Glen has been interacting with some thoughts on truth and goodness in pagan philosophers. I agree with him entirely and he says things much better than I could. I just think he could do with a dash of law and Gospel!
I've talked about this more here and here, where you can see how much I'm relying on Oswald Bayer. I came across another Bayer gem that explains what I mean the other day:
"The effect that the law creates is not surprising. One has no trouble understanding what it means to rely on oneself and on one's own deeds; the action-consequences relationship has its own logic. But the gospel is absolutely, completely incomprehensible. That God rescues one from, and brings one safely through, the deserved judgment is a miracle. Law and gospel cannot be plausibly intertwined together; their existence is hard and fast in opposition to each other. The gospel is literally a paradox; it stands against that which the sinner can reasonably expect; it stands against damnation"
(p.228, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation)
I think that makes clear how there can be good and true things in what pagan philosophers say (which, Glen, I think you could be clearer on), while also proclaiming the foolishness of the Gospel. They teach the good and true law, but cannot teach the Gospel. They never completely teach the law (that actually can only be done by teaching the cross), but they cannot even partially teach the Gospel. To me that makes sense of Psalm 19, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Job, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 1-3 etc
It also makes sense of my experience. For example, I watch a fair number of films and attempt to do this from a Christian perspective. I tend to feel they are often great at showing our plight, but never offer anything but false solutions.
Now there is an interesting question which I haven't really addressed, and that is where does Christ fit into this? I have talked about law and Gospel and Glen has talked about Christ. Does Christ=the Gospel, which is what Luther and Mark 1:1 (granting my discussion with Chris about different meanings of 'gospel') seem to do? But isn't Christ the one shown to be the one who will judge the world (Acts 17:31), and isn't the cross the ultimate proclamation of the law (as PT Forsyth argues)? Can't Paul even say that 'according to [his] gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus' (Rom 2:16)?
Sorry but I don't have time to pick up those threads!... just thought I'd tease you!
BTW I'm sorry if all I do is talk about Oswald Bayer, Glen Scrivener and law and Gospel at the moment. As you can probably tell by the rushed off nature of this post I'm not getting much time at the moment.
I see I'm outranking Graeme Goldsworthy 2 to 1 on your tags Dave. People will start to wonder!
ReplyDeleteI think I try to separate law and gospel in different terms - usually 'works vs grace' in the ethical realm, and 'reason vs revelation' in the epistemological. I think you'll agree I'm pretty keen to avoid the blurring of these distinctions.
Similarly flesh vs Spirit, old creation vs new, demand and offer - are fundamental distinctions to be drawn. But you're right I don't often use the classical terminology of 'law and gospel' - and I'm not sure why not.
Perhaps it's because the way law can come as promise ('You will not lie') and the way the gospel can threaten ('those who diobey the gospel'). Perhaps most fundamentally because I see all of revelation (even 'natural') as grace. Our worksyness is never encouraged by the Lord - it always springs from the flesh.
I think I've commented on creation's gospel presentation before. But Col 1:23 comes to mind. Rom 10:17-18 <=> Psalm 19 as a proclamation of the Light of the World Bridegroom Champion etc etc. Think also of the unconditional grace of the rain falling on the righteous and the wicked.
But of course it's experienced as law by the unbelieving eye. (Did you post Bono's quote about grace being the overturning of karma? Very true. Natural religion is always karma - the gospel is the opposite).
On another issue, I'd put a question mark over whether we judge our 'plight' rightly apart from the work of the Spirit. Even in a bible study yesterday I got people to look at Exodus 12:12 and tell me what precisely the Israelites needed saving from. I got about ten answers: slavery, misery, oppression, themselves, sin, the gods of Egypt. Nobody said what was glaringly obvious from the verse - they needed saving from the LORD Himself.
I think even Christians misconstrue our plight constantly (it's the issue at the heart of the penal substitution debate for one thing). It's also at the heart of the social action / evangelism debate. It's also why people mistakenly call sin our biggest problem.
Dunno - just a thought. I reckon a person's view of their plight needs as much redeeming as anything else.
But I'm also totally into watching films and doing 2 Cor 10:5 on them. Well sometimes anyway. Mainly I'm just into watching films!
Hi Glen,
ReplyDeleteWhat a lot to deal with there, and so little time. Thanks for your thoughts.
First off, I can certainly understand why you don't use the terminology (see the recent comments of Chris where he is pulling me up on this). I must try and get out of the habit of using it myself.
You say:
"I think I try to separate law and gospel in different terms - usually 'works vs grace' in the ethical realm, and 'reason vs revelation' in the epistemological. I think you'll agree I'm pretty keen to avoid the blurring of these distinctions."
This is absolutely true... and good. But you only separate law and Gospel as ways to know God, rather than different destinations when coming to know God. As you say "[You] see all of revelation (even 'natural') as grace", but I'd disagree with that. The law is from God as well. He gave it. It is not as fundamental as Gospel [BIG DIGRESSION: I'm thinking of how it was mediated by angels and of what Bayer expresses better here. As another example I read Job yesterday and the Lord gives and takes away, he deals out both death and life (not just 'grace'). Both come from him, and yet one is more fundamentally from him the other, which we see in Job by the way it is Satan that deals out the death (on God's behalf, but God remains is one step removed). This is what Luther talks about when he describes the work of the law as God's 'alien work', and the work of the Gospel as God's 'proper work'. Both are from God, but in different priorities. Both are revelations of God but in different priorities.] All revelation is to lead us to grace but it is not all grace itself. Death in creation reveals God (in his wrath). In itself it doesn't reveal his grace. It is transformed by the gospel, as is creation. But in itself it is not good news. That is why we shouldn’t welcome death as a good thing like Socrates but instead should mourn, but also why we should not fear death and mourn as those with no hope. Grace encompasses all revelation of God, but parts of it taken apart from the Gospel are only bad news.
I'm rambling and its late so I best move on. I need to do loads more thinking on this, because I know I'm feeling my way along and may have taken some wrong turnings....
I'm not sure I fully understand the verses you cite. But I would tend to say that creation has to be reinterpreted (or re-reinterpreted) to become gospel. It has to be read in light of Jesus Christ who died for our sins, to be seen as offering grace. Apart from that reinterpretation it offers no hope, it just holds out life to show us that we can't attain it (ala Leviticus 18:5).
On the plight thing, I sympathise with your bible study experience, although I suspect I often misunderstand my plight too. However, I think people do understand the nature of our plight without 'special revelation', they just don't understand its magnitude. I hinted at that when I said 'the cross the ultimate proclamation of the law'. I would say that in our experience being in the hands of an angry God is of the same nature as 'slavery, misery, oppression, themselves, sin, the gods of Egypt', just of a massively different scale.
However, our solution is different from the solutions of the world in nature as well as magnitude. They offer good things, but they never offer them in grace. The nearest they get is some kind of covenantal nomism 'get in by grace, stay in by works'.
All of these things are just things I'm working out in my own head, so I won't hold to them too tightly. But that is what I'm thinking.
Now to bed.
Oh, one further thing.
ReplyDeleteRead your 'Sin is not the problem' post again. Agree with the general sentiment. God's wrath is the over-arching problem, but applying to our discussion here: sin is one expression of that wrath and not just its cause (Rom 1, of course).
Therefore to experience sin is to experience God's wrath. So even non-believers know God's wrath. However, non-believers don't know God's grace. They experience blessings from God, but apart from the Gospel these just result in increased wrath later and demands for future obedience (even in this life that is true, as the stats about happy rich people show). The blessings are transformed into curses.
For a bit of clarity... You say: "I see all of revelation (even 'natural') as grace"
ReplyDeleteThat could mean:
1. all revelation is motivated by grace;
2. revelation taken as a whole is a revelation of grace; and/or
3. all parts or revelation are revelations of grace
I think 1. and 2. are correct but 3. is incorrect. Does that make sense?
Thanks for this interaction Dave. Been thinking a lot. This stuff is really at the heart of things isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI think the Luther 'alien work' stuff is very helpful and easily gets lost in my supralapsarian leanings. I'm very used to thinking about death then life as simply the
way of the LORD when the way down is very different to the way up. Law/gospel helps to keep the two halves of Romans 11:32 properly distinct - He has bound all men over to disobedience (alien work) SO THAT He may have mercy on all men (proper work).
My desire to see this as the evangelical being of the eternal God gives a very strong push in the continuity direction! (death is a means to life, life comes through death). I need to address more the alien character of death, sin, wrath, law.
I say that all revelation is grace in that it comes wholly from the Lord's side. Revelation is to grace what reason is to works - that sort of thing.
And the intention in all revelation (whether general rev, spoken law or spoken gospel) is to bring life. The Word is always life-giving. But it's experienced as the fragrance of life or stench of death - not because of His intent but our appropiation.
This is why I major on flesh vs Spirit as the distinction to uphold - because the same 'word of Christ' that proclaims the Bridegroom Champion to David (Ps 19), proclaims a meaningless cycle to the Teacher (Ecc 1). The intention in this word of Christ is the same - the difference is in the eye of the beholder.
So I guess that's the sort of continuity I want to uphold.
Funny - distinction upholds the LORD's character so you can say that death is not His proper work. Continuity upholds the LORD's character so you can say every revelation is intended to bring life. I guess we need to be able to say both.
still chewing over your thoughts so thank you...
I fully agree, and you say things much better than me.
ReplyDeleteI'm far from being clear at the moment as i'm so busy, and I am not fully sure I know what I think as it is!
Thank YOU for your interaction.
Got to keep the discontinuity/continuity though. So important, esp for dealing with suffering. Lose either one and there is no joy in it.
A friend of mine is constantly daydreaming about how great it would be if Barth had been a Lutheran - I think for just these sort of issues we're circling around.
ReplyDeleteSeems a good balance to strike to me.
Hmmm, interesting thought.
ReplyDelete