Motivation for mission

'we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.' (2 Cor 4:13-15)

Mission is founded on personal hope in the Gospel (v.14) and for the sake of

• the salvation of the lost, so that
• thanksgiving may increase, so that
• God is glorified.

So it is not simply an expression of personal joy, or simply to save people from hell, or even simply for God's glory. It is all of those, but in a certain relationship.

(cf. Romans 15)

Incidentally, every time I read Paul these days I see the importance of thanksgiving for him (46 occurrences in ESV). Perhaps I should read David Pao's book.

Moses and his veil

Listening to: Sufjan Stevens: The Age of Adz

Moses did not wear his veil when he was speaking to YHWH or when he was speaking to Israel the words of YHWH (Exodus 34). When he was acting as mediator he was unveiled, when he wasn't he was veiled.

The veil is like the curtain of the temple separating God from humanity, hiding his glory because of our sinfulness. Like the Tabernacle this hiding of God was both a judgement and a grace. It was judgement because it was a barrier between the God of life and us, but it was a grace because the glory of God is lethal to people on whom guilt still rests. That is why the people were afraid when they saw the glory (v.30), just as they were afraid when the law was given at Sinai (20:18).

Following Christ's death God has torn the curtain and the veil is no longer put in place by God because the glory of God is unveiled in the face of Christ. However, Satan veils this glory (2 Cor 4), and for people whose minds are hardened the veil lies not over the face of Christ but over their hearts (2 Cor 3:14).

Why should we not be afraid now that God is unveiled to us? Why can we be confident (v. 4) and bold (v.12) in approaching God? The reason is that (just as for Paul and his ministry), our sufficiency comes from God (v.5). We are made sufficient, by the Spirit (vv. 6, 17, 18) who Christ pours out on us following his death, resurrection and ascension.

It was not that we didn't see God in the law. There was glory there (v.9), but the glory in the face of Christ is superior because it permanently brings the Spirit, life and righteousness (vv.6, 9), rather than temporarily bringing the letter, death and condemnation.

Because Christ is now the mediator, not human beings like Moses or Paul, we don't proclaim ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord (4:5).

With thanks to Bill Dumbrell and John Piper, who may not agree with all this. I still don't understand 2 Cor 3:13 though. Help gratefully received.

Don Carson on domains of discourse

For clarity of thought and expression, it is important to distinguish between two domains of discourse, viz. exegesis and theology. Of course, for those who want the “norming norm” of their theology to be Scripture, the links between the two disciplines must be much more than casual. Nevertheless, not only their respective methods, but even their respective vocabularies, can be very different.

Carson then discusses the different ways in which the Bible and Systematic/Historical Theology uses the words sanctification and reconciliation. He believes that the Bible teaches that sanctification is progressive, and God is reconciled to humanity, even if it never uses the terms sanctification and reconciliation to describe it.

He concludes, applying it to the doctrine of imputation, although its application is broader:

The bearing of these reflections is obvious. Even if we agree that there is no Pauline passage that explicitly says, in so many words, that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to his people, is there biblical evidence to substantiate the view that the substance of this thought is conveyed? And if such a case can be made, should the exegete be encouraged to look at the matter through a wider aperture than that provided by philology and formulae? And should we ask the theologian to be a tad more careful with texts called up to support the doctrine?

('The Vindication of Imputation: On Fields of Discourse and Semantic Fields')

John Webster on discipleship

The command is to follow at a distance: 'Follow after me', Jesus commands Simon and Andrew.

In the movement required of the disciples that is there can be no question of them being companions of Jesus in the way in the sense of fellow travellers of equal ability and dignity. No, between the one who follows and the one who follows there is always an unbridgeable distance.

Like the cloud and pillar of fire in the wilderness, Jesus goes ahead of his followers. He is present with them, yes, but he is present always as the transcendent Lord.

Nor can there be any hope for the eventual closing of the gap between Jesus and those who follow. The distance between him and them is not such that we can expect that it will gradually narrow and finally close entirely as the disciples grow in knowledge or skill or virtue. No, they are permanently, by nature and not merely temporarily, those who come after him.

The summons to follow doesn't look ahead to growing proximity but to a condition in which the disciples walk in the wake of Jesus, in which they pulled along by his movement. Set in motion by him, but always unlike him and so behind him.

In this connection, of course, much might be made of the distinctiveness of following Jesus, over and against the relations between Rabbi and pupil or between moral model and the one who imitates such an example.

The pupil eventually becomes a Rabbi, the imitator grows like the model. But the disciple never moves beyond the condition of following. There is no assimilation to be awaited. Even at the end of the disciples' journey with Jesus in Mark, after the resurrection, Jesus continues to go before his disciples, anticipating them as they hasten in his direction.

[...]

The substance of Jesus' call is, further: 'follow me'. It is irreducibly personal, notice: a call to enter into a movement which is a relation to Jesus himself.

Everything hangs on this. Jesus speaks in his own name, with his own authority. He doesn't refer the one called to some other, not even to God himself. Discipleship is a matter of of following Jesus as personal absolute, that is as the absolute in person. Following Jesus isn't a command to take upon oneself a commitment to some cause or principle or truth beyond or behind Jesus - as if Jesus were the symbol or highest instance of something other than himself.

The name of Jesus cannot be eliminated without losing everything.

As Bonhoeffer puts it: in the matter of discipleship Jesus is the only content.

(about the 40min mark, MP3 lecture, John Webster, Discipleship and calling, Scottish Evangelical Theology Conference 2005)

Unreached Village

Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles,
and sing to your name.”

And again it is said,

“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.”

And again,

“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
and let all the peoples extol him.”

...I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written,

“Those who have never been told of him will see,
and those who have never heard will understand.”

(Romans 15)

Paul's ambition is for the whole earth to be full of the praise of God for his mercy in Jesus Christ.

A couple of my friends work for Gospel for Asia, a wonderful mission agency deeply committed to seeing this happen. They believe that the best way to do this is by means of missionaries born and brought up in those very areas, and seek to encourage funds to flow from the West to the East to fuel that.

They've just made a new website called the Unreached Village to raise awareness and to ask some awkward questions.

Imagine the world as a village of 100 people (where one of the North Americans looks suspiciously like me)...

I'm thankful for John Piper who for years has been a prophetic voice on the primacy in missions of reaching the unreached. Like Paul he taught me that mission primarily exists because worship doesn't. Check out his important article here.

Three caricatures to kill

Gustaf Aulén, in his preface to the paperback edition of Christus Victor explains that in connection with the image of God his book has as its aim the exposure of three caricatures of God:

the God of fatalism, where even the evil proceeds from God; the God of moralism, where the spontaneity of the Love of God is being killed; and finally the shallow view of God's Love, where Love is considered self-evident, and where, therefore, every sense of the Love's hard work has been lost. Concerning gods of these types a 'god-is-dead-theology' could do us a service - especially if its death sentences were efficacious. Then it would be a work in the service of the living God of the Gospel.

The Epic Gospel Story

Gustaf Aulén says of the subjective/moral influence view of the atonement that it sets "forth a 'purified,' 'simple' conception of God, whose characteristic is an unchanging Love. But the simplicity is won at the cost of the obscuring of the hostility of the Divine Love to evil; the conception of the Divine Love has become humanised, and at the same time rather obvious and stereotyped" (p. 154, Christus Victor).

I haven't read Love Wins, so don't know if this is fair, but I did recently come across one persons view of it. He felt it was

an exceptionally bland story. There is no drama. No deep conflict requiring resolution. No compelling need for a satisfying denouement. Where is the insurmountable problem that must be overcome? Where’s the cliff we might fall off? Where’s the foreshadowed death that can be avoided only by intervention from the outside? Nothing is ever really at stake in Bell’s tale of limitless happy endings. It has even less suspense than a child’s bedtime story.

(pp. 145-206, Mike Wittmer, Christ Alone)

The real story of the Bible is never bland or obvious, but full of colour and surprises.

Last night in our home group we read the whole of Ephesians. It struck me afresh that the Gospel story is an epic. It is cosmic in scope, evil really is dark, the battle is violent, and there is a great hero.

Un-systematic ramblings on systematisation

Gustaf Aulén believes the 'classic' view of the atonement is only 'an idea, a motif, a theme' and not a 'theory'. 'It has been fully definite and unambiguous' in its expression, but 'it has never been shaped into a rational theory' (p. 157, Christus Victor).

The classic type is characterised by a whole series of contrasts of opposites, which defy rational systematisation, while the other two find rational solutions of the antinomies along theological or psychological lines.

...the oppositions of the classic type...are present wherever the classic type appears. God is at once the all-ruler, and engaged in conflict with the powers of evil. These powers are evil powers, and at the same time executants of God's judgment on sin. God is at the same time the Reconciler and the Reconciled. His is the Love and His the Wrath. The Love prevails over the Wrath, and yet Love's condemnation of sin is absolute. The Love is infinite and unfathomable, acting contra rationem et legem [contrary to reason and law], justifying men without any satisfaction of the Divine justice or any consideration of human merit; yet at the same time God's claim on men is sharpened to the uttermost.

Every attempt to force this conception into a purely rational scheme is bound to fail; it could only succeed by robbing it of its religious depth. For theology lives and has its being in these combinations of seemingly incompatible opposites.

(p. 155, Christus Victor)

In this respect he is a typical Lutheran. Frustrating to a rationalist like me and yet full of life and colour.

He calls on Luther to aid him in his cause, and even though I think Luther was less opposed to substitutionary atonement than Aulén believes, it is difficult to argue that Luther was ever systematic. He wrote scores of volumes of work and yet almost nothing that could be described as systematic.

More recently I have encountered much of this anti-systematic Lutheranism in Gerhard Forde and Oswald Bayer. Steven Paulson, a student of Forde, recalls another theologian quip about Forde that he had "lost interest in doing systematic theology".

Another student of Forde, Mark Mattes's has recently written a book analysing the theology of Jungel, Pannenberg, Moltmann, Jenson and Bayer. He argues:

Theology should not be about providing an overall system, but instead should deconstruct systems. Undoubtedly, it is desirable for the church's catechesis to seek rhetorically a structured presentation of the faith ...[but not] a "God's eye view" of all reality...The most important task in theology is not construction but discernment. All construction needs to subordinate itself to this discernment, and not vice versa.

(pp. 181-182, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology)

Against this background it is only really Bayer that he finds limiting theology appropriately:

For Bayer, theology is not done to integrate all knowledge, either theoretical or practical, into an abstract unity, but to limit reason to its proper fields. It is the art of discerning what God is saying to us, not peering into the divine

(p. 149)

In biblical theology I have found Seifrid also upholding this lack of systematisation.

PS In case you wondered, I feel the Lutherans have something useful to say here, but I am not totally with them.

Christus Victor

In Christus Victor, Gustaf Aulén summarises his strange but seminal account of the three atonement 'theories' as follows:

1. structure - Classic: continuity of divine action and discontinuity in the legal order; Latin: discontinuity of divine action and continuity in the legal order; Subjective: man as active party.
2. The idea of Sin - Classic: sin is an objective power and also deeply personalised; Latin: materialized view of sin; Subjective: weak view of sin.
3. Salvation - Classic: comprehensive in scope; Latin: 'series of acts standing in relatively loose connection'; Subjective: psychological change.
4. Christ and the incarnation - Classic: God himself had to do work so incarnation is necessary; Latin: less clearly necessary as God is not direct agent in atonement; Subjective: Jesus is only the 'Pattern Man' and divinity of Jesus is downplayed.
5. The conception of God - Classic: 'idea of God involves a double opposition' as he is manifested in conflict with evil, yet at the same time as the 'all-ruler' so dualism is 'not to be ultimate'; Latin: has less violent form of opposition that is compromised in a rational way; Subjective: no opposition.

He has come under much criticism for the accuracy of his historical theology. I am also thoroughly confused by what he was trying to say in some parts (e.g. on incarnation) and think he is almost wilfully blind to what a proponent of the Latin view would say in response to some of his points.

Interesting reading though, particularly because exponents of Christus Victor don't seem to see its strengths to be the same as those Aulén gets most excited about.

The three forms of the word of God

I have heard there are three forms of the word of God and Glen recently mentioned it may originate with Barth/Luther. Barth certainly popularized the classification. There is a hierarchy, but they are all bound together. The three forms are:

1. the Personal/Eternal Word of God - Jesus Christ;
2. the Spoken word - the present proclamation in preached words and sacramental words;
3. the Written word - the Bible.

They are linked as:

• The Father speaks the Personal Word
• the Personal Word speaks the Spoken word (either directly or by his Spirit indwelt ambassadors)
• the Spoken word is recorded in the Written word
• the Written word serves the Spoken word by ensuring it continues to be heard
• the Spoken word serves the Personal Word by ensuring he continues to be heard
• the Personal Word serves the Father by ensuring he is heard

On the way from the Father each form of the word is Spirit-breathed by means of the previous, and on the way back to the Father serves the glorification of the latter by the Spirit.

Was Paul a 'together' person?

Paul was an anxious guy (Philippians 2:28; 2 Corinthians 11:28), but he knew that when he was anxious he had to pass everything to God in prayer (Philippians 4:6).

When he was persecuted he "despaired of life itself", but looking back he saw that was to rely not on himself but on God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).

Moses doubts

Listening to: Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde

Moses said to the LORD, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.”

Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”

Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses

(Exodus 4:10-13)

Moses turned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”

But the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”

God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty [El Shaddai], but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.’”

(Exodus 5:22-6:8)

In the both passages Moses doubts.

In the first passage Moses doubts God's power and God is angry.

In the second passage Moses doubts God's good purposes and God promises he will save and then Moses will stop doubting.

Leithart says of Barth:

What does Barth make of the “Name” theology of the OT? It shows that Israel must know God a “second time,” not only as hidden God but as revealed God. To know the name is to know God as partner in covenant (317-18).

The hidden God is the God of power only. His purposes are uncertain.

The revealed God is the God of both power and good purposes.

With thanks to Jim H

Pastoral discernment

I heard Mark Mattes say in a talk not long ago that the art of distinguishing law and Gospel is not a matter of syntax but of pastoral discernment.

I experienced that powerfully this week when I shared with a friend Philippians 1:6: "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ".

It was a verse that had really encouraged me and I hoped would encourage them. They appreciated it, although felt that in my words there was a hint of condemnation for the negative feelings they were experiencing. Fair or not, I knew that they needed to hear the Gospel, but I delivered the wrong goods.

On the other hand sometimes I can fail to realise what goods need to be delivered at all. I can think that someone needs to hear a command when they need to hear a promise. On other occasions I can think someone needs to hear a promise when they need to hear a command.

It is a hard skill, as Oswald Bayer comments:

Luther refers to the discovery of how to make the distinction as a breakthrough...But such freeing does not have the character of an experience that one, as such, can leave behind and that one can keep at the ready and used at will. It remains an art and a skill, a blessing that is experienced when one can distinguish properly in a very tough situation.

(p. 67, Martin Luther's Theology)

There has been a lot of blog discussion recently about the role of the law in sanctification and I have found Dane Ortlund's reflections very, very wise and perceptive. Among them he observes that "ministry context plays a part in how we parse out the gospel [Also] personality--specific, unique, wiring; our own personal bent--plays a role [as] does personal history and background".

Books and blogs loose this pastoral element which is one reason why I am slow to recommend a book that has helped me to a person unless I feel I know them fairly well. One Christian may love a book and another hate it, and that can have nothing to do with its worth.

So I appreciated that when Dave Bish experienced Joe Thorn's book as "more like law" he didn't generalise that to saying that the book was law. To some other people I am sure they will experience it as Gospel.

This is not to say that everything is relative because I do not think words can mean whatever you want them to mean. But if both law and Gospel are personal address then the person being addressed is important as well as the words used. Tone, context and the character of the person speaking are also massively significant.

The Righteousness of God revealed

Mark Seifrid writes that:

It is clear from these contexts that when Paul speaks of the ‘righteousness of God’ he does not refer to an abstract divine attribute, but to the event of God’s justification over against fallen humanity, which paradoxically is also the justification of the fallen human being.

He sees 'the Righteousness of God' as something that cuts two ways for us sinful human beings. On the one hand it is God's retributive justice in which his wrath is rightfully poured out, but on the other hand it is also his salvific justice in which he saves his people as he promised.

If the book of Romans has as a theme the Righteousness of God being revealed (1:17), then it is noteworthy that the next verse says God's "wrath is revealed", and that "because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed" (2:5). These are all retributive meanings of the Righteousness of God.

But then the turning point comes in the great "but now" of Romans 3:21, where the wrath meets the salvific faithfulness to his promises:

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it — the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (3:21-26)

Now, in Christ, the Righteousness of God can have a salvific meaning for us.

I think Seifrid gets the meaning of the Righteousness of God better than any other, and I think that is because he is unwilling to give it an exact definition but is an unusual kind of theologian who can accept the paradox and point to Christ instead of a form of words:

Paul’s language obviously includes the idea of retribution…Any interpretation of God’s righteousness or justification in purely salvific terms is forced into the untenable position of ignoring a significant element of Paul’s language and argument as it appears in Romans…For Paul, God’s righteousness is revealed in the event of Christ’s cross and resurrection. Here the contention between the Creator and the fallen creature is decided in God’s favor and yet savingly resolved…There is no definition of ‘righteousness,’ not even in narrative terms, which adequately accounts for the simultaneity of righteous wrath and the gift of righteousness of which Paul speaks (Rom. 3:4-5; 3:21-26). The Christ-event itself supplies the final definition of the language.

Exactly right!

Quotes taken from here, which is from a great collection of big quotations on the meaning of the phrase provided by various theologians.

Luther's Reformation Discovery

Bayer writes of Luther:

His "Reformation discovery" happened in the wake of a deeply profound reflection on the sacrament of penance, which had been required of him by the monstrosity of indulgences. At first, Luther understood the priestly word of absolution: "I absolve you of your sins!" as an activity of declaration, which states something already present. The priest sees the remorse, takes it as a sign of the divine justification - the divine absolution occurring already in the one being absolved but unknown to him - and lets this appear as such. He states it or the assurance of the one being absolved. By this means the word of absolution is understood as a judgment in the sense of a statement.

The result of Luther's Reformation discovery was that language is no longer to be viewed solely as a system of signs "that refer to objects or situations or of signs that express an emotion. In either case the sign is - as a statement or as an expression - not the reality itself. In other words, the linguistic sign is itself the reality; that it represents not an absent but a present reality was Luther's great hermeneutical discover, his 'Reformation Discovery' in the strict sense." It can be classified as a speech act that is an "effective active word that establishes community and therein frees and makes certain. It does what it says. It says what it does."

(p. 152, Mark C. Mattes, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology)

Freedom

In the gospel, we are free from the wrath of God [and] we are free for sheer enjoyment of God, the world, and our very lives, which, as created, are interwined with others. Acknowledging God to be God allows us to be free from ambitio divinitatis [ambition to be divine], allows us to accept our humanity, including those aspects of ourselves that apart from God's affirmation of us in our entirety we would find unacceptable. In such trust that God is for us, and from the assurance of God's present commitment to us, the future is promised as a space for the flourishing of life, not only personally but also socially and cosmically. In God's provision, there will be enough for us. We need not be driven by the anxiety that results in greed. Furthermore, the past is not something from which we must flee in shame or guilt, but instead can become an integral part of our histories and identities. We are free from the compulsion of establishin g our own worth and security, because these are in the hands of a trustworthy God. As free, we can be free for others - genuinely open to their needs and concerns as well as the needs of the earth.

(emphasis original, p.184, Mark C. Mattes, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology)

Incidentally, someone pointed out to me recently that the first three words of God to humanity in the account of Genesis 2 are "You are free...".

The contemporary non-Christian legalist

Contemporary men and women are every bit as much "works driven" as their ancestors were, even if they fail to have the proper fear of God as judge. Indeed, they are even more burdened than people in the past for the very reason that they see themselves as their own judges. They carry the weight of establishing worth within themselves.

(p.187, Mark C. Mattes, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology)

The task of the church

The church today is trying to do so many tasks because it has forgotten the task for which it exists: delivering the good news...

The task of the church is not, paternalistically and patronizingly, to do the world's work for the world, as if the world were incompetent to do it, or as if God had abandoned the world.

(p.184-186, Mark C. Mattes, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology)

NB that as a Lutheran Mattes is not suggesting that Christians don't do the world's work in their roles as parents, children, employees, citizens, etc (cf. Mark 7:10-13), just that the gathering that is the 'church' doesn't.

Bonnie Zahl on 'Grace and the self'

Listening to: Jonsi: Go

Bonnie Zahl’s talk on ‘Grace and the self’ is a demanding but rich talk (not surprising for someone educated at Harvard and Cambridge).

These are my notes on what she says, although I add in some of my own interpretation. You can listen to it here. There is also a Powerpoint.

She explains that we all have ‘self-schemas’ through which we interpret our experience. They are: “cognitive generalizations about the self, derived from past experience, that organize and guide the processing of self-related information contained in the individual’s social experiences” (Markus, 1977, p. 64)‏.

So to be “To be schematic (as opposed to aschematic) for a particular trait is for a person to consider themselves on either extremes of that trait, and to consider that trait as personally important.”

For example, to be schematic for weight is to be quick to evaluate food on its health benefits, quick to remember times when your weight was different, to evaluate comments about yourself as to do with your weight (e.g. ‘you’re looking well’), but to be resistant to information which challenges how you feel about your weight (e.g. NHS charts say you’re underweight, but you disagree).

We all have three different selves:

1. Actual self – Who I actually am‏
2. Ought self - Who I ought to be (Ought-Own) / Who I think other people think I ought to be (Ought-Other)‏‏
3. Ideal self – Who I would ideally like to be (Ideal-Own)/ Who I think other people would like for me ideally to be (Ideal-Other)‏
‏

When our ought and ideal selves do not match our actual selves then serious problems result. We despair of ourselves.

Psychology offers three possible solutions to the problem of discrepancies between our actual and ought/ideal selves:

1. Self-awareness - Helps us to understand the cause of our problems, important but doesn’t fully deal with the problem.
‏
2. Minimising the difference between our actual and ought/ideal selves - This would solve the problem, but is very difficult. As we are ‘slaves’ with bound wills we struggle to change who we actually are. Lowering the standards is equally difficult. Many ought/ideal selves are written into what it means to be human so we can’t deceive ourselves that they are different. Some ought/ideal selves are social constructs, but it is hard to block out what our society is telling us.
‏
3. Increasing self-complexity - This means seeing ourselves in different ways (e.g. as intelligent as well as thin). This means that when there is a discrepancy within one schema (‘I feel I ought to be thin but I’m fat’), then others can hold me up (‘but at least I’m intelligent’).
‏

What difference does Christianity make?

1. The law (in Moses, Christ or elsewhere) show us how humans ought and ideally should be. As such it strengthens and heightens many of our ought/ideal selves making the discrepancies between selves more extreme. However, it does devalue many of our ought/ideal selves – e.g. looking beautiful is not as important as our society says.

The law (in the history of Israel’s failure, direct statements of our guilt, e.g. Rom 3, experience etc) shows us how we actually are. As such it further depresses our opinion of our actual selves making the discrepancies between selves more extreme.

The law therefore helps us with point 1 more than secular psychology: self-awareness. The Bible encourages confession. However, it is not enough because it has also made the problem worse (sin is made sinful beyond measure, Rom 7:13).

2. In the atonement of Jesus Christ where we are given a new actual self which matches the ought/ideal self of the law. There is no condemnation for those of us in Christ Jesus because we are who we ought to be and who God’s would like us to be. By the Holy Spirit this new reality is breaking into our lives as the old actual self wastes away and the new actual self grows (2 Cor 4:16).

3. The Gospel also gives us a host of different schemas by which we can relevatise other schemas. I may not be thin, but I am a child of God. I may not have a successful career, but I am human being with dignity made in the image of God. I may not have a functional biological family, but I have the family of the church. Etc.

Lewis on his book The Problem of Pain

the only purpose of the book is to solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering; for the far higher task of teaching fortitude and patience I was never fool enough to suppose myself qualified, nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that

when pain is to be borne,

• a little courage helps more than much knowledge,
• a little human sympathy more than much courage,
• and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.

(formatting mine, from the Preface of The Problem of Pain, p.xii)

A vast and gracious tide

I heard a wonderful sermon by one of our elders this Sunday on Jesus' words from the cross, "I thirst" (John 19:28). Linking Jesus' cry to Ezekiel (!) he took us to the Valley of Dry Bones in chapter 37, but then to the New Temple in chapter 47:1-12:

Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.

Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was knee-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was waist-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?”

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other. And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the [Dead] sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. Fishermen will stand beside the sea. From Engedi to Eneglaim it will be a place for the spreading of nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”

Where before there was death, dryness and undrinkable salt water, now there is life, floods and fresh water. But this came at the cost of Jesus going thirsty (John 19:28), drinking sour wine (vv. 29-30), and dying in the place we should have been. From his side "blood and water" spilled out for us to drink and live (John 4:14; 6:54).

Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten,
Throughout Heav’n’s eternal days.

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

I'm away for a couple of weeks at a camp, so no blogging here for a while.

With many thanks to Mr Hulse.

Why forgive?

Why should we forgive those that have wronged us?

Here are a few quick thoughts:

1. Because healing only comes through accepting the harm

If someone has inflicted harm on you, you can war against them either in your heart alone or externally. But even as you try and undo the harm or redress the balance the splinter only slips deeper and deeper into your soul. It is commonly commented that the bitterness or anger will kill you slowly unless you accept the harm done to you (painful as that may be initially), forgive and move on (cf. pp. 188ff, Tim Keller, The Reason for God).

This is deeply true, and is a good reason to forgive, although as clever Kim Fabricius notes

"Counsellors tell us to forgive people lest we become embittered and twisted. Thus forgiveness itself becomes a fashionable therapy, all about me."

2. Because we have been forgiven much

Like the servant in Matthew 18:23-35 we have been forgiven an enormous debt that dwarfs anything we may be owed. We have been forgiven the enormous sin of rejecting our creator and redeemer and instead of an eternity of punishment we have an eternity of glory in Christ Jesus. In that light, how can we not forgive others their minor offences against us? Anything that has been taken from us by a person is only a drop in the ocean of riches we have in Christ. It is not a loss worth dwelling on.

3. Because they have already been offered forgiveness by the judge of all the earth

I am loving reading Romans 1-2-1 with a friend at the moment. Reaching chapter 14 it is surprising that the reason we should not judge or despise our brother (okay, a little different to forgiving) is because God does not judge or despise them. There is no condemnation for them now in God's eyes (8:1) so how can we mere humans condemn them? In fact we should "welcome" those who God welcomes (14:1, 3). Any sin we have suffered is also a sin against God (Ps 51:4) and God has already offered forgiveness to that person. Therefore, we echo God's word of forgiveness to those who have wronged us.