Rowan Williams on Tim Keller

Interesting to see what Rowan Williams has been reading:

The American Presbyterian writer Timothy Keller has recently published a book on Mark’s gospel, entitled King’s Cross. It is a vividly written and often very moving presentation of the great themes of the gospel (and incidentally offers a forceful defence of substitutionary language for the atonement that might give second thoughts to some who find this difficult); but perhaps its simplest and most dominant insight is that Christianity is not advice but news. The world has changed; humanity is not what it was. We are still working out, often in floundering and stumbling ways, what this means, but the one thing to beware of is reducing the news to exhortation, sound moral or even spiritual teaching, alone. We must always be beginning again with the news that God has shown himself to be a God who does not abandon – even when all the evidence has pointed to his absence, he recovers himself and us in the great act of vindication, homecoming and transfiguration that is the resurrection; a moment so alarmingly beyond all expectation that Mark can only present it with the silence, the fear and trembling, of his famous ending at 16.8. And I suppose that what I am pleading for in our discussion today is a revitalised sense of the news we have, the event we celebrate as having changed everything.

(General Synod Presidential Address, July 2011, HT Todd Brewer in his tasty selection of Christian books in 2011)

Interesting, but more importantly truths to celebrate.

An extended illustration

Famine

Hitler invaded and occupied France and exploited it and its people. But most collaborated with their new master and many welcomed him. The French were both victims and perpetrators of sin.

The Devil invaded God's creation and exploited it its people. Everyone collaborated with their new masters and welcomed him. We are both victims and perpetrators of sin.

Firstfruits

The Allies landed at Normandy and at great cost liberated its people. Victory and freedom the rest of France was certain once that bridgehead was established.

Christ landed in a manger in Bethlehem and at the ultimate cost saw the first fruits of New Creation when his Father raised him from the dead by his Spirit. Victory and freedom for the rest of creation was certain once that bridgehead was established. But even as he was dying to establish that bridgehead he pronounced forgiveness to all collaborators with the Devil.

Full harvest

The collaborators with Nazis were full of fear. The French resistance grew in strength and those who had collaborated were persecuted by those now full of hope for freedom.

Christ's proclamation of forgiveness for those who collaborated with the Devil in crucifying him means that there is no fear from the completion of his victory. Past guilt is no reason to fear only love for the present order. Living out of the promise of the Resurrection we take up arms and join the resistance.

[with thanks to Oscar Cullmann and Steven Paulson]

Music

I've just discovered this guy's youtube channel. He has been merrily uploading all my favourite Christian worship music: Gettys, Townend, Sojourn Music, Sovereign Grace, High Street Hymns, Red Mountain and others. I'm never quite sure about the morality of that, but here are a few samples of great stuff that I've (re)discovered through him (and Gill ;-)): First something Christmassy, then a bit of Good Friday. Approach my soul, the mercy seat Where Holy One and helpless meet There fall before my Judgesʼ feet Thy promise is my only plea, O God Send wings to lift the clutch of sin You who dwell between the cherubim From war without and fear within Relieve the grief from the shoulders of crumbling men O God – Pour out your mercy to me My God, Oh what striking love to bleed. Fashion my heart in your alchemy With the brass to front the devilʼs purgery And surefire grace my Jesus speaks I must. I will. I do believe. Oh Lord. Jamie Barnes/John Newton To See the King of Heaven Fall (Gethsemane) To see the King of heaven fall In anguish to His knees, The Light and Hope of all the world Now overwhelmed with grief. What nameless horrors must He see, To cry out in the garden: “Oh, take this cup away from me – Yet not my will but Yours, Yet not my will but Yours.”

To know each friend will fall away, And heaven’s voice be still, For hell to have its vengeful day Upon Golgotha’s hill. No words describe the Savior’s plight - To be by God forsaken Till wrath and love are satisfied And every sin is paid And every sin is paid

What took Him to this wretched place, What kept Him on this road? His love for Adam’s curséd race, For every broken soul. No sin too slight to overlook, No crime too great to carry, All mingled in this poisoned cup – And yet He drank it all, The Savior drank it all, The Savior drank it all. Stuart Townend & Keith Getty Copyright © 2009 Thankyou Music

Who is in your boat?

Generally, I'm a little sceptical about stories that say "I've been in the same boat" because that's not sufficient.

If Christ is in the boat then it's just fine. But if it's just the two of us then it is likely it is going to go down.

(1 hr, 14min, Lecture 1, James Nestingen)

WE built a monster

...or our heart is a factory of idols.

Two hot things to say in my circles these days are:

1. People trust in the idols of sex, money and power and they fail to deliver.
2. Too many 'Christians' preach an ugly, tyrannical god

I agree with both statements, but I'm afraid I have to admit that to a large degree I still trust and promote both the first and second set of idols.

We are not in the habit of disbelieving monster gods, we're in the habit of making them!

And that applies to non-Christians as well. My non-Christian friends and family do not disbelieve in the God of Jesus Christ because they perceive him to be a distant bully, whatever they may say. And the reason I don't believe them when they tell me that is because the gods they do believe in are just as monstrous as anything I have heard preached by someone who calls them Christian. Their gods are killing them and giving them nothing in return - but they love them anyway.

Only God by his Spirit and through his Word, which kills the old heart and creates a new one ex nihilo, will we see change in the God we love so that we love beauty.

Luther and his coming King

"Behold, your king is coming to you"

Luther, from his sermon on Matthew 21:1-9 on the first Sunday in Advent, 1521:

This is what is meant by "Thy king cometh." You do not seek him, but he seeks you. You do not find him, he finds you. For the preachers come from him, not from you; their sermons come from him, not from you; your faith comes from him, not from you; everything that faith works in you comes from him, not from you; and where he does not come, you remain outside; and where there is no Gospel there is no God, but only sin and damnation, free will may do, suffer, work and live as it may and can. Therefore you should not ask, where to begin to be godly; there is no beginning, except where the king enters and is proclaimed.

Sixthly, he cometh "unto thee." Thee, thee, what does this mean? Is it not enough that he is your king? If he is yours how can he say, he comes to you? All this is stated by the prophet to present Christ in an endearing way and invite to faith. It is not enough that Christ saves us from the rule and tyranny of sin, death and hell, and becomes our king, but he offers himself to us for our possession, that whatever he is and has may be ours, as St. Paul writes, Rom. 8, 32: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?"...

Behold, this means that he comes to you, for your welfare, as your own; in that he is your king, you receive grace from him into your heart, so that he delivers you from sin and death, and thus becomes your king and you his subject. In coming to you he becomes your own, so that you partake of his treasures, as a bride, by the jewelry the bridegroom puts on her, becomes partner of his possessions. Oh, this is a joyful, comforting form of speech! Who would despair and be afraid of death and hell, if he believes in these words and wins Christ as his own?

Already and not-yet in John

To the Samaritan woman:

"the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him" (4:23)

To the Jews:

"an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live" (4:23)

To the Disciples:

"the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone." (16:32)

So "the hour" in John seems to be Christ's death and resurrection and the breaking in of that Old Creation death and New Creation life into our present.

Abandoned

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men" ([Rom] 1.18). When we ask how that wrath comes to expression, we have a threefold expression that God's wrath is God's abandonment. "Therefore God gave them over (paredoken) to the sinful desires of their hearts" (v.24), "God gave them over (paredoken) to shameful lusts" (v.26), "He gave them over (paredoken) to a depraved mind" (v.28). It is no coincidence that it is this key verb paradidomi (=to abandon, to give up), which is used again in Romans 8.32, He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up (paredoken) for us all" etc... In order to do anything for those who because of sin have been given up to sin's destructive power, and lethal consequences (Romans 6.23a), the Son of God had to identify himself with them, by himself being treated as one who is abandoned and given up by God.

(p. 116, Thomas Smail, The Forgotten Father)

I never get tired of that. The punishment that belonged to us, fell on him!

While I'm here, a few thoughts on the idea often taught from Romans 1 that the wrath of God being God passively stepping back and giving us what we want:

• To the person enslaved by his own sin, the experience of being able to 'freely' sin is very rarely that we get what we want - "what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do" (Rom 7:15)
• If God's wrath/hell is simply giving someone over to what they want, then how did Jesus experience God's wrath?

Is prayer grasping the gift, or asking for the gift?

One of my favourite blogs these days is Martin Yee, a Singaporean Lutheran. Here is something to put in your theological pipe from his recent digest of a Philip Cary article:

Augustine gives us the gist of the prayer for grace in a famous formulation that irked Pelagius: “Give what you command, and command what you will.” To bring the difference between Luther and Augustine into focus, we can contrast this prayer with a formulation in Luther’s treatise, The Freedom of a Christian (1520): “The promises of God give what the commandments of God demand”. This formulation both echoes Augustine’s prayer for grace and replaces it with something new. Instead of human words of prayer, it draws our attention to the divine word of promise, which Luther elsewhere calls by the name “Gospel.” The distinction he draws in this treatise between commandments and promises as the two types of the Word of God is clearly the same as the distinction he draws elsewhere between Law and Gospel. The crucial point about the Gospel promise is always that it gives what it promises to those who believe it. So for Luther faith does not mean praying for grace and righteousness, but obtaining them by taking hold of Christ in the Gospel.

A depressing bit of RE teaching

Amongst a load of classroom posters explaining various attributes of God/gods.

Just goes to show that even when you say something like 'God is love' you cannot assume people know what you mean...

"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us" (1 John 3:16)