Something that is both lost and thought to be safe is doubly lost. When the hidden is thought to be in hand, it will not be sought. Anxious children frequently check to make certain their parents are still at home, in the house. Let us now make that search for evidence of our Lord’s vital presence among us.
What if we should claim to “have Jesus” when, in actual fact, there exists little evidence of his presence in us and about us? Would that not indeed be a mistaken, even arrogant, presumption? As we make our investigation of this very matter, remember that familiar phrases, often repeated without depth of meaning, tend to shut down mind and heart. Nobody will ask, “What really is wrong?” “Where is Jesus?”
Strangely enough, the teachers mentioning most often that Jesus is missing are those liberal in theology. They endlessly discuss their pilgrimage to discover the true Christ of history while subjecting the gospel accounts to dismemberment by scalpels of intellectualism.
But a certain fuzziness held in a mechanical, determined grip seems to mark and mar many who call themselves Bible believers. Shadows fall over Jesus, for the real Jesus is not like the one some presume to worship and proclaim. These people “take their stand” and argue their case, but clear truth does not long live, and certainly shows little power, where there is only empty repetition of familiar phrasing about our Lord’s person and work.
Teachings of cults are tested and exposed using this double touchstone of the person and work of our Lord. Both must be square. Good. But what of those who proclaim both these areas of truth in proper, traditional words that fall short of conveying much vital truth? What if the “solid” sermons have allowed a gradual drift into a shadowed falseness? No alarms are sounded, but things are not right.
What Is Promised and What Is Possessed
Promises that are preached but not really possessed can be hurtful. Jesus withdraws, hides. While his coming might be announced, his going might not be.
Scripture says of our era, “A better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God” (Heb. 7:19). And again, “No matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ” (2 Cor. 1:20). We are invited to experience a life close-up with God. As Christ profoundly stresses in John 14–16, he is sending the Holy Spirit to us so that “on that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. . . . He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him” (14:20-21).
Our Lord goes on to explain that this new intimacy with him will be sustained by personal instruction from the Spirit of truth and a new alignment in prayer between the believer and God, using Christ’s name. The wonder of this relationship is almost beyond words, but to let it slide or fade amounts to a tragedy beyond words. Are you, am I, what Christ died and rose to produce?
How Things Are and How Things Ought to Be
All our advanced modern methods in marketing the Christian message cannot hide the unsettling fact that the personal presence of the Lord Jesus seems not powerfully evident in many lives and churches. Even our hope of Christ’s second coming must not make us neglectful of our “now” blessings, offered to us in Scripture. To the blinded, lackadaisical church of Laodicea Jesus gave a direct rebuke and then a promise, filled with insight for our study here: “Be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:19-20).
Looking for Jesus to return a second time while forcing him to knock for entrance now is a remarkably strange situation. How did we get where we are today? Exactly where are we?
Our plight might be put this way: We have lost content from our bottles of truth, but we have faithfully tended and protected their labels. These accepted, no-thought-necessary stickers carry familiar wording, and in some cases they are burnished with stylish logos and the latest seminar buzzwords. Even things true, however, lose strength of impact when held in hands calloused by familiarity. Mere labels, traded like collectables, have usurped the place once held by thought-out truth. Phrases like “the finished work” (of Christ) or “positional truth” no longer leap with life. They languish among the heap of barely breathing “sleeper terms,” allowing escape from doing much thinking. When such terms are not clearly defined, they become like so much in-house jargon, permitting the precious to become hackneyed.
Showing Christ to a world that won’t look is a large challenge! Fortunately, God in scriptural revelation puts great spiritual truth in understandable terms—even putting teachings about himself in the bottom drawer, where little ones can reach them. He is neither dishonored nor obscured by simple expression. The very point of revelation is to make things reachable that are beyond us. Our problem, then, is not that the Bible is so difficult but that we have allowed core truths to get so out of focus that we can’t see what God has put there for us to see. Together, let’s take a fresh look at what God has spread before us.
One Word Summarizes the Entire Scripture: “Christ”
“The Scriptures . . . testify about me,” said Jesus in John 5:39, and in verse 46, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.” Then, so that none might miss the fact that he is the Grand Center of all Scripture, the Lord later taught his disciples, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” He then “opened their minds so that they could understand the Scriptures,” telling them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:44-47).
The apostle Paul wrote of his struggle for the believers of Laodicea and Colosse “that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:2-3). Getting to God and knowing him is altogether and only through Jesus Christ. Miss the door and you don’t get in, not even if you are very close.
Before this magnificence, we stand like a bewildered man peering through the window of his snow-covered and locked car. There are his keys in the ignition. Everything in the car is close, familiar, once held in hand, yet now it is beyond reach because of thoughtlessness.
Consider further this analogy. Keys are devices for unlocking doors. Doors are devices for getting through walls. Walls are devices that separate what is within from what is without. With no key, the locked door becomes a part of the wall. When Jesus teaches us that he is the door, he is plainly admitting that the wall is there. He is making it clear, though, that he is not part of the wall but is the way through it. And since he is the door, we are encouraged to lay hold of those key truths about our Lord that open to us vast realms of knowledge.
What Is Lost and What Is Left
The powerful presence of our enemy, the god of this world, is overwhelmingly evident in his vast arena: the whole social and cultural world, with its crass immorality, greed and materialism, violence, godless philosophies, and crime, both organized and personal. In the face of this well-entrenched, godless system, is Jesus Christ powerfully present with his people? Perhaps we make commendable efforts to get the manger scene back in the town square or to preserve the phrase “in God we trust” on our money—but where is Jesus? Where is the evidence in our world of his kingship? Are we “strong in the Lord and in his mighty power” (Eph. 6:10)? No, instead of a powerful Presence, there is too often only an ominous absence, a disquieting quiet.
Revering the empty bottles that once held precious truth is somewhat like the Israelites continuing to worship the once-effective bronze serpent. The serpent was originally appointed by God in Numbers 21:4-9 but was foolishly venerated until Hezekiah’s day (2 Kings 18:4). Perhaps Jonah’s pitiable cry is apropos for our day: “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs” (Jonah 2:8). What could be, is not ours—not really.
Keep firmly in mind that dark reigns only where light is not. Where Jesus resides with warm welcome, he rules and stands with his people against opposition. We thus have come to our key question: Where is Jesus? We must not be surprised that the sinful world is indeed sinful and hates light. Our concern, rather, must be to discover the obstructions within the heart and understanding of church people that veil, hide, grieve, and turn away our Lord.
Before we begin our search, let me reiterate that keeping a sound statement of Christology in our system of theology is not enough, as we shall soon see. Furthermore, venturing to make a casual or disinterested dissection of things infinite and almighty can be deadening, if not deadly. It is to be hoped that we can reach our goal without falling into these traps.
Getting Started—Simply
“But as for me, it is good to be near God” (Ps. 73:28). We can know God, and we can be near God. The great news is that there is a bridge that spans the gulf between God and us. So use the bridge! Our eternal destiny with God depends on this bridge, thus it is good to know that human knowledge and effort did not build the bridge. God did, because he wants us to cross over to where he is.
We know that God is not located, or limited, to some place. He is here as well as there. But this bridge I mention is a way for us finite ones to know God—to cross over into a certainty about the Invisible.
Jesus Christ is the bridge. This amazing “structure” is a person. Until we cross all the way over, we will not fully understand and appreciate what we have relied on to make that crossing. At the outset of our journey across to God, we will note that Jesus is human, and presently we see that he is also God. The bridge is a seamless structure that carries us all the way from earth to heaven, from man to God, from the visible to the invisible.
Please bear in mind that, even though this bridge is solidly anchored on our side and in our humanity, everything comes to us from the other side of the chasm. As the Son of God, our Lord always was and always is God. Then, two thousand years ago, he also became man, born of Mary in Bethlehem. The bridge is now complete—God to man—so that we in turn may get to God.
Before I Walk, What Am I Walking On?
To venture out on Christ Jesus, our bridge to the eternal God, one needs a confidence born of truth. Our flawed and failing sight sees little of the roadway ahead.
What is the truth about Jesus that gets us underway in this greatest of all ventures—that of coming to know and be near God? Answering that question is our primary concern in the next pages. Those who stick at it, I pray, will see all of the following:
He appeared in a body,
was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
was taken up in glory.
(I Tim. 3:16)
How May I Make Personal Contact with the God of the Universe?
If you ask the question honestly about making personal contact with the God of the universe, you are already near the answer. You and I are not eternal, yet here we are, existing and questioning things. What, then, is the source of you, of me, and of all else? Let us open the Bible.
Immediately, we are informed in the opening words of the first book that creatures can know the Creator. Trouble is, however, the very first words of Scripture—“In the beginning God created” (Gen. 1:1)—have become an area of doubt for many. Countless Christians live locked behind doors of doubt regarding their starting point in doctrine, namely, that God indeed exists and that this world is his creation. Without stopping to do battle here, consider the key that God offers to fit the lock on this door. It is found in John 1:3: “Through him [that is, Jesus Christ, the Son] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” See also Colossians 1:16.
I must therefore settle the question of the identity of Jesus Christ if I would forever settle doubts about creation. Scripture tells me that the one who is God is also Savior, sovereign Creator, and kind Shepherd (Isa. 40:10-12). If the overwhelming distance between the God of heaven and us is not fully bridged with a clear understanding of the person and mission of Jesus, then sneaking doubts will eat away at the vitals of faith and of our perception of truth, as well as our confidence in it. All down the line, doubts will hound the one whose understanding of the origin of all things is not firm and settled. But when we grant this place to Jesus Christ the Son, other insights more easily follow.
(Taken from my book, “Bringing Christ Back,” available for order here.)