Jesus, the Crucified, Reigns: Part Two
September 21, 2009
John H. Armstrong
Jesus, the Crucified, Reigns: Part Two
John H. Armstrong
In a moving essay on the subject of divine power and human evil, author Donald McCullough writes:
Jesus, the Crucified One, reigns as our suffering Lord. That means he understands and participates in our pain; his regal throne sits not in the clouds but in the middle of broken human life. Therefore we assert that the essential character of his power is not domination but suffering love. We need a revolution in our thinking. We may no longer think of power as control over something or someone; the Lord who freely takes our pain unto himself teaches us that authentic power reveals itself as power for self-sacrifice with and for others (“If Jesus Is Lord, Why Does It Hurt?” in The Reformed Journal, 35:7, 1985, 14).
It should now be very obvious that I completely concur with McCullough’s words. “I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” When I think of this almighty God as the sovereign God I remember that his reign is clearly centered in his suffering, sacrificial love, not in a naked power that flows from an impassible God of first cause.
The Person Who Reigns
My good friend and spiritual adviser, Dr. David Bryant, wrote me several times during the publication of this series of articles. After reading the first two articles David put a question to me that was situated in a rich biblical context. He noted that the evangelical church had marginalized and privatized Jesus, robbing him of his rightful place among us. In the process he said we had ignored the full extent of his supremacy as presented to us in Holy Scripture. David then suggests that one reason we do this is because we do not know how to answer “the seemingly insurmountable contradiction” that we see between Christ’s claims of Lordship over all creation and the massive amounts of human suffering that we plainly see in the world around us. This is precisely the point I have tried to make, and this is why it prompted David’s letter.
Though the way God’s goodness and the reality of human evil exist side-by-side in the world will never be finally resolved this side of the life to come. But I believe we can move in the right direction by understanding the nature of God more biblically than we do. This understanding would profoundly impact us if I understand the present state of the church.
David Bryant suggested to me that the same issue can be seen in a parallel phenomenon. We speak of Christ’s greatness in the past tense and in the future tense but rarely do we speak of it in the present tense. We speak of his work of redemption and of his coming again to judge and to save. But too few of us speak of his greatness right now, i.e., in the present tense. David suggested that Christ’s kingship does not come up in Christian conversations and living because, for all practical purposes, he is not a part of our daily lives. This is why we do not see Christians pursuing a “purpose driven life” because the Person who gives our lives real purpose does not presently reign in our understanding and affections.
The text that David had in mind by these comments was 1 Corinthians 15:20–28. Paul plainly says that Christ presently reigns (vs. 25). He has dominion, authority and power over all people and over every earthly realm. If this is true then how should we understand this present reign when dictators and evil men seem to influence the present age far more than King Jesus?
Note that Paul says “he must reign” (verse 25). Christians have a tendency to push this reign into the future. We suggest this period will be Christ’s millennial reign. I have no desire to debate the issue of the millennium here, but I question this interpretation of verse 25. It seems to me that Paul is saying that Christ presently reigns over history. The question is how he does this. I suggest that he mediates the reign of grace by transforming people and cultures through the gospel. This means he is raising the dead and giving eternal life to a people from every tribe, nation and tongue. The present kingship of Christ is more real than any kingship in this present age. And this reign is continually increasing in scope throughout this age. I believe it will reach a powerful crescendo that will eventually have a global effect. Let’s be clear about this. It will never look like the kingdoms of man because this is a kingdom “within you.” It is not found in the places of external power, like London, Washington or Moscow. And it operates in a realm that transcends the powers of man. It transforms all that it touches. This kingship means that we must live under his supremacy in sickness or in health, in trial or in blessing. We are a kingdom of priests “chosen to be obedient to Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:2) and we presently reign as “a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). This gospel of the kingdom, and of the reigning king, needs to be recovered and preached with joy.
Philosophy Fails Us
Philosophical views of God’s goodness and the problem of evil ultimately fail us because they tend to create theodicies. Theodicy appeals to human reason. Human reason can never resolve these questions. All theodicies resolve the question of evil by placing the blame for evil on some weakness in nature or in some disharmony in the world. In some cases theodicies even blame God for man’s predicament. The problem with all of these approaches is that they seek to render a solution to the problem of evil by making evil fully intelligible. Donald G. Bloesch has rightly concluded: “What philosophy ends in is a finite God, an amoral God or no God at all” (The Ground of Certainty. Eerdmans, 1971, 117). Man’s sin is treated as ignorance or some privation. This is the essential problem with all the solutions to our questions that come from outside the witness of Scripture.
Biblical Faith
Biblical faith begins by not trying to explain evil. It begins by teaching us how to overcome evil. We saw this in the Jewish answers offered with regard to the Holocaust. We see it even more clearly in the evangelical understanding that evil is much more than a defect in human nature. Evil is not simply the absence of good. It is an assault upon all that is good thus an assault upon God. Biblically, evil springs from anti-being not from non-being. Evil is not a natural consequence to the human state. Evil is a self-deception. Schleiermacher, the father of liberal theology, said that the locus of evil was in the resistance of our lower nature to God-consciousness. This view is not faithful to the biblical message.
Evil is centered in the heart of man, in the very center of our human personality. This is what is meant by Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” Evil flows from the struggle of the soul against God. It comes from “following the desires of the body and mind” (Ephesians 2:3).
Biblical faith understands that the ultimate reason for evil remains a mystery, at least for now. We can understand some things about this mystery but we cannot fathom it. I believe Gustaf Aulen was right when he said there was no rational explanation for evil.
Biblical faith says the source of evil is our human rebellion. Behind this evil is a demonic reality, a real adversary. This power is real, not a negative reality shorn of power (Barth). Brunner seems even closer to the truth when he says that evil is not an empty negation but a “positive negation.” But the devil is not co-eternal with God. He is not a rival god. This struggle is not between co-equals. The devil is powerless before the suffering lamb. Luther was right when he said, “One little word shall fell him.”
Emil Brunner says demonic sin is sheer rebellion while human sin is a mixture of weakness and rebellion. Bonhoeffer wrote that sin is inexcusable, thus we cannot ultimately explain it. When we try to explain it we deny it in some crucial way. There are two things that we can do with sin: (1) Refuse to rationalize it; (2) Confess it by acknowledging it and then seeking God’s grace in forgiveness.
God Is Not the Author of Sin and Evil
Some Calvinists get very close to saying that God causes sin. (They all but say it and then remind themselves of a passage like James 1:13 and back away ever so subtly.) I think this is why the Westminster Confession of Faith says explicitly that God is not the author of sin. Man is the cause of sin. Sin is not willed by God though it is obviously included in God’s plan or purpose. Not everything that happens is God’s intentional will though nothing happens that is apart from God’s sovereign purpose. This is why it is right and good to speak of God’s permitting some things and directly willing others.
Donald G. Bloesch again helps me grasp these points when he concludes:
God has chosen to realize His plan through the prayers and struggles of His children; the final outcome is not in doubt, but the ways by which His purposes will triumph are not absolutely determined. One thing is certain: sin, evil and earthly suffering will finally be destroyed (The Ground of Certainty, 123).
Conclusion
The final answer to the problem of evil lies not in a theoretical notion of sin and God. The final answer lies in a very practical perspective. The theologian Langdon Gilkey put it this way: “Christian faith deals with the evils of life not so much through an intellectual understanding of their origins as with the hope of their actual resolution and of their ultimate redemption” (Maker of Heaven and Earth. New York: Doubleday, 1965, 240).
P. T. Forsyth understood this point as well as any theologian in the twentieth century. He concludes:
The final theodicy is in no discovered system, no revealed plan, but in an effectual redemption. It is not in the grasp of ideas, nor in the adjustment of events, but in the destruction of guilt and the taking away of the sin of the world. It is not really an answer to a riddle but a victory in a battle. . . . We do not see the answer; we trust the Answerer, and measure by Him (The Justification of God. London: Independent, 1948, 220–21).
The natural mind is continually perplexed by this question of how God can permit evil in the world. The redeemed mind should ultimately be moved by a very different question: “How can God have such love for a sinner like me?”
The enigmas of human tragedy, as well as the suffering that we encounter in our own personal experience, are very real. But they will ultimately be overcome by the mercy of our crucified and sovereign God. This is the God who loves us and gave his own Son for us. We do not have all the answers for now but, in faith, faithful believers can pray: “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”
While this entire series has been both wonderful and extremely helpful, these last two articles are profound. I pray every professing follower of Christ reads these words slowly and carefully. In these words a fundamental weakness within the contemporary American church—within my own heart—is revealed; the anemic, self-centered view of a purely therapeutic Jesus is exposed for the fallacy that it is and the truth of suffering Christ who reigns is restored. There is power in this gospel, which as you note brings us to one inescapable conclusion, “How can God have such love for a sinner like me?” Thank you!
