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Tag Archives: The Crises of Christ

The most applauded position

23 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Christology, G. Campbell Morgan, John Milton, Matthew, Self-Denial, Submission

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Devil, G. Campbell Morgan, John Milton, Matthew 4, Paradise Lost, Reign, Satan, Submission, Temptation of Christ, The Crises of Christ, The Temptation of Christ

And yet consider still more closely. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.“‘Weak from the hunger following upon forty days of fasting, the devil suggested that He should strengthen Himself with bread. His reply, “It is written,” is a revelation of the true sources of strength. The strength of manhood does not lie in the assertion of rights, but in submission to the will of God. Mark well how that answer of the perfect One drags into light the false philosophy of evil, which the fallen race has universally accepted. The most applauded position that man takes is that in which he declares, I drove my manhood by the assertion of my rights; but this perfect Man declares that the strength of manhood lies in the absolute abandonment of His will to the will of God, that being the only right He possesses.

In the last analysis the argument of the devil had been a presupposition that all man needed for his sustenance was food for his physical life. That unwarrantable assumption Christ answered by declaring that no man’s whole life can be fed by bread that perishes. He needs more, that his spirit shall be fed, and its strength sustained by feeding upon the word proceeding from the mouth of God, and its safety ensured by abiding within the will of God.

G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of Christ (170-171).  The applauded philosophy was set forth well by Milton in Satan’s speech found in Book I of Paradise Lost:

Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: [ 260 ]
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.

 

Idolatry and the First Temptation of Jesus

21 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in Matthew

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G. Campbell Morgan, Heath Lambert, idolatry, Jesus, Matthew, temptation, The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams, The Crises of Christ, The Tempted in the Wilderness

G. Campbell Morgan makes an interesting observation in his discussion of the First Temptation which relates to the concept of idolatry as it is being developed within the biblical counseling world:

And yet consider still more closely. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.“’ Weak from the hunger following upon forty days of fasting, the devil suggested that He should strengthen Himself with bread. His reply, “It is written,” is a revelation of the true sources of strength. The strength of manhood does not lie in the assertion of rights, but in submission to the will of God. Mark well how that answer of the perfect One drags into light the false philosophy of evil, which the fallen race has universally accepted. The most applauded position that man takes is that in which he declares, I drove my manhood by the assertion of my rights; but this perfect Man declares that the strength of manhood lies in the absolute abandonment of His will to the will of God, that being the only right He possesses.

In the last analysis the argument of the devil had been a presupposition that all man needed for his sustenance was food for his physical life. That unwarrantable assumption Christ answered by declaring that no man’s whole life can be fed by bread that perishes. He needs more, that his spirit shall be fed, and its strength sustained by feeding upon the word proceeding from the mouth of God, and its safety ensured by abiding within the will of God.

G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of Christ (170-171).  To see how this ties to the concepts of “idolatry” and “heart” in the existing biblical counseling work, consider the following statement of Lambert in The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams where he sets out “an area still in need of advancement”:

This is how idolatry functioned in Old Testament. The fundamental problem with the Israelites in the Old Testament was that they reserved for themselves the prerogative to determine what they needed and when they needed it, instead of trusting the Lord. The self-oriented hearts of the Israelites then looked to the world (the neighbors in their midst) and followed their lead in blowing to gods that were not God in order to satisfy the lusts of their self-exalting hearts. When this comprehended, it portrays the terrible irony of Israelite false worship. When the Israelites followed the lead of their neighbors and bowed before blocks of wood, that act of false worship underlined their desire for autonomy and, in an ironic way, was an exultation of themselves even more than of the idol. The idol itself was incidental; (in our world it could be a pornographic picture, a spouse as the particular object of codependency, or an overprotective mother’s controlling fear attached specifically to her children) the self-exalting hert was the problems, which remains the problem today. 

The main problem sinful people have is not idols of the heart per se. The main problem certainly involves idols and is rooted in the heart, but the idols are manifestations of the deeper problem. The heart problems is self-exultation, and idols are two or three steps removed. A self-exalting heart that grasps after autonomy is the Grand Unifying Theory (GUT) that unites all idols. Even though idols change from culture to culture and from individual to individual within a culture, the fundamental problem of humanity has not changed since Genesis 3: sinful people want – more than anything in the whole world – to be God.[1]

 

 


[1] Heath Lambert, The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 148.

He hides his own personality wherever possible

18 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in John, Luke, Mark, Matthew

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Devil, G. Campbell Morgan, Jesus, John, Luke, Mark, Matthew, temptation, Temptation of Jesus, The Crises of Christ

It is a very popular fallacy that the enemy drove Christ into a corner and tempted Him. But the whole Divine story reveals that the facts were quite otherwise. God’s perfect Man, led by the Spirit, or as Mark in his own characteristic and forceful way expresses it, driven by the Spirit, passes down into the wilderness, and compels the adversary to stand out clear from all secondary causes, and to enter into direct combat. This is not the devil’s method. He ever puts something between himself and the man he would tempt. He hides his own personality wherever possible. To our first parents he did not suggest that they should serve him, but that they should please themselves. Jesus dragged him from behind everything, and put him in front, that for once, not through the subtlety of a second cause, but directly, he might do his worst against a pure soul.

 G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of Christ (3rd ed., 1903), 159-160.

The Deep Significance of This Temptation

18 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in Luke, Mark, Matthew

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G. Campbell Morgan, Luke, Mark, Matthew, Temptation of Jesus, The Crises of Christ

Herein lay the deep significance of this temptation. The second Man, acting under the guidance of the Spirit, passed into the wilderness, and by His coming challenged evil; and, acting simply under the guidance of that Spirit, overseen by placing the whole of the facts in contrast with the account of the temptation of Adam. The devil challenged the first man. The second Man challenged the devil. The devil ruined the first Adam. The last Adam spoiled the devil. The first Adam involved the race in his defeat. The last Adam included the race in His victory. The first Adam stood as the head of the race, and falling, dragged the race down with him. The last Adam stood as the Head of the new race, and being victorious, lifted that race with Him.

G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of Christ (3rd ed., 1903), 160-161.

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