Ex Nihilo

Only God is from everlasting to everlasting.

Consequently everything else has an origin.  God is that origin.

Everything, contrary to immediate instinct, does not therefore come from something.  Everything comes from nothing [ex nihilo].

Everything must necessarily come from nothing.  This is deep observation, that there was a First Cause that, well, wasn't.  Faith believes that Everything comes from nothing by the work of Someone.  The First Cause is God.

On Sunday evening I was explaining the way that this apparently philosophical truth is profound in understanding how God can do the impossible.  More than that - there is no real difference (I didn't venture to say this in a sermon though) - between what we call possible and the apparent impossible.

We define the possible by reference, for example, to a baby coming from a sperm and an egg.  The virgin birth therefore seems impossible.  Or we consider a dead body to be past life (more inevitable than merely possible).  Resurrection on the other hand is impossible.

But if all life - my life, your life - derives ultimately from nothing and if Someone has made that so? Well, then there can be no impossibilities for that Someone.  The things I think are possibilities are but the outer reaches of one great ex nihilo Impossibility.  In Him we live and move and have our being.

Charles Simeon, the great Cambridge divine, was wise enough to take this great truth and apply it to the most desperate pastoral moment of anyone's life. On his deathbed he informed his visitors:

"I find infinite consolation in the fact that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Why, if he can bring all the wonder of the worlds out of nothing, He may yet make something out of me!"

Denominated

Maybe it's because the first five letters are an obvious anagram of demon.  Whatever.  Denomination is a very unpopular word, especially among English Baptists.  It's the last thing we want to be called.

This is poignant as at this time at least a few earnest English Baptists furiously (sometimes literally) debate the future of our denomination, er sorry - family, whoops - movement (or should that be stream?).  This debate might have been triggered by a fresh reading of the New Testament, by a desire to root out heresy or by an urgent sense of the need for more of the kingdom in the churches or the world but, it must be admitted, it actually owes its origin to the state of the economy.  Less money means prioritising and pruning.  Mind, like the New Testament those financial difficulties do have a Greek context I suppose . . .  Anyway, the one denominated weekend of the year comes up in a few days with the Baptist Assembly.

So I thought about denomination (I'll freely admit to disliking the word myself).

I can't think of any everyday place where the word is used except the one in which I worked for the first six years of my working life - a bank.  Strange to relate, although the word was part of the daily story at the bank nobody (unlike the Baptists) regarded it as a bad word.  And still nobody does, as far as I know.

Why is the denominated £10.00 an alright thing - even a good thing when you have five of them instead of a £50.00 note as a rule - but being a Baptist or a Presbyterian is a bad thing?  "I'm not really a £10.00 note, I'm money" is somehow true but also, well, silly.  "I'm not a Presbyterian, I'm a Christian" seems so, well, saintly.

The history of Christianity is littered with the proven futilities of denominations that think they are the only note in the wallet, that imprinted with the Spirit, the Pope, the Bible translation, the baptismal formula, day of worship, the liturgical words or the fastest growing this that or the other they are the £10.00 that all money should be.  All the while forgetting that only the signature of the One Who Gives Them Value gives them value.  He doesn't seem to mind denominations but they cannot self-validate.  The £10.00 note accepts there are other notes that are money but unashamedly does what it can do, which is not unique or even indispensable but as valuable pound for pound as that of its fellow denominations.

This is my slight alarm about English Baptists.  I am not sure that we are that bothered about the Signatory. He may well have an interest in pacifism, human diversity, interfaith dialogue or community justice but his signature is really for purchasing salvation. 

As the (Presbyterian) woman pictured on the denominated note above once wrote, Good is good, but it is not enough; it must be God.

Looking for Less

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!" In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.' " In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him. [Matthew 27:39-40]

The onlookers were looking for a lesser salvation.

There is deep irony in the way the gospel writers record these insults. Many of the phrases are accidentally right, in the manner of Caiaphas the High Priest: it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish. [John 11:50]

In the end the salvation they looked for - Jesus saving himself - was both possible and impossible. Such a salvation would have been an onlooker's salvation, what was required was a sacrifice. Jesus' love is greater than they can imagine.

The onlookers were looking for a lesser miracle.

A deeper irony still is that the miracle of leaving the cross would have been as nothing compared to the miracle of Christ's resurrection. Jesus' power is greater than they can imagine.

The onlookers were looking for a lesser king.

There is a crowd around the cross. He may be regarded as King of Israel if he comes down. But by his dying on the cross he establishes a very much greater kingdom that reaches across every boundary. (Revelation 7:9-17 - a crowd that no-one could count) Jesus' kingship is wider than they can imagine.