Why "Good" Friday Is Good
Let's discuss the second half of our section, "The Great Divide: The Way of Glory versus the Way of the Cross" now. I'm going to collapse this entire section into one entry, even though there are so many wonderful thoughts here.
Forde begins his discussion of thesis 21 by pointing out our tendency to want to blame our "theology" [something outside of us] for our love of the glory story. Of course, this is just another way we try to dodge our inner fallenness. He writes, "Our temptation is always to change the subject. In this case the blame is switched from us to theology...[The truth is that] [t]he theologian is ALWAYS the culprit here, not the theology as such." (81)
I can see this very clearly in my own thinking. I frequently militate against the theology of glory without remembering that it is the theologian of glory who is the problem. We construct these faulty theologies, as Forde writes, because we "must". "Faulty seeing leads inexorably to false speaking." So let's have an end to believing that if we could just straighten out everyone's theology we'd all be fine. No, the problem is that our man-centered theologies have their genesis in our man-centered hearts. We'll never get completely over this. At least not in the here-and-now.
A theologian of the cross, then, learns to see and speak plainly. She [he] learns to talk honestly and openly about what we do and what happens to us. We see this most clearly in the ways we respond to suffering. The suffering that Forde/Luther is referring to here is the good suffering of knowing that you are "worthless and that [your] works are not [yours] but God's." This is the great suffering that the theologian of glory refuses to admit. Instead he "prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil." (82)
It's only through the good of the suffering of the cross that we can see and know good and truth as it is. "Direct, plain, entirely unsentimental, but for that reason difficult and offensive words" are the result of seeing the suffering of the cross and embracing it.
What seems evil is actually good. What seems good is actually evil. "Good" Friday seems evil. What can be "good" about a stripped, humiliated, bloodied, dying man stretched out on a Roman cross, receiving insults? What can be good about God's plan seeming to have gone awry? Good question. What's good about railing against Whitney Houston's lyrics deifying children..."Show them all the beauty they possess inside, Give them a sense of pride..."? Should we give children a "sense of pride"? Don't they already have it? I'm pretty sure that's something I passed on to my kids without any help from Whitney. Good for me.
So, here we are again, "We are inveterate theologians of glory We are tempted and bound to be so. We invest all our capital in works...We depend upon and glory in our works and we call these self-serving deeds good. Suffering [primarily in admitting that what the cross says about us is true, but also admitting our struggle with sin in the midst of difficulty] is bad." (83)
"The suffering that Luther has in mind first and foremost is the result of God's operation on the sinner...We suffer this unilateral action of God. We suffer because we don't like it. We don't like being put out of control. It means that we are rendered totally passive by the divine operation through the cross and resurrection of Jesus...". (87)
Narratives like the Book of Job mystify and terrify us so we make up excuses about why Job suffered. I've heard it said that Job suffered because he was afraid so what he "feared came upon him." This is again a perfect example of the defenses we must erect against seeing the cross and God's view of suffering as it is: good. Forde writes that we're like "Job's friends, [who] try to make excuses for God. We adjust our doctrine of God to fit our glory projects. If God doesn't 'play fair', how can our works count? Thus we render God innocuous by our flattery. Instead of being brought to the praise of God, we bend our efforts to justify him." (89) Yipes.
"God can be known and had only through the divine deed of the cross. The cross...attacks and afflicts. Knowledge of God comes when God happens to us, when God does himself to us. We are crucified with Christ (Gal 2:19). There is no cure for the theology of glory." (90) The only cure is death. Our only hope is that we have been crucified with Christ!
Let me draw one more point from this section and leave you to meditate on these truths. We love the law (and rules and charts and lists and...) because we think it will help us be better people. We think that God is the "pot of gold at the end of our rainbow of merit." (85) Aside from our Christian lists, the world bombards us continually to trust in ourselves. For instance, I've decided that I'm not going to buy any product that advertises itself as helping me "feel good" about myself. This is such...um...garbage. These advertisers are appealing to our sinful desire for self-righteousness to sell their products by telling us we can "save the planet." Whatever. Want to be good? Feel good? Simply buy our product. Being green, eating organic is where it's at. At the end of the day how many people assure their souls that they are good because they recycled or ate free-range eggs? No wonder our kids starve themselves. I'm pretty confident that at the end of time when I stand before God he won't be asking me, "What did you do with my chickens? Did you recycle your plastics?" May God have mercy on us!
Here's Forde and then I'll be done:
"Religiously we like to look on ourselves as potential spiritual athletes desperately trying to make God's team, having perhaps just a little problem or two with the training rules. We have a thirst for glory...We are always tempted to return to the safety and assurance of doing something anyway. Generally, it is to be suspected, that is all we planned to do, a little something. But to surrender the "wisdom" of law and works, or better, to have it taken away, is the first indication of what it means to be crucified with Christ."(92-93) God must "extinguish" the desire for glory by merit through the suffering of the cross.
Why is Good Friday called good? Because true good was accomplished there: a good we could never conceive, a good that seems evil, a good that strikes and crushes our sense of pride and a good that ultimately frees us to die, to be resurrected and to live freely. This is the good that God alone will accomplish in all his children.
Forde begins his discussion of thesis 21 by pointing out our tendency to want to blame our "theology" [something outside of us] for our love of the glory story. Of course, this is just another way we try to dodge our inner fallenness. He writes, "Our temptation is always to change the subject. In this case the blame is switched from us to theology...[The truth is that] [t]he theologian is ALWAYS the culprit here, not the theology as such." (81)
I can see this very clearly in my own thinking. I frequently militate against the theology of glory without remembering that it is the theologian of glory who is the problem. We construct these faulty theologies, as Forde writes, because we "must". "Faulty seeing leads inexorably to false speaking." So let's have an end to believing that if we could just straighten out everyone's theology we'd all be fine. No, the problem is that our man-centered theologies have their genesis in our man-centered hearts. We'll never get completely over this. At least not in the here-and-now.
A theologian of the cross, then, learns to see and speak plainly. She [he] learns to talk honestly and openly about what we do and what happens to us. We see this most clearly in the ways we respond to suffering. The suffering that Forde/Luther is referring to here is the good suffering of knowing that you are "worthless and that [your] works are not [yours] but God's." This is the great suffering that the theologian of glory refuses to admit. Instead he "prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil." (82)
It's only through the good of the suffering of the cross that we can see and know good and truth as it is. "Direct, plain, entirely unsentimental, but for that reason difficult and offensive words" are the result of seeing the suffering of the cross and embracing it.
What seems evil is actually good. What seems good is actually evil. "Good" Friday seems evil. What can be "good" about a stripped, humiliated, bloodied, dying man stretched out on a Roman cross, receiving insults? What can be good about God's plan seeming to have gone awry? Good question. What's good about railing against Whitney Houston's lyrics deifying children..."Show them all the beauty they possess inside, Give them a sense of pride..."? Should we give children a "sense of pride"? Don't they already have it? I'm pretty sure that's something I passed on to my kids without any help from Whitney. Good for me.
So, here we are again, "We are inveterate theologians of glory We are tempted and bound to be so. We invest all our capital in works...We depend upon and glory in our works and we call these self-serving deeds good. Suffering [primarily in admitting that what the cross says about us is true, but also admitting our struggle with sin in the midst of difficulty] is bad." (83)
"The suffering that Luther has in mind first and foremost is the result of God's operation on the sinner...We suffer this unilateral action of God. We suffer because we don't like it. We don't like being put out of control. It means that we are rendered totally passive by the divine operation through the cross and resurrection of Jesus...". (87)
Narratives like the Book of Job mystify and terrify us so we make up excuses about why Job suffered. I've heard it said that Job suffered because he was afraid so what he "feared came upon him." This is again a perfect example of the defenses we must erect against seeing the cross and God's view of suffering as it is: good. Forde writes that we're like "Job's friends, [who] try to make excuses for God. We adjust our doctrine of God to fit our glory projects. If God doesn't 'play fair', how can our works count? Thus we render God innocuous by our flattery. Instead of being brought to the praise of God, we bend our efforts to justify him." (89) Yipes.
"God can be known and had only through the divine deed of the cross. The cross...attacks and afflicts. Knowledge of God comes when God happens to us, when God does himself to us. We are crucified with Christ (Gal 2:19). There is no cure for the theology of glory." (90) The only cure is death. Our only hope is that we have been crucified with Christ!
Let me draw one more point from this section and leave you to meditate on these truths. We love the law (and rules and charts and lists and...) because we think it will help us be better people. We think that God is the "pot of gold at the end of our rainbow of merit." (85) Aside from our Christian lists, the world bombards us continually to trust in ourselves. For instance, I've decided that I'm not going to buy any product that advertises itself as helping me "feel good" about myself. This is such...um...garbage. These advertisers are appealing to our sinful desire for self-righteousness to sell their products by telling us we can "save the planet." Whatever. Want to be good? Feel good? Simply buy our product. Being green, eating organic is where it's at. At the end of the day how many people assure their souls that they are good because they recycled or ate free-range eggs? No wonder our kids starve themselves. I'm pretty confident that at the end of time when I stand before God he won't be asking me, "What did you do with my chickens? Did you recycle your plastics?" May God have mercy on us!
Here's Forde and then I'll be done:
"Religiously we like to look on ourselves as potential spiritual athletes desperately trying to make God's team, having perhaps just a little problem or two with the training rules. We have a thirst for glory...We are always tempted to return to the safety and assurance of doing something anyway. Generally, it is to be suspected, that is all we planned to do, a little something. But to surrender the "wisdom" of law and works, or better, to have it taken away, is the first indication of what it means to be crucified with Christ."(92-93) God must "extinguish" the desire for glory by merit through the suffering of the cross.
Why is Good Friday called good? Because true good was accomplished there: a good we could never conceive, a good that seems evil, a good that strikes and crushes our sense of pride and a good that ultimately frees us to die, to be resurrected and to live freely. This is the good that God alone will accomplish in all his children.
Hi Elyse! I like reading your notes over the actual book- easier for me to chew. I must have asked a dumb question cuz no one cared to 'flesh it out' for me. No worries. All of us grown up believers are 'theologians' to some degree or another, and must be concerned with doctrine for ourselves and for those in our sphere of influence. If church leaders teach sound doctrine, does that 'help' to keep men from leaving the church? (Eph. 4:14, 1Tim 4:1 Titus 2:1)
When God happens to us/ when we are crucified with Christ - Gal 2:19 What does that look like?
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Hi James! I'm glad that my meanderings are helpful. I don't think you asked a dumb question -- not to say that there aren't dumb questions. Here's one, "What must I do to INHERIT eternal life?" (If it's an inheritance, you can't earn it!)
But I don't think your questions about fleshing this out are dumb. I think that people are busy, they are afraid of writing something that looks stupid, so they love and protect themselves and hope that someone else will answer for them. They also might not know the answer -- hence the silence. Mostly I think people are busy and like to read what others are saying but don't have the time to formulate an answer.
Let me answer your other question about how life lived in the shadow of the cross looks. For me I can see it in the way I respond to God's call to love him and others. When I'm living the glory story I am demanding and driven. I live like a Pharisee, making rules and demanding that myself and others live in the light of them. Then I feel angry or discouraged or guilty when I don't measure up. Living in the cross means that I see how Christ has loved me, has already done everything for me, has given me his complete righteousness (not only just as if I'd never sinned, but also just as if I'd always obeyed!) and then I am free to admit my sin (without defensive excuse-making or despair) and love others (without demanding that they live up to rules that I don't obey myself). In summary, living in the light of the cross is not a matter of rules but of rest and rejoicing. Paul wrote, "The kingdom of God is not a matter of (rules about) eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Romans 14:17). It's zeal and joy and rest and wisdom and freedom and obedience ALL because Christ has ALREADY accomplished everything for us.
We're all theologians, Jim, even athiests. We all have beliefs about who God is. Some are better theologians than others. No one has it all right but some are closer to the truth. When we get to heaven we'll all realize how far off the mark we were and then we'll rejoice because Christ welcomes us anyway. He had his theology together.
Yes, when faithful leaders teach sound doctrine our faith is built and we grow. When they fail to do so, either by making the Bible about what we're supposed to do (instead of what Christ has already done) or by making church "entertaining", our souls languish. That's not to say that we aren't responsible for our own unbelief and sin, no matter how our leaders fail us. We each have access to Scripture and good teaching (more then ever with the internet). So, yes, God uses faithful men to equip and guide believers. God also calls us to feed ourselves. I think it's "both" "and". I love the church and believe that Jesus does too. After all, it's his bride.
Again, I think that being crucified with Christ is the very thing we've been discussing in this last post. It's suffering the death of our own ability and finally and fully admitting that we are unable to save ourseles and must have salvation from somewhere else. I think it also means that I give up my own schemes for self-aggrandizement and self-righteousness and self-indulgence and offer them all to him every moment of every day.
Hope this helps a bit. Thanks for jumping in here, James.
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For me, living in the shadow of the cross is pretty much the same as Elyse described. I have always been motivated by lists to check off and things to do to make me feel good about my spiritual walk. Before I learned what Forde has been fleshing out in this book and before reading "Because He Loves Me", I really hadn't realized there was anything wrong about the way I was living. Eventually though, God brought me to the point where I was so struggling with besetting sin and not "getting anywhere" with it and He led me to one of Elyse's books "Idols of the Heart" which led me to read her other book I mentioned. I am so thankful that the Lord has used Elyse's writing to correct my wrong thinking! I finally came to realize that I was really looking to myself and my "performance" as a barometer for my spiritual well-being. I knew my heart was far from Him and I was pretty much going through the motions, feeling so bogged down with trying to "do better" and not being able to figure out why nothing I did helped. I still notice a tendency in myself to go back to that way of thinking, and I am guessing that it will be a life long struggle. For example: this week I had a quiet time every day, baby sat 2 times this week for some friends at church, made a meal for a friend that just had surgery. I noticed, in my heart at times this week, a tendency to feel puffed up by that: "look at all the good deeds I am doing, how good I am!" But now I know that I need to immediately repent of this instead of using "good performance" as a crutch to make myself feel good about myself. The only way I could ever do anything good is Christ working in and through me and I should be looking to Him and thanking Him for my adoption as a daughter and that is the only acceptance and approval I should ever need. Not that there is anything that I can do to earn His approval, but that He has already accomplished it through the death and resurrection of Christ and my adoption into His kingdom. There is nothing now I can "do" to add to it. Now it all seems so simple to me, I wonder at myself for being so hard headed (although I guess I'm not really surprised,knowing my own nature) and at all the striving I had been doing, but He revealed the truth of my sin to me in His time and I am so thankful!
Elyse, I saw that you will be speaking close to where I live in early October. My 2 oldest daughters and I are planning to attend the conference in GA, I can't wait!
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Nice post, Kristen. I look forward to meeting you in October, although of course by then I will have forgotten that we had this little "discussion." Feel free to remind me and then when I get a glazed look just think, "She's so old!"
Thanks for being willing to jump in here and give concrete examples to James. Isn't it just like our enemy to take the good works that God has enabled us to do and then to make us proud about them AND THEN to make us guilty and self-focused about our pride? Hateful being that he is. HIs days are numbered.
But he cannot touch us because we are hidden with Christ in God and even though he messes with our hearts about our works, Christ takes our works, sanctifies them by the Spirit and offers them as praise and a sweet sacrifice to the Father. So...your Father is pleased with your good works because they are his good works performed in you (Eph 2:10). The Son is pleased to purify them and use them to exalt the excellencies of his Father. Lovely.
So even though my heart gets all tangled up in my works -- in approving/disapproving of myself because I am doing them or not doing enough of them, in feeling guilty because I feel proud or in feeling proud because I'm not feeling guilty -- my Father loves those good things he enables me to do and they please him.
My reading from Luther's commentary on Galatians today sums it up for me: "Although I am a sinner by the law and under the condemnation of the law, I still do not despair and do not die, because Christ lives, and he is my righteousness and my everlasting life. In that righteousness and life I have no sin, no fear, no sting of conscience, no worry about death. I am indeed a sinner, as far as this present life and righeousness are concerned, as I am a child of Adam...but I have another righeousness and life above this life--Christ the Son of God, who knows no sin or death but is righteousness and eternal life...So both these continue while we live here. The flesh is accused, tempted, oppressed with heaviness and sorrow, bruised by active [works] righteousness of the law; but the spirit reigns and is saved by this passive [imputed] Christian righteousness, because it knows that it has a Lord in heaven, at the right hand of the Father, WHO HAS ABOLISHED THE LAW, SIN, AND DEATH AND HAS TRODDEN UNDERFOOT ALL EVILS, LED THEM CAPTIVE, AND TRIUMPHED OVER THEM IN HIMSELF." (pg. xxi)
Sweet. Do the works he enables you to do. Work hard. Know that the works are pleasing to him because they are his works, not yours.
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