Thoughts on the Song of Songs

The Song of Songs has always puzzled me, as I imagine it has puzzled lots of other people.

I may not have great literary antenna but I have always thought that the repeated phrase found throughout the book, which is just about its only direct address or command by the bride to those outside the story, holds the key to understanding the book's message. Repeated three times in 2:7, 3:5, and 8:4 is the phrase: 'I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem [...] that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.' This book it appears is about knowing the 'time to embrace, and [the] time to refrain from embracing' (Eccl 3:5).

Structurally key to the book is the only other time that the bride 'adjures' the 'daughters of Jerusalem' which is in 5:8, and is for them to find her beloved and tell him that she is 'sick with love'. I think this marks a turning point in the story. Up till this time it has been too early to awaken love, which has shown in the confusion and obstacles which mark the first two-thirds of the story. It follows the dream sequence where she has both longed for him, but also been unsure of her love - her 'soul failed' (5:6) and she lost him. However, after 5:8 both the bride and bridegroom seem much more sure of their relationship with each other. The bride is challenged 'What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you thus adjure us?' and she answers persuasively so that the 'others' agree to help her find him (6:1).

She seeks to find if the time is now right to awake love 'to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom' (6:11, 7:12). It clearly is by the wonderful words that the couple shower on each other. They are encouraged to return and present herself to the community (6:13). As the right time has arrived she 'comes up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved' (8:5). Now finally it is the time for love to be awakened and the bride declares 'Under the apple tree I awakened you' (8:5).

The watchmen in the story have always confused me. They appear benignly in 3:3 and the bride finds her bridegroom immediately after seeing them. In 5:7 however they are violent, abuse her and seem to prevent her finding her love. Their role as 'watchmen of the walls' should explain their identity. At the end of the book we read of others who have responsibility for walls (8:8-9):

We have a little sister,
and she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister
on the day when she is spoken for?
If she is a wall,
we will build on her a battlement of silver,
but if she is a door,
we will enclose her with boards of cedar.

They are presumably her brothers who in the OT often seem to have responsibility for protecting their sisters. In Israelite society romance was both public, arranged and dealt with in community and especially family. Throughout the book it is never just the lovers who are involved in this romance.

The 'daughters of Jerusalem', the young women, and those who have a role in protecting her, have a responsibility to ensure that love is not forced early, and sex does not happen until the appropriate time. Coercion to force love, or prevent it is the folly this wisdom book opposes.

The Song of Songs is both a cautionary tale of how things can go wrong, but also of how wonderfully it can come together in the end. In the end there is 'peace' after all the commotion of the early story. It is something to look forward to.

BTW if as I have incoherently argued, not awakening love too early, and the responsibility of the lovers and the community in behaving in line with this, is central to the purpose of this book, then I cannot see how a description of the relationship of God to Israel or Christ to the Church is the original intention of the author. Which is not to deny that it is not pointed to, as it is in every loving relationship no matter how marred by sin. Although I have to admit fault is surprisingly difficult to find with the bridegroom given my interpretation....

What defines you?

"it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you." (Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins)

"[Hegel] grasps the nature of work and comprehends objective man, authentic because actual, as the result of his own work" (Marx)

"man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself" (Satre)

"your action, and your action alone, determines your worth" (Fichte)

In case you think I am wider-read than I am, I stole all but one of those from Oswald Bayer (guess which).

Creation without the promise

In what I thought was the most controversial post I have written this year, but that generated no comments, I suggested that without the word of the Gospel creation just communicates the law. I explained that while creation can witness to its creator, it cannot witness to how we are to relate to him (through Christ) and so only condemns. I didn't really explain how if functions as law even if you do not see the witness to God in it. Oswald Bayer describes how:

If the world is not believed as that which is promised, then it will be experienced as a "fearful natural realm" [Arnold Gehlen], as a relentlessly necessary, oppressive law, which says: you must squeeze some sense out of this chaos, this fearful natural realm in all its uncertainty; you have to be in charge of making sense in this and out of this chaotic world; you yourself have to establish its order! If the world is not believed to be that which is promised, then it becomes, as Nietzsche aptly observed, "a thousand deserts, mute and cold." In such muteness and such coldness I experience God's wrath - admittedly so anonymously that I simply cannot even identify it as God's wrath.

(p. 102, Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation)

Justification as Creation; Creation as Justification

I think we have rediscovered in recent years that our salvation is our new creation. We are picking up and emphasising all those NT and Isaianic images of creation when describing our redemption. This is great. Lets celebrate it.

However, somehow in the process there seems to be a desire to shift justification to one side as one metaphor among many. Drawn from the legal context justification can be preferably pushed aside to make way creation which is more fundamental.

Oswald Bayer will not buy into this because to him what God says is fundamental to everything. Justification is what God declares in grace over us, it is also what he declared in grace over the whole of creation.

justification is not simply an isolated topic, next to which other topics can exist; it has essential importance and is connected with every topic. Justification does not affect just my individual life, not even just the history of the world, but impacts the history of nature as well; if affects all things. It is thus not sufficient to speak of the article on justification solely as the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae - as the article on which the church stands and falls. Instead, the meaning of justification must be taken seriously in its breadth, with ramifications that have application for a theology of creation and for ontology. In a prominent position in the Smalcald Articles Luther says: "One cannot go soft or give way on this article, for then heaven and earth would fall." "Without the article on justification the world is nothing but death and darkness."

(p. 98, Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation)

God's word is 'the creative Word of God that justifies' (p.97, ibid). 'Creation is speech act' (p.103).

I should really comment more but I haven't got time. By the way, I have quoted Oswald Bayer before the fundamental nature of justification before.

Law and Gospel in the whole bible

Feel free to pass over this post as I do bang on about it a lot. I just wanted to note down this quotation because otherwise I won't be able to find it again:

The whole of Scripture is in some parts law, in others gospel. The books of Moses in some sections propound the law, in others the gospel, and moreover the gospel is concealed in the very law itself. For what can you find more evangelical than that promise which the Spirit of God added as the etiology of the First Commandment: "Showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments" (Deut. 5:10)? And see how suddenly Moses is transformed from lawgiver to evangelist, that is, a herald of grace and mercy, when he says in Ex. 34:6 f.: "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast lover and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty." Try to find a more evangelical pasage in the whole New Testament [...]

In like manner, Christ expounds law, for grace cannot be preached without law. [...]

Often, to be sure, Christ also preaches law, because without law sin cannot be recognized and unless we experience sin, we shall not understand the power and fullness of grace. Therefore, both law and gospel ought to be preached at the same time, and both sin and grace ought to be made clear.

(pp. 73-77, 'Loci Communes' (1521) in LCC: Melanchthon and Bucer)

Self-help doesn't help

Canadian researchers found those with low self-esteem actually felt worse after repeating positive statements about themselves.

They said phrases such as "I am a lovable person" only helped people with high self-esteem.

(BBC, HT: Phil Walker)

I would like to say that this shouldn't surprise Christians, but I think it would surprise some. A helpful corrective would be Graham Beynon's Mirror, Mirror.

Assurance of things hoped for

Probably Philip Melanchthon's most quoted comment was 'to know Christ means to know his benefits' (p.21, 'Loci Communes' (1521) in LCC: Melanchthon and Bucer). However, often people just read the immediate context of the quote and take him to mean that we should prioritise knowing about the work of Christ over his person. But that is not really what he is writing about. Instead it is concerned with one of his major concerns in the Loci, which is to overturn the Roman Catholic understanding of faith.

For Melanchthon the knowledge of Christ 'is faith alone' (p. 106, ibid). Faith is not just belief that some things are true, it is that God has promised salvation to me. For the Reformers assurance was an absolutely central part of faith, and this pervades all of Melanchthon's Loci:

'You see, then, that "the assurance of things hoped for" is called "faith." Therefore, those who do not hope for the promised salvation do not believe. "But," you will say, "I believe that salvation was promised, but that it will come to others." For thus the flesh thinks. But listen! These promises are made to you also, are they not? Has not the gospel been preached to all the nations? You do not really believe, therefore, unless you believe that salvation has been promised to you also.' (p.97, ibid)

In fact you can see her that assurance is not just part of faith, but faith itself for Melanchthon. In this he is following Luther who defines faith as 'a living, daring confidence in God's grace' (p.101, 'Preface to the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans' Luther's Basic Theological Writings). Melanchthon refuses to even give the name 'faith' to belief that is not assurance of receiving the benefits of Christ, instead he terms it 'frigid opinion' (p.100, Loci).

Carl Trueman observes that the Puritans saw this understanding of faith as potentially damaging to fragile spirits. They did not respond by going all the way back to the Roman Catholic position of denying it is possible to be assured of salvation, but they denied that it was a necessary attribute of faith. In the WCF Chapter 18 we read that 'his infallible assurance does not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties, before he be partaker of it'.

I'm not sure who was right really. But I cannot help observing that it is undeniable that when the Puritans said they believed in justification by faith, they meant something quite different to the Reformers (and especially the Lutheran reformers). For the Lutherans faith=assurance. For the Puritans faith led to assurance.

Things are a lot messier than we would like to believe sometimes.

... I know the position we take will affect our encouragement of other Christians, I wonder if it would affect our evangelism too.

Too much of a good thing?

It is often commented that we live in an information rich age. In 2005 206,000 new titles were published in the UK (can you believe that! that is more than any other country, even the US!), and we have easier access to those that are out of print than we did in the past. In addition we have countless other sources of information.

It is not a new problem though. Over 2000 years ago before there were too many books and the Teacher complained that 'Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh' (Ecclesiastes 12:12)... I wonder if he saw the irony as he added to the pile.

Luther saw the problem he created by writing so much (the English translation of some of his works numbers 55 volumes) when he wrote in his Preface to the Wittenberg Edition of his German writings that:

I shudder to think of the example I am giving, for I am well aware how little the church has been profited since they have begun to collect many books and large libraries, in addition to and besides the Holy Scriptures, and especially since they have stored up, without discrimination, all sorts of writings by the church fathers, the councils, and teachers. Through this practice not only is precious time lost, which could be used for studying the Scriptures, but in the end the pure knowledge of the divine Word is also lost, so that the Bible lies forgotten.

Philip Melanchthon was a true disciple when he also constantly apologised for writing so much. In his 1521 Loci he ends his very restrained work by recognising that it is good to write on good things, but that it can have bad results:

I think I have done well to discuss such important topics more briefly than I should have done, lest with misplaced diligence I call someone away from the Scripture to my disputations.

The problem is not always that we spend our time doing bad things instead of good, but that we spend time on good things and displace the best. I was reminded this when I observed on Sunday that my church was about to embark on some new thing. Our pastor rightly explained how this thing was good and Biblical, but then inferred that it therefore should be done (not seeing that A needn't imply B). This week I've realised that what is true of my church is true of me too. For example, I have got an unusually long list of good 'must read' books on my shelf at the moment but they do crowd out other things, including reading the Scriptures.

At the heart of this problem of not prioritising, or ordering our loves (?!), is that we don't want to accept that we are finite. We want to do a million things well. We just can't. We have to accept that we are not God. We cannot sustain the whole world by our action, comprehend all knowledge, or enjoy all good things we have been given.

I need to learn this, and our churches need to learn it as well.

Three points on the claims of Jesus

John Stott says he finds it helpful to think over the claims of Jesus under three headings (are you surprised it is not four?):

• Fulfilment - of OT promises
• Authority - in teaching, over death, demons and illness, to forgive sins etc
• Intimacy - with God the father (e.g. Matthew 11:27)

Is God really like Jesus?

Now if God is not what he is towards us in Jesus Christ then of course there is no fidelity between what God is towards us and what he is in Jesus Christ, and therefore the revelation is not ultimately trustworthy, it is not ultimately something upon which all our knowledge of God can rest.

But tie that up also with the love of God. If what we have in Jesus, the love so manifest and embodied in Jesus, is not rooted in the very being of God. If God himself is not loving us and acting out his love in the life and death of Jesus, then that means that God does not love us to the uttermost, to the extent that he really became one with us in the incarnation and cross of Christ.

That means that there is no essential real connection between what we call 'love' defined by Jesus and what God is in his own being; and so we cannot say that God is love. And so cut the bond of being between Christ and God and we are left in the dark with an inscrutable deity behind the back of Jesus Christ. Now, a manifestation of God for which Jesus Christ does not, as it were, go bail or for which he is not a sure pledge.

Now pastorally this is one of the most fearful thing that can afflict people. I remember on the battlefield a soldier with only half an hour to live asking me 'padre, is God really like Jesus' and I can remember people in the parish wondering whether God was ultimately really like Jesus or not. You see behind the back of Jesus they've got some concept of God that is dark and terrifying.

(Tom Torrance in one of the MP3 Mediation of Christ lectures - I can't remember which)

Sources of disquiet

Helmut Thielicke puts into words some frustrating feelings that I have about my experience of speaking to those who wouldn't call themselves Christians:

Aren't discussions, by their very nature, endless? Do they not go on spawning new discussions? Doesn't every serious discussion end with the conclusion that this is where we really have to begin, and that we have arrived not at a period but only at a colon? Isn't this constant beginning anew the sign that we are moving in a circle, a curved line that never ends? This is disquieting, for the circle is ultimately the symbol of noncommitment.

If one examines the conversations of Jesus, one will note that they always end in an arrest, in a sudden termination of the circular. Without exception they end in a "Hix Rhodus, his salta." ["Here you must leap or retreat"] They end at the steep escarpment of a message which cannot be avoided by any detour.

(p.x, I Believe: The Christian Creed)

From this he explains why it is important to teach the "forbidding wall" of the Apostles' Creed. That certain facts must be reckoned with and confessed. However, he is somewhat troubled by his own conclusion, and again puts into words a feeling I have, this time speaking to those who would call themselves Christians but don't seem to know what that means:

We must ask whether the creed is not a continual enumeration of some things which we must believe. Is it permissible to speak of faith at all in this additive way? Are we allowed to say anything more than the simple confession, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief"? Is there such a thing as a minimal content of belief, the possession of which gives me the right to call myself a disciple? Didn't the people to whom Jesus attributed great faith actually believe very little so far as content was concerned, and, what is more, was not that little - as in the case of the woman with the hemorrhage (Matt. 9:20 ff.) - actually very questionable?

(p. xii, ibid)

... lots of questions which I share. No answers!

Breaching faith

According to the ESV the phrase "breach of faith" or "broke faith" only occurs outside the Pentatuach in Joshua with the sin of Achan, in the introduction to Chronicles, and then in Ezra 10. Chronicles begins with four breaches of faith:

1. Achan's breach of faith in not devoting to destruction the goods of Jericho (2:7)
2. The breach of faith of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in whoring after other gods, which led to their exile by the Assyrians (5:25).
3. Judah's breach of faith which lead to their exile by the Babylonians (9:1)
4. And finally, Saul's breach of faith in not devoting to destruction the goods of the Amalekites (10:13)

I guess this is a chiasm. The difficult thing to do is work out what it means.

It is interesting also that Ezra (which traditionally has been held to be written by the same person as Chronicles) takes up the phrase in connection with the returned exiles marrying foreign women (Ezra 10).

What do you make of all that?

Assorted recommendations

• Sojourn Music - some Christian music which is just great in every way. The production is particularly good.
• Mirror, Mirror by Graham Beynon. I've only just started, but it is already favourite to be my most given away book this year. Where do you find your true identity?
• A rare MP3 lecture on Nihilism by Lesslie Newbigin. I may blog on why this is better than CS Lewis's Abolition of Man if you are (un)lucky.
• Three video talks by Steve Timmis on building gospel communities. My favourite bit is on how adults can minister to children: 'treat them like human beings'. That is something that I've only recently begun to do! Persist with the talks even if the sight of the 'stage set' makes you feel nauseous initially.
• Mike Cain's 4 sermons on the Servant songs.

Evangelism-driven legalism

Peter Dray has just posted a typically pastorally perceptive post on what he terms 'Evangelism-driven legalism'. You should read it.

In it he shares his concerns about quite how we sometimes argue like this:

• Unbelievers will have the gospel commended to them by Christian behaviour, and so will want to ask questions of Christians.
• Therefore make an effort to impress non-believers by your behaviour - this might take various forms: be outgoing, be generous at work, arrive early at church to chat to newcomers... and so on.

I think it worth thinking about at length. Because the argument is correct and true, but yet it so often does lead people to a place of crushing legalism. As Peter rightly points out the only way we can teach this truth, without it leading to nasty consequences, is by always teaching it in a context soaked in grace.

One thing Peter only touches on, but I think flows out of this, are the consequences for what we mean by attractive holy lives. As sinners, holiness is as much about how we react to our sin, as how we avoid sinning. What is more attractive than someone who is open about their failings, but who keeps trying to change; someone who is pained by the consequences of their sin, but always full of confident joy that they have been forgiven?

What makes a good theologian?

Richard Bauckham recently won the 2009 Michael Ramsey prize for his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

It is hard to deny that Richard Bauckham is a remarkable scholar who has genuinely redefined the debate in a whole number of areas (eyewitnesses in the gospels, Christology in the early church and Gospel audiences). But what has made him such a good theologian? Our attitude towards God is of course what really defines whether we are 'good' theologians or not. But the question is wider, if not deeper than that observation.

Kim Fabricius thinks he knows what makes Bauckham a good theologian. He has noticed that Bauckham seems to read a lot of novels. He argues that: 'Fiction is as intrinsic to continuing ministerial education as theology. And that's because there is no greater theological resource for moral and spiritual formation than a great novel'.

Martin Luther apperently agreed because he desired 'that there shall be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible, because I see that by these studies, as by no other means, people are wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it skillfully and happily' (HT JT). Perhaps an enjoyment of 'culture' is essential to being a good theologian when theology is as much art as science (Theodore Gill in an editorial of Theology Today in 1986 certainly thought so).

However another possible cause of what makes Richard Bauckham a good theologian is that he is wide-ranging in his studies and writings. Michael Bird and Craig Keener have both recently written in encouragement of generalists in Biblical Studies, and Richard Bauckham has certainly written on a wide variety of areas in NT studies. He has written books on Revelation, Peter, Jude, James, the Gospels and the Early Church. But he has even gone beyond that and has written a monograph on the theology of Jurgen Moltmann!

No doubt a theologian could benefit from a whole range of different things. But what do you think are the most important, or neglected, practices for theologians?

I still like Luther's three rules of prayer, meditation and Experience (or Anfechtung), and would probably also add pastoral work. I have commented in that past that it is pastor-theologians who have influenced me most of all.

Two kinds of wisdom

Iain Provan argues that Solomon's request for wisdom in 1 Kings 3 is actually a form of repentance. Solomon already has wisdom in 1 Kings 2. As he is dying David gives instructions to Solomon to kill Joab 'according to [his] wisdom' (v.6) and Shamei because he is 'a wise man' (v.9).

These instructions seem pretty brutal. Joab has been David's loyal (if violent) right hand man for decades. David swore never to kill Shamei, but now suggests Solomon does so. If both these men deserved to die a long time ago, it is questionable why David has waited till now to execute justice. Doubtless David found Joab very useful while he was alive, but recognises that he and Shamei may turn out to be threats to Solomon's power in the future. Justice has been made secondary to realpolitik.

After obeying his father's instructions and so establishing the kingdom (2:46), we come to the famous passage where Solomon asks for wisdom. But he doesn't just ask for wisdom he asks to be able to 'discern between good and evil' (3:9). This 'pleased the Lord' because he did not ask for 'long life', 'riches' or 'the life of your enemies' (3:11). Because the Lord is pleased he not only gives Solomon the wisdom he requests but gives what he has not asked for: riches and long life. But he doesn't promise him the other thing he didn't ask for: the life of his enemies.

The missing commandment

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?" Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 13:28-31)

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 8:8-10)

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." (Galatians 5:13-14)

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself," you are doing well. (James 2:8)

Does anyone else find it odd that of the two greatest commandments which sum up the law, Paul and James say only the second is necessary to 'fulfil' the law. To love your neighbour as yourself keeps the whole law according to Paul. But what about the God-ward commandment, which is the first not just in order but priority?

While that may just seem an oddity, the fact we are still required keep such a sweeping commandment creates an additional problem. We often remind people that nobody loves God with their whole heart, mind, soul and strength. But isn't the second great commandment equally impossible? It is very nice of God to 'let us off' having to keep the first commandment, but the second will break us as well. Not very freeing is it?

Yet Paul in Galatians says that loving our neighbour as ourselves is living in freedom. James says we have to do what the 'law of liberty' says (1:25) which is presumably the same as the 'royal law' of 2:8. However, we may feel that far from being free we are still living under subjection to commands and laws if we have to obey this great (OT, indeed Mosaic) commandment. True, it seems we are given a little more freedom to work out what loving our neighbour may mean in practice. Rather than having it spelled out in detail for us (e.g. command to leave the edges of the field for the poor, Leviticus 19:9) we can decide the best way to help to help our neighbour ourself. But when Paul talks about freedom, he means more than this. He means freedom from the curse of not keeping the law and freedom from the sin it enlivens.

Perhaps the solution is contained in Luther's famous observation, in The Freedom of the Christian, of how we are both free and enslaved as Christians:

A Christian is perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

The first statement concerns our God-ward relationship. The second statement our human-ward relationships. They relate to what Luther described as two different kinds of righteousness.

The distinction between two kinds of righteousness rests upon the observation that there are two dimensions to being a human creature. One dimension involves our life with God, especially in the matters of death and salvation. The other dimension involves our life with God’s creatures and our activity in this world. In the former we receive righteousness before God through faith on account of Christ. In the latter, we achieve righteousness in the eyes of the world by works when we carry out our God-given responsibilities.

(Charles Arand on Melancthton's Apology)

These two dimensions of life are not unconnected, as Jesus demonstrates clearly when he answers the question 'Which commandment [singular] is the most important of all?' with two commandments. However they are ordered and distinguishable.

Only being righteous in the first (vertical) dimension can lead to being righteous in the second. But being righteous in the second cannot bring righteousness in the first. As Luther says: 'Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works; evil works do not make a wicked man, but a wicked man does evil works' (Freedom of the Christian). This is because it is God who justifies (Romans 8:33) and the judgment of men is meaningless (Luke 16:15). It is our relationship to God which defines whether we are righteous or not.

But God's justifying declaration, like all his words is creative. So righteousness in the first dimension not only can but will lead to righteousness in the second dimension. That is why Paul can express such incredulity when despite being justified before God we are not acting as just people in the world, and why James says that Abraham's 'faith was completed by his works' (2:22). If God has declared us righteous in Christ by faith, in the promise of baptism, then we must be righteous not just before God but before men.

This certainty that one kind of righteousness will lead to the other is why (human-ward) works do not supply something that (God-ward) faith lacks, but instead 'perfect' or 'complete' faith. As Seifrid comments on James' statement that we are justified by works:

His formulation is important: he does not say that they were justified 'by faith and works', but they were justified by works alone! Justification ultimately must be by works, because works are faith's perfection [...] works that justify are never alone. They are an outworking of faith, which is present with them

(pp.180-181, Mark Seifrid, Christ our Righteousness)

So works do not fulfil a law which has not already been fulfilled by Christ who is received by faith. Instead they complete what has already begun, in one sense what has already happened, in Christ's death and resurrection. This is why James says that in Abraham's work of offering up Isaac 'the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"' (2:23). What God had promised before the act (that Abraham was righteous) was being played out (fulfilled) in his obedience through his faith in that promise. God did not lie in speaking when Abraham was a sinner, but created the reality.

This word is perhaps what James is talking about in 1:23-25. He says:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

The word tells us who we are in Christ Jesus. We are righteous in God's sight because Jesus loved God with all his heart, mind and strength. We can forget that truth and so don't live like it is true. But if we remember that image of ourselves, and believe it, we will act like it.

Does that makes sense? I've sort of skated along at quite a rate pulling in quite a bit of stuff, and maybe haven't been quite as focused as I should have been.

Further thoughts here.

Three meanings of the word 'law'

I think there would be more light and less heat if in discussions on the law people defined their terms. I think there are three main meanings of 'the law'. The trouble is people import concepts from one to another. Here are my three:

1. The Torah

2. Commands

3. God's word working death

The law [1] contains, but is not exclusively, law [2] which usually functions as law [3] to cause us to run to the Gospel.

The Torah is the Mosaic Covenant which contained both commands and promises. And the promises are not all conditional!

Commands are found not just in the Mosaic Covenant but throughout the bible; even Galatians. They can condemn us because they reveal our sin (2nd use of the law), but inherently they are good and so can help reveal how we should live once we have been saved (3rd use of the law).

God's word working death can come through commands (using the 2nd use of the law) but not exclusively (it can also come through phrases like 'Christ died for my sins' - see here) God's word working death is opposed to his word working life. But everlasting life can only be found by going through death. This is the meaning of 'law' in the phrase 'law and gospel' if that phrase is used in its true sense.

The three uses of the law

1. 'The first is the pedagogical or civil use, for God wills that all men be compelled by the discipline of the Law, even the unregenerate, not to commit outward sins'.
2. 'it is a second and very important use of the law of God to show our sin and to accuse, to terrify, and to condemn all men in this misuse of human nature. For the law of God which has been revealed to men is a perpetual judgment which condemns sin in the entire human race'
3. 'The third use of the Law pertains to the regenerate. Insofar as the regenerate have been justified by faith they are free from the Law... that is, from the curse and condemnation and the wrath of God which is set forth in the Law ...[Yet] the law must be preached to the regenerate to teach them certain works in which God wills that we practice obedience. For God does not will that we by our own wisdom set up works or worship'.

All quotes from Philipp Melanchthon's Loci Communes (1543) translated by JAO Preus, pp. 72-74.

See also

A superabundance of positives

My previous post was sparked by this great passage from Oswald Bayer:

When Luther emphasizes that the law, as it functions, is there already, already determining human existence - as sinful existence - he certainly acknowledges thereby that it in fact precedes the gospel, but not that it has ultimate priority over the gospel. The actual superiority of the gospel remains unaffected [...] If the gospel is considered to be nothing other than the defeat of evil and sin, one runs a risk of minimizing the truth about creation. But Luther sees the work of God already in his creation, when he gives gifts without having to, coming solely by the grace of God, and in that sense already "evangelical." As the means for dispensing the new creation, the gospel has a superabundance of positives, nothing like the way it is described when it is understood exclusively in the context of ways to deal with the negative.

In that the law brings an awareness of unbelief, it presumes the existence of faith and the gospel, materially and logically. For unfaith, as a turning toward false gods, does not work death and destruction in and of itself; that happens in, with, and under the turning away from the true, only, good God. Unfaith is sin because of its rejection of the eternal fellowship promised by God. It is due to rebellion against such fellowship, and thus is rebellion against the gospel, if it is correct that the preamble of the Decalogue - God's self-introduction and self-communication - is pure gospel. In the same way the threat of death (Gen. 2:17) can really be understood only in relation to the preceding promise of life and free provision of gifts (Gen. 2:16).

(p.62-63, Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation)

Interesting that he sees the sequence as determined by whether we are thinking in terms of creation and redemption. Interesting also that he describes unbelief in sacramental language (in, with, and under) as communicating death and destruction.

The chicken and the egg

1. Law and Gospel or Gospel and Law?

(a) In the discussion about the so called Covenant of Works, or Adamic Administration, Reformed theologians may ask: Was Adam under law or gospel? If you read Michael Horton & Co they would argue that it is traditional Reformed position to say he was under the law. Horton argues that 'it is anachronistic to require grace or mercy as the foundation of creation and covenant in the beginning, as Karl Barth and many recent Reformed Theologians do' because Adam was 'entirely capable of maintaining himself in a a state of integrity' (p.84, Michael Horton, God of Promise).

But this is considering law/gospel only in the realm of redemption. What about the realm of creation?

(b) As creatures we merit nothing and so even our existence is an act of grace and mercy.

But creation and redemption are not unconnected as Isaiah and Paul so often remind us. The Reformed tradition has always been strong on this and so you find when biblical theologians from the Reformed tradition like Tom Wright or Graeme Goldsworthy get involved they stress New Creation, and they also place the gospel first. You often see this in discussions about the Mosaic law. Graeme Goldsworthy comments:

'The heart of the [Mosaic] law is the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) which are prefaced by the significant phrase, 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.' These words should govern our understanding of the Sinai law. Here we see that God declares that he is the God of his people, that he has already saved them. What follows then cannot be a programme aimed to achieve salvation by works since they have already received it by grace.' (p.62, Gospel and Kingdom)

2. Problems with the either ordering

(a) When law is placed before the gospel it can be seen as only bad. Or only functionally good (because it leads to the gospel) not good in itself. So it can be forgotten and dropped as soon as you've got to the gospel.

(b) When the gospel is placed before law then the two are usually mingled. Karl Barth explicitly does this:

'Gospel and law are not to be separated; they are one, in such a way that the gospel is the primary thing, that the glad tidings are first in the field and, as such, include the law. Because God is for us, we may also be for Him. Because He has given Himself to us, we may also in gratitude give Him the trifle which we have to give.' (p.19, Dogmatics in Outline)

I'm going to have to think some more, but I think the solution maybe not to choose between gospel-law or law-gospel, but recognising the bible story-line and choose gospel-law-gospel.

Any thoughts?

The antinomian-nomistic modern age

This is basically the same point as he makes in a quotation I have previously posted but it is better put so I'll post this quotation as well.

In its universalizing of the gospel, the modern age is antinomian, but at the same time it is increasingly nomistic.

By its very name, which is crafted to characterize its self-understanding, the modern age distinguishes itself as having an "evangelical" character. It conceptualizes itself as a new age that cannot be outdone, standing under the banner of freedom. It is assumed thereby that the law has in principle been vanquished already: the human being is by nature free, good, and spontaneous. In this sense the modern age is antinomian.

But whatever the new human being of the modern age is, that is what he or she must first become. The gospel of freedom, which is universally said to exist, puts the human being under the pressure to redeem himself at the very same time, and calls for him to achieve the potential that is by very nature his already. But if freedom is not promised and imparted, if instead it is characteristic of me from the outset, if I define myself in relation to it, then I am weighted down, in my individual and collective subjectivity, with having to fulfill the promise of what has been provided for me - not freed for freedom but at the same time " to freedom condemned" (Satre). It is not that I am able to be free, but that I have to free myself. Thus the reverse side of antinomism is nomism.

(italics original, pp.65-66, Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation)

I know that I feel the contradiction in the modern age that Bayer describes, and know other people who feel this, particularly in relationship to careers. It is not just non-Christians that are part of this culture.

The pre-modern age was characterised by a lack of freedom, a constraint by a 'law', of being born to do the job your father did. 80 years ago women felt constrained by an expectation that they would not have a career, but would instead be a housewife. The present age promises freedom to be whatever we want to be. But while promising this freedom we are then thrown back on ourselves to embrace this freedom and achieve the maximum possible. What is good news also condemns and oppresses us.

SVNDE VERGYBT

I am beginning to develop a theory that there is a Luther factoid that relates to almost any topic of conversation. My friends are probably starting to get a bit tired of my trying to work out if this theory is borne out in practice.

The latest factoid I have learnt was that 'Luther had only one phrase of the entire German Bible typeset in capital letters: SVNDE VERGJBT (forgives sins) (Rom. 3:25), which he further identified in a marginal gloss as "the chief point" and the "center-point of this epistle and the entire Scripture"' (p.76, Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther's Theology).

Anyway, this post is to kick off a few more posts on Luther's theology. I know my few readers will probably agree with my friends that I am perhaps a little obsessive, but while I am reading other stuff it is just not quite as interesting to me!

Empire-building

Not the reactions you would expect:

'Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, "My lord Moses, stop them." But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!"' (Numbers 11:26-29)

'John answered, "Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us." But Jesus said to him, "Do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you."' (Luke 9:49-50)

'Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.' (Philippians 1:15-18)

I think I'm more inclined to have the attitude of Joshua and John than Moses, Jesus and Paul sometimes.

Dying well

One of many things I could do with sitting down and have a think about is how Christian's should approach their death.

Dying well was of massive importance to our ancestors but I don't think I really know what it would look like in reality. Food for thought has been provided by Mark Thompson's excellent post on death. I would encourage you to read it, as well as to read Oscar Cullmann's comparison between the death of Socrates and Christ... whether we should approach our death in the same way as Christ's is part of the big question though.