Hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast. Today it's reaction time with Glenn Scrivener and Nate Morgan Locke engaging with news and culture from a Christian perspective. You can watch this reaction and more on our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash speaklifed media.
SPEAKER_02Hello, welcome to Speak Life. We try to see all things through the lens of Jesus. My name's Glenn. My name's Nate. Hello. And we're gonna look at uh a little uh video clip of this is Jordan Peterson talking about Easter. And uh we've been commenting on Jordan Peterson for I guess the last seven years on this channel, and uh we always uh put some level of critique in as as well as um interest in uh the clinical psychologist. And uh our last video about Jordan Peterson, we uh had certain critique. One of the critiques we had about Jordan Peterson was that he sometimes views he does view the Bible, but he first views things through a Darwinian lens and then a Jungian lens, and then he gets to the Bible. And whatever is left after that filtration process, you know, we we get from the Bible. Um but when he does end up talking about the Bible, he's often very interesting.
SPEAKER_03He is certainly interesting, and uh the clip we're gonna watch here is from an interview with Joe Rogan, uh also of the Internet Parish, and he is talking about uh the cross on this, and so we're just gonna take a look at that. But it was maybe a year ago this came out. I think it came out a year ago, and uh Jordan dressed up for it.
SPEAKER_02Hmm. We should have done too. Yeah, we were a little dressed down for him, but uh let's have a look. Slovenly. Right, let's go.
SPEAKER_00You cannot write a more tragic story. It's impossible. Technically. Why? Well, because it's a story of the aggregation of everything that people are afraid of. So there was no death more painful than crucifixion. That's why the Romans invented it. It was to punish political miscreants. It was a slow agonizing death by suffocation, essentially, and and and dehydration and exposure. Extraordinarily painful. Okay, so that sucks. That's pain, man. Plus, you know it's coming, that's part of the story. Plus, your best friend betrayed you into it, plus your people turned against you, plus they're led by a tyrant who doubts truth, plus you're a victim of the Roman Empire, plus you're completely innocent, plus everybody knows it, plus they they choose a criminal to be released from this experience instead of you, even though they know he's a criminal and they know you're innocent.
SPEAKER_02How does he do this without notes? Like this is this is quite extraordinary, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Like it's and it's a pro it's an approach as well to the events of Easter, we'll get onto more of them, but which I have never heard anyone take before, but which when you hear him list out these plus, plus, plus is just like, whoa, okay. Yeah, yeah. Keep preaching.
SPEAKER_02Keep preaching. And I love the idea of a limit story as well, because some sometimes I'll talk about, you know, you it is an unimprovable story because you could not have a higher figure descend to a deeper depth in order to have a greater impact on more people for a greater duration. Like the dimensions of this story are vast.
SPEAKER_03But the way he layers it upon layers, it's it's but at the moment he's doing everything which is below the surface, he's doing the depths.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_03The question is whether whether his vision of what is shown at the deepest level is also the highest. But we'll get that. A question for later. We'll see.
SPEAKER_00So, and you're young, and you've done no wrong, and all you've done is help people. So it's a limit story. Okay, so then you think we've been looking at that limit story for 2,000 years in the image and in the story. What are we doing? Well, you're supposed to visit the stations of the cross, let's say. Okay, here's the idea. You hear the crucifixion story, and you play with it. Who are you? Maybe if you're female, you're married, and why is that the pieta? Because you have to offer your children to the destruction of the world.
SPEAKER_03The pieta. Tell us more. Uh well, there's multiple examples of it, but the most famous perhaps is Michelangelo, who was very good for a ninja turtle. Hey. Um pizza guy, right? Yes, that's right. He was uh orange bandana, but um nonchucks. Uh Mary is sitting with the the dead body of Christ sort of over her lap. Yeah. And I mean, it's sort of an incredible scene. You've seen uh Madonna and Child images throughout uh the history of art. Um but this is now Mary as the mother of the dead son. Right, the Jesus who's died, and it is a sense of like Mary, did you know?
SPEAKER_02And she did, in a sense, like you know, and it pierced her own soul, Luke's gospel tells us. So right from the very beginning, she knew that in order to give life, she was offering her son to the world for the world to do its worst to him, and yet her mother's heart that would have wanted to have clung on to him instead, let's and it's a massive part of the tragedy of the world, isn't it? That you raise your children and you can't cling on to them however much you want, you know. I want bonsai children, yeah, yeah. I want to press pause, I don't want them any older than they are, and that they just that get older and older, and yeah.
SPEAKER_03And and with the rise of sort of the engineering approach to uh child raising and having children. Tamagotchi children, yeah. Whatever, you know, how how can you make them to order and uh the controlling effects that parents have? And once you have a child, you do realize that these things have their own nature, and you are you have a shepherding role. Right. You have a uh a guy.
SPEAKER_02You have an engineering role, a shepherding role. That's it. Right. And um So Mary is involved in this story in one way, in terms of being the the mother that in order to bring life must go through immense pain. There's the physical pain of childbirth, but also the emotional pain of setting your child on their own two feet and offering them to the world. Yep. But Peterson is is like, look at the gospel. Look at the passion, look at Christ's story. Christ's story is a microcosm of life. It's not it's not a sacred story in that sense. You know, it's in that it's not divorced from the secular, it's not divorced from the profane.
SPEAKER_03It it is it is our story. And that's partly given to him because of his Jungian analysis, which is to say there is really only one story, yeah, and that we're all playing archetypal roles within it. Um but did you see it is the Michelangelo's Pieter in Rome? I'm pretty sure it must be. It must be there. If you know where it is, I'd love to visit it one day. That's counter continuous.
SPEAKER_00That's female courage. That's the mother that doesn't hold her child back. It's like, go out to what? Eventually your death and destruction. Go out, leave me, be in the world. That's feminine courage, man, to let her baby go. You're pilot. You doubt truth, but you're you'll go along with the crowd. You're Judas, because you betray.
SPEAKER_02So you're pilot, so there's a feminine courage. You doubt truth, and like so he's reading this story as our story. And you know, how many of the people who subscribe to his YouTube channel doubt truth? You know, like it's not a 2,000-year-old story, it's a today's story. So you got the doubting of truth, then Judas.
SPEAKER_00You betray your best friend. You're the mob, you're the criminal.
SPEAKER_03No, he's best friend. It's tricky. I mean, I think from the Psalms very close. From the Psalms, close to the Players. Very close. And he's the great Judah, right? So he's supposed to Judas and but you know, I mean he's not in the three. So I'm just I'm just saying when we do the stuff about there was the feeling of the five thousand, then there's the twelve disciples, and there's the three within the twelve, and then there's the disciple Jesus loved. Anyway. Nate thinks he can tell a better story. That's but that's fine. That's fine. I'm just splitting hairs at this point and the Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00All of that, that's you. You look on all those things that you hate and are terrified by. That's like that's not a snake. It's like the worst of all possible snakes everywhere. That's what you're looking at. What do you see? You see death, you see destruction, pain, terror, tyranny, frailty, betrayal. Look harder. Look harder. Look harder.
SPEAKER_03Isn't that true? And he's totally like he's obviously eyeballing Joe Rogan in that thing. He's in it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03If if people went out to see a man set on fire for the preaching of Whitfield, was that or Wesley? Does Wesley say that? Yeah. But that's part of the appeal of Jordan Peterson. He is no one else that I've seen is so embodied and so singularly focused when he's talking about something like this, which means that you're gonna take him seriously.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Even if you might disagree with what he said later on, you believe that he believes what he's saying. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And he is seeing what he's telling you to see. And I think that visual language is quite important as well. You know, I'm sort of I'm from a preaching tradition where you kind of say, look down at the text with me. And then, you know, how many donkeys are in verse eight? And look at me, look down with me. And it's it's a literary approach because we're people of the word and we believe in the word, but he's saying, Look, look, look.
SPEAKER_03And you can't and you can't take his uh your eyes off him because you know he's um look at that.
SPEAKER_02There should be a meme with kind of like like lightning crackling from his fingers.
SPEAKER_03Well, when he's doing this, especially when he's doing the worst of all possible snakes and all the snakes, and you're sort of yeah, it gets quite sort of deep there.
SPEAKER_00Look harder. What do you see? The death and resurrection.
SPEAKER_02What do you see? So he's taking us down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. What do you see? The death and resurrection. Hold on, how'd you get to resurrection? By going down.
SPEAKER_03Oh, but why had but we haven't had resurrection yet. We've just had but the fact is he believes that it's one is essential.
SPEAKER_02It's a theology of the cross in that in that sense of yeah, the way the way on is the way down.
SPEAKER_00Um you look far enough into the abyss, you see the light.
SPEAKER_03You know? That is how it's let me repeat that, and you look far enough. But again, that's part of the thing with the preaching style. We'll give you get onto the substance of what he's saying. But as you were saying, we often do the verse, look down at this verse, and I've got some bullet points and I've got some headings, and you know. But when you pause over a line like that, you look far enough into the abyss and you see the light. No one's taking any notes because they're completely arrested by the fact that you just took them into the abyss with your words, yeah. And then says, if you keep looking, you'll see the light. Yeah. The performance of that again is is huge. But in terms of preaching.
SPEAKER_02And he wants people to look around, and I think that visual language is really important. I think in a lot of pulpits they have John 12, the verse, so we wish to see Jesus, which I think is really interesting because as a preacher, you're meant to help people to see Jesus. Yeah. In John's Gospel, it's a massive thing, is seeing is believing. When the disciples see the glory, faith is pulled out of them like iron filings to an electromagnet sort of thing. It's like, or Galatians 3, you know, I placarded Christ before your eyes. Before your eyes, I placarded Christ. That's right. Pro grapho. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um but the yes, the um behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Look, behold the man, right? Right. Eke homo. Yeah. Um, that sense of you're not listening to a sermon. I mean, faith comes by hearing, right?
SPEAKER_02We don't want to sort of say there's no um but we pray open the eyes of our hearts so that we might see the glory of Jesus. Eyes of your heart.
SPEAKER_03You you are clearly not a medical professional. Eyes of your heart.
SPEAKER_02Although, you know, in the realm of epistemology, it is desire that helps you to see because what you want to see will frame everything that you do see. And you know, like I think epistemology is catching up with this ancient book, The Bible. What I love about how Jordan Peterson treats the Bible, though, and this story, is it's not a specialist text for specialist religious nutjobs on a Sunday to fine-tune their own Christian discipleship. But this is the story of reality. And it's it's a lens through which you can see your life. I look at this story, and am I Mary? Am I Pilate? Am I the mob? You know. It's and and I I fear that so many Christians treat the Bible as though it's simply a text given to the religious um hobbyists off to one side, who are getting better at their Christian thing, and and the Bible will help you to do your Christian thing better. Rather than this is a human text to humanize you and humanize the world. And that you can preach, you can preach the most obscure text from the scriptures, and you can relate to 21st century people by going deep into the text. Yep. And that the path, therefore, the pathway to making that text relevant is not to sort of put the text to one side, and there's the real world over here, and there's the text of the Bible over here, and the preacher's job is between two worlds to bridge the foul wide gap between the world of the Bible and the world of today. And at that point, you're sort of trading off the details of the text with the relevance of today. And Peterson's like, no, no, no. It's the Bible's far more like spectacles, which is what John Calvin said. They're like the these lenses that you look through. So go deep, and the deeper you go, the more you connect with reality, and you keep on going, and you start to see resurrection, light, and all that kind of stuff. I love that.
SPEAKER_03And the way that we will think of Easter and the events of Easter as the the process by which you're going to get to heaven. Right. Right. So there is there is a real kind of functionality to the events of Easter that Jesus achieves something, and the thing that he's achieving is getting you out of the earth and into heaven. Now it completely is good it completely does that. It also shows you what life on earth is. Yeah. So it doesn't just say, oh, you need a mechanism to get you across a bridge to life, right? You need to jump deal with this sin thing and set therefore the cross as two pieces of wood comes down to to do that work for you. Yeah. But that this is this is showing you, and this is again where Peterson's Jungian approach by accident gets him to the same place, which is no, this is the story of life. Right. And that it is inescapable. Right. So whether you are going to to ha look with eyes of faith or simply just to to observe an it apparently in horror and and disinterest or or or in horror or in disinterest at the events of Easter, you are seeing the story which is most true about the earth, the world of that we currently live in. And therefore, if you want to understand the world we currently live in, this is the story you need. Yes. Yeah. And it it it is the one that that is given to us in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. So let's think about, therefore, so he he's coming at it from there's the Darwinian lens, the the Jungian lens, and then you get to the Bible, and then he sort of looks through the Bible, and I that I think. Um Yeah, there there is almost an accidental quality by which although in this same interview with Joe Rogan, he does sort of say in order to frame the world so that you don't have a million bits of data flying at you every second to process, you need a filter, and the filter's got to be a story, and we're narratival creatures, and we navigate the world according to highest goods, and the way in which we assess what is highest and best is through a story, and the scriptures have proved themselves to be the story by which the West has navigated life, and so and so he sort of gets there that the scriptures are these lenses that we look that we look through. But I thought what what we could do about Easter is like give it let's give ourselves the lenses that we need in order to view Easter in that sense, such that the story that we are about to not only hear about but inhabit over the next few days is is the story that explains our world. And so I want to do that in 3-2-1. 3-2-1. 3-2-1, which is a gospel explanation I've been uh kind of trotting out there for the last decade, and it's about the threeness of the world, the two-ness. So the threeness of God. Yep. The two-ness of the world, and the oneness of you. It's not that complicated. I shared it for over a decade. Dear me. Um so the threeness of God. Let's and let's let's think about Easter like through these lenses. What does Easter teach us about God, the world, and ourselves? And I think it'll end up giving us a vision of Easter that enables us to actually see it not as a long-ago event that's important for some religious people, but as the thing that explains life. So, the threeness of God. Why don't you explain the threeness of God? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_03So I suppose so with the we're thinking about God as as Trinitarian, which I don't think you can be a Christian without seeing that God is Father, Son, and Spirit, because to be a Christian is to be a follower of Christ, and when you have Christ, you have the Son of the Father who is um who is sent and and blessed and and has the Spirit poured out on him. So if you want to be Trinitarian, you need to start with Jesus, because that's how you get to a father, and that's how you have the one who is anointed by the Spirit. He is the Messiah, the anointed one. So when we're looking at the story of Easter as the continuation of the story of the of the incarnation, the kind of fulfillment of the incarnation, so that the the one who is sent by the Father in the power of the Spirit to dwell amongst us to take on flesh, we are seeing when we start Easter week with um the triumphal entry, we see the guy on the donkey is the image of the invisible God. That's God on the donkey.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is wonderful. Like like every and then you know, the one who picks up the towel and starts washing the disciples' feet. Yeah. That's God doing that. Yeah, yeah. And the one nailed to a piece of wood, praying, Father, forgive. That's what God looks like. Yeah you know. So this is this is a revelation of the depths of God's being. And and so that even that sort of godforsaken agony of Christ on the cross, it might feel like the furthest thing from God. But the most revolutionary thing in the world is the Bible says, No, you've never seen anything more divine than that man choking to death on that cross. So you go to Colossians chapter one, and it's probably my favorite paragraph in all the Bible, from verse 15 to verse 20. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. So he's he's what God looks like: the image of the invisible God, Son of the Father, chip off the old block, just like his dad. And then that paragraph finishes with making peace through the blood of his cross. So the very the very pinnacle of his revelation as the image of God is with his arms open to the world, going to hell and back for his enemies. You've never seen anything more divine than that. Or you go to the end of the Bible and you've got the lamb standing at the center of the throne. Revelation speaking in this sort of very picture pictorial language, the the throne representing God's power and authority and presence. What is at the center of godness? A bleeding victim who is standing. And Revelation does that really cool thing of just like telescoping all the events of Easter into one. You know, it's like cross-resurrection and ascension. You know, it's the lamb standing at the center of the throne. It's like it does cross-resurrection ascension. Because the Bible actually squashes together what we tend to sort of pull apart quite a bit in terms of Easter. But yeah, when you think God, what do you see? What do you picture? What would Jordan Peterson want us to picture and see? Um actually he wants us to see the lamb standing at the centre of the throne, the the cross. The risen one still bearing the wounds of his of his crucifixion and the one who's gone to the throne as the one who went to hell and back for you.
SPEAKER_03And it's important that it's it's essential that we see that Jesus who is our Passover Lamb is the eternal logos. Okay. And that's essential because if if God's just grabbed some someone else, just brought someone in and just says, Would you mind for them just doing this thing? Come on then. Then you can use things about cosmic child abuse. Whereas where if if the the will of the Son is the will of the Father, and that that Christ is, you know laying down his life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. 2 Corinthians 5. Yeah. As opposed to, yeah, so if you're not Trinitarian and if you don't have this threeness of God thing, you might even be really, really like biblical in one sense and jump up and down and say it's so important that that Christ crucified is at the heart of our gospel, and it's so important that penal substitutionary atonement is at the heart of the gospel. But as you say, if there's God, God on his todd, all by himself, this monad, well then like who is Jesus? He's he's got to be someone who is not God, and therefore the substitution is not God's self-substitution, it is zapping someone else for our sake, which is a perversion of the gospel.
SPEAKER_03But also we have to pret it's not the father on the cross. Absolutely. And so we have to preserve preserve the personal distinctions between Father, Son, and Spirit. Right. Because Right.
SPEAKER_02Patripassionism is a heresy. That's and yes, one to avoid the Father, Father. Yeah, so so yeah, very good. So the so the unity in Father and Son is vital for the cross. Because the will of the Son is the will of the Father. And the distinction of Father and Son is absolutely vital. Because it's not the Father dying on the cross. You need a Trinitarian doctrine of God to make sense of Easter.
SPEAKER_03And that's where it you the more that you push into the events of Easter and the more that you own the distinctions of the three and the unity of the one, you really are then able to pray in a much more informed way and lead others in prayer. And it it's one of those challenging things when people have this empty word God that they just sort of keep using, and you can get yourselves into some some trouble. Particularly in the realm of extemporaneous prayer, shall we say? Yeah. It can be tricky. Um we want to encourage people to use in those phrases, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and and to see God the Father as the Father of God the Son who is Christ, and just and sort of keep that language of Father, Son, Spirit, um, running through our conversations. Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_02Very good. Okay, so we we look through this lens of of who is God and the threeness of God. God is a loving union of three. Um now let's think of two-ness and the two-ness of the worlds. Explain what's the tuness?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but the uh I mean you didn't invent this, uh, but you just put it together with the Trinity and the Union of Christ, which we'll get on to, which is this idea of two-adam theology, a two-adom structure, which is really essential if you want to understand the coherence and the unity of the whole of the scriptures, is to say that you know, when God made man, it was called Adam because that means man. And so you have this man Adam, and that the human race is in Adam, it is an Adamic humanity, but of course, as we see in Scripture, though Adam and Eve were made for reflection, they chose a rejection. So they're supposed to reflect God as the image of God, made male and female as the image of God, and yet in their sin, in their distrust and their rebellion, they they reject God, and now the entire human race is in Adam. We have that original sin because we are, as you've said before, a chip off the old block. We we relate to Adam because we're related, and this is what humanity is. Christ then comes as the second Adam, uh, the new humanity, born of a virgin, fully human, and yet not in Adam's sinful line, but as a as a kind of second Adam to come and to live out as the image of God, as the effulgence of God, as the radiance of God, as the one who is who is showing us exactly what God is like, and who will will stand entire where Adam fell. Yes. Um so that idea of uh the the the history of the world, as you put it in 321, is shaped by two men. You have Adam and you have Jesus.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And it makes sense narratively as well. It's like what a beautiful story about in the garden, a man went to a tree selfishly and brought on himself and brought on the world death and curse and thorns. Fast forward. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here comes the second Adam. He goes into a garden called Gethsemane and accepts the the cup of sufferings that he would go to his tree to save the world and to take a crown twisted of thorns and to wear it as the sign of his glory. You're like, oh my goodness, here is the redemption, and and sort of narratively, that's what a what a beautiful kind of um yeah, what a what a beautiful redemption of of the Adam story. If we don't have this two Adam picture of the world, I think again we kind of lose the meaning of Easter because it's like, well, it's nice that Jesus made that sacrifice. Like, what's the connection? How does his suffering connect to the created order? Like, like we're we're living in a fallen world. Well, that's that's a nice gesture, Jesus on the cross, but what's that gonna do for the world? And then we'll get on to what what it's gonna do for me. But in the biblical story, what it's doing for the world is Jesus is coming into the cockpit of all reality because Adam, man, is meant to be in charge. Yeah, you know, man has dominion. Page one of the Bible man has dominion, and if the god-man relationship is good, then everything is fine. If the god-man relationship is out you know off its axis, then the whole world wobbles and falls. And therefore, what is the answer? The answer is the man Christ Jesus taking responsibility for his handiwork and pioneering through that death and curse a resurrection future, so that if the future of the world was tied to Adam and his fall, so the future of the world is tied to Christ and his resurrection, his risen glory, so that you get to 1 Corinthians 15, and it's just this beautiful sense of of course this is the way it was going to be. You know, the second Adam is not uh plan B. You know, who who do you think is the one breathing life into Adam's nostrils? You know, Irenaeus, that's you know, second century theologian, said uh since um since uh Christ was already in existence, since the Saviour was already in existence, the one to be saved had to come into existence. So since Christ was there, Adam had to be created and he breathed life into Adam as the pencil sketch of his own incarnation in the fullness of time, Christ comes and like the oil painting going over the pencil sketch, he takes the very substance of Adam, takes it through that death and curse, brings it out the other side, and as the head of the new creation, he's like the needle where like the thread pulled out, and here comes a hope for the world. So the Easter is again, we're not just looking at some events one weekend, 2,000 years ago. This is the pathway of the whole world. Yeah, down, down, down, down, down, down. You're absolutely right, Jordan. Down, down, down, down, but go far enough into the abyss and the resurrection, the light. Yeah, up it comes.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely, and you've got to see those those pointers back, not just to you know, I mean, you've got huge pointers back to to the birth of Jesus and the events of Christmas being sort of fulfilled by Easter and and and pointing back to you know that gathering of you know, the wise men, the shepherds, like all of creation is gathered round the manger, and the manger and the cross are made out of the same piece of wood, and and huge significance there. There's a Mary, there's a Joseph, you know, the carrying of the body that is wrapped in the cloths, all this kind of beautiful kind of um it's an inclusio of of so much of the gospel, is is beginning and end of the gospel, how how Christmas and Easter are bound together. But you also have to see Easter as the return to Genesis and the work of the garden, as you said at the beginning, with the thorns and and the going down into the dust and the garden experience. And you know, there's so much of this is in 1 Corinthians 15, you know, and as you say, Genesis 2.7, and and the Lord breathed into the nostrils, and Paul picks that up in uh Corinthians and says, The first man Adam became a living being, the second man a life giving spirit, and so the distinction between um Christ as the Lord who is working walking in the garden, who then becomes the God man who is walking in the garden in the resurrection. John 20, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then breathes out, yeah, yeah, breathes out to you know, receive the Holy Spirit again, right, to become his life-giving spirit. I I just love John 20. There's Mary in a flap in the garden. And and when she's unsure of who he is, like, you know, woman, what are you looking for? And of course, Adam named woman, yeah, you know, back in the as the gardener. There, there he is. And then he says, Mary. So just as Adam first, you know, first Eve is woman, and then Eve is Eve. Yeah. In John 20, first Mary is a woman, and then Mary is Mary. And then like she is breathes life into, and then it's it's just the gardener.
SPEAKER_03But the point is, it's all in Genesis as well, because because Eve is is named Genesis, 3201 or something. Yeah. The previous verse, so she'll be called Eve because she's the mother of all the living. The previous verse the Lord has just said to Adam is you are made of dust, and to dust you will return, right? So the whole of of humanity is now destined for the grave. Adam named his wife Eve because she would be the mother of all the living. Like, you just were you not listening. And because it's that that the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent's head, so it is it is through the offspring um which will come from um from the woman that um yeah the human race will be redeemed from from the deepest, darkest pit as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And come out the other side, and that's why I love the end of the gospels, because they're just they're just giving us snapshots of the future. It's the first fruits of the bumper crop. That's what 1 Corinthians as well says, that when Christ rose again from the dead, he is a taster of the coming bumper crop of of resurrection that's coming. So what do you see on Easter Sunday and those 40 days following Easter Sunday as he's eating with his friends, going for long country walks, it's fishing with his mates, it's barbecues by the beach, it's reunions, it's tears, it's it's talking long into the night about the stuff that really matters with the people you love the most. Like, that's the life, isn't it? And the reason why the Gospels don't just like end with And Jesus appeared on Easter Sunday at the end. Like the reason is because the whole point Mark slightly does it. Depending on which ending. Depending on which ending, but we we get these snapshots because it's the first fruit. Because Easter means yes, you know, you can look all the way down into the suffering of this world, but you can look all the way through into the future of the cosmos. And the future of the cosmos is very bright indeed. You know, that's so the world.
SPEAKER_03So we've done so the the three, uh father, son, spirit, the two, this sort of two Adam history of the whole world is encapsulated in Easter. What about the one?
SPEAKER_02You are one with Adam, be one with Jesus. And I think without that understanding that you're one with Jesus, I think again the the cross, for instance, becomes a bit of a a weird mechanism that happens off to one side. So that even if you grant that he is the son of the father filled with the spirit and he dies for our sins, like what's my connection? Like, how am I? And so preachers try and get over this by just kind of like, well, it's the great swap, isn't it? And he takes your sin and you get his righteousness. You're like, yeah, but but how? Yeah, like is it just arbitrary? God God zaps that guy with judgment and he ding gives you blessing. Like, how how are those two things? And like our preachers kind of fill in that gap using analogies, or the book illustration, you know, this is kind of like imagine every everything you've ever done, said and thoughts written down in a book. I'm not gonna show you my book, you're not gonna show me your book because there's written here things that are terrible. And if God is the light, this book sits between you know me and God, and it cuts me off from God. But here is Jesus, and he's got nothing between him and God, and he takes that book onto himself, right? But where's the imputed righteousness in this scenario, Glenn? And I am naked before the living God into whose hands it is a terrible thing to fall. You know, yeah, yeah, there's no imputed righteousness, but maybe even if you came up with and Jesus has got a good book and he gives you his book, like even then, it's like well, but on what on what basis does the swap happen? And the scriptures are like, well, it's not that arbitrary at all. I am one with Jesus. I I was crucified with Christ. He he took me to himself, he plunged me down into death, so that far more than Jesus dies over there, so I'm kept safe over here, far more. I am wrapped up in Jesus safely, but I'm wrapped up in Jesus and taken through that judgment. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Yeah, I was crucified with Christ and in Christ, plunged down into that death, and good news, yeah, safely brought up again through that curse and death and out into so that I'm in Christ the whole time. Otherwise, the substitution and the swap doesn't make sense. It's just like a it's like a legal fiction that like where's the connection, which is why kind of illustrations of union are much more useful. So I'll talk about you know when we get married, and you know, if the pauper marries the prince, all her debts go to him and all his riches go to her, not as some arbitrary like I'm gonna why you my debts, you're gonna why me your money. No, you're why as soon as you're one, it makes sense, you know, we're one with Jesus.
SPEAKER_03And so we we we do see I talk about Romans 5 8 and Romans 6 8, you know, um while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, Romans 5 8, Romans 6 8, we died with Christ. So that the distinction there, and um again, Colossians 3, um 3, for you died, Paul says to the church in Colossae, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Right. And so your union with Christ, which is it's so important to have that, otherwise you you end up into, I think, a number of the blessings that are in Christ are kind of uh unlockable, you know. Uh what's it DLC? It's downloadable content. Oh, maybe I can get this new bit, this new like Christian boost, uh if I move up through the layers, if you got the new the new update. Yeah, yeah, I got the email bit. Good, but um when you have union with Christ, all the blessings that are Christ's because of his perfect obedience and his oneness with the Father are yours in the gospel. So the it's so important for our you know, if we're doing pastoral work with people over Easter that they they don't just see, you know, um have we have we got a sins needing to be forgiven thing? We'll obviously have that, but actually you can see in the message of the gospel that you are you have been crucified with Christ and that you have been raised with him, yeah. And that when we will celebrate on Easter Sunday um the risen Lord, Christos and Estee, when we say that we will say, We are risen too, we are new creations in him who is our living head. Right, right.
SPEAKER_02Which means that when you look at the Easter story, you are looking at your story. Like you're looking at the story of humanity because he's the second Adam, but if you trust Jesus, then you are in Christ and you are you are genuinely a part of this story. And again, it's not this thing that's off to one side, the details of which can be harvested so that it can help us over here in the real world. It's not like that. No, that story, front and center, because in Jesus, well, Jesus has put himself into the story of this world and has taken this world, sin, darkness, death, disconnection, taken it down to the hell that it deserves, risen up again to offer us new creation, resurrection, glory. In him, I am a part of what God is doing in this world, remaking it, redeeming it, bringing it to an Eastern newness. So that going deeper into this story is not taking me off to the side to my Christian hobby. It's it's uh involving me more in the real life of this real world and proclaiming this gospel to the world, going deep into the details, is what's going to make sense of people's lives.
SPEAKER_03Yep, and uh as you know Christians who are whose starting point is that uh Christ is revealed in the scriptures, we can actually come more usefully to people than Jordan Peterson um wherever he's standing, you know, with these things, because we're not having to go through these additional lenses, Darwinian Jungian lenses to start with, but are able to say this is our story um and it's one that we're we're gonna celebrate.
SPEAKER_02I mean, he did a better job than either of us would do on Joe Rogan, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I think I think you know, we we've used jargon in in the last 45 minutes that he wouldn't use. He he uses a different kind of jargon. Yeah, his fingers are much better. We need to work on that. We need to work on it.
SPEAKER_03That one I like. I always like that one. That one's where you're looking at the distillation of things for my favourite Peter.
SPEAKER_02That could be a whole video series. Yeah. Peterson gestures we have loved through the years. But um but yeah, that instinct to see the gospel as the story, the story of stories, is something that I I think he rebukes the church and he re he rebukes Christian preachers for considering the Christian story to be off on one side and the world story to be another, as though we need to mediate things, and I think he's got the instinct exactly right now through the gospel, deeply into the gospel, and he'll understand your world. That's it. Anyway, happy Easter. Happy Easter to you. Yeah, and to and to everyone here. Um you have subscribed to the channel, haven't you? I mean, uh that better have done by now. Goodness me. Um, although most people don't. Most people who watch our content do not subscribe to our videos. So fix that out. Don't be like most people. Yeah, sort your life out. And uh subscribe to our channel and uh tap the bell, and you'll get more content like this. And uh you should also go over to Nate Morgan Locke's channel, Reformed Mythologist.
SPEAKER_03Reformed mythologist, you can check out some videos there, mainly around the issues of mythology and the messiah. So thinking more about storytelling and uh how we do that and and how we can engage with stories and uh think about them through this these scriptural lenses that we're given.
SPEAKER_02Brilliant. And if you want to engage more in the comments, we'd love to see you down there. But otherwise, happy Easter. Take care, bye-bye.