Five Day Trip to Calais

Day Five, Monday

The very acceptable evening meal at Le Hovercraft was, of course, digested on top of the uncooked burgers from Dunkirk…spelt more correctly as Dunkerque by Sir Gaffa in his comment. His comment using a more Anglo-Saxon term referring to his post-burger fear ‘Will I, won’t I puke?’ needs to be honoured in this final Calais chapter.

But all was well. Our robust British digestive systems had seen off any threat from le continent.

I woke up to gentle Restaurant-disapproving-rumbles coming from the other side of the room quite early, maybe 5am, and eventually took myself off for a wander along the sea-front esplanade. It was a gloriously sunny and warm start to the day, quiet, still, and deserted.

Beach huts on Calais beach

Not that I was wearing my Panama but the walk gave me time to be filled with a ‘hats off to Calais’ feeling. Whoever pushed through the redevelopment of the seafront, the town square, and general ethos has lifted Calais from its image of a pre-Christmas cheap beer and booze-infested English supermarket. Or simply a town that one passes through, and he/she deserves the Gold medal that its neighbour just up the road has forsaken.

Again, it impressed me that the whole esplanade is graffiti-free. Not one black marker pen streak, or gang postcodes, no ‘I woz here’, no hearts with arrows, no swear words with letters missing…just clean surfaces that all ages enjoy. I ambled along the whole length recording different sounds and images mainly on sub-standard videos rather than photos…well no-one was around to worry over some old codger talking to his mobile phone.

Turning around at the end the whole scene changed. Looming up behind me was a huge invading black cloud. It made for a contrasting image, the yellow sand illuminated by the early morning sun, hence the stick-man-like shadows, set against the monstrous and ominous dark cloud.

Calais beach

It was just before 7 when I returned. Not a car was moving. Not one. Does anyone go to work? Maybe the truth was that Sunday night which had been so pleasant, with everyone eating out, that the whole population had simply given a characteristic Gallic shrug ‘Work? It can wait’. Maybe we can learn a few things from our French neighbours.

Eventually, though, the chess set was packed along with all our belongings, and we were sitting in the queue at the port ready to embark on the ferry crossing back across the channel.

We ended as we had begun, tucking into cooked breakfasts, this time care of Irish Ferries, before indulging in one of our stranger habits walking round the decks of the ferry, I’m not sure how many times.

With the white cliffs of Dover approaching fast we re-entered the sanctuary of Dover Harbour and before long were driving to Canterbury and meandering through its familiar streets to take the road to Chestfield and, ultimately, Whitstable.

The White Cliffs of Dover

A quick pit stop and I was away on the return journey to Bristol feeling quite jolly; the gaffa tape still holding the visors in position.

Until the next time, it’s a wave from Sir Seagull, vowing to renew his interest in ants, cows, chess and much else thanks to Sir Gaffa.

God speed.

Five Day Trip to Calais

Day Four, Sunday Evening

Power-nap completed we re-entered the day wondering what would befall us in terms of the evening search for a restaurant in Calais town centre.

Paul, in his response to the last post mentioned the curious noises that, apparently, I make to express doubt when exploring menus or discerning how much cutlery noise would be heard in a restaurant. Strangely, I think Paul would agree, it has a striking resemblance to the cows-of-wisdom he mentioned earlier.

The acid test though is whether it works. In Dunkirk…no…less said about Dunkirk the better.

High Street, Calais

Being locals now, we sauntered along the wonderful esplanade veering inland and across the bridge dividing the harbour from the sea and into town. A few cattle noises later we arrived at the restaurant we had sampled on the first night: the glass cage in the sun. On this occasion we didn’t bother asking about the tables in the shade, entering the cage as confident returnees. But were met with a second baffling ‘Non!’ There were three waiters standing around doing…nothing actually…and many empty tables but the ‘Non!’ was firm and professional and we had to beat a retreat.

Let me just say a few words about the atmosphere in Calais. It’s good. It has that outdoor European feel. At 9pm and on. There are one or two bars you might like to avoid if you don’t own a Harley and sport a beard the Danes, or a Russian Orthodox priest would consider manly, but generally, it’s…pleasant.

Wandering down the high street with the colourful plastic strips above we ended up at Le Hovercraft. Not, you might think, the most French or the most inviting of venues. Paul, cocked his ear waiting for the usual indecipherable sound, but nothing emerged from my lips so we entered, sat down at a table, and were presented with a menu.

Le Hovercraft - Welsh?

From the photo you may begin to see why we were not far from losing it entirely once more; encore une fois.

Sir Seagull: ‘Tell me, Sir Gaffa, am I missing something?’

Sir Gaffa: eyebrows raised

Sir Seagull: ‘The Welsh. I’m not aware of their historical connection to hovercraft?’

Sir Gaffa: ‘I think you might be onto something, Seagull’

Sir Seagull: ‘And, if I’m not mistaken, the hovercraft service from Pegwell Bay to Calais…’

Sir Gaffa: ‘Ended in 1982, Sir Seagull’

Always a man of sharp attention to detail, Sir Gaffa.

And then to see the word Welsh placed conspicuously as the first word on so many of the dishes on the right-hand side of the menu was too much and some tittering followed.

The food and wine was excellent, though, and the waitress: a distinct improvement on the troubled lady of Dunkirk. Would we recommend Le Hovercraft? Oui.

Amongst all this tourist visiting Calais, Le Chatelet, Abbeville, and Dunkirk were some reminiscing of days we held in common at Swalecliffe Free Church (Baptist) during John Hosier’s tenure as Minister. Halcion days. So many came from far afield the evening services, and students from Kent University. Monthly Sunday lunches were well attended. Memorable summer trips to Dales and Downs Bible weeks. A sense of expectation during church services. We also discussed griefs over reversals in church and personal fortunes, and harder times in life. And looking ahead.

Well, looking ahead over the sea on our walk back from the town centre was remarkable. The photo may not really do it justice. The rusty post-sunset reds on the horizon contrasting with the vast dark clouds stretching from horizon to horizon was stunning. https://youtu.be/1mUUK-gfn1w

End of the final day in Calais. It’s up and away tomorrow morning.

Sunset across to Dover from Calais

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Five Day Trip to Calais

Day Four, Sunday

Dunkirk, up the coast, was billed as the main event of the day but more of that later.

Defensive lines facing each other

First was our morning coffee at Grooves and a further chess battle. My version of the twenty or so moves over the course of the next half-hour may not be a true reflection of what happened. In fact, saying ‘half-an-hour’ itself maybe entirely inaccurate, as time has a habit of standing still with minds engaged in tactical analysis, strategy, and middle-game theory (these are all terms Paul used – I’m just passing them on).

Here's my account. At the halfway stage the pieces are arranged in truly defensive Maginot lines and tension is mounting for the first of a series of exchanges. Exchanges, I must add, that I survive better than in our previous matches. I try not to look over into Paul’s right-hand corner. I have a Bishop and Queen attack and possible ‘mate’. On my right flank, things are not looking too good. But I’m only two moves from victory. I shed a bishop and, if I’m remembering correctly, a knight, but gain both of Paul’s bishops. I’m now one move from certain victory. But why isn’t Paul looking forlorn? Nor has he toppled his King as a Gentleman surely would. Bit like Boris, he continues on, defeat staring him in the face.

And then Bam. I’m checkmated. Just like that. No mercy. Defeat number three.

O dear

But to play chess with the windows down, warmth from the Sun replacing the rain of yesterday, and in a café on Calais beach is an idyllic way to kick start the day.

The sun visors holding firm we drove up the coast to Dunkirk full of images from the 2017 film and other histories filling our minds. Finding our way to the War Museum, we walked around the various rooms and watched a loop video re-telling the story of how the German army squeezed the French and British armies onto the beach at Dunkirk awaiting evacuation in the little boats and larger vessels in Operation Dynamo. It is impressive, simple, and arresting. Definitely worthwhile visiting.

Our relationship with France is so mixed. Dunkirk and then again in Normandy at the close of WWII showing, perhaps, that true entente cordial is a deeply human bond born from mutual suffering, not one that can be forged through political structures.

Walking from the museum and onto the famous beach via a beautiful pedestrian bridge curving up and over the sand dunes we met a long series of eateries pointing out onto the vast sands. Very unlike the wonderfully sparse and deserted beach at Le Chatelier,

Hungry now, we made the worst choice of our few days en France. The waitress was off-hand, plonked the menus down with a thump on our table, and walked off. Later she stood behind Paul, smoking and talking on her mobile. We ordered burgers. It took twenty-five minutes before they appeared – and they were undercooked. The waitress remained charmless and grumpy. One can only speculate why she works there. 1, maybe, out of 5. Such a contrast with yesterday’s experience in Calais.

Not only that but another restaurant boomed out incessant bass lines and drums that drowned out conversation and dominated the whole beach area.

So, how to sum up Dunkirk? Had I discovered the power socket feeding the mindlessly intrusive boom boom, and had the waitress taken the day off, Dunkirk sea-front could have received a Gold Award. On the day we were there…maybe a crumpled-tin-of-eternal-grating-medallion would have been more appropriate?

After lunch and worrying a little about food poisoning, we wandered over the sands on the beach. So beautiful. And clean. Many enjoying sunbathing, football, some in the water and so on. It’s impossible to imagine how utterly horrendous life on the beach would have been for the retreating armies between May 26th and June 4th 1940. Salutary moments.

Dunkirk - the beach in more peaceful times

The MG is not a silent and smooth drive but compared with the intrusive music (have I mentioned that before?) it was a haven of peace as we made our way back without the aid of dear Satnav…we’re officially locals now and know our way around. Mais oui!

Never before was a 4 o’clock cuppa tea more welcome…and a nap!

Five Day Trip to Calais

Day Three, Saturday (Part Two)

During many verbal jousts and much humour some serious subjects were juggled including meditation and wisdom. Paul, alias Sir Gaffa, left Secondary School with his brain intact – which is quite an achievement knowing the school he attended, and the ‘us and them’ ethos that paraded the corridors.

An evening of finding a restaurant, good food, and wisdom

Since graduating his education commenced in earnest. He is well-read and if the local library were to close he could open up his home to the simple folk of Whitstable and they would be enriched and entertained.

So we discussed meditation and wisdom:

Sir Gaffa: ‘I’ve been meditating on wisdom, Sir Seagull.’

Sir Seagull: eyebrow raised

Sir Gaffa: ‘The ant, Sir Seagull. It has no leader and yet…’

Sir Seagull: head tilted

Sir Gaffa: ‘You can learn a lot about wisdom from animals…’

Sir Seagull: ‘O?’

Sir Gaffa: ‘Take cows.’

Sir Seagull chokes on his tea and repeats ‘Cows, Sir Gaffa?’

Ants have no leader…

And so it continued. As most things do in the end, with or without the help of alcohol, things turned theological, but it was time to decamp into Calais town centre in search of food. The Airbnb host had recommended two restaurants. One, on the esplanade, received the thumbs down – the menu was quite limited and mostly fish.

By Sunday we were local yokels, but this evening we still used the car to drive into the centre and park. Employing Paul’s Google search, we trekked down this road, up that street, round that bend and found ourselves on the outskirts of the town centre, beyond the outskirts really, and staring at the Police Station. I asked an officer on his mobile outside the station where ‘X’ restaurant was, and he replied. Five minutes later we stood outside a rather beaten-up-looking establishment with one person sitting at a table.

My wisdom came into play at this point:

Sir Seagull: ‘Wise man once say if you can hear only cutlery clinking it is surely not wise to enter’

So back we went, past the policeman still on his mobile, round the bend, up the street etc and back to the town centre whereupon we entered a restaurant crowded with happy faces and conversation. Not a sound could be heard from the cutlery. We gave the various waiters and waitresses 5 stars. They were happy to struggle on in a unique French/English mix and made the whole evening enjoyable. The veal I had was exquisite.

And back to the flat to talk about the wisdom of cows and how they can communicate and cooperate, form friendships within the herd and so on.

We explored how cows and ants could teach the church a thing or two.

Plans for tomorrow’s visit to Dunkirk were mentioned as the dying embers of the day spluttered to a halt and healthy snoring took their place.

Five Day Trip to Calais

 Day Three, Saturday (Part One)

Calais to Le Chatelet

The sliding window-door from the studio flat led directly onto a lawn approximately a cricket pitch length to the locked gate leading onto the impressive, new, and completely graffiti-free Calais esplanade which runs for about a mile or so south of the docks.

First stop, Groove.

Worry not, Gaffa and I did not. Groove is a rather fine café on the beach between the esplanade and the numerous beach huts scattered over the sands. The staff were very patient; I took about 15 minutes to order deux Cappuccinos in my best French, which they then translated into English.

The side windows are lowered by remote control, so, one minute you are sitting quite relaxed chatting away and the next the froth on your Cappuccino is flying across the room along with your Panama.

This occasioned the first of numerous conversations about scales of measurement. Inspired by the sudden blasts through the open window, I began to wonder whether, in a restaurant setting, a more suitable wind scale than the traditional Beaufort could be based on cherry tomatoes and how they roll under provocation from a stiff Easterly. Menus could be marked with a number of cherry tomatoes depending on the strength of the wind, or the lettuce scale for zephyrs.

Flights of fancy occupied our minds until we set off for our first journey in the MG, to find Le Chatelet.

I’m attempting to write a novel set in 1799 involving a group of English and French spies a number of whom land in a cove in Le Chatelet. The extensive research I had carried out involved a Google map of France south of Calais until a small village appeared. No pictures, just imagination. Well, blow me down, after a lovely drive through virtually car-free countryside we staggered across sand dunes and onto a glorious sandy beach stretching as far as the eye could see in either direction. And there was the cove. Almost exactly as I had imagined it.

Le Chatelet

The beach was lovely.

Very few people. Further along, a huge, abandoned truck with no clue how it had arrived, or why it was there. One or two sunbathers, one runner, a group of hikers with ski poles (Why?), and that was it. Perfect. And it was warm and sunny. A small cage marked off four beautiful Gravelot eggs laid in the sand.

Abandoned truck, Le Chatelet

Relaxed now, Gaffa set about on his final solution for the sun visors as we drove further south to Abbeville – and into steady rain.

Whereas Le Chatelet was simple, remote, and a joy, Abbeville was a mystery and rather strange. It must have taken about half an hour to find the Centre-Ville; signposts took us up derelict and shabby back streets and poorly surfaced roads. Eventually, we parked across the fast-flowing river, La Somme, and headed into the bright lights of the town. The first café, with customary chairs and tables outside, was open. No-one serving. Rien. Next shop, the same. It was as if they had all been whisked away by aliens. Eventually, we found a café and sat outside, it had stopped raining and there was a table with dry chairs.

For some reason, the earlier discussion about tomatoes and lettuce leaves came back to bite us. Maybe it was the strange atmosphere in Abbeville, or perhaps the owner who stood in the entrance (outside) and smoked his cigarette about two feet from Paul’s side of the table. It’s difficult to pin down ‘reason’ when reason departs abandoning us to fitting with uncontrollable laughter, tears rolling down our cheeks. For a long time. And just when you think you’ve recovered another seizure takes hold.

We rallied and enjoyed looking round the vast church, almost cathedral size.

Abbeville

Then over to L’Hotel de Ville to find the public toilet. We were directed ‘Là’ with some pointing and descended below street level into the loos. In a corner sat a lady in a ticket-office-like booth. Initially, I thought we would have to pay for the privilege; that was why she was there. But no. I have no idea why the booth was there or what she was there for!! As I say, Abbeville, undeniably, was strange.

The rain had re-started.

In the town square is a very pleasant fountain. Four jets of water shoot on and off fairly randomly. Could one judge when they died down sufficiently to walk through the middle without getting deluged? Only one way to find out!

The drive back to Calais, a nice cuppa tea, and sanity restored was immensely joyful not only for the prospect of a cuppa, but also due to the latest attempt to hold the visors in place with gaffa tape. It held.

Love Wreck

Phase 1 The Wrecker

My vessel is cracked and

My defences lie shattered

Inside it’s all splinters.

Invaded I can’t…flow

Debris is everywhere.

Hit by Love

I can no longer hide

No longer hide

Phase 2 The Squatter

But when the wrecker comes

With forgiveness and

Demolishing grace

Then, from the ashes,

New houses arise.

He moves in:

No external life-coach

He

Phase 3 The Landlord

Few know the secret

Secret life

Long hidden but now

Installed

One source, one river

One throne

My Fire, my Wind, my

All in all

Five Day Trip to Calais

Day Two - Whistable to Dover to Calais

A Five-Day trip to Calais

Day Two, Friday

An early exit was required to avoid the potential ignominy of missing the 11 o’clock Irish Ferries departure from Dover. Actually, avoiding ignominy was not our highest priority – finding a decent café serving a Full English was more on our minds and Sunrise Café overlooking the harbour did the trick.

But, like almost everything on this trip, the simple pleasure of a quiet breakfast with strong coffee and bacon on toast was transformed into a memorable few minutes of high drama as a young man, also enjoying breakfast, took it upon himself to explode in anger and turn the air a deep deep blue. He was a complete opposite of John Cleese. Short, wiry and lacking the strange finesse of a Cleese car-birching rant – this man’s every other word was an F-bomb.

A fitting start to the day which made a few days across the water in France seem all the more attractive.

On the journey from Whitstable to Dover it became apparent that the gaffa tape and small sections of Velcro I’d brought along were not keeping the sun visors in position. This became Paul’s (alias Sir Gaffa) mission to solve. Meanwhile, any sizeable bump in the road caused the visors to drop down in unison. My (alias Sir Seagull Scab) gaffa obsession was more with the unfortunate gap between the rear window and its housing knowing that the forecast for Saturday was rain, rain, and more rain.

Once in Calais after a very smooth crossing, we were directed about 500km around the outskirts before finally arriving at the block of flats that was to be home for the next few days.

And then into town to find a couple of refreshing beers.

It’s only when living in close quarters to someone that you learn about their likes and dislikes, hopes, dreams, fears…and unexpected commonalities. The apparent unrehearsed need to wear straw Panama hats is the first visual oddity a casual observer might notice. No-one else was. Where we differed was on ice creams and soft drinks. Sir Gaffa does like bright colours.

That left the evening meal.

Whilst Paul was seeking shade having forgotten his Panama, I was checking the level of wildlife aggression from the town square seagull population. We ended up corralled into a very pleasant glass-bounded outside area. There were tables in the shade but for some inexplicable reason, the waitress said ‘Non’ and Gaffa had to endure the warmth of the setting sun.

End of the first day. I tried not to fiddle with my itching scab whilst Paul was still muttering about his plans to solve the sun-visor problem on our journey south planned for the morrow.

I should close by acknowledging that in between the events of the day we began a series of thematic conversations: scales of measurements, the paucity of our French, football - specifically Leeds Utd and Portsmouth FC, chess, theology, double doors, poetry, counselling and philosophy, all things Welsh, physical decay and far more.

Sleep came quickly.

Five Day Trip to Calais

Not the traditional start of an expedition to France

Day One, Thursday

 I don’t know anyone who has slipped across to Calais from Dover on the ferry to actually stay in Calais.

 It appears that opinion is divided on the usual purpose for a Dover-Calais crossing three ways (1) Pre-Christmas cheap booze from the local Hypermarché (2) Driving to somewhere more interesting (3) embarked on the ferry by mistake.

 Think again!

 Here’s how the adventure started…

 Leaving Bristol for Whitstable

 There was a dual reason for stopping in Whitstable. My grandparents’ grave is at St John’s, Swalecliffe, and I fancied going to inspect the grave and maybe sit there and commune with God in the late afternoon sun.

 Before setting off I discovered that the passenger side front tyre had a a slow leak – approximately 2 lbs per square inch (a wonderful scale) per day. So, the first decision of the day was to take the racing green MG (F) 1993 to the Ron Costello’s.

 The photo tells you everything you need to know.

 Tyre fixed for a paltry £15.00 I motored up the M32 and along the M4/M25/M26/M20 and M20 before entering the feared Thanet Way and descending via Tesco’s to purchase flowers, and strawberries and cream, to Paul and Ruth’s.

 Climbing in and out of the MG is never easy but when one has a bad back and severe bursitis in both shoulders it is imperative not to laugh as this will only inflame one or both conditions…but the exit/entrance is not as swift as it could be.

 A cuppa tea with Paul and Ruth and daughter Stacey, the first of three defeats on the chess board with Paul, and a fine shepherd’s pie, I drove down to sleepy St John’s, Swalecliffe not far from the sea. Whilst walking through the graveyard to find my grandparents’ grave I was attacked by three large seagulls swooping and screeching just above my head. On the final bombing raid, one of these ecclesiastical creatures thumped into my head, knocking my sunglasses off and digging its claws into my scalp, leaving me with cuts and bruises and a lumpy scab!

The vicious seagull graveyard guard, St John’s Swalecliffe

I pressed on past the killing zone to the grave but couldn’t really settle with the close attention of the birds making their feelings known: I was an invader that needed to be repelled.

 As communing with God really was not possible, I made my way back to Paul and Ruth’s for tea and sympathy.

 And sleep. It’s up early tomorrow and off to Dover.

Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles – foundations of the Christian faith

Passover = Pesach

Pentecost = Shavuot

Tabernacles = Sukkot

There were, in the Old Testament, three feasts of Israel that men were commanded to attend:

‘Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: 

You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover) you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty; 

 and the Feast of Harvest (Pentecost), the first fruits of your labours which you have sown in the field;

 and the Feast of Ingathering (Tabernacles) at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labours from the field. 

Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God.’   Exodus 23 v 14-17

Preamble

The temple, and before that Moses’ tabernacle (tent), and the entire Old Testament sacrificial system were ‘shadows’ of the reality fulfilled in the New Testament through Christ:

‘Priests offer the gifts according to the Law and serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly as Moses was instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said ‘See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain’…copies of things in heaven…for Christ has not entered holy places made with hands, copies of the true, but into heaven itself…Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many’ Hebrews 8 v 4 ff

If we reduce the teaching of the New Testament and the gospel to ‘having faith in Christ’ we impoverish our congregations.

We often need to be reminded that the term ‘Christ’ or ‘Messiah’ refers to the anointing of Jesus with the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament only prophets, priests, and kings were anointed with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes oil was used to symbolise the anointing, such as when Samuel anointed David to be King, but Jesus as Messiah, the Christ, was anointed by the Holy Spirit to be Prophet, Priest, and King…King of Israel.

We place our faith in Christ because he fulfilled each of the three feasts which served as shadows and copies of the reality that was Christ. 

Passover

Passover (Pesach), was originally instituted to celebrate the Exodus from Egypt when Israelites daubed the blood of a lamb on their doors to ensure that the destroying angel sent by God would ‘pass over’ their house and the people inside. This is fulfilled in Christ, shedding His blood on the cross, as the lamb of God. Through His sacrifice, we are forgiven.

If escaping from Egypt for the Jews with Moses and escaping sin through Christ is important it is equally important to remember the purpose was not only escape ‘from’ Egypt under Moses but escape ‘to’ the Promised Land under Joshua. Equally, in the church, we must not only rejoice in our redemption ‘from’ sin, but also enter into our promised land, Christ Himself. We need faith to leave, and faith to enter in. The Israelites had to overcome many obstacles: Pharoah’s opposition, trials in the desert, and finally the battle at Jericho to enter in, and so will we. At heart, though, it was always a matter of faith for the Israelites, that God could do both, release them from Egypt and plant them in a new land. St Paul wrote ‘For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us’ 1 Cor 5 v 7. It is because of Him that we are redeemed from sin and because of Him that we can enter into our new identity, and new life, in Christ.

Pentecost

Pentecost (Shavuot) occurred fifty days after Passover. Pentecost means fifty. On the day of Pentecost after Passover, when Jesus was crucified, the Holy Spirit was poured out from on High. Jesus spoke to the disciples after the Resurrection:

‘John baptised with water but you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit…you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you’  Acts 1 v 5,8

‘When the day of Pentecost had fully come…they were filled with the Holy Spirit’  Acts 2 v 4

In the Old Testament, Pentecost was celebrated to give thanks to God for the firstfruits of the harvest. Those who believed and received the gift of the Spirit were the firstfruits of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

Also, the Law was given to Moses on this day, but in the New Testament, the Spirit was poured out.

Just as each believer needs to know they are forgiven through the cross and placed ‘in Christ’, each believer must be baptised in the Spirit. This is Christianity, it is not an optional extra, for Pentecostals or Charismatics. It is the fulfilment of the feast of Pentecost. The church is not to be a human organisation managed and led by men, it is a living body led by the Spirit with each ‘member’ of the body baptised in the Spirit so that every time believers gather together the gathering is led by the Spirit who pours out His gifts as He chooses.

Tabernacles

Tabernacles (Sukkot)

‘And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the…branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees…You shall dwell in booths for seven days…that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths/tabernacles/tents when I brought them out of the land of Egypt’   Leviticus 23 v 40

When Moses made the tabernacle according to the pattern God showed him, it was for God to dwell in. The Israelites lived in tents during their journey in the desert to the Promised Land, as did God. The tabernacle of the Lord was sited outside the camp and Moses would go in to meet with the Lord:

‘When Moses entered the tabernacle…the Lord spoke to Moses, face to face, as a man speaks to his friend’ Exodus 33 v 9-11

Just as Jesus was the true Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God, and poured out the Holy Spirit from heaven at Pentecost, so He was the fulfilment of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles:

‘And the Word made flesh and tabernacled among us’  John 1 v 14

The Greek for ‘tabernacles’ is usually translated as ‘dwelt’, but the Greek word means ‘pitched His tent’ i.e. And Jesus spoke to His heavenly Father as a man speaks with His friend.

The fulfilment is not confined simply to Christ. Just as the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as the Lamb of God enables everyone to be ‘saved’ from the judgement of God, and to know that salvation, so the fulfilment of Tabernacles is for the church as well as Jesus because the church is in Him, in Christ.

‘Do you not know you are the temple of God and the Spirit tabernacles (dwells) in you?’ 1 Cor 3v16

‘Do you not know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you…’ 1 Cor 6 v 19

‘You are the temple of the living God’  2 Cor 6 v 16

The Feast of Tabernacles as recorded in John’s gospel in chapter 7 is another occasion when Jesus was in Jerusalem:

‘The Feast of Tabernacles was at hand…about the middle of the feast Jesus went up to the Temple and taught…on the last day of the feast, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink…out of his heart will flow streams of living water’. This He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given.’   John 7 v 2 ff

In the desert the Israelites had no water and no source of food; this was supernaturally provided; manna for food each morning and water coming from a rock. This is now fulfilled in the New Testament with the streams of living water coming from the seemingly most unlikely place – the hearts of those who believe in Him, Jews and Gentiles.

Churches are the ‘ekklesia’ or the called-out ones who are ‘living stones’, as Peter calls them, or ‘temples of the living God’ as Paul describes us.

Interestingly, Jews celebrate Sukkot (Tabernacles) today by arranging palm branches or similar as a loose-fitting roof as they gather underneath. The story of their exodus from slavery in Egypt and their journey through the wilderness using these temporary structures is retold.

For Christians, this symbolises our exodus from the slavery of sin and our pilgrimage or sojourning in this world. And our rooves, individually and as churches, should not be permanent hard structures but open enough to the heavens, to heaven in fact. Open to heaven in the sense that we are the temple now, where God is present.

All three feasts are permanently fulfilled in us:

Redemption from the slavery of sin - Passover

Open to the baptism of the Spirit - Pentecost

Completely dependent on God as our life – Tabernacles

Churches today tend to reflect one or two of these feast fulfilments rather than all three simultaneously.

In very approximate terms Evangelical churches are secure in preaching, teaching, and believing Jesus as the Passover Lamb of God. They know and preach salvation from sin, that our sins are forgiven, but not Pentecost. Until the minister or others within an Evangelical church see that Pentecost opens the way for the baptism in the Spirit, and experiences it, the church will be left with a Passover-only foundation.

Pentecostal and Charismatic churches (of any denomination and none) will preach Passover and Pentecost: forgiveness, relationship with God restored, and the baptism of the Spirit. But how many preach Tabernacles? A cursory examination of a few commentaries that attempt to tackle the relevance of Tabernacles to the church offset it to after the return of the Messiah and the winding up of this age (Rev 21 v 3). Whilst all three feasts inevitably have an eternal dimension that finds their greatest fulfilment in the age to come, Tabernacles, just as with Passover and Pentecost, has a Now dimension that is often not preached.

But Tabernacles? Does your church meet under a partially open roof? In other words, do your leaders facilitate openness to the Spirit of God when you meet? Or is the meeting pre-organised? The songs, the notices, the teaching, prayers and so on. Some churches have a written liturgy others have an unwritten liturgy…but you can set your watch by when the children are allowed to go to Sunday school.

A church that has all three working together simultaneously and seamlessly knows it is the body of Christ and its meetings are not only spontaneous but scriptural:

‘Whenever you meet together, each of you has a song, a teaching, a tongue, a revelation, an interpretation, let all things be done for edification’ 1 Cor 14 v 26

If the leadership in a church is not permitting this to be the norm something is wrong. There is no room for human control in the church, there is one head of the church, Jesus. Just as our heads coordinate our body’s functions so Jesus will coordinate His body, the body of Christ.

The extent to which each feast is fulfilled in our understanding and experience will be the extent to which we can minister the life of the Spirit to others. A believer may have been appointed as a Vicar, Pastor, Minister, homegroup leader, worship leader, Sunday school, or youth leader, but he or she can only minister what they have received from heaven.

If a church congregation is caught up in believing all three feasts and how they are fulfilled in Christ and in then in them, they are unlikely to want to appoint one person to take up an overall leadership role – this is reserved for Jesus Christ. In Acts, the apostles appointed elders, plural, never just one elder.

Elders, then, are responsible for teaching the congregation and encouraging growth toward spiritual maturity, laying the foundation of the three feasts, amongst other tasks. They will also be open to the ministry of prophets, teachers, evangelists, or visiting apostles – see the account of the church at Antioch in Acts 13. All meetings will be open to the leading of the Spirit because Jesus is head of the body. Elders’ meetings, diaconates, leaders’ meetings, home group meetings, musicians and worship meetings, pastoral…and so on, none are business meetings in the sense that they are led by a chairman through a predetermined agenda. The agenda is not set by man. All meetings, the scripture says ‘whenever you meet’ are transformed.  

As in the other churches in Acts, there is no mention of one leader or of human decision-making processes at play in Antioch: ‘As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work I have called them’’ ’ Acts 13 v 1,2

If you are a Christian living in Europe or another Western country, and reading this, you are so because of this meeting in Antioch; it was Paul and Barnabas who carried the gospel around the Mediterranean to Rome, to Greece, possibly to Spain, and beyond. The origins of Christianity in Europe lie in this one meeting and the simple phrase ‘as they ministered to the Lord the Holy Spirit said…’ not as the Vicar held a strategy meeting with his churchwardens, or the Baptist minister worked through a list of projects with the diaconate, or the Pentecostal Pastor with the elders. All meetings had rooves open to heaven where everybody gathered knew that God now dwells (tabernacles) with His people and He has the pre-eminent place.

I think we’d all agree that the meeting as described in Acts 13 that led to Paul and Barnabas being appointed as apostles (apostles meaning ‘sent ones’) was a successful meeting!

We need to preach all three feasts to have a clear foundation – the ‘Christianity’ that will flow from such churches will be just like having Jesus in town…because that is precisely what it is.

Book Review: The Magnificent Moustache & Other Stories

When I read through the five stories, I asked myself ‘Would I have read these to my children when they were younger?’ And the answer is a resounding Yes!

Many of the very old children’s stories allow the child to escape into worlds unlike their own such as Cinderella meeting and marrying a Prince, these stories also. The setting for two of the stories, Tea’s the Thing, and The King and i, is in the Royal Family and The Magnificent Moustache, for example, has a 7th Viscount and Lords and Ladies as principal characters. And we meet a Welsh Dragon in the final tale.

Each story contains an entertaining mix of humour, tension, and happy resolution – perfect for a bedtime story – and, for the intended age range, could be read by the child in one sitting. The language is accessible but also introduces the reader to a few unfamiliar words, such as indiscriminately, elixir, and propagating so the collection doesn’t play too safe.

The imaginative content of each story is matched by vivid descriptions, but you never feel bogged down in unnecessary detail, each tale is told at an engaging pace which is maintained from cover to cover.

Like all good stories, there are important messages tucked away as the plots unfold. Whether it’s that we can escape ruts we fall into, gently ridicule the ridiculousness of life, make a fresh start after a tragedy, or overcome bad habits, each story conveys its core moral purpose very well without being preachy.

If I was to pick a favourite scene it would be the Queen’s butler, Jeffries, as he ‘bowed and exited as calmly as he could. Once out of the room, he sprinted back along the corridor and slid down the bannisters at alarming speed – a thing he hadn’t contemplated for over twenty years – saving every spare second in order to see how the tea blending experiment was going in the kitchen.’

In one paragraph everything is turned upside-down. The adult becomes a child, sprinting and sliding down the banisters. The cool-headed butler is flustered and panicking, and the Royal kitchen is given over entirely on a fruitless mission to blend a perfect cup of tea for Her Majesty rather than preparing a feast. Finally, an unpredictable twist saves the day, leaving the Queen as unruffled as all Queens should be. Brilliant.

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The Magnificent Moustache and other stories

Available as an e-book or as a paperback.

Purchase on Amazon or order at all good bookshops.

Signed copies are available from Jenny Sanders directly for £9 +p&p and you can message her via her social media accounts below:

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Also, please visit Jenny’s blog

Dancing Through Chaos

Baptism – beyond the controversy Part IV

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In our last of four blogs on Baptism - getting beyond the controversy we continue with Part IV: ‘By one Spirit we were all baptised into one body’ 1 Cor 12 v 12. The gospel repairs the broken relationship between man and God…we are reconciled not just with God but with each other…if we allow the Spirit to baptise us into one body. Is this more difficult for us in the West which prides itself on the freedom of the individual? 
Click here to read Part III

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Baptism into one body

1 Cor 12 v 12 ‘By one Spirit we were all baptised into one body’

So far, we have seen that the New Testament teaches that believers are those that have been baptised into Christ Jesus (Rom 6v3/Gal 3v26). Then we have looked at how Jesus baptises us in the Holy Spirit (Acts 1 and 2), and now, how the Holy Spirit baptises us into one body, the body of Christ.

None of these ‘baptisms’ involve any water!

We have been so taken up with the controversy over infant baptism v believers baptism that it takes a jolt to even realise what the New Testament teaches about being baptised into Christ Jesus, or the baptism in the Spirit, and now, in this post, baptism into a body.

If baptism into Christ and the baptism of the Spirit is an individual event, this baptism is not.

In this baptism, the one doing the baptism is the Holy Spirit. The person being baptised is the believer. But it’s the end of any notion of independence. There are no lone-rangers in the church. Or at least there shouldn’t be! Once we have ‘seen’ this all our attempts to make our Christianity a private matter are demolished.

The church is not a building. That much we probably know. Nor is it simply an assembly of believers in one place; that’s closer, but not what the scriptures tell us. Nor is it the ‘body of Christ on Earth’ as if the church is disconnected from its Head, who is in heaven.

Whilst the word ‘church’ borrows from Greek democracy where citizens are called out, ‘ekklesia’, to assemble together, it has a richer meaning than this.

The key passage is 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Verse 13:

‘As the body is one and has many members…so also Christ, for by One Spirit we were all baptised into one body’

When we think of our own bodies, we know that the whole body is made up of many cells, tissues, and organs, all working together to make the whole organism function spontaneously. Each cell is alive and yet alive with who’s life? There is only one life, it is the life of the whole organism, the whole person.

The cells in my big toe on my right foot cannot boast ‘I’m alive with my own life’ as if they’re acting independently to the whole organism. The truth is they are as much ‘John Stevens’ as the rest of me. So it is with each believer. Our life is His life. I am no longer independent from Christ and no longer independent from other believers.

Where does the cell in my right toe derive its supply? And its role in the body? The answer is from the other cells around it. Life flows around the body spontaneously. How do my skin cells know what to do? Or my kidney cells?

What about in the body of Christ? Some do miracles, some speak in tongues, some prophesy, some teach, some are prophets, some teachers and so on.

But it doesn’t work unless we are willing to lose our independence. For many of us, particularly in the West, with its emphasis on individual liberty, and independence as a mark of freedom, we can end up resisting the Holy Spirit. We struggle to let the Spirit lead us INTO the truth. We may see it as an intellectual or even a prophetic truth, happy to leave it there, but are we willing to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us into the truth – and the truth into us?

Are our hearts open? Open to our fellow believers? Open to God? Are our hearts places like Jesus saw they should be, places of rivers of living water, flowing from believer to believer.

At the start of Jesus’ ministry, he called twelve individuals. By the end, they had been formed into a body.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, to the church in Corinth, was corrective. There had been some moral failings in the congregation, and the church’s unity was under threat. The purpose of the letter was to encourage the church to return to normal, as one body, not fragment, and to allow the Spirit to work among them:

‘Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation, let all things be done for edification…’   14 v 26

He didn’t say whenever you come together, don’t worry, the pastor will decide which hymns we’ll sing, the pastor will preach the word, the pastor will…that is the experience in many churches – just substitute Vicar or Priest or Minister, if ‘Pastor’ isn’t the title you give your church leader. Or, if you want to shift church cultures slightly: ‘Don’t worry, the worship leader will decide which songs are sung and how many times, the preacher will preach on the pre-set passage of Scripture, the…

It’s not that leaders in a congregation; elders, pastors, or teachers, the Vicar even, have no role, and are of no importance, but it is their prime function to facilitate the life of the body, the life of the Spirit, not to be the substitute for the Holy Spirit. If it is only one man functioning, the rest of the congregation cannot, they become little more than spectators locked away in permanent infancy, perpetually needing feeding rather than growing, participating, and functioning as ministering parts of the body.

The apostle Peter put it like this:

‘Coming to Him as to a living stone…you also, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house…’ 1 Peter 2 v 4,5

Each believer is a ‘living stone’ alive with the life of the Spirit.

Paul, in writing 1 Corinthians did not impose greater ‘control’ from the leadership, his main task was to remind the Corinthians that they had been baptised by the Spirit into one body and that they needed to function like human bodies function: full of spontaneous life, of different gifts and so on.

The Holy Spirit baptising us into one body in our experience, not just in theory, challenges our pride, ambitions, shyness, and all our fleshly desires to do things or not do things on our terms! If you’re an organiser, and an effective leader by nature, you may need to die to that ability and learn to be led by the Spirit. If you’re the type of person that reacts to every need by wanting to help and inspire others to do the same – you will need to die to that and learn to know when the Spirit is prompting, when to act, and who to involve. If you’re a teacher-type, quite cerebral, and have a love of doctrine and ideas, you may need to die to that and learn to be more spontaneous in the Spirit. And if you’re an artistic type and full of imagination and creativity, you may need to die to that and do what the Spirit is telling you to do.

This is perhaps the hardest baptism. Or is it just me? If you read the gospels with fresh eyes you’ll see just what a difficult job Jesus had with the twelve…and that’s before you get to their mothers! It’s all there: self-advancement, self-protection, self-confidence. It all had to die. And be replaced with confidence, or faith, in the Spirit of Jesus to reproduce the life of Christ in the body.

The apostles found it hard to maintain unity. Paul fell out with Barnabas and with Peter. Peter struggled with James. John was banned from one church. It’s no surprise we struggle and fail. Like the Corinthians, we need to return at times to the New Testament normal. The NT indicates that Paul and Barnabus were reconciled in the end. Peter, it seems, accepted Paul’s criticisms.

‘Normal’, in NT terms, is handing over control once more to the Holy Spirit, the One who sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God (Romans 5). That’s the starting point for us to re-open our hearts to one another, get the fire burning, and for our meetings, and everyday life, to be crackling and burning with the presence of the Holy Spirit and fire.

One final point. This is as much true if you’re a member of a church that meets in one room or part of a church of thousands. The question is: when you meet are you a functioning body, with the gifts of the Spirit freely distributed amongst you, or has that life of the Spirit been excluded from the congregation? If so, someone needs to press ‘Reset’.

Loose Change

Pig. The ceramic one that stares at me

Frozen in time

Is still fed, when food is found,

But his expression

Is little altered

A decade has passed

Since his last oil change

The rubber seal left undisturbed

Until this morning                                                                   

And out it, they, pour

Metallic sounds

Like snapping branches

And small sounding cymbals

Announce the purging

Tanners, shillings, and half-crowns

Jostling, like children

For their place

Woe betide anyone who says to them

‘Loose change’

The Queen’s face will not be amused

There is a date that must not be spoken aloud

Valentine’s plus one, 1971

In a stroke, at midnight,

The pig became a museum

And its currency lost all purchasing power

Like all of us, sons of Adam,

Caught up in a Messiah on a cross

Brought into His death

Losing all our old purchasing power

And buried, out of sight

And now? The whole of creation

Stands on tip-toe

Waiting for the new currency

God’s loose change

Sons of God, to be revealed.

Baptism – beyond the controversy Part III

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In the third of four blogs on Baptism - getting beyond the controversy we continue with Part III: John the Baptist prophesied that he baptised with water, but someone was coming who would ‘baptise with the Holy Spirit’. But what does it mean to be baptised with the Holy Spirit?  
Click here to read Part II

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit

Acts 1 v 5 ‘John truly baptised water, but you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit’

There needs to be someone to administer the baptism: it’s not DIY.

When John the Baptist was preaching, he prophesied: ‘I baptise you with water, but there is coming One who will baptise you with Holy Spirit and with fire’   Mat 4v11, Mk 1v 8, Luke 3 v 16, John 1 v 33

Jesus repeated John’s prophecy to the disciples: ‘John truly baptised with water, but you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit’.

He said this just prior to the Ascension. The three years of Jesus’ discipleship of the apostles, and others, had led to this moment. Jesus would ascend into heaven but from there would baptise the disciples with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the baptiser with the Holy Spirit and when the Spirit was poured out on the disciples on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) true Christianity began:

‘When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place and there came a sound from heaven…and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them the ability’.

This pouring out of the Holy Spirit was repeated throughout the book of Acts, as people came to faith, they received the baptism in the Holy Spirit; some at the point of conversion, some before (see Acts 10 v44), some after (see Acts 8v 1-17).

Why are not all believers baptised in the Spirit? Most often because they either haven’t been told about the Holy Spirit, but we will deal with this later.

What should be commonplace in the churches is not. When I was taken to church in my childhood, I could not understand why the services were so unlike the ministry of Jesus and the apostles. It was largely because of this mismatch that I doubted the authenticity of the New Testament and, like so many, although I was attracted to Jesus, his teaching, his criticism of the religious leaders, and miracles, the disparity between what I was seeing and what was being read to us from Scripture was too great. Whatever longings I might have had to believe in Him were buried in the lack of evidence around me in church that the Scriptures were genuine. And so, I, along with so many of my generation, swelled the ranks of the agnostics.

I then began to hear and read accounts of individuals and churches that were experiencing the very things I knew as so lacking in my experience of church. After a great deal of soul searching and reading, I was faced with a choice. Eventually, I believed. I’m one of those who had an instantaneous conversion to Christ. Nothing dramatic. As an agnostic, I had stopped reciting the Apostles Creed during church services for years, but on one particular Sunday morning, I opened my mouth and as I said the familiar words ‘I believe in God, the Father…’ I believed. The speaking and believing were simultaneous. It was very quiet. No altar calls or dramatic music. And yet everything changed in that moment. It’s difficult to describe.

And yet I also knew, from reading accounts of the baptism in the Spirit, that this baptism hadn’t happened automatically for me at that time. That came later.

To return to the subject matter, baptism in the Spirit is not about baptism in water; Baptism in the Spirit is Jesus immersing us, flooding us, saturating us with the Spirit of God.

Jesus’ vision of the Christian faith is described in John chapter 7:

‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, , out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’ But this he said concerning the Spirit…Who had not yet been given’ (John 7 v 37-39).

This was Jesus’ understanding of the fundamental nature of what has become known as Christianity; it should be our normal experience.

The baptism in the Spirit is all about thirst. How thirsty are you? I’ve only been seriously dehydrated once. Foolishly, I didn’t take enough water with me walking around Snowdon and around the ridges leading off Snowdon away from the well-worn paths. There were no streams at all, it’s arid up there. And, unusual perhaps for Wales, it was a very hot, sunny day, with not a cloud in the sky. By the time I staggered back to where I had a small bivouac by a stream, I lay down headfirst in the stream and drank and drank, desperate for water.

The problem for so many of us in the West, in England and elsewhere, is that we have been steeped in a view of the world from the Enlightenment onwards that has left us with an empirical, evidence and reason-based view of the world…to the exclusion of spiritual revelation. As a Chemistry teacher by profession and someone who was always fascinated by science, I have been ‘baptised’ if you will in that view of the world. I love teaching about Galileo and others who were imprisoned for not following the church’s Aristotelean dominated theories about forces and so on, dropping weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Empirical evidence trumping the thought experiments of Greek philosophy. Both, ironically, exalting Reason above all else, the ability of the human mind to ascertain truth.

But Jesus did not operate like this. On one occasion he fed five thousand with just a few fish and loaves of bread. Reason would have told him to dismiss the crowd so they could go and buy some food. In fact, as I read the bible, Old Testament and New, I found out that all the bible characters had similar experiences. Somehow, they had heard from God, believed what they had heard, and ‘it came to pass’. Reason and evidence has its place, but not to be exalted above all else. It’s hard for us to switch systems! Not that God’s word is a system, the bible says it is living and active, like a two-edged sword, discerning between soul and spirit. ‘Soul’ being our reason, our will, and our emotions; ‘spirit’ being the part of us, our innermost being, where we commune with the Holy Spirit. Essentially, we are spiritual by nature. Our souls and our bodies are amazing, even if they malfunction, but our essential self is spiritual, spirit. And we can become so spiritually dehydrated our innermost beings cry out to be quenched.

The key is the baptism in the Spirit. If we are saturated with the Spirit, if the Spirit becomes this fountain that Jesus spoke about. It is easier to see, then, that we might begin to learn to operate like Jesus. Like the apostles. Like many other ordinary believers as recorded in Acts and the Epistles did. It’s not for the few, it’s for anyone who is thirsty.

Lastly, speaking in tongues and other ‘gifts’ of the Holy Spirit.

To start with I think it is worth saying that for many, like me, the miraculous is such a far cry from our childhood and maybe adulthood experience of church that it is hard to equate speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, and miracles with church or ‘Christianity’, especially in England! Putting it bluntly, if you were to drive to the nearest town, attend the Morning Service, you are not likely to hear someone speak in tongues, or prophesy, or a miracle of healing take place before your eyes. These things are so foreign to our expectation of Sunday services, we would be shocked to see or hear them.

And yet this is exactly what the New Testament teaches, and the early church practiced. But not only then. There have always been churches that have known this reality and there are a growing number – even in England!

It all starts with being thirsty. As Jesus said ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink…’

The baptism in the Spirit is not an ‘experience’, although many do experience a sense of power, or speaking in tongues (other languages), or prophesy, but is the foundation and doorway of the true and normal Christian life, which is led by the Spirit, not our ability alone to think; our reason.

Please click here for Baptism – getting beyond the controversy Part IV

Baptism – getting beyond the controversy Part II

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In the second of four blogs on Baptism - getting beyond the controversy we continue with Part II: In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes about being ‘baptised into Christ Jesus’. The passage in Romans 6 is often used to explain the imagery of water baptism but what did Paul really have in mind? 
Click here to read Part I

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Getting beyond the controversy does not mean that baptism is not controversial! Look at this exchange between Jesus and his opponents, the religious leaders:

‘Tell me,’ Jesus said, ‘the baptism of John – was it from heaven or from men?’ Luke 20 v 4

They refused. They couldn’t say ‘heaven’ otherwise they should have been baptised. But they couldn’t say ‘men’ as they feared the crowd.

And Luke comments earlier in his gospel that ‘the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptised by John’.

As a reminder here are three ‘baptisms’ we are considering are:

1. Romans 6 v 3 ‘Or do you know know that as many as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death?’

Romans 6 v 3: ‘Or do you know know that as many as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death?’

The question posed by Paul is relevant today.

It’s really two questions:

• Do you know you were baptised into Christ?

• Do you, who were baptised into Christ, know you were baptised into His death

I have been a member of three ‘evangelical/charismatic churches’ and I haven’t heard one sermon, and certainly no consistent teaching, on ‘baptism into Christ Jesus’ and ‘baptism into His death’. Not one!

Isn’t that controversial?

As a taster of a fuller explanation, it appears that many theological colleges that prepare ministers and preachers for various denominations, especially Protestant colleges and seminaries, limit their understanding of the crucifixion of Christ to the ‘substitutionary’ nature of Christ’s sacrifice: He died for us and in our place.

That, of course, is wonderfully true. Hymns and songs are written in their thousands and sung with fire and passion to celebrate this truth:

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Saviour’s blood?
Died He for me who caused His pain
For me who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
That Thou my God should die for me?

Or…

Who brings our chaos back into order
Who makes the orphan a son and daughter
The King of Glory, the King of Glory

This is amazing grace
This is unfailing love
That You would take my place
That You would bear my cross
You lay down Your life
That I would be set free
Jesus, I sing for
All that You’ve done for me

This is Amazing Grace

But where are the sermons, where are the hymns and songs that are gripped with joy over the ‘inclusive’ sacrifice of Christ; that his sacrifice on the cross included us? If it is not taught in theological colleges, it’s therefore locked away in the New Testament like a well-preserved vintage wine. Maybe it’s time to pop the cork?

I think so.

I’ve heard many sermons on baptism explaining that it symbolises a believer’s conversion: leaving their old life behind, ‘dying to sin’ (v2), being buried under the water, like Jesus in the tomb, and then raised up to a new life in Christ as Jesus was resurrected.  But many limit themselves to verse 2 – and pick up on the phrase ‘died to sin’ – referring to the person’s decision to leave ‘sin’ behind and put their faith in Christ. Wonderful though that is, and important, this is not what Paul is referring to when he writes of being ‘baptised into Christ Jesus’.

It is not the act of water baptism that produces this spiritual transformation. Not even those who practice infant baptism say that by baptising a baby you ‘make them a Christian’. We don’t bury people to make them die! But when they have died, we must bury them! That’s the explosive message of the gospel! The good news! A new life, baptised into Christ Jesus!

To quote the first six verses of Romans chapter 6:

‘Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him’

To understand how we can have ‘died with Christ’, been ‘crucified with Christ’, when we haven’t even been born when He was crucified, we need to understand the biblical concept of being ‘in’ someone.

The bible speaks of Levi, being ‘in Abraham’ paying tithes to Melchizedek. Abraham had paid the king of Jerusalem, Melchizedek, a tenth of his wealth. Levi was Abraham’s great-grandson and not born when Abraham paid the money. But by being ‘in’ Abraham’s loins (Hebrews 7 v 10) from a biblical perspective he paid the tithes. The Israelites following Moses through the desert were ‘baptised into Moses in the cloud and the sea’ 1 Cor 10 v 1. We are born ‘in Adam’. The biblical understanding is one of inheritance. Once we are ‘in’ someone we inherit all that they are and all they have done. In ‘Adam’ therefore we inherit a sinful nature which explains why we fail to keep any commandments (not just the Ten, but any rules we would like to impose on others; at some point we will probably fail even these!)

But now, says Paul, we have been baptised into Christ and so we are ‘in Christ’. Once we see this and believe it and place our faith in it, we begin to find out just how true it is!

In technical language, this is the ‘inclusive’ sacrifice of Christ. God included you and me in the death of Christ. In His burial. And in His resurrection. When we understand this, our life is put on a completely new footing. No longer is the Christian life one of attempting to be more like Jesus, or even trusting the Holy Spirit to improve us steadily or sanctify us. Rather it is a huge relief, and we are left permanently in a state of utter thankfulness. As if often said about grace: ‘We don’t deserve it, and we didn’t earn it’. It is given freely. As Jesus said ‘freely have you received, freely give.’ That ‘old man’, that ‘in-Adam’ man has been crucified with Christ.

‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me’ Galatians 2 v 20

Or as Paul says elsewhere: ‘we are new creations in Christ Jesus, the old has gone, see, the new has come!’

The word baptism, as we have seen, means to plunge into, to make thoroughly wet with whatever an object is being baptised into. If it was a piece of cloth being baptised into a vat full of a particular dye, it would emerge soaked in that new colour. Someone has to baptise the cloth; it can’t baptise itself!

In water baptism, usually, there is one person, sometimes two, who baptises the person; so the question arises ‘who is it who baptises us into Christ Jesus?

It is God who baptises us into Christ Jesus.

‘It is of God that you are in Christ Jesus’  1 Cor 1 v 30

We become thoroughly soaked with Christ…that’s Christianity. Just as you cannot separate the dye from the cloth once the cloth has been dipped, baptizo, nor can you separate Christ from the new believer of the believer from Christ.

Water baptisms are a great occasion. We are symbolically burying someone who has died. But, true to form, we are also celebrating the resurrection in Christ of a person who knows they have died and raised as Paul puts it to ‘walk in newness of life’; Christ’s life penetrating every part of this new life, like the cloth dipped, or baptizo, baptised with a vivid new dye.

To finish, remember the man who was in the hotel and was baptised standing under a sudden storm on his hotel balcony? The longer version of this story of that he had been struggling with Christianity and had decided to read the New Testament, probably the hotel room Gideon bible, I can’t remember. Over the course of a few days, he began to understand and believe what he was reading. Then he read about baptism and realised he needed to be baptised.

In his case God did both baptisms; the one in water as he was drenched in the shower and spiritually.

Please click here to read Baptism - getting beyond the controversy Part III

Baptism – getting beyond the controversy Part I

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This is the first of a short series of posts on Baptism and how baptism in water relates to three other baptisms mentioned in the New Testament: baptism into Christ, baptism with the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit baptising us into the body of Christ, the church. 

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I want to write something about baptism. But, if possible, get beyond the controversy over the means of baptism (sprinkling or full immersion) or the timing of baptism (infant baptism or ‘believers’ baptism).

In the New Testament, the Greek word ‘baptizo’ is used for a range of contexts, not just water baptism. The purpose of this article is to explore the following three:

• Romans 6 Baptism into Christ Jesus

• Acts 1 Baptism in the Holy Spirit

• 1 Cor 12 Baptism by the Spirit into the body of Christ

I’ll divide the blog into four separate posts. These will be published over the coming weeks.

The first is a brief run-through of the historical background to water baptism, particularly in England. It will touch on the ‘church/chapel’ divide and the ‘non-conformist’ denominations that grew up in Europe and England in part over the controversy over infant baptism.

Then a brief look at what Jews in Israel, alive at the time of Jesus and the apostles, would have made of John the Baptist’s insistence on water baptism before tackling the above trio of passages from the New Testament. If you want to go straight to the last section, you can! I’ll mark each section with a sub-heading.

The next three will tackle the three types of baptism, as mentioned above.

Post One: The historical background

My childhood included a reasonable degree of connection with the local Anglican church. This connection with the CofE and Christianity wasn’t limited to attendance of Sunday Morning services; there were the daily school assemblies with scripture readings, hymns and prayers, Ascension Day service in another CofE church, Cubs, then Scouts, and carol services in Canterbury Cathedral.

One way or another I, along with many of my generation, were soaked in scripture, we knew the major bible characters, Adam and Eve, Moses, David, John the Baptist, Jesus, and the parables. But the connection was mostly surface deep; there was little or no discussion about ‘religion’ at home or at school and certainly no expectation to ‘believe’. What was on offer was more tradition than conviction; th church was there for life’s important milestones, ‘hatch, match, and despatch’ – and hatch meant infant baptism, or ‘Christening’. A good excuse for a family celebration, photos, presents, expensive suits and dresses are bought and, if you’re lucky, a good feast is attached. Life goes on.

Anyone who does not ‘conform’ to this pattern is still included and so, whatever their true beliefs; it is the willingness to go along with tradition that keeps the traditions alive. Many Vicars will baptise the infants of atheists and agnostics as much as the children of the more devout. It says something of the place of the CofE in the life of the nation – it is almost seen as part and parcel of their civic duty, a ‘service’, if you will, to anyone born in the Parish.

Baptism in the New Testament was anything but normal or uncontroversial. Nor was it confined to baptism in water. The term ‘baptism’ was a Greek word used around the Mediterranean for a number of contexts and its use in the New Testament is not restricted to water baptism.

‘Baptizo’, the Greek word for baptism, can have a range of everyday meanings such as sprinkling, dipping, or submerging, or immersion. It is used as the verb to immerse a cloth in a dye, or to wash away or cleanse, or, figuratively, be overwhelmed, or buried. John the Baptist and subsequently the writers of the New Testament, would not have thought of the word ‘baptizo’ as a word exclusively related to spiritual matters. It was a word in common use.

‘Baptizo’ : sprinkling, dipping, or submerging, or immersion

Unlike for us. In Britain and elsewhere, the word baptism is almost exclusively used in connection with either christening or as an initiation into a church. It can be used metaphorically, borrowing from biblical phraseology, for example the phrase ‘baptism of fire’ is used for someone of any age who is joining a team or a business that is known to be a challenging project, either due to controversy or great success.

Throughout church history, since the first century, there have been groups of Christians who have believed that the time to baptise an individual is after they have ‘come to faith’, or ‘believed’, or been ‘born again’, or ‘saved’, or ‘converted’ to Christ i.e. not at birth or shortly afterwards. Famous amongst those groups are the Baptists and Anabaptists who were persecuted and discriminated against for holding such subversive and non-conformist views. It seems odd to us in the 21st Century but until the Toleration Act in England in 1688, holding that view about baptism often resulted in imprisonment and execution. So it has a residual element of controversy to this day.

Churches such as Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, and Quakers are still referred to as ‘non-conformist’ churches and the divide between ‘church’ and ‘chapel’ persists even if the heat has diminished.

In this sense I am a non-conformist. My reading of the bible is that it is only those that had committed their lives to Christ that were baptised – you will not find an exception to this in the pages of the New Testament. An infant cannot be expected to make such a choice! The term ‘anabaptist’ means to re-baptise. Many who joined the anabaptists had previously been christened but were baptised once they had come to faith in Christ.

An often-quoted phrase that summarises the belief about baptism amongst many non-conformists is that baptism is an ‘outward sign of an inward spiritual reality’. Arguments will continue on whether those who are ‘christened’ in infant baptism, can take that baptism as sufficient once the spiritual reality has become their experience later in life. That is a personal decision.

This article is not about the controversy surrounding ‘infant baptism’ or ‘believers’ baptism, or the method of baptism: sprinkling, full immersion, in a river, the sea, and so on. This article is about the spiritual realities that are at the heart of the references in the New Testament with respect to baptizo, or baptism.

John the Baptist and after John

We know from the gospels that John the Baptist baptised many in the River Jordan. Jesus spoke of John’s baptism as a baptism of repentance:

‘The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.’   Luke 3 v 3

Not far from where John was baptised were communities of the ‘Essenes’, Jews who were looking for the kingdom of God to appear. To prepare spiritually for the coming of this new kingdom they baptised themselves daily.

John’s baptism, therefore, was similar in that the forgiveness of sins was not simply about being cleansed from personal guilt but, without forgiveness, they would remain in exile, outside the kingdom of God.

When Jesus’ disciples were baptised, the meaning of baptism had advanced, the kingdom of God had arrived in the person of Jesus the Messiah and so the people were now baptised in the Name of Jesus the Messiah (Messiah is the Aramaic word meaning Anointed One, in Greek: ‘Christ’).

Baptism, then, is a highly symbolic act. It represents a clear dividing line between the past and the future.

Later, after Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, we see how baptism had taken on new significance. An important insight is given in the opening verses of chapter 19 of Acts:

‘Paul…came to Ephesus and, finding some disciples, he said to them ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ They said to him, ‘We haven’t heard whether there is a Holy Spirit’. And Paul said to them ‘Into what then were you baptised?’ They said, ‘John’s baptism’. Paul then said, ‘John indeed baptised for repentance saying to the people they should believe on…Christ Jesus’. When they heard this they were baptised in the Name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.’

Today, if a Gentile wishes to become a Jew, he or she is baptised in a pool with a flow of water, like a river. The river flowing past takes away his or her old identity as a Gentile and he or she is raised out of the water as a member of Israel.

Baptism, then, is a highly symbolic act. It represents a clear dividing line between the past and the future.

In the following posts, which are about references in the New Testament using the word ‘baptizo’ but in a different context to water baptism, it is important to hold onto one thing: baptizo was a common Greek word meaning to plunge into or be submerged into or dipped under to be soaked by.

‘Full immersion’ is a good phrase that gets to the heart of the meaning of the word ‘baptizo’. ‘Sprinkling’ is OK but only in the sense of having a very long shower, so you are completely soaked. The very cursory sprinkling carried out by many priests in the CofE or Catholic Churches and others maybe is sufficient ‘symbolically’ but only if you know the true meaning of the word baptizo. Personally, I prefer a full immersion.

I’ve seen baptisms in church baptistries, in the sea, in large tubs in someone’s back garden. I know someone who was so keen to get baptised but was in a hotel in a non-christian country. He prayed and felt God say go and stand on his hotel balcony. It was a hot, arid country. He obeyed this inner ‘nudge’, went outside. A black cloud came overhead and he was deluged in a sudden storm. He took that to be his baptism!! The method is the least of our worries… it’s what baptism means that matters.

I hope you enjoy reading the next few posts.

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Please click here for Baptism – getting beyond the controversy Part II

Psalm 23 for the Invisible Ones

I am a film star
But no-one know
I have forgotten my own name

I am a doctor healing
And no-one saw
The coldness creep over my heart

I am the pastor preaching
Yet I am the one
In deepest need

I am the navigator
And no-one knows…
…I can’t see my way home

I am the one sheep
Alone in the herd
Needing to hear your voice
Just one word

My name

And peace, the quiet waters by
Restore my addled mind
River running
Cool. Calm. Clear. Deep.

The Number 4 Bus…or Unless a Seed revisited

From the perspective of the bus, the starting point was the bus station. So each of my morning journeys was really a journey to the start punctuated by various stops.

It’s a little like this for my Facebook and website blog posts. I’ve arrived at the start; the start being Jesus’ very short parable about the seed falling into the ground and dying. Short but it packs a punch.

‘The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a seed falls into the ground and dies it remains alone. But if it dies it produces much fruit.’ John 12 v23-25

The crowds had just greeted Jesus as he made his way on a donkey into Jerusalem ‘Hosannah! The Son of David! The king of Israel!’ was shouted from the onlookers as they cut down the palm branches and their coats for the donkey to walkover. Palm Sunday. Glory, the coup d’état to remove the Romans, coronation…all seemed possible…Israel, at last, redeemed, the Messiah the Son of David is here!

Jesus agrees ‘The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’ but the route to true glory was, he knew, via crucifixion and death. But he understood that death as the necessary prelude to glory.

Seeds are alive

Seeds are alive. A small part of the seed is alive. Most of it is a food store, but just a few cells are respiring slowly. That’s why Jesus said a seed ‘has to die’. Imagine an apple ‘pip’ or seed falling into the ground. As it germinates and grows a small root and shoot and the first leaves, it uses up its food store…the seed has died. What is growing now is not the seed. The seed has done its job and has died. The same life but in a different form is growing. Eventually, a tree is formed, branches, blossom in the summer and fruit…hundreds maybe of apples. Inside of which are 6 seeds. Just like the original. Containing the same life. The original seed has reproduced its own life in countless other seeds inside the fruit. That is Christianity.

Into the grave went the Messiah. The one seed. ‘Messiah’ means the Anointed One. In the OT Kings, Priests, and Prophets were anointed by the Spirit of God. Jesus was all three. The Son of David, the true High Priest, and a Prophet speaking the word of God.

Each believer in Christ is one of those new seeds. The whole plant is the resurrected Christ but ‘in Him’ are all the believers. We are ‘in Christ’ and Christ is in us. In fact, the NT goes further than this. Consider each of the apple seeds. Their life IS the life of the original seed. There is no life independent of the original seed or the rest of the tree. Their life is produced and sustained entirely as a result of the one seed going into the ground and dying.

Half a Zebra

How not to measure sanctification

I have three friends who are physicists. In my experience, these Guardians of the Universe treat us lesser mortals with equal measures of pity and patience. When answering any question, glasses are removed and polished languidly, before replacing them, having considered how to explain to a mere mortal the intricacies of The Standard Model as the basic kit needed to peel away the scales from my eyes.

You may know the drill?

Shocking news then this week that the Standard Model which has proven to be an excellent theoretical basis for, well, everything…may not be as perfect as once assumed. The W Boson, apparently, is heavier than predicted by the Standard Model and this has left Physicists scratching their collective heads.

Shocking news also for evangelical theologians as their Standard Model may need to progress to 3.0 from 2.0

In Science, theories and Standard Models are as good as they are until a result comes its way that requires the theory to be modified or rejected. History tells us that pioneers of the former theory fight tooth and nail before yielding to the greater wisdom of a new theory. A classic example is the Newtonian Theory of Universal Gravity yielding its pre-eminence to the warping of the space and time care of Albert Einstein in his superior theory of General Relativity.

Is this the case in theology? By ‘theology’ I mean, in essence, correct biblical understanding of the scriptures, or doctrine, if you will.

My thesis on the Standard Gospel Models

Standard Gospel Models 1.0 and 2.0 are fundamentally flawed. The evidence for this is that 1.0 and 2.0 fail to explain the NT position on sanctification and glory. As 1.0 had to yield to 2.0 so 2.0 will yield to 3.0.

NB the original apostles who wrote the NT understood, taught and experienced all of the material they wrote. Much of that early teaching was diluted and forgotten as church traditions grew. Since the Reformation we have been in a ‘recovery’ mode of rediscovery; 1.0; 2.0; and 3.0 are all necessary stages on that recovery road.

Standard Model 1.0 Evangelical (from 1520 to 1900)

Romans 1-5 the remaining chapters are outliers e.g. confusion over Romans 6 and 7 and straight contradiction of Rom 8 v 28 – 30.

In summary:  salvation from sin and the gift of eternal life, the gift of righteousness, salvation by grace not by works, sola fide, and justification by faith.

The Reformation theologians re-discovered much of 1.0.

Standard Model 2.0 Pentecostal/Charismatic (1900 to…)

As above but in addition the rediscovery of Jesus not only as Saviour and Lord but as Baptizer in the Holy Spirit and a re-awakening to the work of the Holy Spirit in and through each believer e.g. the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit.

Charles Fox Parnham was the early 2.0 pioneer  Charles Fox Parham (1873-1929) (revival-library.org)

Standard Model 3.0 Nicknames take a while to land…

Before we look into 3.0 there is an important point to face.

Luther and others who defied Rome and called for a Reformation and rediscovered what was always there in the Scriptures were shunned, opposed, persecuted, and worse. European history is a sorry tale of Reformation and Counter-Reformation, of opposing politico-religious forces, with consequent wars, theological tussles, and wrestling matches. It was costly moving into 1.0.

Equally the early Pentecostals who experienced the baptism of the Spirit were often rejected by evangelical churches and forced to form their own churches, the Pentecostal churches. Many mainstream denominational churches in the 1970s embraced baptism in the Spirit as part of their NT doctrine, taught it, becoming the charismatic churches we see across the UK and the world – whatever the denominational label on the side of the building.

But still, in 2.0, sanctification and glory are ‘outliers’, Romans 6 & 7 are not integrated into the theology and Romans 8 v 28-30 is routinely contradicted. They stick out like wrong-shaped jigsaw pieces.

Standard Model 3.0 attempts to incorporate Romans 6 & 7 and Romans 8v28-30 and gets to grips with what it means to be ‘in Christ’.

Billy Graham preached the 1.0 version of the gospel, as had Luther, Calvin, John Wesley, George Whitfield, and countless others before him. Those converted under those ministries speak of being ‘born again’ or of ‘being saved’ or of the assurance they have of their salvation from the ‘witness of the Spirit’. They would be encouraged to be part of a church, pray and read their bibles as the word of God and be willing to share the gospel with others. It is estimated that over 3 million individuals came to faith in Christ through Billy Graham’s ministry alone. I have met many in the UK converted through his preaching.

From 1967 until 2019 another evangelist, the German Reinhart Bonkke, trained in Swansea Bible College before preaching mainly in Africa. It is estimated that over 70 million came to faith in Christ through his ministry. He preached the 2.0 gospel like Charles Fox Parnham and William Joseph Seymour at Azusa Street in Los Angeles in 1904 had before him. In many other continents since the 1960s and 1970s many ‘evangelical’ 1.0 version preachers and ordinary believers experienced the baptism in the Spirit and saw miracles. Churches were transformed and the greatest growth in the church worldwide has come from the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches. In all the major cities and many towns across the UK, you will find at least one if not many churches that preach 2.0 and have done for at least a generation.

My contention, and the contention of many others, though is that the biblical basis for 2.0 is restricted to Romans 1-5 + baptism in the Spirit. Hopefully, I can give a clear explanation of the differences between 1.0 and 2.0, and 3.0.

Under 1.0 and 2.0 salvation is understood as Justification by faith followed by a lifetime process of sanctification and then resurrection and glory. Inherent in this understanding of the gospel, sanctification is seen as a gradual transformation of the individual into the likeness of Christ.

By the end of Romans 5 Paul has taught us that the crucifixion of Christ was ‘substitutionary’. I was the sinner that deserved to be punished but Jesus, in dying willingly on the cross, stood in my place and took the punishment I deserved. A typical illustration used is of a thief awaiting sentence in court. But the judge acquits the criminal: ‘Acquitted. Fine paid.’ The guilty man looks at the judge in astonishment. The judge himself had paid the fine and the criminal is free to go.

The great problem with this illustration is that, although the debt had been paid, the nature of the thief has not fundamentally changed. He is still the same man that leaves the court. Whether he commits another crime or lives an exemplary life from that point on is not the point; he is still the same man. In more biblical terminology: his sins have been forgiven but the sinner remains. He may even use the phrase to describe himself as a ‘sinner saved by grace’ – this is a distortion of the gospel.

In Romans chapter 5 Paul begins to use the language to describe the whole of humanity as either ‘in Adam’ or ‘in Christ’ to show that, in the crucifixion of Christ, God not only dealt with our sins but sin itself and, therefore, the sinner. For example, v19: ‘For as by one man’s disobedience (referring to Adam) many were made sinners, so also through one man’s obedience (referring to Christ) many will be made righteous’.

How this has occurred is explained in the following chapter, chapter 6.

‘Do you not know that as many of us were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death…knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him…’ v3-6

Paul is showing us that Christ’s death was not only ‘substitutionary’ but ‘inclusive’. That the old ‘in-Adam-sinner’ died, was crucifed with Christ and the new ‘in-Christ’ person has come to life.

Our salvation, then, is not just that our sins have been forgiven (that is wonderful of course) but that the sinner has been dealt with in the crucifixion. This is consistent with verses elsewhere in the NT:

1 Cor 1 v 30 ‘But of Him you are in Christ Jesus who has become for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’

‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold all things have become new’ 2 Cor 5 v17

‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ, who lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me’  Gal 2v20

‘For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life…’ Col 3 v 3,4

Once we ‘see’ this it changes our starting point as believers. We are brand new in Christ. The future then is a process of growth and maturity, not self-improvement. We have been sanctified by God setting us apart in Christ. Sanctification/holiness and saints are all equivalent Greek words. 1 Corinthians – a letter written in part to address serious moral failings in the church in Corinth – affirms that the believers are saints i.e. are holy, are sanctified. That isn’t in doubt:

‘To the church…to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints…’ 1 Cor 1v2

NB translators who are from 1.0 and 2.0 contradict Paul’s statement and insert ‘…called to be saints…’ but this is not in the Greek text. If you belong to 1.0 or 2.0 then clearly in Corinth the problem was a lack of sanctification. But in 3.0 sanctification is the starting point. We are saints, not, of course, by virtue of our innate goodness or moral superiority, but because we have been made new in Christ. The problem, as Paul argues in 1 Cor 3, was of immaturity, of living by the flesh, and imitating ‘mere men’ i.e. old-in-Adam men not by the Spirit.

‘I could not speak to you as spiritual people but as carnal as babies in Christ…you are still carnal…and are behaving like mere men’ 1 Cor 3v1-4

This is why the NT describes the Christian life as one of moving from glory to glory not Adam to Christ; our starting point is Christ as is our end:

‘But we all…are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory’ 2 Cor 3 v 18

In 1.0 and 2.0 this is simply re-interpreted as ‘from our old man progressively into the new man’…a self-improvement programme run by the Spirit. But this verse shows us that in the first instant of time after placing our faith in Christ we have been glorified and are set then to grow in that glory…because the glory is in Christ.

In 3.0 Romans 8 v 28-30 works smoothly.

‘’…whom he called, these he also justified; and whom he justified he also glorified.’

Paul’s use of the past-tense for ‘glorified’ doesn’t fit with 1.0 and 2.0 and appears to be the wrong-shaped jigsaw piece. Consequently, commentaries written by 1.0 and 2.0 believers routinely contradict and re-work Paul’s use of the past tense:

FF Bruce

Sanctification is glory begun, glory is sanctification is glory completed. Paul looks forward to the completion of the work.

Thomas R. Schreiner

The glorification posited here does not start in this life

Douglas Moo

While not experienced yet the divine decision to glorify those who have been justified has already been made

Ellicott

Glorified: strictly, the glorifying of the Christian awaits him in the future, but the Apostle regards all these different acts as focused together as it were on a single point in the past.

Matthew Poole

Some, under this term of glorification, would have sanctification included; because, otherwise, they think there is a great defect in this chain of salvation.

Cambridge Bible School

Glorified: a past tense used, with wonderful power, of a thing future.

None agree with Paul that glorification, as well as sanctification and justification, are all wrapped up and describe the salvation we enter by faith. They cannot agree because their Romans 1-5 faith is limited to the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Once the cross is seen as inclusive as well as substitutionary Paul’s use of the past tense makes sense and is logical.

We move, as the apostle wrote, from glory to glory.

Paul’s prayer in Ephesians ‘to Him be glory in the church in all generations’ Eph 3v21 is within the remit of the gospel not a fanatical hope and cannot be postponed to the end of the age if the glory is to be in the church in every generation.

Final Comments

1.0 and 2.0 Christians believe in half a zebra.

If you are in 1.0 or 2.0 you believe and hope that there will be a little less of me and a little more of Jesus as time progresses, mirroring John the Baptist’s words ‘I must decrease; He must increase.

But, as we have seen, according to the New Testament, you have been crucified. You cannot decrease!

You cannot measure sanctification on a supposed scale of holiness, in holy Zebras, or any other unit of holiness, there is no scale.

‘Of Him, you are in Christ Jesus who has become for us our…sanctification…(so)…glory in the Lord’’ 1 Cor 1v30

The Normal Christian Church Life – Watchman Nee

I first read The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee in 1977. It was only a few months ago, though, that a friend, Chris Welch, mentioned he had also written The Normal Christian Church.

What you’ll find below are some key quotations from the book and a few personal comments where relevant.

Some context:

Have you noticed during the Pandemic that many preachers are crackling with static electricity, presenting a range of prophetic indicators about the future of the church on the basis that the pandemic has afforded us an opportunity for a re-set, a pause, a time-out, and a re-think. This, of course, is mirrored in the world: the name of the 50th World Economic Forum in 2020 was ‘The Great Reset’.

If you’re familiar with Naomi Klein’s book ‘Shock Doctrine, you’ll see how Milton Friedman free-marketeers are similarly disposed to respond to disasters, such as the Boxing Day Tsunami 2004, taking the opportunity of destruction to reconstruct economies in a way that suits their purposes.

In the mid-1970s when I, a poorly informed agnostic, was considering Christianity seriously, there was much discussion of Jesus’ parable of ‘new wine and new wineskins’ and looking at the early church, as recorded in Acts, for inspiration as new churches were forming. In other words, whilst the experience of the baptism in the Spirit was sweeping the parts of the church that were thirsty, they turned to scripture for guidance.

Watchman Nee’s Normal Christian Life, a series of lectures on Romans, and The Normal Christian Church, a series of instructions to his co-workers, do the same; open to God but looking to scripture for inspiration.

In this exercise, I am like a small boy throwing stones into a pond. Each of these quotes is one of those stones. You’ll see by my occasional comments that I’m not saying he is ‘right’ but I do feel as if his thoughts, written in 1939, are worth a fresh airing.  

One final comment before the ‘off’: if you haven’t read The Normal Christian Life…I thoroughly recommend it.

Quotes from The Normal Christian Life

Quote #1

“If we belong to any human organisation, then divine headship ceases to be expressed in our work”

This will be a recurrent theme, that once a group has human leadership in place to execute a purpose, the persons employed in that purpose obey the human leader. This is not how the church should be.

Quote #2

“A stationary apostle is a contradiction in terms”

By apostle Nee is not referring to just the 11 originals. One more apostle was selected from among Jesus’ disciples after Judas departed. Then Paul and Barnabas were appointed apostles and sent out from the church in Antioch. Nee takes the view that the Spirit sends out certain members of churches as apostles to break new ground. But once new converts are formed into a church the apostles appointed elders to govern the church and they moved on.

Quote #3

“One of the reasons why so many present-day converts are not filled with the Spirit is that the apostles  settle down to shepherd them and take upon themselves the responsibility that belongs to the Holy Spirit”

Quote #4

“The present pastoral system is quite unscriptural; it is an invention of man. In scripture…there was always more than one elder…in a local church”

By ‘present pastoral system he is referring to churches that have one leader e.g. a Vicar, a Priest, a Minister, a Pastor, a Leader

Quote #5

“The failure of Protestantism is that it has substituted organised churches for the Church of Rome instead of returning to the divinely ordained local churches”

Whilst this is historically accurate for several groups it is worth noting that since the very beginnings of the church in the First Century there have been groups that have rejected any ‘organisation’. They have often found themselves at the butt end of rifles, persecuted non-conformists that defy the authority of organised churches. EH Broadbent’s excellent book The Pilgrim Church researches many of these groups.

Quote #6

“In…divinely constituted companies…authority is spiritual, not official”

To do justice to this quote I would have to quote a few paragraphs but this is the essence of his argument. Like the opening quote, in a human organisation authority comes from rank whereas in a church, if it is divinely constituted, it is run by the Head of the church just like our heads coordinate what our bodies do. And Christ is the Head of any local church and His will is made known by the Holy Spirit. It is an entirely different modus operandi.

Quote #7

“The trouble today is that men are taking the place of the Holy Spirit…workers have no direct knowledge of the divine will, but simply do the will of those in authority over them”

Quote #8

“A good organisation of men serves often serves as a bad substitute for the power of the Holy Spirit, by holding itself together even after all its vitality has gone”

Quote #9

“Central control has many evils. It makes it easy for God’s servants to disregard the leading of the Spirit and readily develops into a popish system”

I don’t want to diminish the size of that stone as it lands in the pond. That’s more rock than stone perhaps?

Quote #10

“In not a single scriptural church do we find mention of a “minister” controlling its affairs; such a position is always occupied by a group of local elders”

By ‘scriptural’ he is referring to the various churches recorded in the New Testament

Quote #11

“In God’s word there are local elders, but no local apostles”

The word ‘apostle’ is Greek for ‘one sent out’. The Greek words that have often been translated elder are otherwise translated as overseer or bishop. The term bishop tends not to be used in non-conformist denominations in the UK that have distanced themselves from the Church of England. The CofE and other more hierarchically organised churches tend to reserve the use of the word Bishop for those that oversee a number of Priests or Vicars in local congregations.

A few personal reflections

I was brought up in a family that attended the local CofE church, so my introduction to church included a model of leadership of a one-man leader, the Vicar, who was paid a salary. The next church I attended was a Baptist Church led by a Minister, paid for by the church. He was an excellent bible teacher and introduced an eldership, but he was still the paid Minister. After, during my University years, I was in a ‘charismatic church’ with a group of elders one of which was the lead elder. I don’t know if he received any income from the church. Then a church that originally had an eldership none of whom were paid by the church. That has evolved into a church that employs several workers and, in certain circumstances, pay their congregational leaders. I supported this trend. I’m reviewing that now in the light of scripture.

NB At first sight you might think that Watchman Nee is simply pushing the ‘Brethren’ or even the ‘Quaker’ view of church. Not really. They may mimic certain structural ‘church government’ thoughts but the essential mix Nee is looking for in the church, to make it truly scriptural, is that the eldership is not only formed around leaders of good character but they must be baptized in the Spirit and led by the Spirit, exercising gifts of the Spirit, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit, and recognising that the same Spirit is at work in each member of the church; hence Paul’s description of typical church services in 1 Cor 14 with the underlying theology of gifts and fruit in 1Cor 12 and 13. You can have a Brethren Assembly with an eldership as dead as a Dodo and an Anglican one-man ministry who is leading his congregation into the fullness of the Spirit. Take your pick!

I have benefited immensely from each church I’ve been a member of. But this exercise is a meditation on scripture. A meditation in the Spirit, not just an academic exercise, treating the NT as a manual, like a Haynes Manual (just to show my age!).

I lob these quotes out there for your reflection.

Melancholy – a prelude

Above ground we are all Mariupol
Tulips remaining in bud
Nervous to unfold vivid colours of Spring
Clinging to the past
In hope of what?

Above ground a million Covid masks
Squelched into the mud
Trailing from bins
Forgotten in jacket pockets:
Yesterday’s news

Today’s news, a jumble of images
A glossary of sadness:
Oligarchy, Donbas, Slava Ukraini,
Thermobaric bombs
An A-Z, or just unjust Z.

Below ground. How are you?
It’s in the winter that spring is planned
That invisible quiet hinterland
Of the human heart
Where the seeds of heaven fall

Where melancholy gives way
Where winter loosens its grip
Where…those that go out in tears
Bearing seeds for harvest
Will come home rejoicing.