will not change. Because he is just and holy, this is the way God works with people: you cannot have a relationship with him without there being an atonement for your sins.

The word atone means to make amends for a wrong. To atone means to satisfy the demands of justice or to repair a wrong. To atone means to fully compensate for doing evil.

On a human level, a person who stole $10, could atone for it to the victim by apologizing and returning the $10 and adding an additional $30 for causing distress.

On a human level, a violent criminal guilty of assault and battery must atone for it by going to prison or paying money for suffering and medical bills. In addition, he must show sincere remorse and offer a humble apology.

Atonement requires death

The atonement that God requires for sin is not as easy and doable as paying money or doing a good deed. It includes nothing less than death.

“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

“The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20).

“Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

God told Adam in the Garden of Eden, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

What cannot atone for sin

That God absolutely requires the atonement of your sin means he won’t just forget about sins, as though the passing of time, even thousands or millions of years, would change what he requires. He won’t ignore sins. He won’t forgive them solely out of mercy.

He won’t put your sins on one side of a scale and your good works on the other side of the scale, and then, if your good works outweigh your bad works, forgive your sins. In other words, good deeds can’t atone for bad deeds, just as a life of good deeds can’t atone for murder in the eyes of the criminal justice system.

God won’t accept you because you do thousands of religious duties such as going to church or mass, saying prayers, reading the Scripture, keeping religious holidays, having religious statues and pictures in your car or your home, wearing a religious necklace, or taking religious sacraments. He won’t be your Father or Friend unless there is an atonement for your sins.

But he will gladly forgive sins if there is an atonement—only if there is the atonement he requires.

What can atone for sin

Like it or not, agree with it or not, regard it as primitive if you like, this is how the Bible reveals God from Genesis to Revelation. In the Old Testament, the purpose of animal sacrifices was atonement for sin. Likewise in the New Testament the purpose of the death of Jesus on the cross was atonement for sin.

For example, prescribing how the priests were to make sin offerings of lambs for the Israelites, Moses said, “The priest shall burn it on the altar, on top of the LORD’s food offerings. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he has committed, and he shall be forgiven” (Leviticus 4:35 ESV).

The Old Testament Book of Leviticus, which tells the priests in great detail how to conduct all the sacrificial offerings of animals, uses the word atonement 51 times.

The only sacrifice that ultimately atones

Likewise the New Testament says:

“Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3).

“Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins” (Hebrews 10:12).

“In him [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” (Ephesians 1:7).

“Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22).

Atonement and forgiveness

Notice in the following verse the words atonement, sin, and forgiven: “The priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he has committed, and he shall be forgiven” (Leviticus 4:35).

Notice in Leviticus 6:7 the words atonement, forgiven, and guilty: “The priest shall make atonement for him before the LORD, and he shall be forgiven for any of the things that one may do and thereby become guilty.”

Sin brings guilt before God, and it must be judged by God. This is important: something about the nature of God’s holiness and justice requires—absolutely and without exception demands—that sin be judged. If you don’t know this, you don’t know God rightly according to the teaching of the Scripture. Sin brings guilt before the God of perfect justice, and guilt makes one liable to punishment by the God of perfect, holy justice.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We want to make amends for our wrongs by performing religious rituals, going to church, giving money to some good cause, being nice.

God’s way: He accepts one thing—and only one—for the atonement of our wrongs: the death of his Son Jesus on the cross. His death can be, and is if we trust in him, the only substitute for ours. (The sacrifice of animals no longer avails for atonement, for God accepted that method only as a temporary, forward-looking proxy for the atoning death of Jesus. See Hebrews 10:1–14.)

Life principle: Any religion or belief system that makes the atoning death of Jesus on the cross for our sins unnecessary, is anti-Christian and contrary to the Bible. It won’t work. God won’t accept you without the atonement brought about through Jesus Christ and without your sincere faith in that atonement on your behalf and its power to bring the forgiveness of sins. This is why Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

I invite you to read my weekly posts about knowing God and his ways better. —Craig Brian Larson

April 6, 2020March 19, 2020

The Humility of God

The humility of God is on stunning display at the cross of Jesus.

We are currently looking at what the gospel teaches about God, and we come today to one of the most significant elements of the gospel, namely the cross. What does the crucifixion teach us about God?

Of course, you can fill libraries with this topic, so we will need to be selective. Let’s look today at one thing the cross teaches us about Jesus. In the crucifixion we see that the most glorious, exalted, powerful being in the universe, from whom and through whom and to whom are all things, whose name is above every name—this God is humble.

The humility of God in human form

Scripture says, “⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5–8, ESV, italics added).

Humility was the “mind” (v. 5), the attitude, of Jesus. His humble attitude expressed itself in his actions.

Notice the threefold repetition of the word “form”:

“the form of God,” in verse 6
“the form of a servant,” in verse 7
“in human form,” in verse 8

This repetition sets up a stark contrast. Jesus was and is God, the unique Son of God, and he had all the majesty, authority, and privileges inherent to the Son of God. Thus in heaven Jesus was worshiped, served, adored, obeyed. All this is what the phrase “the form of God” means—not his physical form but his exalted position and prerogatives. He had “equality with God” (verse 6).

Jesus emptied

But when Jesus became a man, he surrendered that form, leaving the glory he had in heaven. He “emptied himself” of it, as one pours out the contents of a full glass. He did this willingly. The Father did not have to pry it from his grasping fingers (v. 6); instead Jesus opened his hand and released it. In this, Jesus revealed his humility. Moreover, since Jesus is the perfect reflection of the Father and the Holy Spirit, he displayed their humility.

Imagine the Queen of England surrendering all the privileges, clothing, and majesty of her position to become the lowliest servant in the kingdom, washing floors and dishes in a dingy bar. That’s a picture of what Jesus did when he took “the form of a servant” (v. 7). Again, Jesus did this willingly. One only does something like this willingly if he is profoundly humble.

The humility of God in the obedience of Jesus

But Jesus took this self-humbling much further. “He humbled himself by becoming obedient.” He obeyed everything the Father commanded him to do. Have you ever found yourself chafing when someone gives you orders? Have you ever complied outwardly with the commands of someone in authority yet inwardly churned with rebellious thoughts and feelings? That’s pride, pure pride.

Jesus didn’t do that. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34). And, “I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father” (John 14:31).

Jesus obeyed willingly, joyfully, wholeheartedly, even though he too is God.

The humility of God in the death of Jesus

And now we come to the fullest expression of the humility of Jesus. He obeyed “to the point of death, even death on a cross” (v. 8). No one wants to experience death. It is the terrible consequence of sin. Jesus did not deserve to die. In his divine nature he could not die. In his human nature he could, but he had lived a perfectly holy and righteous life and therefore deserved only the reward of eternal life and blessedness.

Nevertheless, the Father determined that he must atone for the sins of evil humans, and so Jesus willingly went to the cross to suffer the agony of death (Acts 2:24), to die the death of the wicked.

Death in the worst way possible: “even death on a cross” (v. 8). This was the cruelest way to die known on earth. The Romans employed this form of execution to dissuade conquered subjects from rebellion. This was torture and torment.

The humility of God in the suffering of Jesus

And that was so if you were just dying like any human. But Jesus was not dying like any human. On the cross, he took upon himself the guilt of human evil and suffered the furious divine wrath that evil deserved. In this wrath was a spiritual and emotional agony beyond anything we can imagine. It included his beloved Father withdrawing his presence, withdrawing the awareness of his love, something Jesus had never in his eternal existence experienced, such that he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

This was the humility of the Son of God.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, he saw all this coming and asked that the Father would find another way. But the Father said no, and Jesus said, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

This was the humility of the Son of God. This is the humility of God. This is the gospel.

To our exalted, humble God be all glory.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We resist humility.

God’s way: The Lord values and demonstrates humility, and sooner or later he rewards it.
Philippians 2 continues: “ ⁹ Therefore God has highly exalted him [Jesus] and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9–11).

Life principle: “Whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12).

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

February 24, 2020February 8, 2020

Four Things the Cross Teaches about God’s Wrath

The character of God would not allow him to forgive human evildoing simply out of mercy.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is a unique photograph of God, enabling us better to understand God and his ways. We began looking last week at what the gospel reveals about the wrath of God. Since to a great extent the gospel pivots on this, let’s explore his wrath more deeply. The gospel teaches us four crucial truths about God’s wrath.

1. God’s wrath must be satisfied

In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus pleaded with the Father three times asking, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39 ESV). Because of who God is, it was not possible, and Jesus went to the cross. Despite the infinite, eternal love of God for his Son, it was not possible to change God’s plan. The wrath of God against evil must be satisfied.

God wanted to save fallen humanity from eternal judgment, for he is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9) and wants all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). Nevertheless, the character of God would not allow him simply to overlook human evildoing, to forgive it only because he is merciful and loving (which is what most people and non-Christian religions wrongly think God is willing to do). If that were possible, God would not have denied his beloved Son’s request and sent him to suffer the unspeakable horrors of the Cross to save humans.

No one could force God to send his Son to suffer at the cross; God chose to do it because of who he is. He did it for his own sake. He is a God of perfect justice and holiness whose fierce wrath against evil must be satisfied.

God’s wrath does not dissipate over time. He doesn’t get over it. It doesn’t come and go like a bad mood, bad weather, or a bad economy. Like a financial debt that must be paid, his wrath must be satisfied.

Human guilt for evildoing is real, not imaginary. Human guilt is real to God, the holy judge of mankind. In his perfect knowledge of what is right, guilt must be judged.

2. God’s wrath must be satisfied by a death

Scripture says, “It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last” (Luke 23:44–46).

“When [Pilate] learned from the centurion that [Jesus] was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb” (Mark 15:45–46).

For God’s wrath to be satisfied, it was not enough that Jesus only suffer, by scourging, whipped by a strong Roman soldier again and again nearly to death by a Roman lash with pieces of bone and metal tied into the end of the leather thongs. Suffer by hanging on a cross with spikes pounded through his feet and hands. Suffer from the mocking, shame, and spitting of his enemies. The point of all this was not just suffering—it was death. Jesus had to die to satisfy God’s wrath against human evil.

The need for a death to satisfy God’s wrath was established from the beginning. When God put Adam in the Garden of Eden, he commanded, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16–17).

The need for a death to satisfy God’s wrath came into enduring focus in one element: blood. Today we view bloody, animal sacrifices as the epitome of primitive thinking and superstition. Nevertheless, in the Bible, blood and sacrifice dominate the narrative from beginning to end as central themes of God’s relations with mankind. Blood is vitally important to God.

There is something deeply spiritual about blood. God told Moses, “The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life” (Leviticus 17:11).

The life is in the blood. Therefore when God redeemed Israel out of Egypt, he instituted the sacrificial system for the regular shedding of blood, death repeated again and again, for the atonement of evildoing. Over and over again in the temple the animal sacrifices reminded people that the only way to satisfy God’s wrath was by a death.

The Gospel accounts stress that Jesus had to die.

3. God’s wrath can be satisfied by the death of a substitute

If the truth about God’s wrath ended with the first two points—God’s wrath must be satisfied and must be satisfied by death—we would all be doomed. But the gospel reveals that the story does not end there. The necessary death that your evildoing demands does not have to be your death. God’s wrath can be satisfied by the death of a substitute.

When Jesus first began his ministry, John the Baptist, his forerunner sent to prepare the way for him, saw Jesus and told his disciples, “Behold, the Lamb of God” (John 1:36).

In the Old Covenant, lambs were sacrificed to atone for sin and turn the wrath of God to the favor of God. The life of the lamb was in the blood, and the shedding of blood could substitute for the death of the person who had sinned. The blood sacrifices of the Old Covenant taught mankind that God would accept a substitute to die in place of the evildoer.

But Jesus was the true Lamb of God. The only reason the blood of animals could substitute for human evildoing under the Old Covenant is that it was a temporary proxy for the blood of Jesus. Talking about Old Covenant sacrifices, Scripture says, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4).

The gospel teaches that only the death of the man Jesus could truly substitute for the sins of mankind and satisfy God’s wrath. It could not be animal for man; it must be man for man.

4. God’s wrath could only be satisfied by the death of God himself

Though Jesus was truly a man, fully man, he was also fully God.

“In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:1, 14).

Through Jesus’ union with humanity, God died on the cross. In Jesus Christ, the second member of the Trinity, God himself died to satisfy his own wrath. Because Jesus was fully God and fully man, his death on the cross was both man for man and God for man. Because Jesus was and is fully God, his infinite worth, unquenchable life, and perfect righteousness could satisfy God’s wrath against any number of people. Only the infinite holiness of the Son of God could satisfy God’s infinite justice. God’s death was big enough to satisfy God’s wrath against many.

This is why the only way to have a relationship with God is through faith in Jesus Christ. No other religion, no other “God,” no other efforts to be good on one’s own can satisfy God’s wrath.