The Smell of Victory

I'm going to try writing this the way it happened--
sort of stream-of-consciousness style.
Bear with me. I think there's a beautiful truth at the end.

This morning, while singing a song called "Overcome," I was struck by something. Somehow the song reminded me of an old hymn that describes Jesus's resurrection as His bursting forth from the "spice-laden tomb."
Yeah, I thought, that's right. There were about 75 pounds of myrrh, aloes, and spices that He had been wrapped up in when they buried him (John 19:39-40).
That must have smelled really good.

But what about Lazarus? I remember when Jesus was asking for his grave to be opened. Martha protested, "Lord, by this time he stinketh." (Had to use the King James for this verse--it's classic...right up there with Gen. 22:3 and the like.)

Why did Lazarus stink? Because his body was decomposing. (There's a special word in Bulgarian for dead stuff that's rotting--mursha. In English I think it's "carrion," but my dictionaries are already packed for our move. Regardless, it's a horrid smell.)

Jesus's body, however, didn't decompose. Psalm 16:10, a clear prophesy about Jesus (see Acts 2:23-28), says: "You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let Your Holy One see decay."

Now I'm a smell person. I think it's my strongest sense. Smells transport me back to certain times and places. VW bugs, my daughter's hair, acacias in bloom, barbecue...they all move me in their own way.

Evidently God is a smell person, too. When Noah landed after the flood, he sacrificed animals as a burnt offering to the Lord. Genesis 8:21 says, "The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma..."

If He liked that smell, how must He have rejoiced at the scent of His Son coming forth from the tomb in victory? What fragrance must have met the angels who rolled back the stone of his grave? Not the smell of death or defeat, but the wonderful smell of life and victory. Surely this smell, the scent of the risen Christ, was the greatest smell ever.

I would have loved to have smelled that smell. Talk about an aroma that is pleasing to God...

But wait. Isn't there another verse that talks about the fragrance of Christ?

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.
For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
--2 Corinthians 2:14-15

How cool is that? Imagine the all-time greatest smell in the history of the world--Jesus bursting forth victoriously from the spice-laden tomb.

That's how we smell to God.

Next time you're self-conscious about your breath or your wife tells you that you need a shower...just remember how you smell to Him!!

Experience the Unrivalled Russian Novel

I am writing tonight to promote another free download from Christian Audio. Fascinatingly, this month's selection is The Resurrection, by Leo Tolstoy.

If you have never read a major Russian novel, you have truly missed out. They are long. They can be somewhat tedious (especially to us Westerners who are unfamiliar with Russian culture). But my oh my are they rich. There is a depth to the writings of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy that may be unmatched.

I haven't read The Resurrection, but I know it was Tolstoy's last major novel. I have read The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, and War and Peace and other Russian works. It takes commitment to get through them, but the payoff is huge. I read one of these works in Bulgarian, so don't tell me you can't do it in English!

I just want to say that I look forward to listening to this work. It's 14 separate downloads--that's 14 CDs worth of listening (and burning, if you'd like to listen on CD...which I intend to do). The book is 398 pages--almost 17 hours of listening. It will be worth listening to attentively. I am sure it will enrich my life in some way.

I just checked out a bit of Tolstoy's story. He became a Christian later on in his life after a raucous young adulthood. I've excerpted the following from his work A Confession. This writing is only about 16 pages long, and though I haven't finished it yet I loved the 9 pages or so that I did read.

This bit (the excerpt) is part of Tolstoy's description of the despair he experienced as he searched for meaning in life:

There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller overtaken on a plain by an enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes s twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it. His hands are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he clings on. Then he sees that two mice, a black one and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to which he is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap and he will fall into the dragon’s jaws. The traveller sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and the mice, and I could not tear my gaze from them. and this is not a fable but the real unanswerable truth intelligible to all.

The deception of the joys of life which formerly allayed my terror of the dragon now no longer deceived me. No matter how often I may be told, “You cannot understand the meaning of life so do not think about it, but live,” I can no longer do it: I have already done it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false.

The two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the cruel truth longer than the rest: my love of family, and of writing — art as I called it — were no longer sweet to me. “Family”. . .said I to myself. But my family — wife and children — are also human. They are placed just as I am: they must either live in a lie or see the terrible truth. Why should they live? Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up, or watch them? That they may come to the despair that I feel, or else be stupid? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them: each step in knowledge leads them to the truth. And the truth is death.

If this has whet your appetite, be sure to read the whole thing (as I intend to tomorrow). And do yourself a favor. Take the time and trouble to download The Resurrection. I think you'll be glad you did.

Irenaeus--Defender of the Faith

I recently wrote a short reflection on Irenaeus's treatment of Genesis 2:7 in Book V of his massive work Against Heresies. Imagine...he uses this verse in his refutation of those who claimed that there would be no bodily resurrection!

Genesis 2:7 -- then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Here's my paper:
(If you want to read the pertinent sections, check out the link to "My Google Notebook.")


In order to prove that flesh can inherit eternal life, Irenaeus returns to the Creation narrative in Genesis 2. Specifically, he emphasizes the fact that God not only formed man out of the dust, but He animated him by breathing life into him. It was not until the breath of life, proceeding from God, was united to the fashioned dust that man was animated and endowed with reason. God had the power to breathe life into mere dust.

In a similar way, says Irenaeus (V.I.3), the Word and the Spirit are being united with the “ancient substance of Adam’s formation” in the last days, thus rendering man living and perfect. Irenaeus here ties Genesis 2 to 1 Corinthians 15 (“for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ”). The giving of the Spirit (“breath”) is paralleled with the animating breath of God given to Adam. Now, concerning the resurrection, Irenaeus says that if God can create life out of dust, He is surely capable of reanimating that which had once been alive and has now decomposed into earth. “If He does not vivify what is mortal, and does not bring back the corruptible to incorruption, He is not a God of power.” (V.III.2) Precisely because He did breathe life into dust, we now know He is able to reconstitute that which has decayed. Our very existence shows that God is able to confer life on flesh, so why would anyone say that “the flesh is not qualified to be a partaker of life”?

Irenaeus goes on to show that a human being was not complete before receiving the breath, and that the breath was not a living body until it entered the dust. It was incorporeal. (V.VII.1) Just as God brought physical life through the breath, He now brings spiritual life through the Spirit. The breath, says Irenaeus, is poured out on all humanity. Meanwhile, the Spirit is given only to those whom God has adopted as His children. “The breath, then, is temporal, but the Spirit eternal.” (V.XII.2) The breath enters for a certain time, then departs. The Spirit pervades and never leaves. Irenaeus says that the first Adam forfeited life when he “turned aside to what was evil,” but because of the second Adam humans may now turn back to what is good, receive the Spirit, and find life. Just as Adam received life through the breath of God, so we may receive eternal life through the Spirit. Irenaeus refers again to 1 Corinthians 15 in his argument:
45 Thus it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
46 But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual.
47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. (1 Cor 15:45-47)

In Adam, and in our turning aside from God, our bodies will die. In Christ, and in our turning back to Him, they will live again through the life-giving power of the Spirit.