Authority in Galatians

From my meetings with Mormons it seems that the thing that almost seems to excite them the most is the authority of the LDS Church and its Priesthoods. This is their solution to doctrinal confusion because, coupled with the warm fuzzy feeling they understand to be the witness of the Holy Spirit, they can know that a teaching is true because it comes from the LDS church.

Galatians has a different perspective on authority...

Paul recognises that the truth of the gospel he preaches depends on it coming from God.

• He is an "apostle - not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father" (1:1)
• He says: "I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (1:12)
• He spent years in the wilderness (metaphorically and literally at times) before coming to see the Apostles (2:1)
• Who these Apostles were "makes no difference" to Paul and they added nothing to his message (2:6)

Authority is not something inherent to any person other than God, but belongs to someone so long as he preaches the Gospel.

• His authority can be questioned if he preaches a different Gospel (1:8, and implied in 2:18)
• Peter's authority can be questioned on the same basis (2:14)
• Even angels should be questioned if they preach a different Gospel (1:8)

Paul's authority is paralleled in the authority of any Christian.

• Paul was "called by [God's] grace" to preach, and had Christ revealed to him so that he could preach him to the Gentiles (1:15-16)
• The whole Galatian church were "called [by God] in the grace of Christ" (1:6) when "Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified" to them (3:1)

The Gospel is equated by Paul with God the Father, Jesus Christ, and his crucifixion.

• Paul equates the Gospel with God the Father (1:6; 3:6)
• Jesus Christ (1:12; 1:16; 2:16; 5:2)
• Jesus' death (3:1; 6:14)
• Blessing of the Gentiles in Abraham/Christ (3:8; cf. 5:6)
• NB the revelation of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen One, included within it the calling of Paul to the Gentiles and knowing God as Father. These are not separate revelations or callings

The truth of the Gospel he preaches is shown in the effect it has - i.e. that it delivers the goods.

• By hearing it the Galatians received the Holy Spirit (3:2)
• The Spirit cries "Abba! Father!" (4:6)
• The Spirit (presumably) is what supplies a feeling of blessing that means a great desire to serve and give gifts to the person who shared it with you whatever the cost (4:15)
• The Spirit has fruit of "love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (although note this is a imperative (walk by the Spirit), that comes from the indicative (we live by the Spirit, 5:25)
• After all, if the Gospel is Jesus Christ then if it is being preached the Holy Spirit, who indwells the Son, will be with it.

God gives the Gospel, which is himself, to Christians who have authority in their re-presenting of the Gospel. The Gospel is both their possession and their master, just as God is given to us and yet we serve him. As soon as the Gospel is something we control we lose the possession of it, and so as soon as the preaching authority of the church is exercised outside of obedience to God we lose the authority.

To be joined to Christ by faith in him is to share his authority. To preach Christ is to exercise that authority. True authority never belongs to us or is exercised by us except dependent on Christ's personal authority. Not just in an initial gift, but continually. Christ must be the alpha and omega of our authority to teach.

I think Mormons believe Christ is the alpha, but not the omega, of the authority of their church.

Under the sun

Qoheleth could have used the phrase "under the heavens" to describe life on earth full of breath/vanity. I think he used the phrase he did because:

1. The word "under" has connotations of rule in the OT, and perhaps even harsh rule (cf. Paul's use of "under the law")
2. For Israelites the "sun" was not the happy smiley face in the skies that English people think of. The favourite weather forecast for Israelites was rain because sun meant baking heat. It was "oppressive" weather when the sun ruled the skies.

Trinitarian structures?

Eugene Peterson structures his course on "Biblical Spirituality" like the following boxes. He admits that there is a lot of bleed between them (e.g. that all three persons of the Trinity are involved in creation, justification and sanctification; and that creation, justification and sanctification are all of a piece, as is Christ's atoning work).

Given those caveats, is there enough distinction to use this as a structure? The early church in the creeds certainly agreed about the first two columns tying together in some way.

God the Father	Creation	Christ's birth
God the Son	Redemption	Christ's death
God the Holy Spirit	Holy Living	Christ's resurrection

Incidentally, I think, having just heard Tim Chester on Eschatology, I might add a fourth column:

God the Father	Creation	Christ's birth	First Creation
God the Son	Redemption	Christ's death	Death of Fallen Creation
God the Holy Spirit	Holy Living	Christ's resurrection	New Creation

...I don't know there are things I like and dislike.

Talking the Gospel with Mormons

Continuing from here, to try and write something to my Mormon visitors.

The phrase “the Gospel of Jesus Christ” is something we have used a lot, but I think we mean different things about it. And that could be seen if we ask what the word “of” means in the phrase. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you mean primarily that it is the Gospel that Jesus taught, about which Jesus Christ himself is a part. Christians would say that the Gospel is by Jesus and 100% about Jesus. He is both the author and the content of the Gospel.

The shortest summary of the Gospel I have heard is one word: “Jesus”. Not in the first instance Jesus’ teachings, but who he is, and if you were to summarise what the Gospel of Mark is about “Jesus” is what you’d say before you said “the teachings of Jesus”. Paul seemed to see “Jesus is Lord” as a summary of the Gospel (Rom 10:19) and John seems to think the same of “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2). In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul tells us the Gospel is found in the central event of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The reason that the Gospel can be both the person of Jesus, but also his work of salvation in dying for our sins, and rising for our justification, is because the latter is how we know the former. We ask someone to “show us what you’re made of”, and by that we mean that we see who someone is by how they act.

We know who Jesus Christ is, and so through him who the Father is, because he showed himself as almighty and pure love in conquering the power of death by dying for those who hated him. This is “good news” (the translation of “gospel”) because it is an event that has an effect on our life. It is not advice for us to follow, or a mixture of advice and news, but news of what has been “finished” as Jesus drew his last breath for us.

The Gospel is also what Christ taught, but he talked more than anything about himself. Similarly the Bible taken as a whole is all about him from Genesis to Revelation (John 5:39; Luke 24:27). The Bible and Jesus’ own teaching does contain laws but they are fulfilled and brought to an end in Christ. They have a purpose but their purpose is preparatory to the coming of Jesus Christ into the world and our lives (Rom 5:18-21; Gal 2:21-29). Like arrows they point to Christ, but Christ is what we should look at, not the laws.

Talking Trinity with Mormons

Listening to: Beethoven: late String Quartets & LAU: Lightweights and Gentlemen

I've been having a few visits from our neighbourhood Latter-day Saints.

I wanted to wanted to write a few things to them before their next visit on some key things that have come up in our discussions. As usual I fear my ability to communicate appropriately is pretty poor, but this is what I've written as a first draft on the Trinity. Something further is coming on the Gospel. Feedback welcome.

The Trinity

Christians have always confessed that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three persons, so that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, and neither are the Holy Spirit. As you pointed out, how else could the Father speak from heaven at Jesus’ baptism, or Jesus speak to his Father in prayer?

While not negating this distinction between the persons Christians have also confessed a radical unity in the Godhead. You affirm that the Godhead is united in purpose, and in this you recognise that it would be nonsense to say that they are one in exactly the same way that they are three (i.e. that there are three persons and also one person). And unity in purpose is essential, because if there is disagreement between the Father and the Son, what hope do we have for eternity? Besides there must be some kind of oneness to do justice to all those passages where the unity between the Father and the Son in the Spirit is affirmed (e.g. John 5:19; John 14:7-11; Heb 1:3; Col 1:15-19) or those passages, esp in the Old Testament where it is is confidently declared that there is just one God (Deut 6:4; 1 Cor 8:4-6; 1 Tim 2:5). But is that enough?

1) Can we really know what God is like, for sure?

John 1:18 says that no one has ever seen God (the Father). Although you explained that Joseph Smith and others have seen God the Father in the flesh, I simply cannot understand how you can fit that with John 1:18, Col 1:15 which says God is “invisible”, and 1 Timothy 6:16 where Paul describes God as “the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see” (cf. Ex 33:20; 1 John 4:20). However, the Son knows the Father in a way no other person does, but he makes him known to us (Matt 11:27; John 1:18)! The Christians in the first few centuries argued against saying that there was a time when the Son was not in existence, partly because then how could the Son know the Father perfectly to exactly reveal who he was. I know my housemates well, but there is a whole period of our lives when we didn’t know each other - which is one reason I can never fully know them. The Son was with the Father from the beginning of time (John 1:2) so there is no backstory that Son isn’t aware of. While to us the Father is invisible, he is fully known by the Son and by so fully revealed to us in Jesus Christ. He is both fully hidden, but also fully revealed.

2) Can we know that God is loves us forever?

If God the Father’s purposes align with the Son’s now, that is great, but what if they change? If the Spirit is sent by the Son from the Father, what happens if one day he refuses to go? I think the clue into answering these questions is the name “the Father”. At heart, if I understand you correctly, God is “the Father” for LDS because he created all of us. Therefore, there was a time when he was not “the Father”. But in that case his Fatherhood is not essential to his being. In contrast the Bible says that because the Son has always been with him, he has always been a Father of his one Son and, importantly, he always will be. If we ceased to exist then God the Father would still remain, but if the Son ceased to exist then so would the Father because who he is is tied into the Son being the Son, by whom they are united in love by the Holy Spirit.

Before any of the rest of creation the three persons of the Trinity were united in love by the Holy Spirit, in perfect relationship. Because of this the foundation of the universe is solid because it is one being, but it is also dynamic, loving and outward looking because it is three persons. This eternal relationship is the relationship Christians believe they have been invited into!

The 16th century Heidelberg Catechism asked Christian children “Why is [Jesus] called God’s ‘only Son’ when we also are God’s children?” and that question opens up some significant differences between Christian and LDS teaching. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is unique in being eternally by very nature God’s Son. In contrast, we haven’t always been children of God, but we are given the power/right to become God’s children by adoption (John 1:12; Rom 8; Gal 4:; Eph 1:5). Paul says we are adopted “through Jesus Christ” because we are co-heirs with Christ sharing his inheritance which is the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:17). This relationship of God as our Father who we can call on with confidence is secure forever, because the Father’s very being is his relationship to his Son, and Jesus Christ by identifying with us in our sin and curse has drawn us into that relationship, calling us brothers! Can you say that your relationship with God as loving heavenly Father is as secure as his very being? You can if you trust Jesus Christ is not ashamed to call us brothers, even if he has every right to be.

3) How do we receive the Holy Spirit?

The Bible calls the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of Christ” because they the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are inseparable. Everything the Father and Son do they do “by the Spirit”, a Spirit they share with one another. Therefore we should not expect the Spirit to come by anything other than Jesus Christ. Paul asks the Galatians “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” answering that they received the Spirit by hearing of Jesus Christ with faith. He says the same in Ephesians 1:13 where he says that they received the Holy Spirit after hearing and then believing in Jesus Christ.

Therefore if we receive Christ, and are united to him by faith then because he and the Spirit are one then the Spirit also lives in us enabling us to imitate Jesus Christ’s life and share his sufferings and resurrection. You have explained to me that you believe that the Holy Spirit comes by priestly authority given to certain people. But the Bible says that he comes from the one high priest Jesus Christ, who is present with us whenever he is preached, and he pours the Spirit out on us as we hear about him and believe. We can be confident then that if we sincerely confess “Jesus is Lord” that we have the Spirit, because Jesus can’t be separated from his Spirit (1 Cor 12:3).

A little note on the Noahic covenant

There are three aspects to the Noahic covenant:

1. God promises to hold back from exercising his authority. God will "never again... curse the ground because of man" however evil they are.
2. God delegates the rights and responsibilities of his authority to humanity:
• Man is to be fruitful, and fill the earth;
• Man is to eat of every creature on the earth, in the sea and in the air.
• Man is to judge any man or animal that kills another man.
3. This is bought at a price - a price that continually needs to be paid:
• The Noahic covenant is founded on sacrifice, because it is given in response to Noah's sacrifice on the altar he builds in 8:20.
• The Noahic covenant requires continual sacrifices - that is the implication of the seemingly strange command not to eat the blood in animals. The reason being that "the life of the flesh is in the blood, and ... it is the blood that makes atonement" (Lev 17:11).

God didn't give up on this promise to delegate authority to humanity, even though "at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to" man (Hebrews 2). He has already given it to "a man whom he has appointed" who "will judge the world in righteousness" (Acts 17:31) and share his power to judge with his brothers (1 Cor 6:2).

We can now eat meat with blood in it. Not for some arbitrary reason, but because the blood of Jesus was the one sacrifice for all time, God demands no more sacrifice as the price of the promise.

Jesus received the promises of delegated authority given to THE image of God, THE man (Adam). He received those promises because he paid the full price in blood. Graciously he shares the promise of delegated rule (and, to a degree, the cost) with those united to him by faith.

[Aside:

"Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image." (Gen 9:6)

I have always assumed that the "image of God" in this passage refers primarily to the person who is murdered, but I think it is more likely to be the person who executes the murderer. As I've long been convinced - "image of God" is more functional than ontological.]

Unoriginal reflection on 1 Kings 15:3-5

"[Abijah] committed all the sins his father had done before him; his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been. Nevertheless, for David's sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raining up a son to succeed him and by making Jerusalem strong. For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD's commands all the days of his life - except in the case of Uriah the Hittite." (1 Kings 15:3-5)

Abijah sinned.

God blessed him despite his sin because of the righteousness of his federal head, David.

David's righteousness was imperfect, so there was a limit to the covering provided.

One day the covering wore out, as the hole spread and split the whole garment.

The lamp was removed, no son of David reigned and Jerusalem burned.

We sinned.

God blessed us despite our sin because of the righteousness of our federal head, Jesus Christ, son of David.

David's greater son, did what was right, with no exception.

Christ's righteousness was perfect without exception, so there is no flaw in the covering provided.

If we repent of our sin, our lamp will never be removed, for Christ reigns forever and we live in a lasting city.

Forcing into a unity

Many arguments about theology, and particularly apologetics seems to be about where we start. For example, when talking about God do we start with the Trinity because the concept 'god' we come with is a Procrustean bed which will prevent us ever having a true understanding of God, or can we start with our flawed concepts and refine and reshape until we get to a correct understanding?

Oswald Bayer summarises the alternative we are often presented with:

Does theology start with a particular concept in order to demonstrate its universality, or does it begin with a general indeterminate concept in order to fill it with a specifically Christian content?

He says both alternatives, epitomised by Barth and Schleiermacher respectively, share in common the belief that there is a unified reality that we can know now. Bayer argues that on the contrary God encounters us now in distinct ways which cannot be overcome except in the Eschaton. He lists these as:

1. "through the opposition of the law that points its accusing finger at me, convicts me of sin, and hands me over to death;"
2. "through the promise of the gospel, in which God himself speaks for me, indeed take my place in Jesus Christ;"
3. "through the assault of God's incomprehensible, crushing hiddenness that radically contradicts the gospel and is more than merely an effect of the law";

As human beings we are constantly trying to create an all-encompassing unity in God, or our theological system, but while this unity must "be believed [it cannot] also be conceived" by the mind.

If we speak of a "unity" in connection with law and gospel, life and death, judgment and grace, it must be clear that this is meant in a strictly eschatological sense"

... of course, where Barth is correct is in recognising that the Eschaton has been brought forward in the person and work of Jesus Christ - so we can look for unity in him, as well as at some indeterminate point in the future.

Simul iustus et peccator

Do Christians have a dual identity as both sinners and saints? There are several ways of thinking about this that I don't like because they're essentially static.

Paul though talks about our "old self" and "new self". There are several things to note about the way he uses this language:

• The use of temporal language implies a movement from one to the other.
• This implied movement also includes an implied priority of the latter over the former. We are not equally saints and sinners, but are saints more than sinners because in the Bible the end defines us more than the beginning.
• Our "old self" is still our "self". I.e. it is still who we are, not a different person.
• The movement from old to new has happened in Christ, happened in our new birth/baptism, happens continually in our lives now (Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:5) and will be completed in our physical death and resurrection. I think it is in an exclusive emphasis on one battle in this continuing war (in which the decisive battle has already occurred) that all problems with affirmations/denials of this doctrine emerge.

Calvin and Luther's anthropology of the Christian

Some interesting selections from Mark Seifrid's article "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth: An Introduction to the Distinction between Law and Gospel" that relate to discussions among some blogs about whether we are simul iustus et peccator (e.g. here and here). I've collected some links to Mark Seifrid articles here.

In such passages as Gal 5:17-26, "flesh" and "Spirit" do not appear there as capacities or qualities of a unified human person, but two different descriptions of the whole person. The old, fallen human being in Adam exists along with the new creation that God has made us to be in Jesus Christ. We must hasten to add that the relationship between the two is unequal. Our sinful self, which is incapable of faith and obedience to God, has been crucified with Christ (see, e.g., Gal 5:24-26; Rom 8:7-8). Although our fallen person, "the flesh," remains present until the end of our earthly life (Rom 7:24), that fallen existence is present now only as a conquered reality. [...]

The Christian life consists in our "putting to death" our former self [i.e. us as "sinner"] by our new self [i.e. us as "saint"], present in the Spirit who dwells in us (Rom 8:12-14; Gal 5:16-17).

As is the case with Scripture and our understanding of God, so it is with us for Luther: the unity of our person lies outside of us in Jesus Christ. We grasp it now by faith, but it is only in the resurrection that it shall become visible. Calvin regards regeneration to effect a new state within the human being, which is partially present and active. The "flesh" likewise is present as a power that exerts partial influence on us. [...] Luther, as we have seen, finds a radically different anthropology in Scripture. The old, fallen creature exists as a whole alongside the new creature, who is likewise a whole.

Tom Wright on Mere Christianity

Tom Wright's untimely born review of Mere Christianity by CS Lewis (HT Mike Bird) is an worthwhile read. Ironically given one of his regular gripes with critics is that they require you "to say everything all the time" (e.g. here), one of the refrains of the review is that Lewis fails to mention lots of important matters (Easter, Kingdom of God, etc). But I do like his main criticism that the book plays down the personal historical Jesus, in favour of a more Platonic theism.

This criticism of Lewis led me to engage in some self-criticism, when he discussed Lewis’s famous argument that "Jesus must have been bad or mad or God". Wright comments:

What Lewis totally failed to see—as have, of course, many scholars in the field—was that Judaism already had a strong incarnational principle, namely the Temple, and that the language used of Shekinah, Torah, Wisdom, Word, and Spirit in the Old Testament—the language, in other words, upon which the earliest Christians drew when they were exploring and expounding what we have called Christology—was a language designed, long before Jesus’ day, to explain how the one true God could be both transcendent over the world and living and active within it, particularly within Israel.

Lewis, at best, drastically short-circuits the argument. When Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven," he is not claiming straightforwardly to be God, but to give people, out on the street, what they would normally get by going to the Temple.

For Wright, understanding "Judaism’s incarnational principle…enables [the claim of Jesus to be God] to be at once nuanced into a proto-Trinitarian framework".

The 'claim' of Jesus to be God in Mark 2:5 is familiar territory for anyone who has run evangelistic courses on the Gospel of Mark. It is clear to most participants that Jesus is not "claiming straightforwardly to be God", because God to them is Unitarian – and as Jesus talks to, and about, God as distinct from him, he can’t be God as well. But to the Jews of the time, which did not have a Unitarian view of God, Jesus was clearly claiming to be God in such a straightforward way that the scribes felt he was blaspheming.

But was Lewis wrong to short-circuit this Jewish/OT background? Wright feels that if you don’t first lay the Jewish/OT background "you will inevitably put him in a different one, where he, his message, and his achievement will be considerably distorted." That is no doubt true, but is that an irredeemable distortion? As you fill modern Brit’s concept of ‘god’ with Jesus Christ, couldn’t the God-who-is-there slowly redefine the word/framework as he refuses to be contained by our false concepts?

I’m sure there has to be a balance found, and I tend to think that simply reading the Gospels is the best way to get that balance. You can’t read the Gospels without discussing the Jewish/OT background, but equally you’re not spending limited time and energy studying that background directly before you hear about Jesus himself.

That’s one reason why I like introducing non-Christians to Gospels, courses based on Gospels (e.g. Christianity Explored on Mark), and books based on Gospels (e.g. Mike Cain’s Real Life Jesus).

But that’s something to reflect on more.

Glorious isolation?

"We cannot compare the fact of Christ with other facts, nor can we deduce the fact of Christ from our knowledge of other facts... we cannot understand [the fact of Christ] in terms of other facts"

(p.1, TF Torrance, Incarnation)

I think that's half right. We cannot deduce Christ from other facts, but to understand him we do need to compare him with other things.

Theology is not a conversation that faith has with itself, it is not a monologue, but it is a critical engagement with doctrines, ideas, and ideologies inimical to the faith of the church. It only becomes what it is meant to be by engaging with objections and entering into disputes.... faith should be no stranger to conflict and dispute if its charter is: "I am the Lord, your God. You shall have no other gods besides me!"

we cannot examine the claim [of Christ] in isolation but only with reference to other things. Without such points of reference, we cannot even articulate the necessary contradictions. For proof of this, we only have to look at 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16, Romans 1:18-3:20, and Acts 17. Only an a priori Christological construct, divorced from all connections with life and suffering, could exist in glorious isolation because it spins everything out of itself.

(p.187, Oswald Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way)

David Powlison articles

• Idols of the Heart and “Vanity Fair” Personal Reflection
• "God’s Grace and Your Sufferings" and "Don’t Waste Your Cancer" (co-authored with John Piper), chapters in "Suffering and the Sovereignty of God"
• What is wrong with the therapeutic approach to counseling?
• What Distinguishes Biblical Counseling from other Methods?
• What Questions Does a Biblical Counselor Suggest We Ask?
• Praying Beyond Health Concerns
• Looking at the Past and Present of Counseling
• The Therapeutic Gospel
• Sane Faith (parts 1-3)
• The River of Life Flows through the Slough of Despond
• Hope for a "Hopeless Case": A Case Study
• What Good Is "Don't Worry" in Times Like These?
• Facing Death with Hope: Living for What Lasts
• "Don’t Worry"
• I Am Making All Things New
• Does the Shoe Fit?
• "Peace, be still": Learning Psalm 131 by Heart
• Is Anger Morally Neutral?
• Affirmations & Denials: A Proposed Definition of Biblical Counseling
• Recovering from Child Abuse: Help and Healing for Victims - Part 1 and part 2
• Breaking Pornography Addiction - Part 1 and part 2
• Making All Things New: Restoring Pure Joy to the Sexually Broken
• "I Am Making All Things New (Enhanced Edition)"
• Praying Beyond the Sick List
• Peace, be still: Learning Psalm 131 by Heart
• A Personal Liturgy of Confession
• "Suffering and Psalm 119" from JBC 22:4, 2004, pp. 2-16.
• "Familial Counseling" from JBC 25:1, 2007, pp. 2-16
• Should We Really Call It a 'Quiet' Time?
• Cure of Souls (and the Modern Psychotherapies) Only a Teenager
• X-ray Questions: Drawing Out the Whys and Wherefores of Human Behavior
• Critiquing Modern Integrationists

Digging a god-shaped hole and filling it up again

"According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride... Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind." (p.100, CS Lewis, Mere Christianity)

"unbelief alone commits sin, and brings forth the flesh and pleasure in bad outward works, as happened to Adam and Eve in paradise...Unbelief is the root, the sap, and the chief power of all sin." (p.100, Martin Luther, "Preface to the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans" in Timothy F Lull Ed, Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings)

So who's right; Lewis or Luther?

I think that Luther is right because, as David Powlison points out, unbelief is the act of erasing God from reality. And as GK Chesterton once observed, when we "cease to worship God, we do not worship nothing, we worship anything". If God is not king then perhaps I am, or perhaps my father is, or my boss, or cancer, or [fill in the blank]. Or perhaps they're all kings, with no one all-powerful or deserving of exclusive worship, but some are more powerful and worthy than others. Either way, whether it is ourselves, other people or any other created thing, all other sins are just trying to fill that imaged god-shaped hole in our heart. And often the thing we fill it with is not something we love, but something we're petrified of because it can take as well as give.

[Incidentally, if you're an economics geek I hope you appreciated the allusion in the title to John Maynard Keynes' oft quoted principle, that apparently he never said.]

Luther on the marks of the church

Luther argues that the church is best understood by the words "holy Christian people" (p.335-336). They are people who "truly believe in Christ" and "have the Holy Spirit against sin" (p.336). The Holy Spirit "sanctifies them daily, not only through the forgiveness of sin acquired by Christ (as the Antinomians foolishly believe), but also through the abolition, and purging, and the mortification of sins, on the basis of which they are called a holy people" (p.335-336 [surprised to read that by Luther?]).

The church is a people "in whom Christ lives, works and rules" and in whom the Holy Spirit "gives people faith in Christ and thus sanctifies them" (p. 336-337). This sanctification is the renewal of the whole person, soul and body, by the inscription of both tables of "the commandments of God not on table of stone, but in hearts of flesh" (p.337).

Luther criticises the Antinomians for making much of the first table and their knowledge of God by preaching "much about the grace of Christ", but displaying that they don't really understand Christ or the Holy Spirit by not not "practic[ing] the works of the Holy Spirit in the second table" (p.339). The Catholics he criticises for doing many holy works "of an external, bodily, transitory nature" but living "without faith, fear of God, hope, love and whatever the Holy Spirit, according to the first table, effects" (although actually he doesn't even think they teach the second table correctly, p.339).

Luther believes that Christians should be marked by the Holy Spirit sanctifying them (note the continuous tense) in both tables of the law, coram Deo and coram mundo, soul and body. Schaeffer was right that the position of the Reformation was that "God made the whole man and he is interested in the whole man" (p. 38, Escape from Reason).

We can recognize the church then by their possession of certain "external signs" through which the work of sanctification is performed by the Holy Spirit. There should be external signs of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit according to both tables of the law. However as we cannot see the hearts of people and many non-Christians practice works from the second table "and indeed at times appears holier than Christians", so it is not as "reliable" to look for the external signs of the Spirit's work according to the second table (p.359). Therefore the principal signs relate to the first table, although the signs relating to the second table have a secondary role.

Luther identifies "seven principal parts of the great holy possession whereby the Holy Spirit effects in us a daily sanctification and vivification in Christ, according to the first table of Moses" (pp. 357-358):

1. the "possession of the holy word of God" (p.340);
2. "the holy sacrament of baptism, wherever it is taught, believed, and administered correctly according to Christ's ordinance" (p.343);
3. "the holy sacrament of the altar, wherever it is rightly administered, believed, and received according to Christ's institution" (p.344);
4. "the office of the keys exercised publicly... where you see sins forgiven or reproved in some persons" (p.345);
5. men consecrated, called or having offices to "administer, and use the aforementioned four things or holy possessions in behalf of and in the name of the church, or rather by reason of their institution by Christ" (p. 346);
6. "prayer, public praise, and thanksgiving to God" (p. 356);
7. "the holy possession of the sacred cross [of enduring] misfortune and persecution, all kinds of trials and evil from the devil, the world, and the flesh [...] in order to become like their head, Christ" (p.356).

None of these things are in the first instance things we have done, or possess intrinsically, but all are gifts by which we are sanctified not the fruit of our sanctification (although sanctification always leads to the desire to be further sanctified and so more searching for the means by which that comes).

[Quotations from "On the Councils and the Church, 1539" in ed. Theodore G. Tappert, Selected Writings of Martin Luther, Vol.4]

Reflection on the five solas in John

Christ alone

The Father granted his Son to have life in himself (John 5:26). He is the bread of life sent by God and gives life to the world (6:33), but you will not find life anywhere else (John 6:53). Sure you may 'live' for a while, but the kind of life that you possess will be constantly running dry and you will be thirsty again, and the life that Jesus gives is inexhaustible (John 4, 6:26).

Scripture alone

The Scriptures bear witness about Jesus, and for that reason have eternal life in them (John 5:39, 46). Jesus is the content, but also the speaker of the word of God, and listening to him moves you from death to eternal life (John 5:24). The work of the Word of God has not been completed, and won't until Christ calls us from the grave at the resurrection of the dead (5:25), but it still performs that daily work in us now.

Faith alone

Jesus is the greater manna which God provided to the empty handed, starving Israelites in the desert. They received at as a gift and didn't even benefit from working harder than others in trying to gather up, and store the food they had been given (so they wouldn't have to trust entirely on God's provision the next day). Similarly, the one work we need to do is to believe Jesus is the Christ (6:29). This means simply to gaze on Christ, like the Israelites in the wilderness gazed upon the bronze serpent, to receive healing by God's provision (6:40; 3:14-15).

Grace alone

In Christ there is grace alone - he is bursting full of it (1:14). The law was given through Moses, and apart from Jesus it accuses us, but there is no accusation in Christ (5:45). If we set our hope on anything, even the good Christian gifts of church membership and knowledge of the Scriptures but have not got Christ we will only face accusation. Anything we do in our own flesh, will only turn to dust in our hands, but the Spirit resting on Jesus (1:32) and then poured out on us by his word gives us life (6:63).

To the glory of God alone

We seek recognition (respect/glory) from other people, but that is not really worth anything despite what the fashion shops are telling us. Jesus isn't in need of an ego boost from other people either, and we shouldn't think that our worship performs that purpose (5:44). Perhaps then a better way is the way of Oprah and L'Oreal - I'm worth it. Total self-respect might be the glory that is worth something, but really we know that is "nothing" too. Jesus doesn't glorify himself because he recognises that too (John 8:50, 54). He doesn't grasp the tree of life, or the manna in the wilderness, but gives up his glory and his life - trusting that God will give him life and glory 3 days later. Glory from God the Father is the only glory that is worth anything (5:44, 12:43). God the Father glorified the Son, because of the worthiness of the Son to receive glory (8:54; 16:14 17), and by grace that glory overflows to his church (17:22). But God the Father is himself glorified in this act of glory-giving so that he may be all in all (13:31-32; 14:13).

[prompted by Glen and Pete's comments]

James KA Smith - Desiring the Kingdom

Worth a watch. Jamie Smith summarises much of his recent book Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. You can get an overview of the book on his blog. I think he massively over-states his case, but it's interesting. Spot the brief mention of York Minister towards the end.

James K.A. Smith - Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation from Calvin College on Vimeo.

MP3 of lecture here.

Interpreting the gaps

We look at a sliver of moon and surmise that we're seeing part of an orb, not all of a crescent. Part of an orb, not all of a crescent! The crucial difference is that we see the empty space as something hidden. Quite literally, in the case of the moon, we trace an outline, and at the point of the gap in the outline, we say that the pattern is there, but hidden. And this is what you would expect from a three-dimensional orb only one of whose sides is reflecting the light of the sun.

To see that an empty space is really a hidden portion is to give meaning to that space in light of the larger pattern. Our coherences have gaps, but the gaps, once they are embedded in the coherences, eloquently testify to the profound three-dimensionality, the coherent unity of our pattern, a center of agency that now responds to us.

... When it comes to knowing God ... I hardly consider the fact that I rarely see him. Of course I don't see him. God "lives in unapproachable light," the apostle Paul says indicating God's power and goodness. Jesus told his disciples, "I am going [to my Father's house] to prepare a place for you ... I will come back and take you to be with me." Of course I don't see him now. The hiddeness confirms his greatness.

... Why doesn't God punish evildoers immediately? ... Peter says he is being patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but wanting everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come, he says. A misinterpretation of this gap will be your eternal ruin.

...The focus has turned the tables on me on a cosmic scale.

(pp. 121-122, Esther Lightcap Meek, Longing to Know: The philosophy of knowledge for ordinary people)

Some rough notes on knowing, and dealing with doubts

Esther Meek, drawing on Michael Polanyi, argues that we know people and things as we focus on them by integrating particular clues into a pattern. For example we know God by connecting together numerous dots into the pattern of a person who we commit to in faith.

In apologetics the clues may be personal experience, arguments, historical evidence, and even the Scriptures itself, but the focus is God himself. In discussions about assurance of salvation the clues may be good works you have done, the promise in the sacraments, the words of absolution of a brother, but the focus is the cross and resurrection for your salvation. In leading bible studies the clues may be literary structure, historical details, personal experience, but the focus again must be Jesus.

Both the clues and the focus are important to our act of knowing, as can be seen when we examine doubts in particular.

Doubts arise when we focus on the clues, or fail to focus through the clues:

I think we can distinguish two doubt-producing movements in connection with the clues of our integrations. One is reverting to focus on the clues. The other, closely related one is feeling like, in our integration, that we are not in touch with our clues.

How we respond to the doubts depends on which mistake we are making.

There are two ways to respond to doubts, and those responses, on the surface appear to contradict each other. One is to try once more to look through the clues, reintegrate to the focus. The other is to take some time to look at the clues. In the end, I think that we cope by alternating these two movements, and that they are just the movements that make up good learning.

If we are obsessing with the clues, we may need our gaze lifting. To reintegrate the focus. We can help people do this by pointing out the beauty of Jesus, and relating to him in our daily life and worship.

First, we should try once more to look through the clues. We know enough about the act of knowing to see that it ought to feel uncomfortable to look back at the clues. When we look back at the particulars, we can feel that in themselves they don't account fully for the pattern we have seen in them. Of course they don't, for it wasn't looking at them in themselves that prompted our integration; it was living in them and looking through them. To look at them is not to see the things on which our pattern was based. We access truth, and can only properly assess it, as we live in the pieces of the pattern in our bodies. If looking at the pieces makes us feel doubtful, there is good reason for it: the pieces, without our living in them, aren't the starting point of our successful effort.

[...] So, one remedy for doubt is to stop looking at the clues, striving again to look through them, to get back inside them.

If we are feeling our focus on God is lacking connection to our thinking and experience we may need to examine these clues close to hand.

We are most familiar with this effort as plain old study and analysis, examining the underpinnings of our claims and actions to understand the what and the how of the whole thing. Analysis is not all there is to knowing - identifying knowing with analysis, I believe, has been the central mistake of the modern model of knowledge. Clue scrutiny is not an end in itself, nor can it or should it be lifted out of the context of the larger picture that is knowing: humans engaging the world through patterns. But seeing analysis as a key instrument for the sake of a larger reintegration to a focus actually reinstates it, no longer as master, but more helpfully as servant.

Why is studying the clues valuable and important, if real knowing is living them, not looking at them? The clues that make up our integrations, you might say, are liable to get their feelings hurt if you forget them. They are happy being subsidiary, but you ignore them or take them for granted to your peril. We vector through them, but we never leave them behind.

We can also see how knowing happens well by thinking about playing an instrument:

It happens on the piano bench. I've watched my [daughter begin] cranking out a Scott Joplin rag with her usual confidence [and then] she must have stopped and thought what she usually never though about: How do I figure out what the note is?

[...] Piano teachers have told my daughters: Don't stop thinking about what you are doing when you are practising. Plan for what to do if autopilot fails you under pressure. Scrutinize your fingers and your fingering carefully in problem passages. Then put it back together. [Mature musicians] have a well-developed connection between the artistic and analytical sides of their brain.

Good connections and continual movement is the key to a growth as a Christian. So in knowing "we move back and forth between both directions, from the clues, and to the clues... back and forth, back and forth". I would argue that this reflects much of what the Christian life is. A continual back and forth and building of connections until they meet completely in the cross and resurrection of Jesus where everything meets. Another example would be law and Gospel, repentance and faith, death and life, OT to NT.

(Quotations from pp. 169-172, Esther Lightcap Meek, Longing to Know: The philosophy of knowledge for ordinary people)

Engaged, not married

I recently gave my first ever children's talk at my church on the Isrealite elders' meal with God in Exodus 24:9-11 and its connection with the table of the bread of presence! The elders' meal is a typical ceremonial OT covenant meal following the inauguration of a covenant (cf. Genesis 26:30). I drew a parallel with photos we take to remember a wedding (the bread was a memorial, for God to remember his covenant). After all, the inauguration of the Sinai covenant was the marriage of God to Israel. Sadly the marriage was not a happy one.

Ezekiel 16:8-15 graphically describes the story of Israel's marriage.

"When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine. Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendour that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God.

But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his." (cf. Isaiah 54:5, Jeremiah 3:20, Hosea 2)

Of course, the theme of marriage of God's people is strong in the NT too. In the NT Jesus is regularly referred to as the bridegroom set to marry the bride of the church (Matthew 9, 25, John 3:29, 2 Corinthians 11:2, Ephesians 5:21-33, Revelation 18-22).

But I think I made a little misstep in my children's talk in drawing a parallel to our marriage to Christ. Because it is striking that in the NT our marriage is always future (when Christ returns), in comparison to the OT where the marriage is always past (at Sinai).

I need to think on this much more but I am increasingly convinced the as a conservative evangelical I (for great reasons) focus on the finished work of Christ, but forget that this is a promise of a still future glorious relationship that I currently only taste. There is so much more to come... while it was only downhill for the Israelites (that is until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in).

Imitating the Trinity?

I've been listening to a lecture by Graham Cole, Trinity without Tiers (HT Mike Bird). He made one point which really struck a cord with me:

There is a way of doing Christian ethics that actually leaves the Gospel out. That is you reconstruct the inner life of the essential Trinity and then draw applications to family life, marriage, the church, even for some the wider society. And yet I believe the genius of the NT is to always go through the narrative of Christ and what he has done for us.

[...] instead of trying to imitate the inner life of the essential Trinity, I think Thomas a Kempis got it right - we imitate Christ. Did Jesus say: "this new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I love the Father"? No, "as I have loved you". And behind that is the footwashing of John 13 and the self-sacrifice and the humility that represents.

1 Corinthians 11:1: Paul says "imitate me as I imitate Christ".

1 Peter 2:21 says he left you an example to follow in his steps when it comes to unjust suffering.

1 John 2:6 says we're to walk as he walks.

I could show this over and over again that that is where the accent in our NT falls. The narrative of Christ is crucial to the shape of a cruciform Christian life. A life that is shaped by the cross.

He then discusses the wonderful text of Philipians 2:1-11, before concluding:

notice he doesn't say be other person centred like I have always been in the eternal godhead. He goes through the story of Christ, the evangel, to make his point. The imitation of Christ is, I think, the NT accent.

I don't think it is an either/or but I agree that we ought to accent the cross. More generally I disagree with Cole on quite a bit, not least in being more positive about a strict ruling of Rahner's rule and its application to ethics. I loved Tom Smail's Like Father, Like Son: The Trinity Imaged in Our Humanity. Maybe some kind of distinction between (creation?) ethics based on being created in the image of God, and (redemption?) ethics based on how we engage a fallen world like Christ did in dying for his enemies (although creation and redemption is all of one piece [thanks Isaiah, Ienaeus, Wingren, Wright etc] there is some kind of differentiation)?

More thought required.

"People shouldn't try and share their beliefs." Discuss

I have never been so thankful for the RE curriculum...

My little (probably not a Christian) sister had something like the title to this post for homework. I'm still happy that she rung me up to ask for help and I got to share more of the Gospel with her than I have for ages (and with her actually listening carefully too!).

I'm also thankful for God actually giving me the words to communicate relatively clearly for once (ala Mark 13:11). He gave me three points off the top of my head, and some good verses to back it up (she wanted sources!):

1. There is one God for everyone, because he created everyone: "is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one" (Rom 3:29-30)
2. The Gospel is good for everyone (cure for cancer argument): "'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?...'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!'" (Rom 10:13-15).
3. We're commanded to tell everyone: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matt 28:19-20).

Anyway, that's not really a usual post. And I'm sorry for the lack of blogging recently. But opportunities with my family are rare, and I just feel compelled to share it (bit like you should burst to tell the gospel - although I too rarely do). And I suppose I'd like to ask for quick prayers for her if you get a moment. Thanks!

You can always tell me what I should have said too, because I guess I only focussed on giving an answer from a Christian point of view - but I'm not really sad about that.

FD Maurice's famous dictum

"A man is most often right in what he affirms and wrong in what he denies." Why is that?

I was recently skim reading a bit of Lesslie Newbigin in which he makes two great statements we could all do with absorbing, but commits the error Maurice saw so often:

"election is for responsibility, not for privilege"

[Christ] bears witness to the presence of the reign of God, not by overpowering the forces of evil, but by taking their full weight upon himself"

Surely in both instances it is both!

I admit I often do the same though. Why do the best of us, make this mistake over and over again?

Why the deepest truth has to be mythic

Listening to: Laura Marling: I speak because I can

Why don't we abstract all the truth found in the Bible and cast of the 'husk' of story, and 'myth'?

CS Lewis argues that the mythic elements of Christianity are actually the "vital and nourishing element in the whole concern". The story of the Bible is the "substance", and not "vestigial".

"And yet the human intellect is incurably abstract. Pure mathematics is the type of successful thought. Yet the only realities we experience are concrete - this pain, this pleasure, this dog, this man. While we are loving the man, bearing the pain, enjoying the pleasure, we are not intellectually apprehending Pleasure, Pain or Personality. When we begin to do so, on the other hand, the concrete realities sink to the level of mere instances or examples: we are no longer dealing with them, but with that which they exemplify. This is our dilemma - either to taste and not to know or to know and not to taste [...] As thinkers we are cut off from what we think about; as tasting, touching, willing, loving, hating, we do do not clearly understand. The more lucidly we think, the more we are cut off: the more deeply we enter into reality the less we can think. You cannot study Pleasure in the moment of the nuptial embrace, nor repentance while repenting, nor analyse the nature of humour while roaring with laughter. But when else can you really know these things? [...]

Of this tragic dilemma myth is the partial solution. In the enjoyment of a great myth we come nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction. [...]

Now as myth transcends thought, Incarnation transcends myth. The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact."

("Myth became fact" in CS Lewis: Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity and the Church)

Knowing we're not dreaming

Esther Meek defines Knowing as "the responsible human struggle to rely on clues to focus on a coherent pattern and submit to its reality". We integrate subsidiary clues, but only as we focus on a pattern and not the clues. But how do we know that the pattern we focus on is actually real? Meek suggests that in all knowing two accompanying experiences make us feel that our focal pattern is a discovery and not an invention.

1. Growing out of our past - the profundity of the pattern. We "sense the richness, the profundity, of the pattern [that is] grander than the clues on which it relies." We find the pattern "more than makes sense of the clues [it] unites and transforms them into a fresh center, in light of which the clues gain profounder meaning. The pattern evokes uncanny harmonies and resonances between things that once appeared disparate. The gaps become meaningful hiddennesses."
2. Growing into our future - unspecifiable future prospects. "In the moment of a profound integration, we experience a sense of the future possibilities, prospects, horizons of the thing we have encountered. There are sides we cannot currently see, behaviors we suspect but could never predict, implications only some of which we can reason out, but which in their inompleteness may lead us to uncover new and transforming dimensions."

[Notes on Chapter 16 of Longing to Know: The philosophy of knowledge for ordinary people]