ThinkBlog

You may or may not have heard the message before of this Christian holiday (etym., “holy day”) called Easter. Here it is, in a nutshell, followed by an explanation why this is the crux on which the point that God Himself is making to all creation rests.

It is the Christian confession that God made us, His people, sinless, meaning, without moral defect, from the beginning. We fell from that when we chose something contrary to what God had decreed; therefore, we are in a state of sin. (”Sin” comes from the Greek word meaning to shoot an arrow and miss the bull’s eye.) Every person is in this state of moral hopelessness before God, because He’s perfect, and we’re not. That’s not mean, that’s just the facts. Because of this error, we cannot approach God. Therefore, He made a way for us to commune with Him, through the miraculous death and resurrection of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. God, in Christ, loved you enough to die for you, taking on Him your personal sins so you could be right with Him.

This is possible because Jesus Himself is sinless, and because of His love He doesn’t want you to perish apart from Him. You don’t have to: because He had lived sinlessly, He could take your sin into Himself and even so, raise Himself from the dead. He has conquered death and, if you believe in Him, you have too; that is the message of the holiday we call Easter. This death and resurrection of the One who is “fully man and fully God” is the crux of the faith. (Incidentally, I would love to explain this more in-depth to anyone who cares to ask.)

I submit to you, gentle reader, that the death and resurrection of Christ is the ultimate expression of why God deserves all glory.

There is a place where Paul writes to the Corinthians for the first time and says, “For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as men condemned to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men” (NAS 1 Cor 4:9). I think that’s true of all of us in a sense, that Christians are a spectacle of themselves, and that the whole of history is a spectacle in itself, and so on.

That word, “spectacle,” is transliterated theatron, whence we derive “theater.” I think that’s a very interesting point. I’ve held that verse in mind as I’ve read the Bible, and even as I’ve lately read some of Baruch (Heb.; Lat. Benedictus) Spinoza’s Ethics, and a theme kept recurring.

It tickles me that Spinoza defines the world via mathematical proofs. Just as Euclid ended his geometrical proofs with “q.e.d.,” which in Latin means “which was to be demonstrated,” so does Spinoza. And he’s right: if you follow him logically, accepting his definitions and axioms, you are forced to arrive at his postulated conclusions, which he “was to demonstrate.”

There is something, I think, that God is demonstrating to all creation, and at the heart of it lies this crucified and risen savior, “to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.” At the end of it all, not that He needed to prove His glory other than simply being, He will have demonstrated with inconceivable profundity and with perfect precision that He alone is to be glorified, Amen.

Yes, the Christian confession is about the love of God, and about faith, and of hope, and so on. But I think that ultimately, it is going to be certain that a theme has emerged: at the point at which God will sort everything out, sift the chaff, cut the unfruitful, all of this—at that point, when “before [God] every knee will bow; by [God] every tongue will swear” that Christ is Lord, and He has revealed Himself—it will be impossible to say otherwise than, “Glory to God alone, and all to Him!” This is the Christian confession, also, and will be the confession of all. Though He be reviled by some now, they will nevertheless confess His glory ultimately; and though some Christians doubt His love or justice, when he “comes in power,” they will give Him glory as well.

And so I submit to you that this is what the resurrection looks like from the eschaton: when all is said and done, nothing in which the breath of life has been breathed will say aught but this:

Christus resurrexit—vere resurrexit, quod erat faciendum;
soli Deo gloria, quod erat demonstrandum!

You may or may not have heard the message before of this Christian holiday (etym., “holy day”) called Easter. Here it is, in a nutshell, followed by an explanation why this is the crux on which the point that God Himself is making to all creation rests.

It is the Christian confession that God made us, His people, sinless, meaning, without moral defect, from the beginning. We fell from that when we chose something contrary to what God had decreed; therefore, we are in a state of sin. (”Sin” comes from the Greek word meaning to shoot an arrow and miss the bull’s eye.) Every person is in this state of moral hopelessness before God, because He’s perfect, and we’re not. That’s not mean, that’s just the facts. Because of this error, we cannot approach God. Therefore, He made a way for us to commune with Him, through the miraculous death and resurrection of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. God, in Christ, loved you enough to die for you, taking on Him your personal sins so you could be right with Him.

This is possible because Jesus Himself is sinless, and because of His love He doesn’t want you to perish apart from Him. You don’t have to: because He had lived sinlessly, He could take your sin into Himself and even so, raise Himself from the dead. He has conquered death and, if you believe in Him, you have too; that is the message of the holiday we call Easter. This death and resurrection of the One who is “fully man and fully God” is the crux of the faith. (Incidentally, I would love to explain this more in-depth to anyone who cares to ask.)

I submit to you, gentle reader, that the death and resurrection of Christ is the ultimate expression of why God deserves all glory.

There is a place where Paul writes to the Corinthians for the first time and says, “For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as men condemned to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men” (NAS 1 Cor 4:9). I think that’s true of all of us in a sense, that Christians are a spectacle of themselves, and that the whole of history is a spectacle in itself, and so on.

That word, “spectacle,” is transliterated theatron, whence we derive “theater.” I think that’s a very interesting point. I’ve held that verse in mind as I’ve read the Bible, and even as I’ve lately read some of Baruch (Heb.; Lat. Benedictus) Spinoza’s Ethics, and a theme kept recurring.

It tickles me that Spinoza defines the world via mathematical proofs. Just as Euclid ended his geometrical proofs with “q.e.d.,” which in Latin means “which was to be demonstrated,” so does Spinoza. And he’s right: if you follow him logically, accepting his definitions and axioms, you are forced to arrive at his postulated conclusions, which he “was to demonstrate.”

There is something, I think, that God is demonstrating to all creation, and at the heart of it lies this crucified and risen savior, “to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.” At the end of it all, not that He needed to prove His glory other than simply being, He will have demonstrated with inconceivable profundity and with perfect precision that He alone is to be glorified, Amen.

Yes, the Christian confession is about the love of God, and about faith, and of hope, and so on. But I think that ultimately, it is going to be certain that a theme has emerged: at the point at which God will sort everything out, sift the chaff, cut the unfruitful, all of this—at that point, when “before [God] every knee will bow; by [God] every tongue will swear” that Christ is Lord, and He has revealed Himself—it will be impossible to say otherwise than, “Glory to God alone, and all to Him!” This is the Christian confession, also, and will be the confession of all. Though He be reviled by some now, they will nevertheless confess His glory ultimately; and though some Christians doubt His love or justice, when he “comes in power,” they will give Him glory as well.

And so I submit to you that this is what the resurrection looks like from the eschaton: when all is said and done, nothing in which the breath of life has been breathed will say aught but this:

Christus resurrexit—vere resurrexit, quod erat faciendum;
soli Deo gloria, quod erat demonstrandum!