Sunday News 22 June 2025

A view from the other side.

Keeping it topical – I read this morning that Israelis were ‘stunned’ by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s description of a ‘personal cost’ of war to his family – that his son’s wedding has been postponed now for the second time. Disclaimer – I read it in the Guardian. My phone’s automatic news feed throws up articles from all sources and I find the Guardian dependable if rather far left and encumbered with so-called enlightened current opinion – but generally not outright divorced from factual information as many other sources appear to be. But the article brought to mind a theme in my current meditations on life and the scriptures, that context can be of critical importance.

For a wedding to be repeatedly postponed – doubtless that is a personal cost, and could be a significant issue causing upset in family life, which is important. But in the context of two wars (Gaza and now Iran) the current period of which began with the violation, abduction and murder of hundreds, and now thousands have died, buried in rubble, and hostages have been held captive now more than 8 months in unknown conditions – in this context the description of the postponement of a wedding as a personal cost, which might otherwise have evoked sympathy, has instead been met in places, reportedly, with anger and derision.

An extension of last week’s article in which I discussed ‘perspective’ as the lens through which we receive light, in true or distorted form, is whether we are sensitive to the perspective of others.

Darkness, which distorts our perspective, is selfish. This is seen at the entry of darkness into the human perspective, with Adam and Eve, who both chose ways they knew were not good, but for supposed personal gain. Whereas God who is love, and in whom is no darkness, is entirely unselfish and full of empathy.

‘Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked..’ (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)

‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ (John 15:13)

To live in the light is to live with an awareness of others – their needs, desires, and views. To see from the perspective of others. And the one whose perspective we should be most aware of, is God.

‘Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap:’. (Malachi 3:1-2)

I am concerned that in the Church of today our vision of God may be constrained by what seems right and reasonable from our own, worldly perspective. Because when we read of those in the Bible who encountered God directly, they either fell on their faces and expected to die, or else failed to recognize him at all when presented only with his character, chiefly in the person of Jesus, and not his visible glory.

We pray for ‘revival’ – yet does what we seek reflect even what we know of ‘revivals’ that have been, let alone what may be in revivals to come? Can we ‘abide the day of his coming’ as the scripture above puts it? Or do we envisage rather some kind of great, godly dance party, with all kinds of healings and wonderful signs? And praise the Lord if that is to be!

But are we prepared for the type of painful realisation that causes men to fall weeping in repentance before God as is reported from revivals past? And the wrenching transformation of life – and yes, the freedom – that comes from such a revelation?

The freedom from self that God gives follows a death of our worldly self that is our burden.

Jesus tells the story of two men who went to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a publican:

‘The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’ (Luke 18:11-14)

I wonder how many of us, if we should find a fellow believer alone at some time in a church building, weeping and ‘beating his breast’, agonized over his sin, would commend such a brother for his sincere faith? Would we not be inclined to gently remind him that ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’? Perhaps avoiding the remainder of that scripture, ‘who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’, so as to make sure we don’t encourage any more negative scrutiny of self.

But to whom was Jesus mainly giving this teaching about the two men praying? To those of his day who lived under the law, which within a few short months he would forever, finally fulfil, so that it would never again form the basis of the covenant except by faith in him? Or was he speaking to us of the Church age, who for thousands of years have received this teaching?

To us.

The man ‘beating his breast’ in the temple is an example for us. An example for believers of the New Testament Church.

Again, the Pharisee in Jesus’ story viewed himself in his own mirror, by his own standards; the publican by the light of our holy God, before whom all fall woefully short of his glory.

Job described his personal encounter with God as follows:

‘I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.’ (Job 42:5-6)

Job is remembered as the most godly soul of his generation in all the earth. And when he made the statement above, his soul had been further humbled by immense suffering to the point that he gave up on his earthly life completely (yet hoped for the life to come). Yet he was entirely unprepared for the revelation of the God whom he had served his whole life with reverence and devotion.

Ezekiel, seeing the vision of God described in Ezekiel 1, ‘fell upon his face’.

Isaiah, seeing also a vision of heaven and of God, said, ‘Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.’ (Isaiah 6:5)

Speaking of the encounter of the nation of Israel with God at Mount Horeb, Moses said:

‘And it came to pass, when ye heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, (for the mountain did burn with fire,) that ye came near unto me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders; And ye said, Behold, the LORD our God hath shewed us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, and he liveth. Now therefore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us: if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any more, then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? Go thou near, and hear all that the LORD our God shall say: and speak thou unto us all that the LORD our God shall speak unto thee; and we will hear it, and do it.

And the LORD heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and the LORD said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken. O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! Go say to them, Get you into your tents again. But as for thee, stand thou here by me..’ (Deuteronomy 5:23-31)

And if it might be said, that is only the God of the Old Testament…

‘And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?’ (Revelation 6:15-17)

This is the true context of our lives, that we stand before one whose holiness and glory is our complete undoing, but for his infinite mercy and grace given to us. Truly, we walk in a darkened world, and we see but dimly at the best of times.

But what of the generation who saw Jesus face to face, as one of us?

Jesus, as he appeared, showed the perfect love and righteousness of God, but without any of the decoration appropriate to one of such glory. One in whom ‘dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily’. (Colossians 2:9)

We read that Jesus’ own brothers after the flesh (though in truth Jesus’ flesh was from heaven) gave him advice, saying:

‘Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world. For neither did his brethren believe in him.’ (John 7:3-5)

Those were the bounds of understanding held by Jesus’ brothers at that time (before they later came to faith): the way things are done in the world. Such were the limits they saw as natural and appropriate to anything Jesus might do or be. In fact, as the eldest, Jesus had always been a part of their lives even in the flesh – yet his uniqueness had escaped their notice.

Of others, Jesus said:

‘But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.’ (Matthew 11:16-19)

This is how Jesus, in the flesh, was viewed – according to the expectation of those who saw him. Not as he was, but as the views of those who saw him demanded that he should be. And Jesus sheds further light on this by his comments: this was not an accident. It was not merely impaired vision, seeing from a worldly perspective. Rather, people used the confines of their restricted view to disqualify Jesus from being any different than they wished him to be. Because that could have brought consequences for them which they preferred not to face.

Selfishness darkened the perspective of those who saw Jesus, so that true light could not enter.

Are we of the Church today any different?

To what extent have we limited our vision of Jesus to what suits us?

Do we see with the perspective of God, or do we limit our view of God to our own perspective? As we prefer he should be.

Faced with the upcoming reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection, even Peter had advice for Jesus designed to keep him within the confines of what Peter could imagine as success; which Jesus identified as instructions from ‘Satan’. (Matthew 16:23)

And of course, Judas limited his view of Jesus so entirely to his own worldly interests that he stumbled blindly into the path of his own destruction as the complete enemy of the Lord.

Reading a novel I borrowed recently from a friend, I found this opinion expressed:

‘Why should faith be necessary? The obvious course for a thinking god would have been to make himself observable’.

The author of the novel then variously presents God as ‘capricious’ in making himself unseen, or else uncontrollably or unintentionally absent, and any requirement for faith in the unseen God is described as ‘infantile’. Such are the opinions and hypotheses penned by the celebrated, secular writers of our day. But how different our world appears from the other side: from the viewpoint of heaven, where God is revealed.

For we see that when God shows himself in his glory, men faint before him and plead to be removed from his presence. But when God appears in such form as we can bear, yet with his perfect love and righteousness and every facet of his character on full display, we fail even to recognize him; we simply object to his holy difference as some kind of offence.

And I should not be quick to condemn ignorant, self-centred views about God. I myself, at times when I have felt that the direct voice of God could have given me invaluable instruction, have expressed my displeasure that God would not simply tell me what I should do seeing that, it seemed to me, I was ready to obey. Yet, if it were best for God to speak so that I might hear, I am sure he would have done so at those times.

‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’ (Isaiah 55:8-9)

‘For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.’ (Ephesians 3:14-19)

May Paul’s prayer be granted in the lives of each of us, now and forever. May we see not only as lodgers in this present darkness, but as those whose eyes are touched by a glimpse of the Light which already is, and has always been, and shall fill the earth ‘as the waters cover the sea’.

Amen.