The Cross: The “Rosetta Stone” that restores our right understanding of life and death

Posted on November 3, 2020 by Pastor Foley

In scripture, life and death are not straightforward opposites. Self-preserving life and death-through-sin are often portrayed as identical. The death that enters the world through sin will one day be destroyed.[i] But the death that is Christ’s laid-down life did not enter the world as a result of sin. That death will not be destroyed when sin is destroyed. It is eternal—what the Bible calls eternal life.

Nature reflects Christ’s laid-down life in many ways: the changing seasons, the seed that falls into the ground and dies, the biological cycles of decomposition that renew the soil. These kinds of laying-down-life did not enter the world due to sin, and they will not be banished from the world when death-through-sin is. In Revelation 22:2, we see “the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations”. Christ forever lays down his life, yet at the same time he is, and forever will be, “the Living One…alive for ever and ever”.[ii]

Death that results from laying down one’s life is not the opposite of life. It is its essence. Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”[iii] He says, “Whoever loses their life will preserve it”.[iv] He does not say that whoever loses their life will one day get it back. He says that true life is preserved (indeed, discovered) only when it is lost for Christ’s sake. That makes little sense in our language, but Jesus says that anyone who follows him will experience this daily through taking up their cross.[v] Every encounter with God is like this: an encounter with Christ’s life-in-death and death-in-life.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus calls this laid-down, taken-up life his glory.[vi] He prays, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” His having been slain before the foundation of the world, and his being the slain lamb on the throne: this is the glory that Christ had in the Father’s presence before the foundation of the world. It is revealed to the world in the cross. According to Jesus, it is a glory that only God can bestow.[vii] Martyrdom is always the work of God, not man. Martyrdom intersects with human history, but martyrdom is made (i.e., fashioned) from outside of it. Seen from inside history it looks like the work of persecutors and enemies. But seen from outside history it is God’s work alone.

How does this laid-down, taken-up life of God’s son relate to us? We first experience it in our lives as God’s provision for our sin. But there is much more to unfold about it. It is also the guarantee of all of God’s promises. As Paul says in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” It is thus the promise on which all of his other promises rest. As the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:20, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.”

But perhaps most importantly, it is in/through/by means of the actual “laid-down, taken-up” life of Christ that we have relationship with God. In John 17:3, Christ calls this “eternal life”: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”[viii] In Philippians 3:10, the Apostle Paul says that our knowledge of God always takes the form of our participation in Christ’s laying down and taking up of his life. Paul writes, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”.

Note the phrase “like him”. Paul says that we become “like him”—like Christ and thus like God—by knowing (i.e., personally participating in) Christ’s sufferings and crucifixion. But in Genesis 3:4, the serpent tells Eve that we become “like God” by knowing good and evil.[ix] Note also in Philippians 3:10 the role death plays. Paul says that the knowledge that makes us like God means “becoming like him in his death”. But in Genesis 3:4, the serpent tells Eve that the knowledge that makes us like God means “You will not certainly die”.[x]

Satan defines life as “not-death”. But scripture defines life as personal participation in Christ’s suffering and laying down his life—or, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:2, “to know nothing…except Jesus Christ and him crucified”.  At the heart of eternal life is our personal experience of participating in Christ’s death. This is not merely a one-time tragic penalty for sin but instead the revealing of God’s immortal, unforced, unprompted divine nature. This is his nature which has existed like this unchanged from before the foundation of the world.

Satan cannot even begin to comprehend the idea of a desirable form of knowledge that involves participating in death. Therefore, we fallen humans cannot comprehend that idea either, since we accepted Satan’s lies about life and death. His lies even seep into our Christian thinking. The meaning of Christ’s cross becomes twisted. We regard our dying as the root problem that must be overcome, and so we see the cross as the means by which we are able to access the benefit of personal immortality in a restored, personal relationship with God. But scripturally, the cross is not a means to access a benefit. It is not merely the solution to a problem. It is the revelation of the true nature of God, which we are enabled to partake of through participating in Christ’s own “laying-down” life. Salvation includes much more than just a “restored” or “personal” relationship with God. God reveals to us what the New Testament writers say has been hidden since before the foundation of the world: the cross-bearing Christ as the wisdom and power of God.[xi]

According to scripture, the cross makes it possible for us to know (i.e., to partake of and participate in forever) the life that the Father and Son always share between them—the life revealed through the cross. Christ calls this “eternal life”. But due to our sinful nature we wrongly prefer to see the cross as the fulfillment of Satan’s promise, “You will not certainly die.” We think of salvation as self-preservation and self-fulfillment guaranteed for us by Christ’s death. We want to be saved from any kind of death, even (perhaps especially) death on a cross. We may regard Christ’s death with gratitude, but we certainly do not want to participate in anything like that, certainly not eternally. We regard the cross as a tragic necessity. But Christ regards the cross as the revealing of God’s glorious, eternal nature.

Our wrong understanding causes us to be repelled by Christ’s life-laid-down: God does not offer it to us in order to preserve our life but rather to put it to death, so that we may live by Christ’s laid-down life instead. We are threatened by God’s divine nature of laying-down love and the promises that flow from it. We trust instead Satan’s promise of how to be like God and not die. We cling to that promise, and thus we cling to self-seeking and self-preservation as our way of life.

This is why we human beings always encounter God’s promises as first a “no”. The “no” comes from us toward God, not from God toward us. There is no “no” in God, only a “yes” in Christ. But there is always a “no” from humans toward God. The laid-down life always entails the complete emptying that we human beings—often, even we Christians—can only understand as death, but which God calls eternal life.

The cross-carrying Christ, slain before the foundation of the world, is the stone that human builders continue to reject. His cross remains a stumbling block to Jews (and many Christians) and foolishness to Greeks.[xii] But he and his “laid-down” life are the “Rosetta Stone” for understanding all of God’s promises. In 1799 the Rosetta Stone was discovered, making possible the translation of previously indecipherable Egyptian hieroglyphics. Without taking up Christ’s cross daily, it is impossible for us to correctly understand the promises of God. We will wrongly conclude that faith in God will preserve the very things God is actually seeking to put to death in us, and we will expect to be spared from the very things we understand as death but which God gives as participation in his eternal life. If we do not interpret God’s promises according to the cross, we will misinterpret them. We will think they lead to self-preservation and self-fulfillment, either in this life or in the life to come.

[i] Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:26.

[ii] Rev. 1:18.

[iii] John 15:13.

[iv] Luke 17:33.

[v] Cf. Luke 9:23.

[vi] Cf. John 12:23-33.

[vii] Cf. John 5:44.

[viii] John 17:3.

[ix] Cf. Genesis 3:5.

[x] Cf. Genesis 3:4.

[xi] Cf. 1 Corinthians 1-2.

[xii] Cf. Matthew 21:42; 1 Corinthians 1:23.

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How the church lost the biblical definition of martyrdom and the Reformers recovered it (temporarily)

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Pastor Foley

In scripture, martyrdom has a much broader meaning than physical death. Not until the second century is the meaning of martyrdom narrowed down in the church in this way.[i] Even then, and for centuries after, Christian writers like Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Jerome, and Sulpicius Severus sought to keep a broader concept of martyrdom alive in the church. They used terms like “bloodless” or “white” martyrdom to describe the rigorous spiritual disciplines found among monks and ascetics.[ii] Celtic Christians, like the writer of the Cambrai Homily in the seventh or eighth century, distinguished three “colors” of martyrdom: red (physical death), green or blue (dying to self through practices like fasting, repentance, and self-control), and white (dying to the world through ministry service, exile due to faith, or spiritual detachment from one’s home, belongings, and culture).[iii]

But these definitions of martyrdom are still narrower than what is found in scripture. They conceive martyrdom as an act of human will (i.e., self-sacrifice), voluntarily undertaken by disciplined Christians serving in special roles in the church (i.e., not ordinary laypeople).

Scripturally, martyr-witness is Christ’s work upon us through his word, not our own act of will. In the words of Edith Stein (who would later be martyred under the Nazis), “one can deliver oneself up to crucifixion, but one cannot crucify oneself.”[iv] An understanding of the multiple “colors” of martyrdom is important, because multiple aspects of martyrdom are present in scripture. But in scripture, martyrdom—whatever the color—is not self-sacrifice inspired by Christ. It is always the work of God on us, while the Holy Spirit holds us in place so that we are able to bear it. So white martyrdom should not be understood merely as our voluntarily dying to the world but as the word crucifying us to the world and the world to us, as Paul writes in Galatians 6:14. Green martyrdom is only in the smallest sense our voluntarily dying to our dreams, desires, plans, and hopes; it is in the broadest sense the word putting these things to death. Our role is receiving this putting-to-death with joy, and receiving it as being from the Lord.

A good example of this comes from the paternal grandmother of Dr. Amal Marogy, an Iraqi Christian. The grandmother had had two homes destroyed by anti-Christian violence over the years. Marogy writes that as her grandmother stood amidst the rubble of the second home, she “eulogised it and shed tears for 15 minutes, after which she stood up and said, ‘All the material things are mere dirt of our hands, blessed be God for ever!’”[v] The grandmother’s martyrdom was not in offering up her home to the Lord before it was destroyed but rather afterward.

The Protestant Reformation not only recovered the plain meaning of scripture; in doing so, it also enabled the recovery of the broader scriptural meaning of martyrdom. This is rarely if ever noted by historians or theologians, and unfortunately the recovery of the scriptural meaning of martyrdom proved short-lived and incomplete. Nevertheless, writings like Foxe’s Acts and Monuments do reflect the restoration in Protestantism, at least temporarily, of scriptural aspects of martyrdom that had been lost or de-emphasized early in the church age. These include martyrdom as the initiative and work of God (not humans) and martyrdom as the daily experience of ordinary Christians.

The writings of the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther can also help us to recover a broader, more biblical theology of martyrdom. Luther does not use terms like bloodless/bloody martyrdom or white/green/red martyrdom, but he does write about two deaths all Christians experience. He refers to these as the “little death” and the “big death”[vi], or the “temporal death” and the “eternal death”. “Temporal death”—the “little death”—happens when body and soul part at the end of physical life. It is temporary, since all are resurrected for judgment. Because it is a temporary death, Luther notes, it is referred to in scripture using terms like “sleep” or “rest”. And because it is temporary, for Luther it is “little” even when it occurs through persecution. “Eternal death”, on the other hand, is “the death of sin and the death of death, by which the soul is released and separated from sin and the body is separated from corruption and through grace and glory is joined to the living God.” Through baptism, we enter the “big death”. Luther equates this “eternal death” with “eternal life”. He calls it “good, very good” and says it is “the principal theme in Scripture.”[vii]

All these terms—“big death”, “green martyrdom”, “white martyrdom”, “bloodless martyrdom”— place the emphasis of martyrdom on the ordinary daily experience of all Christians. Martyrdom is not just the heroic end of life for noble, self-sacrificing spiritual giants living in places opposed to Christianity. It is intended to be the everyday experience of ordinary Christians.

[i] Stancliffe, C. (1982). Red, White and Blue Martyrdom. In D. Whitelock, R. McKitterick, & D. Dumville (Eds.), Ireland in Early Medieval Europe: Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes (pp. 21–46). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, p. 33.

[ii] Stancliffe, 1982., pp. 29-31.

[iii] Davies, O., & O’Loughlin, T. (Eds.). (1999). Celtic Spirituality (Kindle Edition). Mahwah, NY: Paulist Press, pp. 54, 301.

[iv] Wallenfang, Donald. (2017). Human and Divine Being: A Study on the Theological Anthropology of Edith Stein (Veritas Book 23). Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, p. 197.

[v] Marogy, A. (2014, July 24). The Suffering Christians of the Middle East: Where is God in All This? Retrieved March 14, 2020, from https://lanuovabq.it/it/the-suffering-christians-of-the-middle-east-where-is-god-in-all-this.

[vi] Richey, E.G. (2011). The Property of God: Luther, Calvin, and Herbert’s Sacrifice Sequence. ELH, 78(2), 287-314. Retrieved March 15, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41236545, p. 292.

[vii] Luther, M. (1972). Luther’s Works: Lectures on Romans; Glosses and Scholia. (H. C. Oswald, Ed.) (Kindle Edition, Vol. 25). Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, Locs. 7081-7091.

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Chinese pastors’ letter becomes 4,400-signature petition

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Pastor Foley

Voice of the Martyrs Korea sent the Chinese Embassy in Seoul a copy of a letter originally written and signed by 439 Chinese pastors, with one addition: 28 pages of signatures from 4,400 Christians from Korea and around the world showing their support and concern for the pastors.

The signatures were gathered through an online petition website set up by Voice of the Martyrs Korea, www.chinadeclaration.com. The website shared the original Chinese document, along with translations of the document into Korean, English, and Russian. It invited Christians around the world to add their signatures in solidarity with the original signors, 439 pastors from across China. The signatures were collected over the past year.

In September 2019, 439 Chinese pastors published a document entitled, “A Joint Statement by Pastors: A Declaration for the Sake of the Christian Faith”. It was written by Wang Yi, the pastor of Early Rain Church in Chengdu who was later arrested along with more than one hundred members of his church. Pastor Wang remains imprisoned, and many of the other pastors who signed the document are now facing similarly serious difficulties. We set up www.chinadeclaration.com to give Christians around the world the opportunity to show the Chinese government that we stand with these pastors and will continue to closely monitor and publicize how they are treated.

More than 4,400 Christians signed the petition—that’s more than 10 Christians for every Chinese pastor who originally signed the document.

The joint statement published by the pastors contains four declarations:

1.            Christian churches in China believe unconditionally that the Bible is the Word and Revelation of God. It is the source and final authority of all righteousness, ethics, and salvation.

2.            Christian churches in China are eager and determined to walk the path of the cross of Christ and are more than willing to imitate the older generation of saints who suffered and were martyred for their faith.

3.            Christian churches in China are willing to obey authorities in China whom God has appointed and to respect the government’s authority to govern society and human conduct.

4.            All true churches in China that belong to Christ must hold to the principle of the separation of church and state and must proclaim Christ as the sole head of the church.

In addition to the declaration and the 4,400 signatures, Voice of the Martyrs Korea sent a cover letter in Chinese. A translation follows:

Dear Honorable Ambassador,

Herewith please find attached a petition consisting of 4,400 signatures from Christians in Korea and around the world, to be added to the signatures of the 439 Chinese pastors who authored ‘A Joint Statement by Pastors: A Declaration for the Sake of the Christian Faith’, which was originally published for your government’s consideration in September 2019.

These 439 Chinese pastors are members of the one body of Christ which extends around the world and across history. As members of the same body, the 4,400 signors of the attached petition do hereby signal our intent to continue to monitor closely the treatment of your government toward the pastors who originally authored this declaration.

We implore you to remember that as you treat them, you are thus treating the Jesus Christ himself, the Lord of heaven and earth, and the one authority before whom every knee will one day bow.

Be reconciled to God and to his servants, including the 439 Chinese pastors who authored this declaration. They remain your faithful servants for Christ’s sake. They also remain beloved members of the Christian body around the world. On their behalf we will be diligent to update the leaders and fellow citizens of our countries—from South Korea to Russia, from the USA to Europe, from Chile to Cameroon—on your treatment of each of them.

With prayers for you as commanded by Christ,

The Voice of the Martyrs Korea

Individuals interested in learning more about Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s work in partnership with the house church Christians of China can visit https://vomkorea.com/en/china/.

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