Bible, Theology & Philosophy

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CHAPTER V: CHRISTIANITY, NO FABLE

BY REV. THOMAS WHITELAW, M. A., D. D., KILMARNOCK, SCOTLAND

It’s been over 20 years since our church put on a “Living Scenes of Easter” play.

One challenge back then was to dramatically present the ascension scene. Rather than provide fodder for America’s Funniest Videos, we decided to handle things simply: we would create smoke using dry ice to simulate Jesus ascending into the clouds. It worked well.

Most of us are aware that forty days after his resurrection, Yeshua ascended into heaven. We would do well to reflect upon this ascension. The fullest ascension account is found in Acts 1:9-11.

And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. (ESV)

Final “goodbyes” are the most difficult, like bidding adieu to a dying parent or sibling. Those last few moments can be tough to process. The early believers had to experience that sort of grief—twice!

The Apostles and early believers had experienced the traumatic devastation of the crucifixion followed by the ecstatic exuberance of the resurrection. It had been an amazingly bipolar experience. After the high of the resurrection, the disciples now had to brace themselves for a different kind of loss. Jesus’ departure to heaven was bitter-sweet: He had to return to His Father’s throne and thus initiate the age of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7).

Jesus’ ascension is connected both to the resurrection and to his second coming. It is an extension of the gospel and a foundational belief that has important ramifications.

Some time ago in my Sojourners class I spoke on “The Greatest Reason That the Bible is True” from Deut. 29-30, which deals with the promises of punishment for Israel’s disobedience (fulfilled) and the promises of blessing for them (beginning to be fulfilled in their return to the Land). One of the greatest evidences that the promises are true is that God has preserved the Jewish people through their trials. Here are some further thoughts on that subject—in three parts.

A visiting preacher opened his message with the following provocative statement, “Today I want to tell you how to destroy the Jewish people,” which was the title of the sermon in the Church Bulletin: “How to Destroy the Jewish People.” That rather inflammatory title had also appeared in the local newspaper that week as part of an advertisement for the special meetings the church was conducting with their guest. In a short time, the announced sermon title had resulted in no small commotion in the small town. So significant was the brouhaha that the local rabbi had taken notice and was actually sitting in a pew that morning! Needless to say, the atmosphere in the 11:00 a.m. service at was more than a little charged with emotional electricity.

The preacher then continued his opening remarks with the announcement of his text for the sermon. Has asked his hearers to listen to the words of Jer. 31:31-33. “Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Read Part 1.

The Lord Jesus Christ not only brought with Him grace and truth (Jn. 1:14), but He was that Truth. His presence on our planet brought light to shine upon the darkness all around. Coming to Jesus is always a coming out of darkness into light. The light is His light just as the Truth is His Truth. By this I mean to say that there is no distinction between Him and what He brings. Since Jesus is the Truth just as much as He is the Word (Jn. 1:1-2) He must bring Truth.

It is not enough to say that He personifies truth. We must insist that truth cannot exist on its own independently of Jesus, His Father and the Spirit of Truth. Truth exists because God exists, If God did not exist truth would not exist, The idea of truth “out there”—truth to be agreed with as an impersonal standard, is impossible. Although it is seen that way within non-biblical worldviews, truth does not and cannot be attained without contact with the personal God—who is Truth.

Before I became a Christian at the age of 25 I had a yearning for truth. I tried to find it, of all places, at the local pub, “The Bull.” Not the deep truth of philosophers; just the everyday truth of belonging. Real ale and parties and pub banter provided the backdrop for this belonging. The trouble is, it wasn’t very “real.” The conversation was aimless and repetitive: we knew it all and knew absolutely nothing.

When I reached twenty I discovered a book about Michelangelo among my mother’s books. The amazing brilliance of this artist: painter, sculptor, architect, poet, as well as his brooding persona, and his dedication to the “Christian” humanist ideal, captivated me. I began to read about art history, beginning with Vasari’s Lives and broadening out into all periods. I found the expressions of truth in Caravaggio’s mixing of serenity and menace, Brueghel’s depictions of death in the midst of pastoral beauty, the dignity of the mundane in de Hooch Claude’s use of light, Constable’s clouds, Cezanne’s geometrical preoccupations. Men like these helped me to see that truth lay within the world around me. But for the most part, truth remained aloof.

The work of Vasari is punctuated by the presence of a man whose influence profoundly affected many of the artists Vasari wrote about. That man was a Domenican priest by the name of Girolamo Savonarola (d.1498). Roman Catholic though he was, from the accounts of his life which I have read, it appears that Savonarola was a converted man. But putting that question aside, what impressed me about him was how his preaching in the great cathedral at Florence brought about a real reformation in morals and a true fear of God in that Renaissance city.