Have you ever heard the following reason for why we don't have to follow the Mosaic Law:
The Mosaic Law was provided for a theocratic nation, and the church is not a theocratic nation.
Did the NT authors ever use that argument? Not that I can think of.
Martin Luther famously identified that law and Gospel must be 'rightly and properly distinguished' for either to be understood properly. He argued that doctrine could be 'falisfied, either by mingling these two into one, or by mistaking the one for the other' ("The Distinction between Law and Gospel: A Sermon by Martin Luther" trans. Willard L Burce, Concordia Journal 18).
In Christianity Explored this evening Rico Tice argued that the disciples initially understood Jesus as human, but did not see him as divine. Strictly this is true. But throughout the Gospels you find that there was a two-fold error that those who encountered Jesus fell into. They neither understood him as divine, but neither could they comprehend quite how human he was.
We know the danger of thinking that Christianity is law-lite by mingling law and Gospel. We also know that we can make Christianity into Gospel without law, or law without Gospel, by mistaking one for the other (and so misunderstanding both).
Similarly, the disciples often saw Jesus as a semi-divine Messiah who would rule and lead Israel, but could not still storms or lay down his life to take it up again because that was too high for him, or for that matter die an ignominious death because that would be too low for him. In this way they mingled the divine and human natures of Jesus and lost both. Also similarly, people now treat Jesus as only human and ignore his deity, or see him as only divine, who visited Palestine dressed in white robes and floating a few inches above the ground (HT Tom Wright for that phrase).
UPDATE
The Chalcedonian Creed says it better than me:
one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;
the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ;
There are some remarkable parallels between Rebekah in Genesis 24 and the Samaritan Woman in John 1:1-45.
The descendants of Nahor were part of Abraham's family but somewhat removed, geographically and by faith. Terah, Abram and Lot left Ur of the Chaldeans possibly leaving Nahor with idolatry (Josh 24:2), but certainly leaving him behind in their journey to the promised land. The Samaritans were also the awkward family members to the Jews in Jesus' day, related but with their own land, and their own faith.
They share several other literary connections:
In addition both narratives are concerned with marriage, and a marriage into the covenant line, with the promised seed of Abraham.
The Samaritan woman is not just another individual but representative of Samaria, and all the nations. She has had many husbands and not accepted that salvation comes from the Jews (cf. Jer 3:8; Hos 4:15 etc). If you see that then the women's next response to Jesus ('Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship') becomes not just a random theological riposte to try and gain the offensive, but illustrative of exactly how she has had different husbands. Jesus points her beyond the covenant with the old Jerusalem, to himself as the new Jerusalem where the nations will flood too (e.g. Jer 3:17). She has had many husbands, but he is the bridegroom that will really satisfy, as John the Baptist has only just declared (John 3:29).
Do you think I'm drawing lines which are not there?
I really don't think I am, but realise I haven't explained it as fluently as it deserves. Hopefully you get the picture though.
I haven't heard a logically more feasible explanation of what the unpardonable sin is than Walther's. But I am not sure it quite fits the Biblical context.
[Matthew 12:30-32] states to begin with, that all blasphemy against the Father and the Son shall be forgiven [...] Now, it is certain that the Holy Spirit is not a more glorious and exalted person than the Father and the Son, but He is coequal with them. Accordingly, the meaning of this passage cannot be that the unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the person of the Holy Spirit; for blasphemy against the Father and the Son is exactly the same sin. The blasphemy to which our text refers is directed against the office, or operation, of the Holy Spirit; whoever spurns the office of the Holy Sirit, his sin cannot be forgiven. The office of the Holy Spirit is to call men to Christ and to keep them with Him [...] The sin is not unpardonable because of its magnitude - for the apostle, as we heard has distinctly declared: 'Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound' - but because the person committing this sin rejects the only means by which he can be brought to repentance, faith, and steadfastness in faith.
(pp.393-398, CFW Walther, The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel)
The most exciting news of my blog reading year so far...
"Each issue of the Tyndale Bulletin--which began in 1956--is now online" (Justin Taylor)
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.
In Genesis 16 Sarai deals harshly with Hagar. Hagar is seen and heard by YHWH. She is also told to go back to her Sarai and submit to her!
In Genesis 17 YHWH declares that the covenant that he has with Abram is that 'every male shall be circumcised' and it is made clear that this includes Ishmael first through the emphasis in vv.12f on how everyone under Abram is to be circumcised, and secondly in vv.24f where we are told that Ishmael was circumcised. However, God also states that the covenant will be established with Isaac vv.18-22 and definitely not with Ishmael.
There is a tension here. After all God is giving the sign of the covenant to those whom he is not going to establish the covenant with and helping the Egyptian servant looks with contempt on his chosen people! God is overflowing in his love and is not the property of Abram. However, Abram and his chosen line is given the pre-eminent rule, and special blessing.
Few things have changed. Abramham's Seed is still the one with whom God establishes his covenant. He is the one to who we should submit, so that we can share in his blessing.
[I ought to read Dumbrell's Covenant and Creation again, because I cannot remember the technical meaning of 'establishing a covenant'.]
Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.
Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.
Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you."
(Genesis 11:27-12:1)
Abraham was not just called by God to the promised land. He was chased there!
I was struck by that after reading Genesis 11 on a day when I dealt with a death claim at work for a father who had recently lost his daughter. The worst death claims to me are those where a parent is dealing with their children's death.
Terah is having a merry old time in Ur when one of his three sons dies in his presence. Another son is finding it impossible to have children. Perhaps he is thinking that this is not such a good place to live after all. He decides to emigrate and find a better life. Nahor is doing alright so he decides to stay put, but the rest of the clan follow.
Nicely settled in their new home in Heran, Terah is quite happy and the family acquire lots of people and possessions (12:5). But then Terah dies and there is nothing forcing the rest of the family to stay. Perhaps, if they head further west, life will be even better.
It was still doubtless by faith that Abram decided decided to head God's call. Nevertheless God made it easier by burning some bridges as he went.
OK I'm a boring geek, who actually finds graphs really interesting.
I am also unsurprisingly being led to read Genesis in January by my Bible reading plan.
I had always made an assumption about the ages of the humanity declining at a fairly steady pace from Adam onwards. But no! Slightly more careful reading has made me realise that the decline in ages only really starts following Noah.
What do you think the significance of that is?
My feeling is that we are being told that Ham/Noah cause a second fall. And being more subtle perhaps Babel is then a third fall ('the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided'). The genealogy of Genesis 5 relates the affects of the Fall by the refrain 'and he died'. The genealogy of Genesis 11 relates the affects of the second major fall (I think there are several further falls in Genesis 4) by the drop off in ages.
Here are the ages according to the ESV:
Adam: 930 years[I'll try and keep this updated as I find more, but please let me know if you know of anything I don't].
Timothy Wengert is Ministerium of Pennsylvania Professor, Reformation History at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.
Is there any use in attempting to understand our society as under the law, when most of us no longer accept the existence of a law-giver?
Oswald Bayer thinks that we can...
Precisely the individualistic antinomianism of modernity and postmodernity ends up being legalistic. Individuals want to think of themselves as different, but they act in masses.They want to follow the ideals of freedom and diversity of options, but the anticipation of new experiences, the anxiety of missing something and the imperative of incessantly having to choose and decide drives them afresh to competition and to being overburdened
[...]
The fulfillment of the law is [...] presupposed to have occurred already in principle: the human being is free, good and spontaneous. In this sense, modernity and postmodernity are antinomian.
The new human beings of modernity and postmodernity, however, always must yet become, under the compulsion of realizing it by themselves, what they already are. The generally asserted gospel of freedom places human beings simultaneously under the compulsion of realizing themselves and fulfilling their potential, since from birth itself it is theirs already. If, however, freedom is not announced and communicated from without, but rather belongs to me from the very start, then I as both an individual and collective subjectivity am burdened with the fulfillment of the promise given to me by myself—not liberated for freedom, but "damned to be free" (Sartre); I am not allowed to be free, I rather must free myself.
[...]
Even if this human being—precisely according to modern and postmodern transformations—no longer directly recognizes the one who speaks in the law, perhaps, indeed, does not even hear a voice, he or she nevertheless experiences more or less anonymously the inescapable demand: "Here you and no other are addressed. Here you are responsible. If you evade it, you are guilty." The human being is ultimately responsible: that is the element of truth of Kantian anthropology and ethics, in which it—against postmodern diffusion and covering of tracks—is the ally of theology.
(pp.7-9, "With Luther in the Present", Lutheran Quarterly, Spring 2007 Volume XXI, Number 1)
Martin Luther's Treatise on Good Works was described by Melanchthon, in a letter to John Hess, as Luther's best book.
It is a cracking little read. A short 100 page exposition of the 10 commandments that brings the Decalogue alive in a way I have read no other writer do.
A refrain throughout the book are comments like this:
Now see what kind of good works a householder and a mistress can do! How splendidly God shows us all good works so near at hand, in such a variety and so continuously that we need not ask for good works to do and could well forget all those works devised by men, the showy, far-flung works, such as making pilgrimages, building churches, seeking indulgences, and things like that. (p. 180, Selected Writings of Martin Luther: Vol 1, ed. by Theodore G. Tappert)
What is striking about Luther in this book is his evident joy that there are a plethora of good works for us to do, and they are near at hand. I must confess that this actually fills me with trepidation for the future and guilt for the past because although good works are what we are saved for (Ephesians 2:10), I have time and again chosen not to live in that salvation.
So how can I develop that joy in the opportunity to do good? Luther is clear from the beginning:
Look here! This is how you must cultivate Christ in yourself, and see how in him God holds before you his mercy and offers it to you without any prior merits of your own. It is from such a view of his grace that you must draw faith and confidence in the forgiveness of all your sins. Faith, therefore, does not originate in works; neither do works create faith, but faith must spring up and flow from the blood and wounds and death of Christ. (p.120, ibid)
As good Protestants we all know it, but all forget it. Works flow from faith, not the other way round. If you have a couple of more minutes read Luther's classic description of faith from his 'An Introduction to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans'
If you were to imagine Judgment day you may imagine God the Father on the judgment seat meeting out our just deserts and Jesus jumping in at certain points to shout 'this one is mine'. Perhaps you haven't been reading the Apostles' Creed, or your Bible because it will be Christ in the judgment seat.
"Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness." (Psalm 96:12-13)
"The Lord has taken his place to contend; he stands to judge peoples." (Isaiah 3:13)
"The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22)
"And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that [Jesus] is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead." (Acts 10:42)
"he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:31)
"Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead" (2 Timothy 4:1)
But wait a moment! Perhaps it is still not that simple. For if you really were reading your bible you would find out that the Church will be occupying the judgment seat too!
"the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom." (Daniel 7:22)
"Jesus said to them, 'Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.'" (Matthew 19:28)
"do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!" (1 Corinthians 6:2-3)
"Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years." (Revelation 20:4)
I have been refamiliarising myself with Tom Wright's stimulating reading of Paul in recent days by listening again to his series of lectures on Romans. I think I am clarifying more in my mind where I think he occasionally takes wrong turnings, and reminding myself again how I need to read Paul with much more focus on the OT background.
The most important wrong turn I think Wright makes is in deciding who's side God is on in the metaphorical law-court and is summarised in this quote:
...in Daniel chapter 7 you have exactly this scenario of God as the judge surprisingly vindicating Israel as his oppressed people and judging the wicked beasts who have been attacking her. That is the apocalyptic scenario of the covenantal law-court. Or if you like, the covenant scenario interpreted as a great law-suit. Now of course there are passages in the Old Testament which also speak of God and Israel being at law with one another, but that is essentially a secondary thing.
(Romans in a Week, Lecture 3: Romans 1:1-3:20, Part II)
Again and again, as I read the Prophets I am struck by the opposite. The Prophets, unlike so many other religious people, do not focus on condemning those outside their group and argue how God is on their side against those outside, but rather the opposite. Israel is singled out for the harshest criticism and the most devastating judgements.
Yes, God does promise to take Israel's side against her enemies, but only after he has judged them.
Wright in the same lecture helpfully draws attention to how the Isaiah/Ezekiel quote in 2:24 functions in Paul's argument. Paul backs up his argument that those 'who boast in the law dishonour God by breaking the law' by quoting the Prophets' statement that 'the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you' (Ez 36:23; Is 52:5). When you consider their original context we see that Paul is arguing that the Jews should know that they broke the law because they were sent into exile as judgment by God upon them. But in quoting this passage he is also alluding to God's message in both OT passages that for the sake of his name God is going to redeem his people from the place of being judged by him, to the place of restoration. There is hope on the other side of judgment which has to be grasped by faith.
In the law-court Paul is clear who's side God is on, and it is not ours. God inflicts wrath on us (3:5) not our oppressors. The 'but' of 3:21 is precious though. For God's judgment (his righteousness) is revealed apart from the law, in Christ who died for our trespasses (4:35). God is now 'for us' (8:31).
God's righteousness is a saving righteousness not because our enemies are judged but because we are judged in Christ who was raised for our justification.
Seifrid says it better than me:
justification comes only through condemnation, life only through death. The way in which Paul connects the opening discussion in verse 18 to verse 17 signals this relationship: '...the righteous one shall live by faith, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven ...' If he had been thinking of a strict antitheses, one would have expected here a concession, an 'even if'. God's saving righteousness is revealed in the gospel precisely because God himself comes to his own righteousness in the cross of Christ. This simultaneous justification of God and the sinner drives Paul's argument in 1:18-3:26. (p. 48, Christ Our Righteousness: Paul's Theology of Justification, Apollos)
Apologies to those who are fed up of me banging on about the same things. But I don't think I will ever tire of it (by God's grace).
Tom Wright has written a new book on Justification, in part to respond to John Piper.
I was listening to Tom Wright on Romans the other day and he observed that 'Righteousness of God' had three dimensions:
The key to the current debate is that he makes the covenantal dimension of Paul's Righteousness/Justification the 'fundamental' dimension (to quote his lecture). Most of the focus in debate has been on word studies of the dikaiosune (Righteousness/Justification) word group. There are places where this word group seems to be fundamentally covenantal (e.g. Second Isaiah) but the chips are (in my mind) stacked in the traditional interpretation's favour because the language is from the law-court in the first place (at least). To settle things though the debate has to be far wider and involve the whole of Paul's theology and ask: 'where is the centre of Paul's theology?' Once you have answered that as 'the covenant' then you can do as Wright does and 'translate back into covenantal categories' (p.43, Letter to the Romans) any language which is not covenantal in the first place. Of course if the law-court is central then you can do the same in the other direction.
I am persuaded for the moment to give the law-court pole position in this contest (see here for why) but suspect that the answer may be simpler. If you were to ask the mythical average man in the pew what was the centre of Paul's theology he would immediately answer Jesus Christ, or particularly Jesus Christ crucified. And here perhaps is the answer. Neither the law-court nor the covenant are central, they are both interdependent but separate metaphors which are trying to describe something bigger than both of them, that 'in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself'.
In my head I keep on coming back to Mark Seifrid's comment that only in Jesus is there synthesis when 'the election of Israel and the demand of the Law meet in Christ, the crucified and risen. The tension within early Jewish thought between grace and demand was resolved in an event, not a higher idea' (pp. 5-6, 'The "New Perspective on Paul" and Its Problems', Themelios, Issue 25-2). I don't know if Seifrid would agree with how I spin him but there we go.
Again and again, I learn that theologians (and more often I) sometimes lose the wood for the trees. We do so love to replace Christ with an idea.
Elizabeth Anscombe has an admirable summary of the distinctiveness of the Mosaic Law:
For example, it greatly heightens his own notion of the paramountcy of God,; it absolutely forbids superstition, 'seeking truth from the dead', concern with omens, soothsaying; if we suppose him [a 'seeker after God'] acquainted with, say, Arabian tribes of the fiercer sort, we can also suppose that he is struck by the prescriptions tending to check the licence and bloody revenge natural among such people; the arrangements tending to make impossible the casual jetttisoning of wives and the killing of those who have suddenly or accidentally killed your relations. for while revenge was forbidden as a matter of personal ethic, it is also made difficult as a matter of public law by the establishment of the cities of refuge. He notes the prohibition on punishing any but the offender - remember that even Roman law, as codified by a Christian Emperor, permitted the destruction of the family and close associates of a man found guilty of treason against the state; but the Mosaic law forbade it. He notes the restriction on stripes as a punishment to forty 'lest thy brother become vile in they sight' - equally astonishing when you think of Roman floggings, or floggings in the British navy up to quite recent times. There is no torture in the Mosaic law: remember again that the Code of Justinian retained the requirement to torture slaves as witnesses. He notes the fact that if you so much as knocked out the tooth of a slave, he was to go free; the asylum to runaway slaves from the nations round about, the prohibition on man-stealing; the provision whereby you could not send a slave or bondman away if he had married in your house and chose to remain; the provisions forbidding persecution of poor debtors. He sees the contrast between the estimation of offences against property [...] and offences against the person and sexual offences.
(italics original, p. 35, 'Prophecy and Miracles' in Faith in a Hard Ground: Essays on Religion, Philosophy and Ethics)
The essay itself is very good, and I think I will read it again and maybe even post a summary.
I've just written in a comment: "I get to know Jesus as the one who loves us so much that he laid down his life for me". This is not wrong, but it is unlike most NT language. Spot the difference...
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all" (Romans 8:32)
"God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ" (Ephesians 2:4-5)
"the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:9-10)
The difference is that the NT emphasis (perhaps anticipating people like me) is on the Father's love for us in sending his Son, not the Son independently coming to us. Although other passages explain that Jesus loved us too (e.g. Ephesians 5:2). As if that was not enough, the emphasis in the NT is on the Son's death reconciling us to the Father and revealing him (Romans 5:10; 2 Corinthians 5:18).
I am either harbouring a view of the death of Christ that deserves the name 'cosmic child abuse' or a monistic view of God who is occasionally called by different names (Jesus, God, Father, YHWH etc).
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)
At work I have a colleague who asks me, again and again, why it is that God did not create human beings incapable of sinning. He is obviously far from satisfied with my answers, and I can't blame him. What would you say? You must have been asked the question.
Cur Deus Homo has a brief aside about the question. In contrast to the rest of the book this section is as clear as mud to me. Nevertheless Anselm's answer manages to shut up his dialogue partner...
Boso: given that God is capable of creating such a man, why did he not make the angels and the first two human beings such that they would likewise be both incapable of sinning and worthy of praise for their righteousness?
Anselm: Do you understand what you are saying?
Boso: It seems to me that I understand it, and that is why I am asking why he did not make them like this.
Anselm: This was because it was neither right nor possible for it to be brought about that any one of them should be identical with God, as is the case, so we are saying, with this man [Jesus, who is righteous and incapable of sin 'independently']. And if you ask why he does not bring this about for as many such human beings as there are persons of God, or why he did not at least do it for one of them, I answer that reason did not at all demand that this should be done: rather, since God does nothing irrationally, it prohibited this.
Boso: I am ashamed at having asked this question.
(Cur Deus Homo, Book 2, Chap 10)
Now I don't want to shut up my friend so completely, but want I do want him to be pointed to him who does make us incapable of sin. So I'm not ashamed to ask such a question of my intelligent readers, in the hope of fresh insight.
This list is more for me than anyone else. But I would strongly recommend that everyone see number 1 on the list. I really do believe it is a genuine masterpiece. (Watch it on a big screen if you can.)
To be honest I'm not really sure. Perhaps it is because I'm busy... but that has never stopped me before.
I think it has to be due to the fact that I'm doing a decent amount of reading. I've recently read, or I'm in the middle of:
Next on my list: Rowan Williams, TF Torrance, and John Murray.
What I'm trying to say is that because of my request for recommendations and other factors I've been reading more widely than usual and I feel like I am so far from getting my bearings that I cannot manage even my usual half-baked thoughts which I pass of as posts.
I'm sure you are not missing me.
As an aside I have just come across a bunch of excellent looking MP3 lectures by some top-notch scholars from a recent conference on 'Reading the Decalogue through the Centuries'. I've listened to Timothy Wengert on Luther's view of the Decalogue which was very good. I'm looking forward to listening to some more.
About one in four people in the UK suffer from a mental illness (source). Probably the most challenging thing that has happened in the last two years of my life has been to discover its destructive power over so many people's lives.
I am extremely grateful to Steve Timmis and Tim Chester in particular for making me see how the Gospel is relevant to this as with any area of life - hard though it is to apply it. Tim Chester has just posted on depression, and there is more from Steve Timmis here. I encourage you to read/listen and absorb it.
I'm supposed to have loads of free time at the moment but for some reason haven't had time to do much thinking recently, and hence no blogging. But as usual I return to blogging when I need to get down a quote for future reflection...
I found the quote from Bavinick below quite helpful in my continuing quest to get a handle on Lutheranism. It was mentioned in a comment here which follows an interesting post and discussion.
The difference seems to be conveyed best by saying that the Reformed Christian thinks theologically, the Lutheran anthropologically. The Reformed person is not content with an exclusively historical stance but raises his sights to the idea, the eternal decree of God. By contrast the Lutheran takes his position in the midst of the history of redemption and feels no need to enter more deeply into the counsel of God.
For the Reformed, therefore, election is the heart of the church; for Lutherans, justification is the article by which the church stands or falls. Among the former the primary question is: How is the glory of God advanced? Among the latter it is: How does a human get saved? The struggle of the former is above all against paganism - idolatry; that of the latter against Judaism - works-righteousness. The Reformed person does not rest until he has traced all things retrospectively to the divine decree, tracking down the "wherefore" of things, and has prospectively made all things subservient to the glory of God; the Lutheran is content with the "that" and enjoys the salvation in which he is, by faith, a participant. From this difference in principle, the dogmatic controversies between them (with respect to the image of God, original sin, the person of Christ, the order of salvation, the sacraments, church government, ethics, etc.) can be easily explained. (Reformed Dogmatics 1:177)
The temptation in such discussions is to start getting partisan and claim superiority over the other. I think that is difficult position to maintain. As John H comments 'Vive la différence'!
Incidental notes:
I'm feeling the force of this hymn right now...
I ask’d the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face.
‘Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer;
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair.
I hoped that in some favour’d hour
At once He’d answer my request,
And by His love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins and give me rest.
Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart,
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part.
Yea, more, with His own hand He seem’d
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Cross’d all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourd, and laid me low.
Lord, why is this: I trembling cried,
Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death: ‘
‘Tis in this way,’ the Lord replied,
‘I answer prayer for grace and faith.
These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou may’st seek thy all in Me.’
(John Newton. Olney Hymns (1799), Book III, 36)
We have a strange God.
I've been away on holiday in the Lakes so sorry for the lack of posting. I have not got much to post right now but the books I ordered on peoples recommendations have arrived so I'll start having a go at them soon.
While I'm here though I'd just like to note down a parallel before I forget it.
A much disputed phrase in modern Pauline studies is the phrase 'the obedience of faith' which is particularly important as it appears at the beginning and end of Romans (1:5 and 16:26):
Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations
...Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith — to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.
I've just realised that Paul seems to be seeing in his ministry the fulfilment of Jacob's blessing in Genesis 49:10:
The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler's staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
Who says Paul doesn't talk about the Kingdom of God?
