Sing songs

1. Sing songs from the historic church.
• Because the foot cannot say "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body" (1 Cor 12:15)
2. Sing songs from the contemporary church.
• Because we are ourselves and don't live in the past but the present and should sing new songs, in our language (musical as well as spoken).


3. Sing familiar songs
• Because the Gospel, and "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).
4. Sing unfamiliar songs
• Because his mercies are new every morning and we always have fresh petitions and praises (Lam 3:23).


5. Sing songs to God
• Because "great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised" (Psalm 96:4)
6. Sing songs to the church
• Because we should be edifying one another by "addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Eph 5:19)
7. Sing songs to the world
• Because we should be seeking to "become all things to all people, that by all means [we] might save some" we should ensure that it is understandable/contextualised as much as possible (1 Cor 9:22; 14:23) calling them to join us in praising God (Ps 117:1)


8. Sing songs of lament and reflection
• Because sin, death and the devil are real and horrible we should be honest about it.
9. Sing songs that of joy and celebration
• Because nothing is better than the Gospel - "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil 4:4)!

[First thoughts and not very polished. Improvements welcome.]

Longing for an advocate

How many times do we speak to people who are not yet Christians about how they long to be loved, and point out how that longing can be satisfied in God?

But I was struck by the passing comment in this video, that we all have a longing not just to be loved and told that we're loved, but for the person who loves us to tell the world that they love us.

Jesus is our great advocate to his Father and he is also our great advocate to the world when he comes again to reveal us to be the Father's beloved sons and to declare us to be his beloved bride.

Incidentally this shows that justification is at the heart of the Gospel of relational love - it is not just a one metaphor among many.

The Son of God in Luke 1-4

Listening to: The Creation (Haydn - no really I am)

The first four chapters of Luke seem to constantly be asking the question "whose son is Jesus?" There is barely an episode involving Jesus where that question isn't asked.

Luke 1:32-35: The angel declares to Mary that she will bare a son who will be called the "Son of God"

Luke 2:41-52: The family visits the Temple and they lose Jesus. When they find him Mary tells Jesus "Son...your father and I have been searching for you". He responds by explaining that he must be in his "Father's house". They don't realise whose Son he really is. But he doesn't grasp at his sonship to the Father but is "submissive" to them. Perhaps you could say that although he is the Son of God, he is willing to count himself "Son of Man" (although that title has Daniel-vision-of-glory-connections it is also regularly linked to suffering in the Gospel).

Luke 3:22: The Father declares from heaven that Jesus is his "beloved Son".

Luke 3:23: The very next verse Luke begins his backwards genealogy by noting that many people "supposed" Jesus to be the Son of Joseph.

Luke 3:37: After running back through the line of sons Luke concludes that Adam was "the son of God".

Luke 4:3, 9: The very next episode after this declaration is the the temptation of Jesus where Satan says "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." With his third and final temptation Satan again challenges Jesus "if you are the Son of God..." Unlike Adam, Jesus resists the temptation.

Luke 4:22: The next episode in the Gospel recounts Jesus preaching the good news of his coming, and people question "Is not this Joseph's son?" and drive him out of time. They don't think he is the Son of God.

Luke 4:41: Jesus heals casts out some demons the first of whom confesses him to be "the Holy One of God" and the other "demons also came out of many, crying, 'You are the Son of God!'"

A few refections:

• It now makes perfect sense that Luke's genealogy is not at the beginning of the book as in Matthew. If you ignore the section headings and chapter numbers it is crystal clear that in functions as a link between the Father's declaration of Jesus' Sonship with him being the perfect Son of God that Adam never was when tempted by Satan.
• No humans confess Jesus to be the Son of God. Angels do, the Father does, and demons do. Impliedly even the devil does. Why can humans not see it? (perhaps 9:35 + 10:22 provide a hint)
• Perhaps Luke's genealogy is not meant to be Jesus' genealogy at all, except as he takes it upon himself. This would solve the problem of harmonising it with Matthew's geneology. He assumes the inheritance of death that comes from Adam, even though he is a new Adam who obeys his Father in heaven.

This post is prompted by a facebook comment from Chris and is the fruit of barely any thought on my part. Please contribute any reflections you may have, particularly about the temptation (although in the other Gospels I see it more as a "new Israel" than a "new Adam" episode, it is clear that Luke sees the link primarily with Adam).

A few random thoughts on God's Word

God's word is personal:

• The speaker is a person - the Father
• The content is a person - the Son
• The hearers are people - the church past and present

It is tempting to forget who is addressing us, and treat it merely as the opinion of another human.

It is tempting to forget that it is all about Christ, his person and work. We can think that it is all about me and meeting my felt needs, a rule-book, or about an irrelevant religion of a dead people.

It is tempting to forget that it is meant to be spoken to people. If it is not applied to individuals then it is not doing what it is meant to.

God's word is an arrow:

• It has a target: God's Word is addressed to us
• It will impact: God's Word is powerful and does what it says

It is tempting to treat God's Word as an object to be 'engaged' with. It is, but it is also a moving object that is 'engaging' us.

It is also tempting to treat God's Word as for someone else (either the sinner sat next to me in church who needs rebuking, the saint who we think deserves to be loved by God, or an ancient nation long past). It is for them, but it is also for us.

Woe betide this become a church leadership blog

... especially when I wouldn't class myself a church leader (OK I co-lead a home group but that is all). But I think John Conoley, Chief Executive of Psion, sums up a lot of what I think leadership in any context is about:

"culture eats strategy for breakfast" (BBC)

For all my other thinking on church leadership then simply read the stunningly good (in a "of course, that's obvious" way) The Trellis and the Vine. I don't have many sophisticated thoughts of my own.

Oh, and while I'm here... this is probably as good a time as any other to share another quote on leadership that I've been meaning to write down for ages before I forget it:

Young men tend to overestimate what they can accomplish in the short term and underestimate what they can accomplish in the long term

Tony Reinke says Mark Dever has this on his desktop. Wise common grace advice.

God's great symphony resolving disharmony

Why is it that [Mozart] is so incomparable? ... He has heard, and causes those with ears to hear, even today, what we shall not see until the end of time-the whole context of providence. As though in the light of this end, he heard the harmony of creation to which the shadow belongs but in which the shadow is not darkness, deficiency is not defeat, sadness cannot become despair, trouble cannot degenerate into tragedy and infinite melancholy is not ultimately forced to claim undisputed sway ... Mozart causes us to hear that even on the latter side, and therefore in its totality, creation praises its master and is therefore perfect.

(Karl Barth, cited in pp.348-349, Colin Gunton, "Mozart the Theologian", Theology, (1991) 94)

Which is a bit like one of the points Jeremy Begbie makes in this interesting little video a friend sent to me:

At about 5min he explains that in playing the piano, as in life:

Once you've made the mistake there is no going back...

You can't delete that mistake.

What you can do is turn it into a passing note.

A passing note is a note that doesn't fit with the underlying harmony that can be made to fit, can be woven into, the context.

I suppose that is one of the most extraordinary things about being a Christian, that God can take your worst mistakes and turn them into his passing notes.

Wisdom on reading well (part 3): Gustaf Wingren

Continuing my little series. We've heard from Torrance and Reeves. I hope we'll hear from Calvin and Lewis as well shortly, but for now here is Gustaf Wingren:

In the Bible men, as hearers, are not additions to the naked Word spoken into empty space. That, however, is just the presupposition when division into objective and subjective is made [...]

The scarlet thread that runs through the Bible is God and his people. As A. Fridrichsen has expressed it, 'God is the one pole in the power circuit, his people are the other.' [...] To think of the Bible, and not to think at the same time of Israel and the Church, is to omit from the Bible its character as message. The Bible does not acquire that character because we preach its Word, but already possesses it as a historic fact, and having that character it preaches. Our preaching, then, is just the Bible's own preaching [...]

There are, of course, sermons were men are not present from the first because there are bad sermons, sermons which do not set forth the Word. The main point which must be driven home is that the weakness of such bad sermons lies in the fact that the passage is never given its rightful place; the weakness is not that while the passage is correctly expounded the exposition is 'lifeless', 'uninspiring', etc. etc. If the passage is clearly and fully expounded the preaching is good. When the Bible lies open on the preacher's desk and the preparation of the sermon is about to begin, the worshippers have already come in; the passage contains these people since it is God's Word to his people."

(pp.25-26, Gustaf Wingren, The Living Word)

The relevance of Jewish law to Gentiles

Martin Downes insightfully comments that:

If you deny that law has any reference to Gentiles, are you not forced to conclude that Jesus neither kept it for their sake, nor is his obedience imputed to them for their justification?

I've been aware on in my recent posts on the law that while (I feel) I haven't neglected eschatology, I have neglected the fact that it was given to the nation of Israel. Not unconnected to that, I've focused on the Ten Commandments. But I still think what I have said holds because the relevance of the law is more fundamentally a question of the age, or creation, we live in than whether we are Jew or Gentile.

I would argue that as Adam represented humanity in the Garden, so Israel represented the nations in the land. They were priests to the world showcasing what life in close relationship to God looked like.

Israel were to keep the OT law on behalf of the world, and if they kept it then through them the world could be blessed. However, if they broke God's law then they would be judged first, and then the rest of the world through them.

The line of the seed is the line of representatives of the old humanity:

• Adam
• Noah
• Abraham
• Isaac
• Jacob/Israel
• David
• Jesus Christ

The specific commands (as part of their covenants) to each were slightly different, each building on the one before. However, they all were representing the world before God.

The line of the seed is also a line of shadow-representatives of the new humanity, each with their own promises which were slightly different building on the one before. The Seed who is representative of the true new humanity where all the promises are 'yes' is singular and not a family tree because one king will rule on that throne forever:

• Jesus Christ

Perhaps that needs some fine-tuning, but that would be the outline of where I'd go.

PS In case you're wondering why I'm obsessing about the 10 commandments at the moment it is because our pastor is doing a series on them entitled "10 ways to love", I'm reading Ed Clowney's book alongside that, and lots of conversations are happening with church members. However, what I should be obsessing about is property and criminal law because I have exams in a week, so don't expect to hear from me too much for a while.

Ed Clowney on the Ten Commandments

Ed Clowney's last book on the 10 commandments is quite odd but always Christ-centred and often insightful. This is from the conclusion and summarises much of the book:

"Christ fulfills the law, not by diminishing it, but by deepening and widening it. In every one of the Ten Commandments we see not only the negative commands but their positive requirements.

1. Having no other gods implies loving God will all our heart, soul, strength, and mind.
2. Not bowing to idols means honoring and revering God as Creator and Redeemer in our every thought, capturing all our thoughts to Christ.
3. Not misusing God's name means honoring that name in every moment of our lives, and confessing it in witness by both our words and our actions.
4. Remembering the Sabbath means finding our joy and rest in laboring for God and his kingdom not only one day a week, but all seven.
5. Honoring our parents means accepting and promoting those family values that God set into creation and honoring all God's family members.
6. Avoiding murder implies loving and protecting life and the image of God in man.
7. Avoiding adultery means keeping our hearts pure from lust and from twisting sexuality to suit our appetites. It also implies placing love for God above all other loves.
8. Ceasing to steal is insufficient to obey God's command, which demands that we work hard to earn enough money to be lavish and extravagant in graciously giving it away to those in need.
9. Not bearing false witness implies that in every situation we must honor the reputations of those around us, refusing to allow any shadow of dishonor to fall across their reputations because of our words. It also means that our words are to bear testimony to the truth of God and to the person of Christ.
10. Refusing to covet means that our hearts must be completely sold out to the good of the kingdom and thoroughly careless about the material implications of that passion.

How impossible to keep the commandments!... Praise God that the Ten Commandments not only have been intensified by Christ, but also have been transformed and fulfilled in his righteousness. The law is transformed in the full measure of the love of Christ. The love that fulfills the law is the love

• by which Christ gave himself to redeem those given him by the Father, and
• by which the Father gave his one and only Son [and]
• [by which] we live by the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead [and] can do what the law had no power to help us accomplish."

(formatting mine, pp.153, Edmund P. Clowney, How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments)

Jesus and the 10 commandments

• Jesus reveals their intensity - e.g. not just condemning destroying marriage (adultery) but weakening marriage (lusting), and implying the positive command to strengthen marriage
• Jesus transforms them (making them 'Christian' by giving the fullest content to the name 'God' and the fullest example to imitate):
• he is our God, who created and saved us from a bondage greater than Egypt
• he is the image we worship of the invisible God, excluding any other representation of who God is
• he is the name of God which we are given to bear as Christians in a way which gives him the honour he is due,
• he is the Lord of the Sabbath who commands us to enter his rest,
• he is our brother who obeyed his father perfectly and by whom we are adopted into a new family to love and given a new Father to honour
• he is the life-giver who not only gave life to humanity, but bought it back by identifying himself with humans, so how can we kill those made in his image and redeemed by his blood?
• he is the husband of the ugliest and most adulterous woman, who shows that to love our wife is to lay down our life for her, and that wives should submit to their husband as the church does to Christ - recognising that even more important than our earthly marriage is our marriage to him
• he is the owner of all the cattle on the hills and every star in the sky, but he gave all that he had to those who had already stole from him,
• he is the perfect witness to (and embodiment of) the truth about God and about our sin even though it cost him his life
• he is the lover of neighbour who didn't begrudge all that we have, but loved us so much he wanted to give us more
• Jesus obeyed them fully even though he was the one to whom obedience was due
• Jesus was condemned by them as a sinner because he identified with us

Therefore

• the law ends (terminates) with the death of the people to whom it was given in the cross (Rom 7:4)

but then

• the law reaches its end (telos/purpose/fulfilment) in the resurrection new lives of the saints against which there is no law but which flawlessly reflect the same God who gave the law (Rom 10:4, 13:10; Gal 5:14)

For us the cross and resurrection are not just past events, but part of our lives now, and only fully realised in our lives when Christ returns. So for us the law is "becoming obsolete and growing old [and] ready to vanish away" (Heb 8:13), but not yet fully gone.

How change happens

• Paul: "we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image"
• John: "we shall be like him, because we shall see him"
• Jared Wilson (and others): "Beholding is becoming"
• My pastor: "Transfigured by being transfixed"

Meeting in the middle

I think this comment of Bavinck is fascinating:

"But it is common to all those who take the ‘middle way’ to show a greater preference ‘for that extreme they go halfway to than for that from which they go halfway’" (Reformed Dogmatics, 3:532, HT: Steve Duby)

I think that explains a lot of discussions and tensions between Christians. Their convictions about theology and practice may be very similar, but more important than their present position is their personal history.

For example, two people may wholeheartedly confess that they believe in "the forgiveness of sins [AND] the resurrection of the body". But the person who was brought up believing that forgiveness of sins was the sum-total description of salvation will by most alert to any non-physical understanding of salvation, whereas the person brought up a legalist will be especially protective about God’s free-grace toward sinners.

If we understood people work this way there would be a slowness to express your initial instinctual response, more mutual appreciation of others concerns, and therefore less conflict.

Psalm 132 retold

This passage has been a great encouragement to me as I've been praying for some things for my church recently. God so loved my church he died for her and he lives for her:

Psalm 132	An attempt to pray its fulfilment
Remember, O Lord, in David's favour, all the hardships he endured,	Remember, Father God, in Christ's favour his suffering in his life and death,
how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob,	remember that he swore to you, he made a solemn vow to you
"I will not enter my house or get into my bed, I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”	He promised, "I will not rest until I build somewhere for you to live"
Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar.	Listen close everyone, we have heard amazing news in Bethlehem, news that God was in Jesus Christ
"Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool!"	Let us go to Jesus Christ where God is, and there worship
Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.	Father come and find your rest in your church, you and your Son with you.
Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your saints shout for joy.	Our Father, make your people righteous, make them shout in joy
For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one.	You should do this for Jesus' sake, please do not forget him.
The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: "One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne."	We know that the Father swore to the Son, and he will never renege on such a commitment, The Father said "I will make one of David's sons the king of my church, and because he will keep my covenant perfectly he will reign forever.
"This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.	Our Father said "as my Son will reign forever in the church so I will abide in my Son and be with him I will settle permanently to rest in the church. Why? Because I love the church.
I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy.	I will give in overflowing generosity, I will feed the church I will provide all she needs and her members will shout for joy!
There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine."	In the church Jesus will be honoured. but those who oppose Jesus will be shamed

Are the 10 commandments for Christians today?

I think the answer is: "Yes", so far as we live in the present evil age, but "no" so far as we live in the age to come.

Jesus says that the law will persist "until heaven and earth pass away" (Matt 5:18). If we are not Christians then we are still living in the "present evil age" (Gal 1:14) and so Paul can say in 1 Tim 1:9 that "the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners" because they are still living in that age.

However, Christians are caught between the ages. Our old self which belongs to the present age is in its death throws, but our new self which belongs to the future is growing in its resurrection life of the age to come. In that age to come there will be no law, because against such a life in the Spirit "there is no law" (Gal 5:23).

For us to believe that the new self needs the law to give it life is to "turn back again" (Gal 4:9) to the old age. The law brings death and promises life from another source, but has no power to bring life itself. Death with hope is what our old self needs, so it still has a role to play so long as our old self lives, but the law cannot bring life and so it should not be applied to our new self.

The law is God's radiotherapy. It kills but it offers hope of a future life free of cancer. We fire it at the cancerous cells that riddle our body, but we don't start eating it. Once the cancer of sin has gone, we will stop the treatment.

Because of God's amazing love for us incurably sick people, the full power of that radiotherapy was applied to Jesus even though he didn't have one cancerous cell in his body. But his life was so indestructible he rose again to new life (Heb 7:16).

He gives himself to us as food by his Spirit, and in that way he gives us the same eternal life he enjoys (John 6) so that even when the radiotherapy finishes us off we will rise again into the new age with him.

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Note 1: It is subtle but I have not restricted the term "law" to the sense of command or accusation, as is often the case in Lutheranism. Instead, I've tried to be more biblical and make the term wider so that includes both command and promise, but with the emphasis remaining on the former.

The Mosaic law contained both command and promise, but the promise was not the same type of promise that we find in the New Covenant. The promise of the Mosaic law is that something will be done whereas the promise of the New Covenant is that it has been done. Even the promise that looks forward will pass away to leave us only with love built on the promise of what has been done (1 Cor 13).

Note 2: Many people say that Paul doesn't teach the 10 commandments to Christians. But he quotes them directly in Romans 13:9 and Ephesians 6:2, and alludes to them often. He also often sums them up in the (Mosaic) command "love your neighbour as yourself". So Paul saw the law as continuing in some sense for the Christian (I would argue only their "old self" though). However, it is striking that even in these instances he only quotes the second table of the law, not the first (see here and here for thoughts on that).

Note 3: Come back welcome. I know this is controversial, and I'm just thinking aloud. Also I'm sorry that I go on and on about "the law" on this blog sometimes. It really isn't my heartbeat...honest. It is just that it is on "the law" that I'm often challenged to think most precisely and needing to think precisely forces me to write... which leads me to blog.

Commandments 6-10

6. Do not deprive another person of their life
7. Do not deprive another person of their spouse
8. Do not deprive another person of their possessions
9. Do not deprive another person of their reputation
10. Do not even desire in your heart to deprive another person of anything

And a bit like Luther in his catechism these are then turned into positive commandments like this:

6. As far as you are able, supply your neighbour with all their needs for bodily and spiritual life
7. Strengthen your neighbour's marriage and your own
8. Give your neighbour your possessions
9. Build up your neighbour with your words and speak well of them to others
10. Love your neighbour in your heart and desire their good in everything

Dramatis personae in Proverbs

• The Author(s) = King = Father = God the Father
• The Recipient = Heir = Son = God the Son
• Lady Wisdom = Inheritance = Gift of Father to Son = God the Holy Spirit
• Lady Folly = Robs the inheritance = Spirit of this world

Equals signs are a bit strong perhaps. Directly the author, etc are not the persons of the Trinity. But God is the ultimate author, and Jesus is the only really wise son who listens to his Father and receives the Spirit.

We receive his wisdom and the benefits that wisdom afords, just as we receive his Spirit and righteousness and their fruits, by hearing with faith - not by works (1 Corinthians 1:30).