Entering the region of judgement

There is a penalty and curse for sin; and Christ consented to enter that region. Christ entered voluntarily into the pain and horror which is sin’s penalty from God. Christ, by the deep intimacy of His sympathy with men, entered deeply into the blight and judgment which was entailed by man’s sin, and which must be entailed by man’s sin if God is a holy and therefore a judging God... To say that Christ was punished by God who was always well pleased with Him is an outrageous thing. Calvin himself repudiates the idea. But we may say that Christ did, at the depth of that great act of self–identification with us when He became man, He did enter the sphere of sin’s penalty and the horror of sin’s curse

(PT Forsyth, The Work of Christ)

This is a famous quotation from Forsyth. I think it is a little too neat, but I think the concept of Christ entering the region or sphere of God's judgement is a helpful one. In the first place that region is Israel, in the second place humanity, and in the third place all of fallen creation.

Means and ends

Recently I posted on how the church is both a gathered and a scattered people. Another way of saying that is that the church is both a means and an end, as Lesslie Newbigin does brilliantly:

The Church is both a means and an end, because it is a foretaste. It is the community of the Holy Spirit who is the earnest of our inheritance. The Church can only witness to that inheritance because her life is a real foretaste of it, a real participation in the life of God Himself. Thus worship and fellowship, offering up praise and adoration to God, receiving His grace, rejoicing in Him, sharing one with another the fruits of the Spirit, and building up one another in love all essential to the life of the Church. Precisely because the Church is here and now a real foretaste of heaven, she can be the witness and instrument of the kingdom of heaven. It is precisely because she is not merely instrumental that she can be instrumental. This is not a merely theoretical matter, but one of real practical importance. There is a kind of missionary zeal which is forever seeking to win more proselytes but which does not spring from and lead back into a quality of life which seems intrinsically worth having in itself. If we answer the question, ‘Why should I become a Christian? simply by saying ‘In order ‘to make others Christians,’ we are involved in an infinite regress.

(The Household of God)

This chimes with what PT Forsyth says about prayer:

"Prayer is often represented as the great means of the Christian life. But it is no mere means, it is the great end of that life."

"A chief object of all prayer is to bring us to God. But we may attain His presence and come closer to Him by the way we ask Him for other things, concrete things or things of the Kingdom, than by direct prayer for union with Him."

(p. 16, The Soul of Prayer)

Too much to say and too little to tell

"Without such a cross and its Atonement we come to a religion of
much point but no atmosphere,
much sympathy and no imagination,
much kindness and no greatness,
much charm and no force
—a religion for the well-disposed and not for the rebel,
in which we love our neighbour, but not our enemy, and not our Judge;
a religion for the sensitive, but not for the world [...]
The public then goes past the preacher because he is not strong enough to arrest and compel them. He has too much to say and too little to tell."

(PT Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross)

Praying for prayer?

Two gems from the ever quotable PT Forsyth:

"Prayer is often represented as the great means of the Christian life. But it is no mere means, it is the great end of that life."

"A chief object of all prayer is to bring us to God. But we may attain His presence and come closer to Him by the way we ask Him for other things, concrete things or things of the Kingdom, than by direct prayer for union with Him."

(p. 16, The Soul of Prayer)

How can we be sure of God's love?

A lot of people are very 'down on themselves'. They clearly need words of affirmation and assurance that God really does love them. But that doesn't mean that we stop telling people they are sinners. Only through judgment will we experience God's love. And, as PT Forsyth put into words, only when a person has seen the magnitude of God's holy anger against us will that love be real and trustworthy to the person who can never see how he could be loved.

If God's love were not essentially holy love, in course of time mankind would cease to respect it, and consequently to trust it. We need not a fond love, but a love we can trust, and for ever [...]

the sinner could not trust a love that could not justify itself as holy. It is the holiness in God's love, I urge, that alone enables us to trust Him. Without that we should only love Him, and the love would fluctuate. For we could not be perfectly sure that His would not. It is the holiness in God's love that is the eternal, stable, unchangeable element in it - the holiness secured for history and its destiny in the Cross. It is only the unchangeable that we could trust; and there alone we find it. If we only loved the love of God, we should have no stable, eternal, universal religion. But we love the holy love He established in Christ, and therefore we are safe with an everlasting salvation.

(pp. 113-137, The Work of Christ)

Ultimately, the person who is down on himself can only be sure "because the father not only says but pays" (p.111, ibid)

Living witnesses to the Gospel

What kind of life commends the Gospel?

My stock answer would be something like Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:6: "by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love". In short, by 'the good life'.

But that isn't the whole picture. As Paul himself says in that passage it is also by "great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger" (vv. 4-5). We commend the Gospel by suffering! I don't often hear that or say that, and I think that is because I'm a closet theologian of glory.

Sinning less is how I see us commending the Gospel. But that isn't a rounded New Testament picture. In many ways it is by appearing foolish, weak and bad in the world's eyes that the Gospel is most proclaimed. Not by seeming to be wise, strong and holy.

Although this does not flow seamlessly, PT Forsyth has his own problem with the idea that it is by sinning less that we commend the Gospel:

The difference between the Christian and the world is not that the world sins and the Christian does not. It suits the world to think that it is; because it offers a handy whip to scourge the Church’s consistency while resenting its demands. But such a distinction is no part of the Church's claim. Nor does it mark off the Christian’s worldly years from his life in Christ. A difference of that kind is merely in quantity — all the sin on the one side, none of it on the other. But the real difference (I must say often) is not in quantity; it is in quality. It is not in the number of sins, but in the attitude toward sin and the things called sin. It is in the man's sympathies, his affinities; it is in his conscience, his verdict on sin, his treatment of it — whether the world's or his own.

(p.109, God the Holy Father)

So both in respect of our physical lives, and our moral lives, it is also being put to death (in the physical body by others, and the moral 'body' by ourselves) that we point people to Christ.

As Paul said "We are...always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies" (4:8-10).

The way of escape

You do not understand Christ till you understand His cross...

It is only by understanding it that we escape from

religion with no mind,
    and from religion which is all mind,
from pietism with its lack of critical judgment,
    and from rationalism [both liberal and conservative] with its lack of everything else.

(formatting mine, p.26, PT Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross)

Fantastic Forsyth

Every other historical fact than the Gospel finds the human mind with such a disposition for truth that it has merely to present itself with sufficient evidence or attraction. It appeals to the instinct for natural certainty or excellence. But with the Christian certainty it is otherwise. The element of natural certainty or proof in it is very subordinate. Its rational appeal is always inadequate, and its desirability is not at once apparent. Nay, it has a power all its own of rousing antagonism and even hate. Its certainty comes with a blow to human nature and human reason, or with an unwelcome demand for submission, or at least preferential treatment. It has no foundation in either nature or reason, but only contact, only points of attachment for appeal. It is more despotic than constitutional, so far as rational law is concerned. How is the natural man to verify a gospel which takes the confidence out of human nature and its instincts, and destroys the egoism which is its first certainty? How can the foolishness of such a Gospel commend itself to man s native wisdom? And is the Gospel not such? I am not speaking of religion. Religion is natural to man, faith is not, Christianity is not. The Gospel revelation means self-condemnation and no confidence in the flesh, in human nature. It upsets the ordinary bench of appeal. Its protectorate begins by dissolving parliament [...] The Gospel must create the power to believe it. Revelation here is so radical that in the same act it must be Regeneration. The calling voice of a holy God to us sinners is such a judging, crushing voice that it becomes effectual only as a new-creating word.

(my bold, italics original, pp.118-119, The Principle of Authority)

Three things that make that brilliant:

The emphasis on the moral: Forsyth's great strength is always to see how its a moral world we live in. Every problem is a moral problem. So often in apologetics we forget the noetic effects of sin. This is probably horrendously wrong, but while Barth would say something similar to Forsyth here (see previous post for an example) I think he isn't usually as good because the moral dimension would not be as prominent. Instead Barth would emphasise the unknowable nature of God as god, in a way which I always feel is something like what I'm told Kant taught about how the phenomenal cannot know the noumenal (this is all way above my pay-grade though).

The recognition of connections with experience/reason/nature/history: While we cannot cannot argue someone to belief starting with where they are, there are "points of attachment for appeal". We can have discussions about the historicity of the gospels, we can show how people's longings for good relationship find their fulfilment only in God, etc. These are valid and fruitful things to do.

The Gospel-word of God creates faith: there are two points here: firstly, it is God that creates faith not our arguments; and secondly, it is through the preaching of the Gospel, and not apart from it that he does his work.

Two theses on prayer

Once upon at time theologians used to present a list of theses to be publically disputed as a way of doing theology (see trusty Wikipedia). Luther's theses presented at the Heidelberg Disputation in 1518 are a wonderful example.

I've just read PT Forsyth's The Soul of Prayer, and although its not his greatest book, the last chapter made it worth persisting. In it he effectively argued two theses:

1. "Prayer may really change the will of God, or, if not His will, His intention."
2. "It may, like other human energies of godly sort, take the form of resisting the will of God. Resisting His will may be doing His will."

They taste like Luther theses to me. Meaty stuff.

I was won over to his cause, but they would be fun and important topics to have a disputation over. If you want to read more, read the last chapter of The Soul of Prayer: "The Insistency of Prayer". Its only 12 pages, and I think it would be spiritually beneficial to everyone.

One reason no judgment is no good

Jason Goroncy has already quoted this this week, but it is so good I wanted to post it here. This is why I like PT Forsyth and Lutheranism...

If a message of grace tell us there was and is no judgment any more, and that God has simply put judgment on one side and has not exercised it, that cannot be the true grace of God. Surely the grace of God cannot stultify our human conscience like that! So we are haunted by mistrust, unless conscience be drowned in a haze of heart. We have always the feeling and fear that there is judgment to follow. How may I be sure that I may take the grace of God seriously and finally, how be sure that I have complete salvation, that I may entirely trust it through the worst my conscience may say? Only thus, that God is the Reconciler, that He reconciles in Christ's Cross that the judgment of sin was there for good and all. We are judged now by the Cross, and by the Cross we stand or fall. The great sin is not something we do, but it is refusing to make ourselves right with God in Christ's Cross. We are judged in the end by our relation to the Cross of Christ. It is the principle of our moral world. All judgment is committed to that Son. We stand before God at last according as we are owned by Christ. We are confessed by Him according to our confession of Him. Nemesis on us is hallowed as a part of the judgment on Him to whose death we are joined. There is no such thorough assertion of God's holy, loving law anywhere as there, where in the Cross it was given its own, and was perfected in judgment in Him who became a curse for us. His prayer for His murderers, or the closing sigh of victory in the midst of that judgment, vouches for ever to this, that it is the same holy will which judges man's wickedness and also loves us and gives His Son for a propitiation for us. Only that holiness which is changeless in its judgment could be changeless also in grace. His grace was so little to be foiled that He graciously took His own judgment.

(pp. 167-9, PT Forsyth, The Work of Christ)

Christ's personality

What a man! What a maker of men! What a master of men and of events! What a sovereignty was the mien of his self-consciousness! Lord of himself and all besides; with an irresistible power to force, and even hurry, events on a world scale; and yet with the soul that sat among children, and the heart in which children sat. He had an intense reverence for a past that was yet too small for him. It rent him to rend it; and yet he had to break it up, to the breaking of his own heart, in the greatest revolution the world ever saw. He was an austere man, a severe critic, a born fighter, of choleric wrath and fiery scorn, so that the people thought he was Elijah or the Baptist; yet he was gentle to the last degree, especially with those ignorant and out of the way. In the thick of life and love he yet stood detached, sympathetic yet aloof, cleaving at once both to men and to solitude. He spoke with such power because he loved silence. With an almost sacramental idea of human relations, especially the central relation of marriage, he yet avoided for himself every bond of property, vocation, or family; and he cut these bonds when they stood between men and himself. Full of biting irony upon men he yet was their healer and Saviour. Of a quick understanding which tore through the pedantry of the Scribes, with a sure dialectic which never failed him, and never left him at the mercy of his hecklers, he had yet a naive nature and a pictorial speech which brought him very near to the simplest - whom next moment some deep paradox would confound, and even wound. Clear, calm, determined, and sure of his mark, he was next hour roused to such impulsive passion as if he were beside himself. But if he let himself go he always knew where he was going. With a royal, and almost proud, sense of himself, he poured out his sould unto God and unto death, and was the friend of publicans and sinners. With a superhuman sense of authority he had superhuman humility.

[...]

He was all that, in a unity greater than the unity of the most uncommon men, a unity ruled by his tremendous will.

(pp. 64-66, PT Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ)

Yet, as Hunter comments, 'great as Christ's personality was, the real site of his greatness lies in what he did, in the cross' (pp. 70-71, PT Forsyth).

Sanctification on task

Regeneration, or sanctification - not in individual lives only but collectively in the church's life in the world - is thus the true work of that 'other Paraclete' (or 'Standby') as John calls the Spirit. But alas, said Forsyth, we modern Christians have sadly debased and misconstrued the meaning of that grand old word 'sanctification'. In our modern man-centred religion, we have turned it into self-consecration. But sanctification is not spiritual self-culture, and 'it is a dangerous thing to work at your own holiness'. Paul did not consecrate himself to his great work. He obeyed a call and found his sanctification - his growth in grace - in the pursuit of his ministry. So we too are sanctified when we are on our Saviour's business. Growth in grace comes not by working at it but by passing ever more deeply into self-forgetfulness - into the grace, the cross and the service of Christ.

(p. 65, AM Hunter, PT Forsyth)

The second use of the law at the cross

Sin [...] is not measured by a law, or a nation, or a society of any kind, but by a Person. The righteousness of God was not in a requirement, system, book, or Church, but in a Person, and sin is defined by relation to Him. He came to reveal not only God but sin. The essence of sin is exposed by the touchstone of His presence, by our attitude to Him. He makes explicit what the sinfulness of sin is; He even aggravates it. He rouses the worst as well as the best of human nature. There is nothing that human nature hates like holy God. All the world's sin receives its sharpest expression when in contact with Christ; when, in face of His moral beauty, goodness, power, and claim, He is first ignored, then discarded, denounced, called the agent of Beelzebub, and hustled out of the world in the name of God.

(pp. 56-57, PT Forsyth, Missions in State and Church: Sermons and Addresses, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1908, HT Per Crucem ad Lucem)

This is a similar thing to what Marcus Honeysett is saying in the clip Dave Bish links to. The Law is not just explicit commandments.

The parable of the prodigal son as incomplete gospel

The parable of the prodigal son is receiving a lot of attention at the moment. So I thought I'd share a taster of PT Forsyth on the passage:

There are those who say you have the whole of the gospel really in the parable of the prodigal son, that that was the culmination of Christ's grand revelation of God...But you have not the whole gospel in the parable of the prodigal son...

Now the one ruling idea in the parable of the prodigal son is the idea of the centrality, the completeness, the unreservedness, the freeness, fullness, whole-heartedness of God's grace - the absolute fullness of it, rather that the method of its action. But however a parable might preach that fullness, it took the Cross and all its train to give it effect, to put it into action, life, and history, to charge it with the Spirit...Hence as to the method of God's free and flowing grace the parable has nothing to say. It does not even say that the father was seeking the prodigal. The seeking grace of God we find there as little as the redeeming grace....

[The prodigal can only be sure of the father's forgiveness if] the father not only says but pays. His mere repentance could not make him sure, could not place him at home again, could not put him where he set out. His mere repentance could turn his heart to his father, but it could not break the bar and fill him with certainty of his father's love and forgiveness. And that is what the sinner wants, and what the great and classic penitents find it so hard to believe. Now, the parable tells us of the freeness of God's grace, and its fullness, but the Cross enacts it and inserts it in real history. It shows to what length that grace could go in dealing with a difficulty otherwise insuperable when we turn from a single prodigal to a world...the act of Christ's Cross - is not simply to produce individual repentance, but it has its great effect upon the relation of the whole world to God. And the judgment, the payment, was on that scale. (The Work of Christ, pp.106-111)

From a lover of love...

PT Forsyth:

I was turned from a Christian to a believer, from a lover of love to an object of grace

(somewhere in p. 281ff of Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind)