Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The Mount of God - Part I - "The Threshing Floor of Ornan"

It is safe to say that all of history tells nothing but the magnificent story of God's redemption of His people. His Word is concerned at every point with pointing us to this grand story, and it does so in a marvelous variety of forms. We find the gospel fully in the doctrinal and theological treatises which comprise large portions of the Pauline epistles. We find it plainly in the proclamations of our Lord Himself. And we even find it in the types and shadows of the Old Testament.

Indeed, it is rather amazing how the gospel is hidden in nearly every corner of Scripture, and those who would prefer to hide from it and cling foolishly to their own self-righteousness are advised to handle the Bible carefully and at their own risk. Since these types and shadows are given to us in order that we might glean a more full and glorious conception of the gospel, the worthiness of their study is beyond question. And so a shadow as intriguing as "The Mountain of God" which flows like a tributary stream through Scripture, ought to woo our attention with ease. In the consideration of passages which deal with God's holy mountain, we will uncover a rather striking and edifying statement of the gospel.

Let's begin by considering King David's sinful census as recorded in 1 Chronicles 21. We may recall that David had been provoked by Satan to sin and number the people and that as punishment, God had offered him the choice of one of three plagues: famine, military defeat, or destruction at the hand of the angel of the LORD. To this he appealed to his understanding of God's merciful nature and chose the Lord’s angel. God's hot displeasure with His people is illustrated most strikingly in verse 16, "Then David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and heaven, having in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem." This is very certainly the plight of mankind, the angel of God's wrath which has been provoked against us stands between heaven and earth with sword drawn and stretched out over the nations, ready at every moment to mete out excellent justice.

David's heart-aching intercession for his people is met with instructions for him to build an altar to God at a particular site. The site is "on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite" (v. 18). We will notice that this is the very place where the angel stood once God had stayed his hand (v. 15). In obedience, David erects the altar at this location and offers a burnt offering there to the LORD as he calls on His name. "So," it says, "the LORD commanded the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath" (v. 27). God's wrath was finally averted and propitiated by virtue of David's obedient sacrifice.

What is outstanding in this story is the simplicity of David's instructions. To avert the most dire of disasters, he is simply commanded to erect a common altar and offer an ordinary sacrifice. The only peculiar element in the command is the seemingly arbitrary location chosen by the Lord - the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Why was the angel there? And why did the altar need to be erected at that very site? Regardless of the reason, David was so impressed by the experience that he immediately consecrated that site for the Temple, "This is the house of the LORD God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel" (1 Chr. 22:1). David's word would later be carried out by his son Solomon, "Now Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite" (2 Chr. 3:1). So we learn that the place that the temple was erected by Solomon was at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, which was also the very location of the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

This begs the question: just what do we know about this Mount Moriah?

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Radical Cross (Foreword) - Ravi Zacharias

We often hear the phrase "the crux of the matter" or "the crux of the situation." The word crux comes from Latin and simply means "cross." Why has the word crux come to be associated with a critical juncture or point in time? Because the cross of Jesus Christ is truly the crux of history. Without the cross, history itself cannot be defined or corrected.

There is another word we often hear when we are in the throes of indescribable pain - the word excruciating. That, too, derives from Latin and means "out of the cross." Across time and human experience the cross has been the historical event that intersects time and space and speaks to the deepest hurts of the human heart.

But we live with more than pain and suffering. We also live with deep hungers within the human heart. These existentially gnaw at us with a desperate constancy. There are at least four such longings. The hunger for truth, as lies proliferate. The hunger for love, as we see hate ruling the day. The hunger for justice, as we see injustice mocking the law. The hunger for forgiveness, when we ourselves fail and stumble. These four stirrings grip the soul. As I see it, there is only one place in the world where these four hungers converge. That is at the cross. I dare say, therefore, that in this mix of pain and longing the divine answer is restoring and sublime. For within the paradox of the cross is the coalescing of our need and God's provision.

Some time ago, I spoke in Wales at an event that commemorated the 100th anniversary of the famous Welsh Revival of 1904. I listened many times to a magnificent hymn that was birthed during that revival, "Here is Love." The melody is almost haunting, the words capturing the paradox of the cross. Here is one of the stanzas:

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God's mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And heaven's peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

This is the paradox of the cross: Perfect peace and perfect justice united in one death on a Friday afternoon some two thousand years ago. The thief who repented while hanging on the cross next to Jesus understood the paradox. No one else knew so well the physical agony of what Jesus was suffering in crucifixion. And the thief knew that he deserved it. He knew the fear of God. But he received the assurance of pardon from the blameless Man hanging beside him.

A.W. Tozer has been one of the greatest writers of all time on themes as profound as the soul's hungers. He well grasped the paradox of the cross. In his opening essay, "The Cross Is a Radical Thing," he exhorts the believer to resist the downgrading of the cross to a mere symbol. If the cross has become to us a humdrum ornament to our faith, we have not understood it, and we have not felt its offense.

Tozer's essays are truly needed in our day because he understood the death of Christ in both its timeliness and timelessness. The Apostle Paul captured this timlessness when he exhorted the Corinthian believers: "Whenever you eath this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26). All the tenses were captured there - the present, the past and the future. The moment Christ died was an actual point in time in the past. He presently offers to live within us and promised to return.

Combined with the tenses are our tensions. Many of our moder-day sensibilities are offended by the brutatlity of a Roman crucifixion, and some people have even become persuaded that the atonement is a remote and irrelevant doctrine. Even so, the unprecedented violence occurring all over the world daily testifies to the greatest barbarism of all - the crucifixion of Christ - and to its message to the human race. I would go so far as to say that until we see the price God paid for our peace in His own Son, we will be paying with our sons' and daughters' lives on the battlefields of our hates and brutalities, only to find peace ever eluding us.

Never has it been more obvious that this world needs redemption, and that redemption is costly. The cross more than ever, in our language and in our longings, is necessary to bridge the divide between God and us. Without the cross the chasm that separates us all from truth, love, justice, and forgiveness can never be crossed. The depths of mystery and love found in the cross can never be fully plumbed, but it must be the lifelong pursuit of the Christian to marvel at its costliness and to celebrate its meaning. That is why I commend these essays to you. Your understanding of the cross and your commitment to its imperative will be greatly increased. There is no more important theme than this one. It stands as the defining counter-perspective to everything this world has to offer. As you meditate upon this paradox that propels wonder and worship, may you be moved to sing with the hymn writer:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all!