A. A PROTRACTED INTRODUCTION

Three years ago I gave some lectures that were eventually published under the title The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. Almost all the focus of those lectures was on the ways in which the Bible speaks of the love of God. I said relatively little about Christian love, i.e., about

the love Christians are called to display. In this book I want to redress the balance a little; indeed, by the end of the work I shall show some of the ways in which the love of Christians is a reflection of the love of God.

Before plunging into the topic, the way will be eased if I review and slightly adapt three points made in the first set of lectures.

First, popular culture saunters between a sentimental view and an erotic view of love. The erotic view is fed by television, movies, and certain

popular books and articles; the sentimental view is nurtured by many streams, some of which we shall think about as we press on, but the result is a form of reductionism whose hold on the culture is outstripped only by its absurdity.

Applied to God, the sentimental view generates a deity with all the awesome holiness of a cuddly toy, all the moral integrity of a marshmallow. In the previous lectures, I briefly documented this point with examples from films and books. Applied to Christians, the sentimental view breeds expectations of transcendental niceness. Whatever else Christians should be, they should be nice, where “niceness” means smiling a lot and never ever hinting that anyone may be wrong about anything (because that isn’t nice). In the local church, it means abandoning church discipline (it isn’t nice), and in many contexts it means restoring adulterers (for instance) to pastoral office at the mere hint of broken repentance. After all, isn’t the church about forgiveness? Aren’t we supposed to love one another? And doesn’t that mean that above all we must be, well, nice? Similarly with respect to doctrine: the letter kills, while the Spirit gives life, and everyone knows the Spirit is nice. So let us love one another and refrain from becoming upright and uptight about this divisive thing called “doctrine.”

None of this is to say that “un-niceness” has any allure for thoughtful Christians. It is merely to say that the surrounding culture’s sophomoric reduction of “love,” even Christian love, into niceness does not give us the scope to think through the diversities of ways in which the Bible speaks of Christian love, the diversities of contexts that demand something a great deal more profound than sentimental niceness.

Sorting these things out is not easy. Quite apart from the usual exegetical challenges, one quickly discovers that the issues, though never less than exegetical, are usually more: it is not easy to think clearly with exegetical even-handedness when you are being told that because you say that certain behavior is wrong, you are not nice, you are not displaying Christian love. If Christians are not nice, they are not really loving, and that means they are hypocrites. And all of us know with shame that the church has generated its share of hypocrites, don’t we? So hearing the scorn, not knowing quite how to answer, we are tempted to hunker down in our holes and resolve to be a little nicer. If the truth be told, the pressures along this line will as often come from inside the church as outside. The temptation to retreat into “nice” silence is immediately augmented.

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The aim of this book is God-glorifying obedience to Jesus. To that end I am seeking to obey Jesus’ last command: “Make disciples of all nations...teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20). Jesus’ final command was to teach all his commandments.

The Impossible Final Command

Actually, the final command was more precise than that. He did not say, “Teach them all my commandments.” He said, “Teach them to observe all my commandments.” You can teach a parrot all of Jesus’ commandments. But you cannot teach a parrot to observe them. Parrots will not repent, and worship Jesus, and lay up treasures in heaven, and love their enemies, and go out like sheep in the midst of wolves to herald the kingdom of God.

Teaching people to parrot all that Jesus commanded is easy. Teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded is impossible. Jesus used that word. When a rich man could not bring himself to let go of his riches and follow him, Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God...With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:25-27).

Therefore, the person who sets himself to obey Jesus’ final commission — for example, to teach a rich man to observe the command to “renounce all that he has” (Luke 14:33) — attempts the impossible. But Jesus said it was not impossible. “All things are possible with God.” So the greatest challenge in writing this book has been to discern God’s way of making impossible obedience possible.

Jesus said that this impossible goal happens through teaching. “Make disciples...teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” There is, of course, more to it than that — like the atoning death of Jesus (Mark 10:45) and the work of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26) and prayer (Matt. 6:13). But in the end Jesus focused on teaching. I take this to mean that God has chosen to do the impossible through the teaching of all that Jesus commanded. That’s what I pray this book will prove to be — a kind of teaching that God will use to bring about impossible obedience to Jesus. And all of that for the glory of God.

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You might turn the world on its head by changing one word in your creed. The old tradition says:

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

And? Like ham and eggs? Sometimes you glorify God and sometimes you enjoy Him? Sometimes He gets glory, sometimes you get joy? And is a very ambiguous word! Just how do these two things relate to each other?

Evidently, the old theologians didn’t think they were talking about two things. They said “chief end,” not “chief ends.” Glorifying God and enjoying Him were one end in their minds, not two. How can that be?

That’s what this book is about.

Not that I care too much about the intention of seventeenth-century theologians. But I care tremendously about the intention of God in Scripture. What does God have to say about the chief end of man? How does God teach us to give Him glory? Does He command us to enjoy Him? If so, how does this quest for joy in God relate to everything else? Yes, everything! “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

The overriding concern of this book is that in all of life God be glorified the way He Himself has appointed. To that end this book aims to persuade you that

The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

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This is sermon #28 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 9:23-28 I preach on the blood of Jesus, and Jesus as the center of all of history.

 

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This is sermon #27 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 9:15-23 I preach on the purpose of the covenant and the person and work of Jesus.

 

 

 

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This is sermon #26 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 9:11-14 I preach on the blood of Jesus and the high priestly ministry of Jesus.

 

This is sermon #25 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 9:1-10 I preach on the Old Testament priestly system, communion with God, the exclusivity of Christ, and growing deep and wide in the Gospel.

 

This is sermon #24 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 8:7-13 I preach on the promises of God in the new covenant.

 

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This is sermon #23 in the Hebrew series. In this sermon on Hebrews 8:1-6 I preach on the priesthood of Christ, justification and assurance.

 

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This is sermon #22 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 7:26-28 I preach on worship, and Jesus as the answer to the questions, "Where is the Lamb?" and "Where is the true Priest?"

 

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