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WHAT A SAVIOR! #6
DON’T JUST THANK THE LAMB; FOLLOW HIM!
Political junkies still refer to it as the “Saturday
night massacre.” I remember hearing about it on TV way back when I was
a much younger man than I am now – on October 20, 1973. Richard Nixon
was being rather aggressively confronted by one Archibald Cox, the former
Harvard professor who had agreed to serve the nation as the special prosecutor
for Watergate. Naturally, when the news came out that the White House
had a secret tape recording system and that many of the President’s germane
conversations were in the vault, he insisted on having access to those
tapes for his investigation. Attorney General Elliot Richardson had promised
him “full independence” in the pursuit of justice, but now Nixon was determined
to cut off all future access to the incriminating tape reels.
The classic book, The Final Days – Woodward and Bernstein, of course –
tells how lawyers for the President tried to frantically set up all sorts
of compromises that would keep Cox satisfied, but also leave the tapes
and potential smoking guns hidden in a closet. But Nixon was adamant that
he wanted Cox out of there. Ironically, this “special prosecutor” was
technically an employee of the executive branch, the White House, and
Nixon had the wherewithal – legally but not politically, as it turns out
– to dump the man. But when chief of staff Al Haig and lawyer Fred Buzhardt
suggested that Richardson, in his role as A.G., fire Cox, the Attorney
General turned purple. “I can’t do that,” he protested. “When I was confirmed
by the Senate, I told them I wouldn’t fire the special prosecutor except
for ‘extraordinary improprieties.’” Which certainly did not apply in this
situation.
Well, long story short, Cox was informed that, one, he was getting just
transcripts instead of nine actual tapes he had subpoenaed. Two, he wasn’t
to ever again ask the White House for tapes, memos, nothing. This was
it. Essentially, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was telling him to sit down
and shut up, not rock the boat, not do his job.
The President and his team fully expected Cox to resign in protest – which
would have been perfectly fine with them. Instead, the bow-tied prosecutor
stepped before TV cameras, stiffly reminded America that courts had twice
awarded him full access to the tapes, and announced that he would NOT
quit, that he would continue to press for the documents he needed to arrive
at a full and fair conclusion.
That did it. The President gave an order that Archibald Cox be fired.
Unfortunately, the firing was to be dispatched by the nation’s Attorney
General. And Richardson was not on board with his President. He thought
the order was improper, maybe even impeachable. And in what he later described
as the worst moment of his life, he stood on the carpeting in the Oval
Office and told Nixon he couldn’t carry out the command. “I can’t do it,”
he said, his heart breaking.
Now, here’s the point – and I fully concede that we’re coming at our spiritual
lesson from the wrong side of the railroad tracks. Because Richardson
could not obey his boss, the leader of the nation, he had two choices:
resign or be fired. One or the other. But he knew he had to go. Because
when you’re on the President’s cabinet, you have got to be able and willing
to do what the President commands you to do. It’s got to be that way.
So Richardson was out. That meant the duties naturally fell to a man named
William D. Ruckelshaus, the deputy A.G. So Haig got him on the phone.
“It’s now up to you,” he said. “Are YOU ready to fire Cox?” Amazingly,
Ruckelshaus said he could not and would not do it either. Haig gulped,
then put it on the line: “You know what it means when an order comes down
from the Commander in Chief and a member of his team cannot execute it.”
Ruckelshaus didn’t hesitate. “That is right,” he replied. He didn’t know
if he had just been fired or if he’d just resigned; he simply knew that
he was out of a job, that the Saturday Night Massacre had just put his
own blood on the political floor too. Finally, Cox was able to get the
#3 man, Solicitor General Robert Bork – years later an unsuccessful Reagan
nominee for the Supreme Court – to fire the rebellious special prosecutor.
During the next 48 hours, the TV networks went berserk; reporters were
literally sprinting to set up on the White House lawn with their cameras;
150,000 telegrams of protest rolled into Washington, D.C., and 22 impeachment
bills were introduced in the House of Representatives. What a story.
Well, friend, even though we’re learning today’s spiritual lesson backwards,
let me tell you something. These desperate politicians were serving a
human man, a frail and flawed United States President. You and I serve
in cabinet posts for the perfect and holy Servant-Leader, King of kings,
and Lord of lords Jesus Christ our Savior. There certainly IS a difference.
But one truth comes slowly spinning out to us from those Watergate tapes,
and it’s this: when you serve the President or the King of this universe,
then you simply must follow His orders. It is inconceivable, it is impossible,
it is unthinkable that we would ever say, as subjects of Jesus our LORD:
“Sorry, Jesus. Not this time. Can’t do it. I don’t see things Your way.
Ask me anything else, but on this one I’m saying no.” Friend, that is
one thing the disciple of Jesus must not ever say.
And the gentle Jesus Himself makes a claim to our allegiance. In a four-chapter
discourse right before Gethsemane – John 14-17 – Jesus looks at the 11
men still with Him and says with precision:
“You are My friends if You do what I command.”
One chapter earlier He puts it this way:
“If you love Me, you WILL obey what I command.”
Now, friend, this is where we enter into a most difficult
area of Bible study. Because these statements by our Lord seem to imply
that our obedience to Him is what qualifies us for His kingdom. “Obey
Me or you’re fired” is the almost Nixonian edict we find in these pages.
And the Apostle Paul jumps in on the same side of this cabinet meeting,
reminding his friends and fellow believers that we do NOT “go on sinning
so that grace may increase.” That we do NOT abolish or nullify the law;
instead, we uphold it.
The conundrum, then, is this: do we consider Jesus Christ to be – here
in 2004 – our living LORD? Are we really to do what He says? On a daily
basis, is He our Boss? And if we take that subservient view, are we going
to slip into a kind of Christian legalism, earning our White House promotions
by obeying the Commander-in-Chief?
There’s a terrific essay about this very concept, and it’s from a favorite
author of ours: John Stott. In his book, The Contemporary Christian, he
has a chapter with the perfect title for our discussion: “Jesus Christ
Is Lord.” Here’s what he writes:
“The tradition in some evangelical circles is to distinguish
sharply between Jesus the SAVIOR and Jesus the LORD, and even to suggest
that conversion involves trusting Him as Savior, without necessarily surrendering
to Him AS Lord.”
In other words, can we spiritually slice Jesus into
two parts: sacrificial Lamb, which we want . . . and then Lord and Ruler,
which we maybe don’t want to accept. Well, Dr. Stott wastes no time in
“scotching” that split paradigm. Here’s the rest of his great little essay:
“The motive behind this teaching is good, namely to
safeguard the truth of justification by faith alone and not introduce
works-righteousness by the back door. Nevertheless this position is biblically
indefensible.” Wow. He continues: “Not only is Jesus ‘our Lord and Savior,’
one and indivisible, but His lordship implies His salvation and actually
announces it. That is, His title ‘Lord’ is a symbol of His victory over
all the forces of evil, which have been put under His feet. The very possibility
of our salvation is DUE TO this victory. It is precisely because He is
Lord that He is able also to be Savior. There can be no salvation without
lordship. The two affirmations ‘Jesus is Lord’ and ‘Jesus saves’ are virtually
synonymous.”
You know, we say, “Thank You, Jesus, for dying for
us. Thank You for paying that incredible price.” But think about it. Unless
Jesus is ruler of the universe, unless He is the divine Son of God, with
a throne to sacrifice and rulership to descend FROM, He can’t truly be
our Savior! That’s why a mere man dying for us, or a well-meaning angel,
would never have been sufficient. Only God giving HIMSELF, in the fullness
of divinity, with a complete claim and title to the name “Lord of lords,”
could be a Lamb of God for an entire lost planet. So when we say, “I accept
Jesus as my once-for-all, no-strings-attached Sin-bearer . . . but I don’t
want the hassle of then following Him, obeying Him, serving Him, pledging
allegiance to Him” – well, friend, we are asking for a very selfish and
impossible thing when we take that stance.
This same John Stott, who has been a faithful and obedient servant of
his Lord for many decades now, concludes powerfully:
“If we claim to follow Jesus, it is inconceivable that
we should spend our lives in any other way than in service.”
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