1.
The True Witness
Our
being and action as sinners is exposed without exception by Jesus Christ. Our
sinful falsehood in particular is exposed by Jesus Christ as the one true
witness to God’s justifying and sanctifying grace. Sin as falsehood is the
absurd obstacle we place between ourselves and the prophetic work of Jesus
Christ as the one Mediator between God and us. Sin as falsehood is the darkness
we oppose to the light of Christ and in which we attempt to conceal ourselves
from God, from others, and most of all from ourselves. Falsehood includes all our
efforts to conceal our pride and sloth but is not exhausted by them. It is our
own false word by which we oppose God’s Word. Jesus Christ justified us,
sanctified us, and reveals that reconciliation to us through his Word. In
ridiculous imitation, the devil attempts to falsify these in pride and sloth
and to cover over that falsification with lies.
Jesus
Christ comes to us as the true witness because free God and free man meet in
him alone. This twofold freedom and relationship constitute the “pure form” in
which Jesus Christ exists. But Jesus Christ does not directly reveal himself,
and we do not directly know him, in this pure form. Instead, he meets us and
speaks with us in the form of one who suffers.
This
is appropriate for three reasons. First, his life consisted concretely in
suffering, being crucified, dying, and being buried. So he rightly reveals
himself to us as God’s suffering servant. This Word of the cross, however, is
what strikes Greeks as foolishness, Jews as a stumbling block, and therefore
exposes the falsehood in all of us. Second, Jesus Christ reveals himself, and
we only know him, in the alien form of suffering servant because the world in
which he works and we live is still moving forward from his resurrection to his
definitive return. Even as he continues to shine more brightly as the light of
life, the resistance of the darkness grows more desperately intense. Finally,
because we ourselves remain sinners even as Christians, and therefore corrupt,
miserable, and condemned, Jesus Christ continues his prophetic work among us in
his pure form hidden beneath all our suffering which he has taken upon himself.
Just
as Jesus Christ is wholly divine and wholly human, without separation or
confusion, so too Jesus Christ is both revealed sufferer and concealed victor,
the Crucified One who reigns at God’s right hand, the slain lamb who is priest
forever. It is because he is this alone that he alone speaks to us the Word of
God as the one true witness to God. Only the words of Christ crucified are the
Word of God because only his words break the silence of death. Only his words
have this miraculous form. Second, his words are God’s Word because he alone
can and does speak of God’s act of reconciliation accomplished in his death.
But Jesus Christ not only speaks God’s Word about God’s work. He speaks God’s
Word about God himself because, in his death on the cross, Jesus Christ
actually revealed God’s very own nature as the one who loves freedom. Only the
words of Christ crucified have this miraculous content as well. Finally, only
Christ crucified can and does speak the truth that God himself was not an aloof
spectator of his death but suffered with him as the Father with the Son in the
unity of the Holy Spirit.
We
humans find it extremely difficult to have anything to do with a God whose
truth is a crucified Christ. But this is the one form in which God has chosen
to reveal himself to us. So if we are ready to hear from God about God, and to
be disciplined by his instruction, we must abandon all notions of finding God
through some lofty flight. Christ crucified tells us we will find God at the
point of our greatest need.
2.
The Falsehood of Man
Motivated
by fear and incapable of victory, falsehood is our movement to evade an
encounter initiated by Jesus Christ. Our most artful dodging of truth is done
by using as much of it as possible, even becoming its champion, thereby
asserting mastery over it rather than subordinating ourselves to service of it.
Consequently we must expect to encounter falsehood in a Christian form, and
where we find a particularly weighty Christianity we will doubtlessly encounter
it. Worse, because falsehood makes as much use as possible of truth, falsehood
will also take on much of truth’s radiance.
Only
Jesus Christ exposes falsehood without fail. And always Jesus Christ
distinguishes himself from all falsehood. We too may be freed to distinguish
between truth and falsehood by listening to Christ’s voice and obeying his
Word.
When
Jesus Christ encounters us, of what are we afraid? Why do we attempt to counter
his truth with our falsehood? It is because we loathe the identity of Jesus
Christ and the truth. This identity means we cannot know the truth without
being confronted personally by Jesus Christ and so embroiled in an inescapable
and profound relationship over which we have no control. Falsehood is our
attempt to remain in control by severing this identity between the truth and
Jesus Christ.
What
makes this identity particularly repugnant is that it binds the truth to Christ
crucified. To obey it is to recognize him alone as savior of the world and to
involve ourselves in suffering we could otherwise easily avoid. In our
falsehood we pretend that the truth of reconciliation depends upon our own
heroic efforts to establish peace and social justice or that we may know the
truth without any suffering at all.
This
identity of the truth with the one true witness also means that when the Word
of truth comes to us, it comes with the irresistible power of the Holy Spirit.
God’s gracious command summons our grateful obedience. We cannot imagine the
occurrence of such graciousness nor admit the need for such gratitude. The
inequality of our relationship with God offends our democratic sensibilities.
So we flatten the distinction between Jesus Christ and other people and regard
his truth as generally accessible to all with or without him.
God
freely loves us and in doing so frees us to love him, to be free for him, to
freely obey him, in response. But we would rather remain in control of our
relationship with him. We would rather remain “free to choose” between
obedience and disobedience. So we employ falsehood. This enables us to imagine
God as an impersonal if supreme being and ourselves as imperfect but
sufficiently good people in matters moral and religious.
With
regard to common lies, if we prefer our own falsehood to the truth of Christ,
we will certainly prefer our own imagination and convenience to accuracy.
3.
The Condemnation of Man
As
the true witness, Jesus Christ tells us that in him we died as sinners and
became children of God liberated for God. What we foolishly attempt to do
through falsehood is to change this divine pardon into the divine condemnation
we otherwise deserve. Falsehood is our attempt to deny God’s free grace and to
reject our free gratitude in response. Falsehood is our attempt to deny any
need for the mediation of Jesus Christ. But in our assertion of this falsehood,
we live as the sinners God put to death in Jesus Christ. In living the lie, we
live as those ultimately rejected by God at the cross. We doom ourselves to
lives of self-destruction which can end logically only in eternal death.
But
despite the fact that we give form to falsehood, the truth remains true.
Moreover, Jesus Christ as the truth continues his irresistible attack against
falsehood. He continues to spoil even our most prodigious illusions. As God’s
grace, he keeps awakening us from our nightmares. Consequently he continues to
limit both our falsehood and the self-destruction we suffer in pursuing it.
So
the question is, will God’s limitation of our falsehood finally save even us
comatose Christians from the eternal death which now threatens us? First, if
God did save us, it would be pure grace. To count on it would be to deny the
evil of our current attempt to deny the grace of God already hounding us. Even
so, we cannot deny the possibility that the grace of God revealed in Jesus
Christ might include the salvation of all people from damnation for eternal
life. The limits placed even now by truth on our falsehood and
self-destructiveness point in this direction. Let us hope and pray that in the
end God’s love prevails.
Copyright © 2019
by Steven Farsaci.
All rights
reserved. Fair use encouraged.