The Exalted Name (06/28/24-06/30/24)

My focus in this passage is clearly on the matter of the name.  This is in part because we have need of understanding the matter of the name so much more than we do.  How blithely we pray, confidently appending, ‘in the name of Jesus’ to our prayers with little more thought than to let others know we are done speaking.  But to pray in the name; what is it?  Intentionally or not, it is to call the full power and authority of Christ to bear on that prayer.  It is at once a request that He would exercise His power in answering, preferably in accordance with our desires, and also a claim that our desires are in fact in line with His authority.  I pray in agreement with Jesus, my Lord.  I pray as His representative.  And that’s just a start.

We have a song of long standing in the church, though it’s been many years since I’ve heard it sung.  “No other name but the name of Jesus.”  And there is validity to the message of the song.  No other name is worthy of glory, honor, and praise.  But if we conclude that it is that name given Him at birth which is in view, we miss rather a lot.  As the lexicon pointed out, even within the scope of the New Testament, we have five individuals so named, and of those, one was most assuredly not of a nature to be recalled with pleasure, or viewed as worthy of glory, honor, and praise.  Jesus Barrabas was hardly a man of honor, whatever his name might have suggested.  And one could go around today and find plenty of people who share His birth name, whether we consider it as Jesus, a name common enough in certain cultures, or Joshua, which can be found in plenty.  And none of these, certainly, have power or honor due them for having been given that name by their parents.

Yet, there is a uniqueness to the giving of that name to our Savior.  It was not His parents’ choice, but rather, a name assigned to Him by God.  God places great significance in the names He gives.  They are chosen to a purpose.  They are descriptors of the one named in a way that our more modern habits of naming don’t begin to touch.  In the present day, it seems the focus is more on somehow making the child’s name unique, one never given before, even if it’s only by mangling the spelling.  Or, it may reflect a name popular at the moment for whatever reason, perhaps because of some relatively famous individual having said name, perhaps just because it sounds nice.  It just doesn’t get a lot of thought.  Most of us did not go digging into the meanings of names in choosing a name for our child, and most of those who know our children would have no clue as to the meaning even if we did.  Not so in Old Testament practice, certainly; not even with earthly parents.  They named as they saw, either as memorializing the event of that birth, or perhaps with a prophetic eye to what the child would be.  Names meant something.  They gave indication about the one named.

Going back to Adam in the Garden, he was given the task of assigning name to the various animals God had created.  How were names chosen?  No doubt, as describing in a word what each animal brought to mind.  How, for all that, did he choose a name by which to call his wife?  “She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Ge 2:23).  ‘ishshah, she shall be called, which the lexicons don’t really dive into much as to its meaning, beyond that it means woman.  Okay, fair enough.  But Adam has already given the meaning:  She was taken out of Man, ‘iysh, which is suggested as reflecting a base meaning of being, existence.  Man is.  Woman was taken from out of Man who is.  And, following comments in Girdlestone Synonyms (a new reference to me), in her he had discovered another being akin to himself, a being on the same level, with whom he could indeed have personal relationship as he could no other.  Here was being springing from being.  Here were two of like nature, yet different.  But however we are to understand the derivation of the words, the derivation of meaning is laid out for us:  She was taken out of Man.  She is part of me.  And yet, clearly a being apart from me.

Okay.  We have the obvious cases of name change:  Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Jacob to Israel.  And each of these reflected a divine assignment of name.  It signified a new standing for the ones named.  There is something of a covenantal nature to the renaming, yet renaming was not an essential, necessary ingredient of covenant.  One of the articles I reviewed observed the tradition of giving a new name upon baptism.  I’m not sure where that practice pertains, perhaps in Orthodox or Catholic practice, but it’s not something I’m familiar with.  The connection, it seems, is to the event of circumcision on the eighth day being the point at which a name was assigned in Jewish practice.  That leaves a question as to how things were done for female children, who could not be expected to undergo circumcision, certainly.  But presumably they, too, awaited the eighth day, and the giving of a name did, in some way, mark their participation in the covenant life of the people of God.

This brings me to another aspect of this divine naming.  Certainly, within the scope of the Old Testament, the assigning of name signified a certain authority over that which was named.  Adam was given to name the animals, and also to have dominion over them.  Parents, giving name to their children, assuredly set their authority upon the child, and this, God instructs, should be recognized when He gives the commandment to honor your parents (Ex 20:12).  Certainly, this is not to set them as gods over yourselves.  This is no call to ancestor worship, for the first commandment reigns:  No other God but God (Ex 20:3).  “Behold, the Lord, your God, the Lord He is One” (Dt 6:4).  But they are to be recognized in their authority as parents, their authority in having given you name (and life).

That aspect plays into the naming of Israel.  Jacob, the Trickster, as his parents had named him, given the circumstance of his birth, had been living up to his name.  He had wrestled his brother in the womb, looking to be the first one out, and even at birth, he was clinging to his brother, trying to hold him back and thus win the blessing of the firstborn.  And later, he played the trickster to gain that blessing in spite of his second-place beginning.  We see it in his dealings with Laban, not that Laban was any much better.  But Jacob, the Trickster, played to win.  And now, he had found himself wrestling with God and surviving it!  And God says, “You are no longer the Trickster, but now, you are Israel, he who struggles with God, for you have striven with God and with men, and you have prevailed” (Ge 32:28-29).  Again, the meaning is given in the assigning.  You have striven and prevailed.  Yet, it seems, given the history of both man and nation, that the focal point was in the wrestling.  It would never be an easy walk, this walk with God, but he would struggle to do so, and would prevail.  But observe Jacob’s response (for he is still Jacob in his thinking).  “Tell me your name.”  And How does God react?  “Why do you ask me that?”  Well, here’s why.  To have the name was to have a degree of power over the named.  That is, at least, one take on the situation.

It may be, as well, that God is basically saying, “You should already know Who I Am, Jacob.”  After all, I just told you who you were wrestling with.  Did you think I was kidding?  And Jacob got it.  “I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved” (Ge 32:30).  Would that we had that same sense of awe when it comes to our salvation, and when it comes to our welcome into the throne room of almighty God!  It is unlikely in the extreme that any among us could make legitimate claim to having seen God face to face.  But we have seen Him, we have spoken with Him.  We have Him dwelling within our very bodies, as He has made them temples to His glory!  And that, for all the honor it may suggest, ought to scare us as much as Peter found himself scared when he recognized in some degree the nature of this Jesus who was in his boat.  “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Lk 5:8).  Your presence must destroy me, for sin must cease in the presence of holiness.  And here, in You, I am encountering perfect holiness.  Woe is me, I am undone! (Isa 6:5).  Here I am, a man of unclean lips, born of an unclean people, and now, my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!  What can come of this, for none can see You and live.  Sinful flesh simply cannot survive the encounter.  And yet, here we are, God indwelling this temple of flesh.  How can this be?

Okay, I have wandered rather far afield, and yet, I must pause here, to take up my theme another day.  In the interim, Father, help me to retain this sense of awe.  Keep me, even this day, mindful of the enormity of having been accounted fit to be Your temple.  Give me a mind capable of retaining this, that You are in me, now and always, my constant Companion and my perfect Shepherd.  Grant that I might heed Your presence and Your command as I ought, for I remain a sinful man, wholly underserving of this honor You do me.  Yet, I would have it no other way, than that were indeed my Lord and my Savior.  Thank You!  May it be that I walk worthy of that reality.  May it be that I find myself changed just that little bit more towards fitness to be Your child today.  Amen.

As I have been saying, there is significance in the giving of a name, and particularly so when God is the giver.  As Fausset observes, when God gives a new name, it signifies a new nature.  For those renamed by Him, it marks a coming into living union with God, with the Trinity.  And that, I must insist, held just as true for the Old Testament saints as the New.  Abraham, who believed, came into living union with the Trinity.  He may not have had so full a revelation of the Son.  He may not have fully explored the implications of the Holy Spirit as the third Person of the Trinity.  But he was in living union with Triune God all the same.  And when it comes to those for whom God supplied the name even from birth, it signifies the same, only more so.  John the Baptist, for instance, given name prior to birth, had a lifelong commitment to the purposes of God, and a union with Him that sufficed to sustain him even in Herod’s prison, even as he faced execution for the audacity of pointing out Herod’s sins to him.

Then we come to Jesus.  Jesus, too, was given a new name.  And again, we could say that the new name signified a new nature, but in His case, that new nature was that of humanity, rather than a rebirth into union with God.  He was already God, after all, had been in that perfect union from eternity past.  And as I observed in previous studies, how it is that unchanging God could take on a new nature, I must leave for others to explain.  I’ve tried to comprehend it, but it’s beyond me.  But to return to the matters at hand, that name, like every name that God assigns to man, has significance.  It reveals to us His nature, His authority.  And, while Jesus cannot be itself the name above all names, given it is a name shared with many others, it is still a name of significant meaning.  ‘Whose help is Jehovah.’  It was so, certainly, for Joshua son of Nun.  And bear in mind that he, too, had this name.  So, if this is the name above all names, then Joshua son of Nun must be held in equal esteem to our Savior, and that simply will not do.  Joshua was a hero of the faith, to be sure, and for the most part an upstanding, righteous man.  But he remained merely a man.  He bore much authority, particularly among the tribes of Israel, but come face to face with the angel of the Lord, well!  There was an end to his authority.

That, I must confess, is one of my favorite scenes.  Here is Joshua, come to deal with Jericho, and he finds himself coming up on a man of war, sword drawn, standing athwart his path.  He asks the obvious question.  “Are you for us or for our enemies?”  (Josh 5:13-15).  Now, I identified this as an encounter with the angel of the Lord, and perhaps I should soften that just a bit, but perhaps not.  The angel of the Lord would suggest to me an encounter with this Jesus who would, in due course, bear the same name.  But his response here could be taken as indicating one of the archangels, rather than the Son.  Asked whose side he was on, this one answers, “No.  I come as the captain of the host of the LORD.”  Can you imagine such an encounter?  For those so excited to meet an angel, here’s the reality of it.  Are you for me or against me?  No.  I command the LORD’s army.  I am for Him.  And Joshua’s response?  He fell on his face to the earth, bowed down, and said, “What has my lord to say to his servant?”  The commander of all Israel knew his limit.  It stood before him.  And, just to add to the ambiguity of whether this is an angel or Christ Himself, the reply of the commander:  “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place you are standing is holy.”  It is devoted to the Lord.  Mind you, the place where Joshua is standing is not where this angel stood.  What made it holy, then?  God’s claim of it, certainly.  The same could be said of Jericho, devoted to destruction, given over to the Lord.  But then, at some level, the same could be said of the whole of creation, for He made it all, He owns it all.  It is all for His glory and for His use as He sees fit.  But the bigger point of this is to observe who’s truly in charge.  It’s not Joshua son of Nun.  It’s not this one he has encountered.  For, though he commands the host of the LORD, the host remains the possession of the LORD, and he who commands does so on the authority of the LORD.  HE is the one in charge, and only He.  For all who serve Him, it is HE they are for, and no other. 

We do well to bear this in mind as we contemplate the angels.  If it is so that we each have angels assigned to us, yet it remains the case that they are neither for us nor against us, but for the LORD.  They serve His purpose, not our whim.  We read that there are angels associated with the churches, and here, too, it is not to magnify the church, but to manage them in the pursuit of the LORD.  They serve the Head, just as we ought to serve the Head.  If they appear to be for us, it is as we fulfill our duty.  If they would seem to oppose us, it is because we have strayed from our duty, and need to be brought back in line.  So, too, those angels which are over nations.  And may God be pleased to stir whatever angel has charge of this nation, to get us back on course!

Okay, another lengthy diversion.  What can I say?  I can say this:  Joshua son of Nun was clearly not given a name above all names in being called Joshua, for here is one above him in the chain of command and one whom it would seem had others above him as well.  So, a fine name, and significant, but not above all others.  Yet, before I move on, let me just observe once more that the name, even the name of Joshua, of Jesus, signifies much as regards the nature of the one named.  “Whose help is Jehovah.”  Certainly, that was true of Joshua son of Nun.  This was both his strength and his limit.  When he pursued the purposes of God, God was help indeed.  When he went off course, that help was not to be found.  For the first part of that, we can say the same for Jesus son of Mary.  His help was God.  Though He was Himself God in full, yet He had set those divine rights and powers aside to come be a man among men.  He, too, had need of leaning firmly on the help of God Almighty, His Father.  But in his case, there was no going off course, no abandoning to his own human strength and resolve.  There was perfect obedience.  That’s been the point in this section.  He humbled Himself, and He obeyed, and His obedience never flinched, never flagged, even as He was nailed to the cross, a man innocent of any crime, either against man or against God.

This, we are instructed in our present passage, was the reason for His exaltation.  And there, let’s pause just a moment to recognize that this exaltation is more than just singing His praises or lauding His achievements.  It’s more than merely recognizing His worth.  It’s giving Him a station above others, indeed, in this case, it is giving Him a station above all others.  This, you note, is firmly coupled with giving Him the name which is above every name.  They are parallel statements, describing the same event.  Well, then, if this name was given because of His completing the course of obedience to God in His humanity, it could not have been assigned to Him prior to beginning that course, could it?  But that name Jesus was given Him before He was born.  No.  Even His identification as Messiah came prior to completing His work of obedience.  It was indicative of His work, recognizing His purpose, but it could not be taken as given in light of that work being completed.  What comes after is this assigning of the name Lord, and the assigning of His place upon the throne of heaven.  Now, He reigned as God all along.  There was never a time when He was not God, never a time when He did not reign.  Let’s get that settled.  But something happened when He undertook death on the cross to redeem us.  Something happened when, in His resurrection, by His restoration to life, God the Father acknowledged His sacrifice and accepted it.  Now, there are a people over which He may reign, a people who belong to Him as never before.  Again, He has not changed.  But we might reasonably say that circumstances on the ground had undergone a seismic shift.

Here, then, is the name above all names.  He is Lord.  He is Lord of all lords.  There is no higher authority to which one might appeal His decisions.  There is no one to whom He must give answer for His deeds.  As we have been considering, the name given is intended to describe the nature, the character of the one named.  This is as true of Lord as it was of Jesus, more so really.  He is Lord.  This is His nature, His essence.  It encompasses His authority and power, certainly.  It reflects His manifest glory.  Here in Jesus we have the King of all kings, the Supreme Authority, the unopposable power of God.  It declares to us as well His providence, His care for us, His subjects.

As we look to the rest of this passage, we must keep in mind that it is this Lord of lords we have in view.  It is this name that matters.  It is this reality that shall be acknowledged by all, and by all I mean both those who rejoice that it is so, and those who resent the fact.  It’s not a confession of love.  It’s a confession of reality.  He is indeed glorious.  He is indeed Supreme.  He is indeed God.  There is no other.  To back this up, just a bit, consider Paul’s statement elsewhere, in writing to the church in Ephesus.  “He is far above all rule and authority, above every power and dominion, above every name named, both in this age and in the age to come” (Eph 1:21).  Again, you see the name in association with power and office.  And whatever power or office you might think to name, His remains not merely above, but far above, infinitely superior.  And this is in keeping with what the prophets of old had recognized, if only in part.  Speaking of His Servant, God says to Isaiah, “I will allot Him a portion with the great.  He will divide booty with the strong.  For He poured Himself out to death, was numbered with the sinners, yet He Himself bore the sins of many, and interceded for the transgressors.  Behold!  My servant will prosper.  He will be high, lifted up, and greatly exalted” (Isa 53:12-13).  What Isaiah foresaw here is exactly what transpired at the cross.  Israel at the time failed to recognize it, but that did not alter the fact.  Here was the humble Servant of Isaiah 53, and He completed the course, succeeded where Adam had failed, and received the exalted office of Lord forevermore.

It's not just a title.  It signifies reality.  It reflects the essence of His being.  His is such power as sets Him beyond questioning.  His is the right of command, and as Lord, His command is beyond opposing or rejecting.  His word is law, to be obeyed on earth as it is in heaven, which is to say, without question, without hesitation, and without fail.  His is the right to command, the authority to direct, the power to dictate terms.  Ours is to obey, to move as directed, to abide by those terms.  He has spoken.  So it is.  We are not in charge.  Whatever office we may hold, whether in civil service, in the church, in the home, whatever it may be, we are not in charge.  We are men and women under authority.  Our Lord says to us, ‘Go!’ and we go.  He says, ‘Come!’ and we come.  If it is not so with us, it should be, for we gladly confess Him as our Lord and King.

Given our track record, we should be most glad that He is Lord and not Dictator.  The power may be the same, but the demeaner is vastly different.  The Lord is a benevolent King, where a dictator may be cruelly vicious, and utterly self-serving.  He is not our Dictator.  He is Lord.  He labors for His own glory, to be sure, but in pursuing His glory, He acts for our good, for our good brings Him much glory.  Our good displays His essential benevolence, His compassionate love.  Mind you, the crushing of His enemies also brings Him much glory.  It is no evidence of weakness in Him that so many oppose His rule.  It is no evidence of weakness in Him that they have been allowed to persist and even prosper for so long.  If anything, it is evidence of His near infinite patience.  But it is only near infinite.  If they will not repent, patience will come to an end, and punishment will be meted out in full recompense for disobedience.  He is Lord.  And He will be glorified.  He will be acknowledged.  He will be obeyed, even if that obedience comes, in the end, in being marched off to eternal torment.

I’m going to need another day yet for this, it would seem.  It is a big topic, and one worth the time it is taking.  Praise be to His name, and may I take to heart, even this day, the lesson of what I have been saying.  May I live to acknowledge Him as Lord, exemplify His Lordship over me, and heed His instruction.

The name of the Lord is much more than a label by which we may identify Him.  His name is recognition of His authority, His character, His dignity.  It is also recognition of His interests and pleasures.  To call on His name is to have all of this in mind, not merely seeking that He might answer, but reminding ourselves of all that He is.  His name should ever indicate to us the whole of His divine being and His humanity.  His name reveals Who He is.  He is Lord.  He is God Almighty made manifest to man.  He is the same God who revealed Himself to Moses; the same God who in that instance proclaimed His compassion and mercy towards all whom He chose to show compassion and mercy.  He is still God most compassionate and merciful.  He is love.  He is also absolute power.  He is holy, so holy that in our present state we could not so much as look upon Him and live.  And yet, He is within us, we who are called by Him. 

And then, get this!  He is our bridegroom.  We are betrothed to Him, pledged to Him as His bride!  And this, I think, must surely color our reflections of Him as Lord.  My Lord is to be my Husband.  Surely, He loves me.  Surely, my heart rejoices in the promise of His nearness.  Surely, my desire is to do such things as will please my Lord, as will delight Him and give Him cause to delight in me.  Is it not so in our earthly relationships?  Not in perfection, I expect, but I would hope those of you who are married seek to delight and please your spouses, to act in such ways as will increase their desire for you, and in such ways as will increase your understanding of and delight in them.

This is the thing.  We who call Him Lord in this present age have entered into living union with Him.  We are to be wed, and we are already betrothed.  In the context of Jewish life, into which this declaration of our relationship was made, to be betrothed is to be already covenanted to one’s spouse.  It has not been consummated, but yet it is binding.  Yet, relationship has formed.  Yet, there is commitment one to another, and a preparing of oneself for that time of consummation.  We read of the rejoicing in heaven because the bride of Christ has made herself ready.  She is to be presented to Him without blemish, without spot or wrinkle, perfected in her beauty.  And He shall receive her with the joy of long anticipation.  If I think back to my own wedding day, whatever else may be said of it, or the leadup to it, when my love came down that aisle, it was all but overwhelming.  This is it!  The wait is over.  This is for life!  I shall be hers, and she shall be mine.  There’s a reason folks faint on their wedding day.  The reality of such close union, of such a uniting of lives is much, especially to those who have not been inclined to view the marriage contract as rescindable at will.  And it is with this permanence of relationship, this wonder of anticipation, that we have been joined in union with the Triune Godhead.

Hear your Lord on this.  “I am no more in the world, yet they remain in the world as I come to You, Father.  Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are” (Jn 17:11).  Observe a few things there.  Primarily, I come for that final part, that we may be one as the Persons of the Trinity are One, as God is One, and not just one with each other, but with God Himself.  This is His prayer, and His prayer, we can be assured, does not go unanswered.  Secondly, we are given to Him by His Father, our Father.  You are God’s gift to Jesus!  Now, that’s hardly cause to get puffed up, and if you’ve any degree of self-reflection you know that.  But still, consider the implications.  Here is God, three Persons in perfect fellowship, absolutely complete in Himself.  He has love such as no other.  He has this shared life of the married couple as no other.  There is a reason He instituted marriage, after all, and declared it to be a one flesh relationship (Ge 2:24).  There is a reason Paul proclaims that the one who loves his wife loves himself (Eph 5:28-29).  Love her as your own body!  Cherish her who is flesh of your flesh, even as Christ loves the Church which is His body; in that same, utterly self-sacrificing manner.  And so, as you consider your belonging to Christ, consider that your model.  You are His, born of His life.  He loves you as if you were indeed bone of His bone, for in rebirth you have been made spirit of His Spirit.

You bear His name.  Modern marriage practices have somewhat lost the significance of this.  The woman inclines to keep her own name, but that really does rather fly in the face of the whole reasoning of the institution of marriage.  Go back again to Genesis 2:24.  A man shall leave his parents and cleave to his wife.  They shall become one flesh.  No doubt, we can read into this that the woman shall likewise leave her parents and cleave to her husband.  And her taking of his name as her own is a part of that, certainly.  So, what is the reason for retaining her family name?  For many, it is the idea of honoring that heritage of family, but then, how has such a one left family to cleave to this new union?  For others, it’s an assertion of independence retained.  But then, how is there ever to be a one-flesh relationship?  Does the husband also get to retain independence?  Is he excused from the duties of being husband?  Is he even permitted to pursue those duties?  How is he to truly cherish this one who will not even take his name for herself?

Now, I could look at the reciprocal of this, and ask where is the husband’s setting aside of family?  It’s a fair question.  There is not corresponding aspect to the ceremony, of his setting aside of his family name to take hers.  But there is this.  To this point in life, at least generally speaking, that man has known the backing of his parents.  They have been his nurture, his protection, and quite likely to some degree his financiers.  He has always known that should things come to the worst, he can in fact go home again, contrary pop-wisdom to the contrary notwithstanding.  There was always an escape clause, if you will.  But that is now done.  He has gone from son of the household to head of the household, with all the attendant responsibilities.  He has taken upon himself the charge to cherish, to protect, to serve this bride of his, even, should it come to that, at the cost of his own life.  It happens.  We see it often enough in the news.  And we honor the man for his great love for the woman he married, even as we grieve with her for her loss.  But at base, we recognize that here was a husband who took his responsibilities seriously.  Here is a role model we hope we can match, should the need arise.

Back to our point.  We have taken on His name.  He bears the title of Messiah, of Christ, and we are identified as Christians, as those who belong to Him.  We profess our love for Him, and our devotion to Him.  And hopefully, we do more than just claim such loving devotion, but give it constant expression.  How do we express our devotion?  According to instructions.  “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (Jn 14:15).  And because He loves us, He has asked the Father, and the Father, who gave us to Him, has acceded to His request, and sent us another Helper, the Holy Spirit of Truth, to be with us forever (Jn 14:16).  A very quick aside, but as I have been reading through systematic theology text, and have reached discussion of things eschatological, the question arises as to the withdrawal of him who restrains antichrist (2Th 2:3-5), and how this relates to the Rapture, the taking up of the Church to meet her Lord in the air (1Th 4:17).  It strikes me that here we have the answer.  If, indeed, the Holy Spirit is Him who restrains, and He is with us forever, then it must be that when He departs, we do as well.

And in the meantime, as I attempt to wrap this section up, let us bear in mind, as we consider the name of our Lord, that He remains true to His name.  In the Revelation, we find Him revealed with the name, ‘Righteous and True,’ and upon His thigh and His robe, the name above all names:  “King of kings, and Lord of lords.”  He is True to His essence.  He must be, even as we must be, but Him more so.  Every name by which He has been named remains true.  So many names He bears; all those which we find expressed in the Old Testament.  They still apply.  He is indeed our Provider, our Healer, our Rock.  He is our Strength and our Shield, going back to David’s psalms.  And He is our Victorious Warrior.  It is this last that I want to touch upon as a last point.  He is our Victorious Warrior, to be sure, in the battle against Satan and his minions.  That battle has already been won, as has often been observed; but we still face the thrashing death throes of our defeated foe.  But we also face our own sinful, rebellious flesh.  We have reached Romans 7-8 in our morning men’s group readings, and that’s a clear depiction of our state in the waning days of this present order.  Our flesh rebels against us – against God, yes, but against us as well, who belong to Him.  Our spirits are renewed, but our bodies remain sin-stained and corrupt.  It is to this end that Paul informs us that this must change ere we can ascend to heaven, even if it comes to us to be thus changed ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ (1Co 15:52).

Here, in this battle against sin in our members, we need to lay hold of that particular name of our Lord.  He is our Victorious Warrior.  If it seems we cannot gain a victory over those sinful members of ours, perhaps it is because we have been seeking to do so in our own strength, to claim a victory for ourselves.  Perhaps it is time and past time that we recall to mind our Lord, our Victorious Warrior, and lay ourselves humbly before Him, seeking His aid.  He loves us, His bride.  Is there doubt in your mind that He will indeed come?  There shouldn’t be.  He has sworn Himself to your protection, and He has promised upon His own holy and unbroachable name, that He will keep you to the end.  So, call away!  Humble yourself before your Lord and Husband.  Acknowledge your weakness and need, and trust in Him to ride to your rescue.  That doesn’t mean we simply stop bothering with sin.  Far from it!  No, we wish to be pleasing to our loving Lord, to express our love for Him in deed as well as word.  But we are weak, and when we are weak, He shows Himself strong.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.  Come to our rescue in this dark age.  Come to our rescue in our private moments of weakness and capitulation.  Come to us, as well, as we seek to serve You, that we might not spoil our service to You by the corruption of our flesh, that we might not be found worshiping in open rebellion, but praising You from hearts truly devoted, thoughts truly turned to You, and desire caught up in bringing glory to Your most glorious name.  Come, be our Strength, our Shield.  Come, Victorious Warrior, and claim Your victory over sin in us.  Amen.

Humble Acknowledgement (07/01/24)

I come back briefly to the point that this name given to Christ was a willing gift of the Father, a gracious giving of that name.  Now, that does not require us to suppose His name was undeserved.  That is a sense that often applies to this matter of bestowing.  We, for instance have had forgiveness bestowed to us, though we by no means deserved such a gift.  But here, we have One utterly deserving due to His utmost obedience to the giver.  Still, it is a gift, a giving of grace, for God could hardly be compelled in any matter, most especially in the giving of a name.  I confess, it would be impossible to account God as compelled insomuch as He is giving the name to Himself, yet He is a Triune God, and is, in a sense at least, giving the Father’s name to the Son, giving the Father’s office into the Son’s hands.  It goes back to Jesus’ point as He commissions His apostles.  “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Mt 28:18).  That’s the name.  That’s the office.  Jesus has been set in charge, on the throne of God the Father, and this is indeed an act of graciously giving to Him that which the Father could most assuredly retain as His own prerogative.  But here is the Father setting aside His prerogatives even as the Son set aside His in becoming a human like ourselves apart from the matter of sin.

This is the connection here.  What has been graciously given is a name of office, is ‘all authority.’  Thus, as Paul continues, he moves directly to the notice of Messiah’s true office and power, drawing from Isaiah, as Jesus had done Himself.  “Every knee should bow” at His name.  Indeed, as the Amplified stresses, and as I have often noted myself, every knee must bow.  A gracious giving, a willingly gifting.  Hear it with the strength of the prophet’s original declaration.  “I have sworn by Myself; the word has gone forth from Me in righteousness and will not turn back:  Every knee will bow to Me, and every tongue swear allegiance” (Isa 45:23).  God’s word does not fail.  His purposes and declarations stand.  This shall be.

And this, too, should come to mind when we contemplate our Lord and King.  Let me add Wuest in here.  God has “graciously bestowed upon Him the Name, the name which is above every name, in order that in recognition of the Name [all which the Lord Jesus is in His Person and work] which Jesus possesses, every knee should bow.”  This Name (and I thank Wuest for the capitalization), must bring to mind just exactly who this Jesus is.  He is LORD.  He is the Son, Second Person of the Trinity.  He is our Savior, our King of kings.  He is our Redeemer.  He is our Husband.  He is our Victorious Warrior.  He is our All in all.  All of that comes rushing in as we turn our thoughts to our beloved Lord God.  We could add that, as well.  He is Lord God of Israel.  He is One.  Mind you, much that comes to mind for us with gladness must hit those who have stood resolutely against Him like the mallet smashing the knees of the crucified.  You shall bow.  This is no longer an option.  It is required of you.

Think of most any Hollywood movie you’ve seen that involved such an office of royalty or absolute power.  For all that, think of most any James Bond movie.  The hero, the rebel, however you may view him, is brought all unwilling before the man in power.  He is bound, disarmed, left in no position to be a threat, at least for the moment.  And what is required?  On your knees!  You will bow before my might.  You will beg for mercy from me.  You will grovel in supplication, in the forlorn hope that perhaps, just maybe, I will spare you.

As we’ve been in the midst of a sermon series on Jonah, I could bring the example of Ninevah facing the judgment of God.  Here was the king of that empire, who had no doubt thought himself in such an unopposable position of power.  His word was law. His whim could see a man dead.  But comes the prophet with his clear message, “Forty days more, and this city shall be overthrown” (Jon 3:4).  What was it convinced this mighty people that this was serious?  I mean, it was one, rather disheveled and malnourished man come among them with the message.  Yet, it struck home, and the minds were made receptive to his words.  For they were God’s words.  And God’s words have weight.  God’s words have power.  God’s Spirit, as Pastor observed yesterday, must surely have been at work among them, else it would still have been a message of death to the dying.  But it became life to the repenting.  What happened?  This king, for all his power, discovered himself facing God, facing the LORD.  Here, indeed, was unopposable power.  Resistance would prove futile, if not deadly. Humbling oneself was the only hope, and so he called for just that, though it seems a good third of his nation was already undertaking to humble themselves.  But he would take no chances.  This is God Who is dealing with us.  We can but comply, bow the knee, humble ourselves, and appeal for mercy.  As he said in his decree, “Who knows, God may turn and relent, withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish?” (Jon 3:9).

Ideally, that is what we are observing here.  The Church has long since knelt before her Lord, proclaimed her loving devotion to Him, and kissed the Son.  Now, a last chance, perhaps, for the wicked at His return.  “Kiss the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way.  For His wrath shall soon be kindled.  How blessed are those who take refuge in Him!” (Ps 2:12).  But even should they not seek to repent even then, yet they shall bend the knee.  If it must be forced from them, still it shall be.  They shall acknowledge that indeed, in all truth, Jesus Christ is LORD of heaven and earth, against Him none can stand.

Recall that this signal honor has been done the Son in recognition of His willingly humbling Himself to obey the Father (Php 2:8).  In His humble humanity, He set Himself to comply with the Law fully, to heed every command given Him by the Father, and to do so in humble dependence on the Father Himself for strength to do so.  And in this most humble state, humiliated insomuch as He had set aside every divine prerogative that was His by right, He obeyed, even when called upon to undertake death for those given to Him, even when that death was to be by the most horrifying yet devised:  Death on the cross, hands and feet pierced through by nails, unable to ease His pain in any fashion, hung out to dry in the hot sun, naked, powerless, exposed to the derision of one and all.  And this He did; the Son of God, God Incarnate, sunk so low, even to the point of suffering loss of fellowship for that period, as the Father must turn His back from the sin of the world heaped upon His shoulders.  He had been utterly humiliated, made less than nothing.

But now!  Now He is exalted – highly exalted.  Now, He has obtained a position far and away above every power and authority known to man, known to angels, known to demons.  Satan thinks he has power, and from our perspective, we should have to admit that he does.  He is a roaring lion, a great deceiver, an accuser of the brethren.  But his power cannot touch this.  His power must likewise bend the knee when True Power comes.  Jesus Christ, our Husband, our King, is truly Lord, and even this most potent enemy must, in the end, confess that truth.  It began even when He was present among us.  The demons, faced with His very real presence, even if it be in this humbled estate, knew.  “I know who You are.  You are the Holy One of God!” (Mk 1:24).  But this was not yet the bending of the knee, nor the confession of His full office.  This was still an attempt to divert Him from His course, to induce perhaps just a wee bit of disobedience to spoil the work.  And it failed.  It failed utterly, as the devil himself must fail utterly, as must all who would oppose His unopposable might.  They shall be humbled, and humbled permanently.  His humiliation was for but a moment, a brief three days in the course of eternity.  Theirs?  It shall continue forever, the inverse, if you will, of His condition.  They may succeed among men for a season, but even as that season has already lasted for millennia, yet it shall be but a brief blip on the span of eternity.  And their humiliation shall know no end, for their crime is against eternal God, and their punishment must, in His perfect Justice, befit the crime.

Vocal Agreement (07/02/24-07/03/24)

I come now to verse 11, which is perhaps the central and key statement of this passage.  Every tongue should confess.  Let me stop there for the moment.  First off, we are informed that this confession is something beyond nodding our head as we read what Scripture has to say.  It is beyond merely understanding the argument being made, and even beyond accepting and agreeing with that argument.  This is vocal confession as to the truth of it.  There are a few things I would observe here.  Thayer brings forward the point that the tongue was considered the lead instrument in Jewish praise, which would make sense, if we take the tongue as being the organ that gives meaning to such sounds as we emit.  Without the tongue, the voice would be, at best, the equivalent of a horn.  It might be able still to convey some agreed-upon meaning, but it cannot give voice to the words of one’s thoughts.  So, of course, when it comes to singing the praises of God, nothing can serve to fully express His praises as can the tongue, giving expression to the heart.

But what we have here is more than mere vocalization.  It’s beyond expression of emotions, though, to be clear, the emotions are clearly involved.  It is confession; not necessarily of that sort we associate with Catholicism, but vocal agreement with Truth.  And here, it is with a specific facet of Truth.  I’ll come to that.   But before I do, I want to explore this just a bit more.  Confession is, to follow Zhodiates’ definition, externalizing one’s inward belief:  Yes, this is true.  It expresses agreement with Truth.  But if I add Thayer to the mix, as we are speaking from the heart, this confession is both open and joyful.  To confess that Jesus is Lord is to celebrate the fact, to give praise to God that it is so.  Let me come back briefly to that matter of the tongue.  Here it is, of course, in the act of praise, for which purpose it is the chief, lead instrument, but in which purpose, we could also say that the tongue has come to its chief and highest purpose.

Thayer also mentions the role of the tongue in inspired declaration, which I think we could accept as including such expressions of vocal agreement as those we account praises.  He writes, “Nothing human in an inspired man was thought to be active except the tongue, put in motion by the Holy Spirit.”  Now, I expect our Charismatic brethren would latch on to that as support for speaking in tongues, and if those tongues are indeed comprehensible language, or duly interpreted for the benefit and edification of those who hear, I would concur.  But this applies as well to prophecy, and I could argue, to preaching and Christian instruction more generally.  The teacher is at his best when the Holy Spirit has taken over, bypassing his preparations, if you will, or maybe appending to them the things God knows need to be taught right here, right now.

This is, to be clear, not to suggest in the least that preparation is unnecessary, or somehow counterproductive.  That’s not the point.  We should be prepared, ready in season and out, as Paul instructs Timothy (2Ti 4:2 – Preach the word!  Be ready in season and out to reprove, rebuke, exhort, all with great patience and instruction.)  You can’t be effective without preparation.  But neither can you be effective if you are insistently keeping control of presentation when the Spirit is trying to direct you to a necessary detour.  There is a reason, I suppose, why these notes of mine tend to veer off into so many detours from the immediate theme or passage.  I seek to allow myself to wander as the Spirit leads.  Admittedly, there is a great risk here of simply wandering off after my own thoughts and winding up very far afield.  But we need to remain flexible, not so rigidly tied to our preparations as to miss the opportunity set before us.

Okay.  Second diversion.  Go back a few paragraphs.  Confession is to be both open and joyful.  Here is a thought that has been percolating the last few days, and I’m glad to find this reminder in my notes, that I might allow it to express itself.  There is something about joy.  Joy requires no translation.  Joy does not come in disguise.  When you see somebody who is joyful, you know it.  We may mistake seriousness for anger, or we may find anger has been carefully concealed behind a mask of indifference.  Love, not of the godly sort, but of the more emotional, Hallmark sort, may be an act.  Repentance may be feigned.  There’s a reason we have so much talk of gaslighting, and it’s not just as concerns the news or politicians.  It pertains to interpersonal relationships, particularly amongst intimates, when one party seeks to convince the other that things are not as they see them or remember them.  It didn’t really happen that way.  And let me tell you this – diversion within diversion:  Your enemy the devil is a dab hand at gaslighting.  It’s there in the first days in Eden.  God didn’t really say that, did He?  Surely, that’s not what He meant.  It continues, even in the life of the believer.  That wasn’t really such a sin, was it?  It’s not like you could help it.  No need to worry about it.  Or, worse yet, you didn’t really accept Jesus, did you?  You had an emotional moment, that is all.  He didn’t really call you, you just fooled yourself into thinking so.  Time to come back to reality.

But back to joy.  Joy cannot be feigned, I don’t believe.  Attempts to do so come off as looking more insane than joyful, ditzy at best.  That’s not what we’re talking about.  I can go back to that dear child, Desire, whom I had the pleasure of meeting and entertaining for a bit in Malawi.  There is a joy in her face that is undeniable, unmistakable.  Or, I could consider those who were leading songs of praise.  I may not have understood the words, but there was no mistaking the joyful delivery.  There was no doubt but that what this one was singing was a matter of great pleasure, joyful confession.  Zima wewe.  Such a joyful song.  It wasn’t until I got back home that I was able to translate:  Cool You.  That is the literal formulation.  But in context:  God is cool!  That may be uncomfortably casual to a formal New Englander, but it’s so true.  It’s how we feel about Him.  And to give it such transparently joyful expression?  Wonderful.  Here is praise with whole-body involvement.  The tongue may lead, but certainly we who love the Lord with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, all our strength, can allow heart, mind, soul, and strength to jump in feet first and rejoice together!

Okay, so we are here in joyful confession of Truth, loud and proud, as it were.  What is this truth we so gladly confess?  “That Jesus Christ is Lord.”  Again, more than just open confession of obvious truth, this is joyful proclamation of the fact.  We might incline to add just a bit, and make the confession, Jesus Christ is my Lord.  Not that we are center stage, but that this is personal.  He has charge of me.  I am His.  But it’s beyond that.  He is Lord of all, both of we who have gladly received Him as such, and of those who have, at least thus far, resisted His rightful rule of themselves.  He is Lord!  He is Lord of all Creation!  There is nothing in this life or in the life to come that escapes the scope of His reign, nor that can, in the end, defy His rule.  And how glad we are that it is so!  When the trials of life come at us, how reassuring to know that even these trials must answer to Him, that even in our deepest times of trouble, boundaries have been set by Him Who assures us that we shall not be tested beyond our ability.  And as we shall observe in the next part of this great chapter, our ability is fueled and driven by God Himself, Who is at work in us, both as to our will and as to our working (Php 2:13).  How can we lose?  He is Lord, and we are His!  How can we confess this and not be joyful in the confession?  Can you imagine knowing this, and admitting it as if ashamed of finding it necessary to do so?  Can you declare this reality with a hangdog expression on your face?  Can you believe it, and still just rattle off the words as if reciting something memorized for school?  Let me tell you – let me tell me – if you can, then it’s time for a change.  You still haven’t quite known your Lord.

There is something else here that can be lost in translation.  Bearing in mind that whatever translation you may use, it has been translated.  It is trying to convey the meaning of what is there in the original language, but to do so, it must on occasion shift the presentation to what counts as normal usage in the target language, and that can cause us to miss things.  English, for example, tends to be an ordered language.  Verbs follow nouns, adjectives, when they stack up, tend to follow a particular order or things just sound a bit off.  Objects follow prepositions.  You know the rules, even if you don’t bring them to mind.   And when a rule is violated, something in you notices.  There’s something wrong here.  That didn’t sound right.  But in Greek, position has less to do with grammatical word order and more to do with emphasis.  There are a few words that are never set at the start of a sentence, but in general, what comes earliest is most emphasized.  Well, here we have three candidates for name.  Yes, I know I have discussed this matter of name at length already, but it is a name we are called to confess.  Best we should know what confession is to be.

We have, in English, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”  And we may make rather a big deal of confessing that verbatim.  Or, we may have those who want to show their Jewish chops, and insist Yeshua Messiah is Lord.  Fine.  Makes no difference, I suppose, although I will still maintain that the name we hear God assign is Jesus, not Yeshua.  But I’ll accept that this could simply be a question of translation in the original.  After all, most of the Gospels were written for non-Jewish populations.  Set that aside.

As presented in Paul’s Greek, the literal and literally ordered translation would be, “Confess that Lord, Jesus Christ.”  This does not invalidate the way things are presented in English translation, but it does make one thing clear.  The name being emphasized is that of Lord.  We confess the Lord.  We identify the Lord as being Jesus Christ, not some random Jesus we met on the street one day, but this specific Jesus, born to Mary, conceived of the Spirit, slain by man in accordance with the purpose of eternal, Almighty God as the propitiation for our sins, and raised once more to life by the same Almighty God, received into heaven, to occupy forevermore the throne of His Lordship over all creation.  That’s what we confess.  HE is LORD!  And our allegiance is to Him first and foremost.  Our allegiance is, in point of fact, to Him exclusively.  We will, as He commands, obey those earthly authorities under whom we abide, recognizing that such authority as they have is from Him, (and that, I suppose I must accept, even when sorely abused), and their bounds and limits are, as with the oceans and the air, firmly established by Him.  If their time is up, it shall be up, and He shall see to it.  We need not try and take things into our own hands.

This, again, is the Name.  He is Lord.  It was given to Jesus Christ upon the completion of His work of obedience, and it declares Him for Who He Is.  He is God, ruler of the universe.  He is indeed Messiah, not only of Israel, but of all nations.  He has, as our passage informs us, been highly exalted; as Thayer states, “exalted to a partnership in the divine administration.”  He is Supreme Lord.  Now, we must recognize that as the Son of God, He was already highly exalted, already possessed of status far and away above every other being ever to exist, whether human or spiritual.  But this remains somehow new, that Jesus in His humanity – for He is fully man even in His resurrected state – was accepted back into the house of God, installed in the heavenly sanctuary and set upon the throne of David, which is the throne of God in heaven.  And we understand that in this act the Father had even passed to the Son the full authority to decide, to set the course of events.  This is new and yet not new.  I don’t know how to put it.  God has not changed, yet there has been a positional change, it seems, amongst His Persons, and if we accept the testimony of Scripture, it persists only until all things have been subjected under the feet of Jesus, at which time, He will give the whole back to the Father.

This is what we are called to recognize when we proclaim our Lord.  It is a most powerful confession that is declared here.  He truly is Lord of all.  Why? Because the Father has placed Him in that position, in His own position.  And why has this been done?  Because He has shown Himself worthy.  He has taken up the headship of humanity and shown Himself able.  He has kept the Law perfectly, obeyed its every precept.  He has refused every attempted alteration of that Law, rejected every opportunity to achieve God’s purposes by other means.  Unlike Adam, He did not decide the Law didn’t apply to Himself and could be ignored.  Unlike Abraham, He did not attempt to help things along when the schedule seemed to be running behind.  He did not sin in any way, neither by acts of commission, nor by acts of omission.  And withal, He willingly faced the full wrath of God against sin, as He stood in our place, the federal head of a new creation.  He is Lord, having received that high office from God the Father, and that, too, is our confession.  That, too, is recognized as we proclaim Him, as well has the reputation, the honor, the renown that attend to so high an office, and thus, to One worthy of fulfilling that office.

Look at the extent of this reign of Christ!  To Rome, Paul writes, “For this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and the living” (Ro 14:9).  Even to those in the grave, He is Lord, and He has taken death captive, led forth those held captive by the chains of death in train behind Him.  And the train fills the temple (Isa 6:1).  I would love to take credit for perceiving that connection, but I’m pretty sure it was a connection I heard made by Pastor Najem many years ago.  There is, effectively, no boundary, no limit to His reign.  There is none, nor could there be, who could say that they are not of His dominion.  And so, when we come to the Revelation, we read of the state of things in the courts of heaven.  “Every created thing in heaven, on earth, and under earth and sea, and all things in them were saying, ‘To Him who sits on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever’” (Rev 5:13).  There is the confession!  He is Lord.  There is nothing in all creation that is outside of His domain.  Every created thing is included here.  And no matter how I look at this, it astounds.  We must include the plants and animals, even those, I suppose, which we don’t much care for; the mosquito, the cockroach, poison ivy, and the like.  They, too, will have shed their fallen state and shall be in that crowd proclaiming the blessedness of the Lamb, our Lord.  We might wonder just what a glorified mosquito will be, but I guess we’ll find out.

Or, take it from this perspective, the God of the dead and the living shall be praised not only by those alive at His return, but by all who have believed, in every age, of every nation, Old Covenant and New Covenant alike.  We shall all of us be present before Him Who is our Lord and Savior.  All of those whom we have had to say goodbye to in this life will be there with us.  All who will have to say goodbye to us will be there with us.  All of those about whom we have read, those heroes of faith from Scripture, and those down through the Church’s history will be there with us.  What a mighty crowd!  And what a glorious confession!  I recall being on the Mall in Washington D.C. as part of a Promise Keepers event, and I recall the majestic sound of so many voices joined together to sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” the sound of if resounding off the buildings on either side, just filling the place with a mighty sound of praise.  And this, for all the power of so many voices, will be but a drop in the bucket against the confession we are hearing in Revelation 5:13.

Take it another direction.  Every created thing might be construed as encompassing even the lost, even the demons, even the devil himself.  I admit that this may be pushing the inclusiveness of ‘every created thing’ too far.  I have heard often enough the blithe insistence that all means all, often in pursuit of insisting that everybody will be saved, that God wants everybody saved.  Yet, the full context of Scripture, as well as our own experience of humanity, must surely make plain that everybody doesn’t get saved, and our own usage should make it quite plain that all very rarely means all in anything like a universal sense.  It is all within a set, though quite often the specifics of the set are not clearly identified, rather tacitly understood.  But let it be supposed that this really does mean every created thing, and even those who have most thoroughly resisted His rightful rule of them must, in the end, confess the reality of things.  He is Lord.  To Him belong all blessing, honor, glory, and dominion, frankly, like it or not.  There may be no joy in their confession, yet confession there shall be.  Every knee will bow.  Every tongue confess.

Oh, but how they shall rejoice who have confessed this, as it were, all along!  How joyful the confession of the patriarchs, of those who have rested beneath the altar, the slain, the martyrs who did not count their life too great a price to pay in service to Him Who died for them and us.  Oh, how joyful the song of the redeemed, who come to this place as to their own wedding, and to the feast celebrating the full revealing of the Church, His bride, in all her perfected glory!  Can you imagine, even a little bit, what it is going to be like to find yourself once for all divested of sin, once for all freed from even the memory of sin?  No more failure.  No more repenting.  No more battle within, for now, the body has been resurrected and renewed as has the spirit.  We are whole finally, not again, but for the first time.  We shall see Him as He truly is, as John says, because we shall have been made like Him (1Jn 3:2).  But for us in the present, that lies yet future.  It is our confident hope, but remains a thing as yet unseen.

O, Lord, You are indeed Lord.  You are Supreme Lord, God of all creation.  We sing of it.  I sing of it.  Let it sink in, fully sink in, just what it is I sing.  Let this reality so saturate my senses that I cannot but proclaim to one and all the truth of Your reign.  You are God Most High.  There is no other.  There is none like You, You have no equal.  Indeed, none can even compare.  How can it be, then, that I am so cautious to proclaim this, to publish the truth of it to any who will stop long enough to listen?  You are my Lord.  I have long since set myself at Your command, and I do so again, and miserable servant though I so often am, I pray that You would indeed continue Your work in me, continue to inform and excite my thoughts and feelings alike, that I would be ready, willing, and able to comply with all due alacrity; as in heaven, so in me, let Your word be done.  Amen.

To His Glory (07/04/24)

We come to the final clause of the passage, “to the glory of God the Father.”  The One New Man translation supplies it as, “in the glory of God our Father,” but I don’t think that’s right.  Into, I might accept, though it wouldn’t sound right to the ear.  But the term en has this idea of motion towards or into, and in a setting such as this, where there is no active motion, the sense will tend to be that of indicating the goal or purpose.  It is to the end that God the Father’s glory shall be that much more manifest.  It is in order to make His glory known.

That, however, leaves me still with the question of which precedent is in view as being to His glory.  Is it to His glory that Jesus is Lord?  He is Lord for the purpose of making known the glory of the Father?  I suppose that could be the case.  But I think we are pointed farther back, to the bending of the knee, and the confessing of Jesus our Lord.  In that we acknowledge His rightful reign, we give glory to Him Who assigned Him that reign.  Jesus, in His own person, was glorifying the Father all along.  As a child, what little we see of His childhood, He made known the glory of the Father.  He did so in such degree as impressed, even astounded, the temple authorities (Lk 2:46-47).  Clearly, He was devoted to God, and though, on that occasion, He had become so engrossed in speaking of God that He lost track of time and kin, still His devotion to His earthly family was likewise evident.  That said, and especially as His ministry began, if there arose a conflict between His pursuit of ministry and the desires of family, ministry was the clear priority.  We have that made plain when Mary sent His brothers to fetch Him back from His work (Mt 12:46-50).  These who do the will of the Father, they are My family.  In due course, it would seem that the two families became one, as we find His mother with Him, even at the cross, and as we find His brother James become a leading officer of the Church.

Now, I noted this in my preparations because what we see in Christ is so utterly opposite of what we are taught as being the proper order of things.  Yes, we put God first and foremost, but when it comes to actions, we are told it’s family first after God, and only then, ministry.  But what do I see from our Teacher?  I see that God is again quite clearly first and foremost, and because He is, ministry is the active priority.  And only as it befits the ministry does family even come into the picture.  That’s not to say that Jesus neglected familial obligations.  He was, after all, Mary’s firstborn, and we cannot say with any certainty whether His brothers and sisters were born of Joseph or of one who became Mary’s husband after Joseph’s passing.  Nothing is said in this regard.  What we can suppose, I think, is that the existence of brothers would suffice to see Mary taken care of while He pursued His mission.  He wasn’t negligent.  But He had His priorities, and given that He never sinned, we can and must accept that His priorities were right.

We see, as well, that His care for His mother never ceased.  Even from the cross, knowing that He would not be able to provide for her as a son ought, He made arrangements, instructing John to undertake her care (Jn 19:26-27).  Does thus suggest that something had befallen His earthly brothers by that time?  Well, we know James remained.  But perhaps He had knowledge of what would befall James shortly.  Obviously, in His Godhood, He did, for in His Godhood, knowledge is perfect and complete.  But again, He humbled Himself, set aside those powers that were His as God (Php 2:7).  He did so to so great a degree that when asked about the timing of His return, and of the final judgment, He informed His disciples that He was not given to know the schedule, only the Father knows (Mk 13:32).  Angels don’t know.  The Son doesn’t know, not in His humanity.  And how this recognition of the divide, the degree of His setting aside of divinity’s powers, should inform our perception of all that He said and did while here among us!  He achieved not by dipping into His hidden reserves, but by appealing to and depending on God, even as we are given to achieve what we do.

So, then, if it falls to those who confess the Lordship of Christ to thus give glory to God, how are we to honor Him?  Is it enough to go out in the streets proclaiming this belief of ours?  Is that even the point?  Well, I would have to say that if that is as far as we take it, then no, it can never be enough.  How do we honor somebody if only our words make note of him?  If deeds do not follow upon words, if character and confession do not accord, then we will be seen for the frauds we are, and in that, His glory shall be tarnished.  Go back to Romans 2.  You teach others, but neglect to teach yourself.  You insist they cease from stealing, yet you are stealing.  You tell them not to be adulterous, but you commit adultery.  You insist they turn from their idols as you go about robbing temples.  You boast of the Law, yet you break the Law constantly, to the dishonor of God.  Indeed, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Ro 2:21-24).

How much of that could be recast to depict the modern Church?  Too much.  How many times must we read of yet another pastor fallen into obvious and unrepented sin?  How many have you known who professed to be Christians, yet lived like heathens?  How many churches have taken to preaching a gospel that is no gospel at all, insisting that God accepts the very things He has quite clearly declared unholy?  And how can we think God is pleased with any of this?  Surely, He will spit all of this out of His mouth, destroy it utterly for profaning His good name and seeking to sully His holiness.

Hear your God.  “Do not be deceived.  God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Gal 6:7).  “You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a woman.  It is an abomination.  You shall not have intercourse with animals.  It is a perversion.  Do not defile yourselves with these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled.  The land is defiled, so I have brought its punishment upon it.  The land has spewed out its inhabitants” (Lev 18:22-25).  This is no matter of ceremonial law.  This is moral code, and it pertains for all ages, and even into eternity.  Those who would insist that God doesn’t really call homosexuality sin have no ground to stand on.  Those, for all that, who suppose their lesser peccadillos, be they hanging with harlots or pursuing pornography, or just letting imagination run riot in their private places, are in no better place.

Come back to Romans.  They exchanged God’s truth for the lie.  They chose the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, amen.  So God left them to it.  Have your degraded passions, and let them be degraded fully.  Let your women give up on men and take to one another.  Let men burn with desire for one another, commit their acts of indecency, and in so doing, receive in their own bodies the due penalty of their sin.  They don’t wish to acknowledge God?  Fine.  God has given them over to their depraved minds (Ro 1:25-28).  Well, look around you.  What do you see?  I see a government that, far from seeking to correct course and see the nation put to rights, prefers to ‘not only do the same, but give hearty approval to those who do such things’ (Ro 1:32), even, it seems, doing so with the force of law.  And what are we told by God?  The land will spew out its inhabitants.

So be it, Lord.  So be it.  If thus it must be in order that Your glory may be known and honored, then let it come.  We, for our part, shall set ourselves to demonstrate our love for You in humble obedience to You.  We shall seek, as best we may, to be conformable to the work which You are accomplishing in us.  And, as You make known to us the places where we fall short, we shall seek You for strength to improve, and seek to make use of the tools You set at our disposal in order that we may do so.  Father, if the land is too corrupted by those who seek even to corrupt us in our turn, then by all means, spew them out and let the land be made whole again.  And I pray above all that You will indeed hold fast all those whom You have called as Your own.  I know You will, for You do not fail of Your purposes.  But I know as well our weakness while we remain here in this fallen flesh.  Hold us, my God.  Be our strong tower, and cause us to stand.  For we are indeed under siege.  But we bear Your name, and we are clothed in the armor of light.  Let us represent you well, standing firm even to the conversion of these, Your enemies.

This is our key.  It’s not enough to say we love Him.  “If you love Me, you will keep My commands” (Jn 14:15).  If you would know the measure of your love for Christ, here is the standard, here is the test.  If you love Him, show it.  Show it by walking in humble obedience to Him Who is your Lord.  He, after all, did just that as our Teacher, humbling Himself in perfect obedience to the Father, in utter dependence upon the Father to be His strength and wisdom.  And this is our call as well.  Seek, then, the Spirit to point out those places where pride remains in control, and seek Him for the will and the wisdom to put pride down in that place, and in every place that it raises its head.  Seek, as best you may, to live, to act, to think, to be such as shall bring honor to His name.  For His name is glorious.  Amen.