Godly Emphasis Matters

Good teaching of God's Word to a degree depends upon emphasis.  Undue emphasis on a minor point can draw away attention from the primary purpose of a passage, and this potentially leads to bad interpretations.  There is always a danger of reading into a text and arrive at conclusions which appeal to us.  The interpretation of the scripture can become increasingly narrow until we can only see the point we want to make - and limit or discount the full range of God's truth.

In reading Tozer's The Crucified Life, he uses an example to show it is possible to believe the truth but place our primary focus in the wrong place.  He had some very strong things to say about what he saw as misplaced empahsis in regards to our salvation.  Tozer held little back when he wrote:

"What a bunch of unworthy people we evangelicals have become, daring to stand up on our feet and preach to an intelligent audience that the essence, the final purpose and the cause of Christ is to save us from hell.  How stupid can we get and still claim to be followers of Christ?  The purpose of God is not to save us from hell; the purpose of God is to save us to make us like Christ and to make us like God.  God will never be done with us until the day we see His face, when His name will be on our foreheads; and we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.

What a cheap, across-the-counter commercial kind of Christianity that says, "I was in debt, and Jesus came and paid my debt."  Sure, He did, but why emphasize that?  "I was on my way to hell and Jesus stopped me and saved me."  Sure, He did, but that is not the thing to emphasize.  What we need to emphasize is that God has saved us to make us like his Son.  His purpose is to catch us on our wild race to hell, turn us around because He knows us, bring judgment on the old self and then create a new self within us, which is Jesus Christ.

The most beautiful verse in the Bible is found in Psalm 90:7:  "Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us."  How wonderful is the beauty of the LORD our God?  The sharp contrast to the beauty of the Lord our God is the ugliness of I, myself...In the great divine exchange, God offers to trade our old selves, which have brought us so many problems, for new selves, which are Christ.  The apostle Paul says, "And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Tozer, A. W., and James L. Snyder. The Essential Tozer Collection. Bethany House, 2017. The Crucified Life, pages 164-165)

I am glad God has given us the freedom to have different viewpoints and opinions concerning emphasis.  Tozer obviously believed with great vigour the best point of emphasis concerning salvation was the work God desires to do within a person, to make us like Himself.  It is perfectly valid and true at the same time to draw attention to the fact Jesus has saved us from hell, called us to be His witnesses today, and He has saved us for heaven too.  A point of emphasis not mentioned here is that Jesus came to earth to draw us near to Himself so we could have an intimate relationship now and forever for His glory.  Needless to say, what we emphasise has a great impact on how we live.  for example, if my focus is limited on Jesus saving me from hell, I would be grateful but ongoing personal sanctification would likely not be a intentional consequence.

As I read through the passage in Tozer's book, it dawned on me how God created man in His own image.  God desires for people - not angels, insects, or animals - to be made like Christ.  There is no other living creature apart from humans in all creation the Holy Spirit comes upon and indwells.  It is amazing to know God put on human flesh and became our Saviour so His redeemed can say "we will ever be with the LORD."  We rejoice to affirm the truth of 1 John 3:1-3:  "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. ² Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. ³ And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure."  What a privileged place we have amongst the wondrous things God has made, that the love and beauty of the LORD could be and is upon us.