How change happens

• Paul: "we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image"
• John: "we shall be like him, because we shall see him"
• Jared Wilson (and others): "Beholding is becoming"
• My pastor: "Transfigured by being transfixed"

Meeting in the middle

I think this comment of Bavinck is fascinating:

"But it is common to all those who take the ‘middle way’ to show a greater preference ‘for that extreme they go halfway to than for that from which they go halfway’" (Reformed Dogmatics, 3:532, HT: Steve Duby)

I think that explains a lot of discussions and tensions between Christians. Their convictions about theology and practice may be very similar, but more important than their present position is their personal history.

For example, two people may wholeheartedly confess that they believe in "the forgiveness of sins [AND] the resurrection of the body". But the person who was brought up believing that forgiveness of sins was the sum-total description of salvation will by most alert to any non-physical understanding of salvation, whereas the person brought up a legalist will be especially protective about God’s free-grace toward sinners.

If we understood people work this way there would be a slowness to express your initial instinctual response, more mutual appreciation of others concerns, and therefore less conflict.

Psalm 132 retold

This passage has been a great encouragement to me as I've been praying for some things for my church recently. God so loved my church he died for her and he lives for her:

Psalm 132	An attempt to pray its fulfilment
Remember, O Lord, in David's favour, all the hardships he endured,	Remember, Father God, in Christ's favour his suffering in his life and death,
how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob,	remember that he swore to you, he made a solemn vow to you
"I will not enter my house or get into my bed, I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”	He promised, "I will not rest until I build somewhere for you to live"
Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar.	Listen close everyone, we have heard amazing news in Bethlehem, news that God was in Jesus Christ
"Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool!"	Let us go to Jesus Christ where God is, and there worship
Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.	Father come and find your rest in your church, you and your Son with you.
Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your saints shout for joy.	Our Father, make your people righteous, make them shout in joy
For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one.	You should do this for Jesus' sake, please do not forget him.
The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: "One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne."	We know that the Father swore to the Son, and he will never renege on such a commitment, The Father said "I will make one of David's sons the king of my church, and because he will keep my covenant perfectly he will reign forever.
"This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.	Our Father said "as my Son will reign forever in the church so I will abide in my Son and be with him I will settle permanently to rest in the church. Why? Because I love the church.
I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy.	I will give in overflowing generosity, I will feed the church I will provide all she needs and her members will shout for joy!
There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine."	In the church Jesus will be honoured. but those who oppose Jesus will be shamed

Are the 10 commandments for Christians today?

I think the answer is: "Yes", so far as we live in the present evil age, but "no" so far as we live in the age to come.

Jesus says that the law will persist "until heaven and earth pass away" (Matt 5:18). If we are not Christians then we are still living in the "present evil age" (Gal 1:14) and so Paul can say in 1 Tim 1:9 that "the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners" because they are still living in that age.

However, Christians are caught between the ages. Our old self which belongs to the present age is in its death throws, but our new self which belongs to the future is growing in its resurrection life of the age to come. In that age to come there will be no law, because against such a life in the Spirit "there is no law" (Gal 5:23).

For us to believe that the new self needs the law to give it life is to "turn back again" (Gal 4:9) to the old age. The law brings death and promises life from another source, but has no power to bring life itself. Death with hope is what our old self needs, so it still has a role to play so long as our old self lives, but the law cannot bring life and so it should not be applied to our new self.

The law is God's radiotherapy. It kills but it offers hope of a future life free of cancer. We fire it at the cancerous cells that riddle our body, but we don't start eating it. Once the cancer of sin has gone, we will stop the treatment.

Because of God's amazing love for us incurably sick people, the full power of that radiotherapy was applied to Jesus even though he didn't have one cancerous cell in his body. But his life was so indestructible he rose again to new life (Heb 7:16).

He gives himself to us as food by his Spirit, and in that way he gives us the same eternal life he enjoys (John 6) so that even when the radiotherapy finishes us off we will rise again into the new age with him.

-------------------------------------------

Note 1: It is subtle but I have not restricted the term "law" to the sense of command or accusation, as is often the case in Lutheranism. Instead, I've tried to be more biblical and make the term wider so that includes both command and promise, but with the emphasis remaining on the former.

The Mosaic law contained both command and promise, but the promise was not the same type of promise that we find in the New Covenant. The promise of the Mosaic law is that something will be done whereas the promise of the New Covenant is that it has been done. Even the promise that looks forward will pass away to leave us only with love built on the promise of what has been done (1 Cor 13).

Note 2: Many people say that Paul doesn't teach the 10 commandments to Christians. But he quotes them directly in Romans 13:9 and Ephesians 6:2, and alludes to them often. He also often sums them up in the (Mosaic) command "love your neighbour as yourself". So Paul saw the law as continuing in some sense for the Christian (I would argue only their "old self" though). However, it is striking that even in these instances he only quotes the second table of the law, not the first (see here and here for thoughts on that).

Note 3: Come back welcome. I know this is controversial, and I'm just thinking aloud. Also I'm sorry that I go on and on about "the law" on this blog sometimes. It really isn't my heartbeat...honest. It is just that it is on "the law" that I'm often challenged to think most precisely and needing to think precisely forces me to write... which leads me to blog.

Commandments 6-10

6. Do not deprive another person of their life
7. Do not deprive another person of their spouse
8. Do not deprive another person of their possessions
9. Do not deprive another person of their reputation
10. Do not even desire in your heart to deprive another person of anything

And a bit like Luther in his catechism these are then turned into positive commandments like this:

6. As far as you are able, supply your neighbour with all their needs for bodily and spiritual life
7. Strengthen your neighbour's marriage and your own
8. Give your neighbour your possessions
9. Build up your neighbour with your words and speak well of them to others
10. Love your neighbour in your heart and desire their good in everything

Dramatis personae in Proverbs

• The Author(s) = King = Father = God the Father
• The Recipient = Heir = Son = God the Son
• Lady Wisdom = Inheritance = Gift of Father to Son = God the Holy Spirit
• Lady Folly = Robs the inheritance = Spirit of this world

Equals signs are a bit strong perhaps. Directly the author, etc are not the persons of the Trinity. But God is the ultimate author, and Jesus is the only really wise son who listens to his Father and receives the Spirit.

We receive his wisdom and the benefits that wisdom afords, just as we receive his Spirit and righteousness and their fruits, by hearing with faith - not by works (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Four dimensions of alienation

From Krish Kandiah's personal reflection on Lesslie's Newbigin's influence on him:

In “Sin and Salvation”, (Newbigin 1956) a book Newbigin wrote on the boat journey as he travelled out to India, he explained how sin amounts to four dimensions of alienation. In a chapter entitled “What is Salvation?” he outlines this four-dimensional schema as follows:

• Man is in a state of contradiction against the natural world
• Man is in a state of contradiction against his fellow man
• Man is in a state of inner self-contradiction
• Man is in a state of contradiction against God

Union with Christ

I think union with Christ is in the first instance:

• Marriage - a new relationship with the Son

Married couples share what they have and give their whole selves to each other, so this union means:

• Adoption - sharing Christ's relationship with the Father (...which leads to...)
• Inheritance - sharing Christ's relationship with the Spirit (...which leads to...)
• Baptism, Mortification->Vivification etc - sharing Christ's story of his relationship to his own humanity - killing the old cursed humanity in us to experience the new blessed humanity by the Spirit (...which leads to...)
• Giving - sharing Christ's story of his relationship to the world - self-sacrifice to bring others life

... or something like that. Any thoughts? I'm not sure that I've got it quite right.

A friend asked what would be a good book on the doctrine of Union with Christ. I can think of good books emphasising one or the other aspect I've listed, but not one that has the broad scope I think covers all of what it means to be in union with Christ. Any suggestions?

The greedy grave spewing up life

Listening to: Regina Spektor

Scripture often personifies the grave as exceedingly greedy; here is an all devouring foe with a ravenous appetite... Proverbs 30:15-16 declares that just as the "leach as two daughters" who constantly cry "Give," so Sheol is never content; it never cries, "Enough."

But Jesus defeats this all-consuming foe by way of gift, that is, by pouring out his soul into death (Isa. 53:12). By sending his Son to die, God fills to overflowing even the depths of death itself with the uncontainable fullness of his own infinite life. Only God could do this. The gift of God alone satisfies that which is "never satisfied." Withinin the miracle of Jesus' deep descent, the grave is forced to cry out "Enough!" It cannot hold God.

Here we notice the extreme irony of this picture: the grave itself becomes a giver, yielding before Jesus' infinite life. After the three days, the gave spews forth the life-giving One, the Son, just as teh great fist "vomited Jonah out upon the dry land" (Jonah 2:10; cf. Matt. 12:38-42; Luke 11:29-32)

(pp. 177-178, Kelly M. Kapic, with Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

After spewing forth bucket loads of quotations from this book, you will be pleased to know I have finished it so there will be no more. I think it is an excellent book though. Highly recommended!

A confession

I love mankind, but I am amazed at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular.

(Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

Surging forward with a shout

we are like the armies of Israel who, after the giant Goliath fell dead before David, "surged forward with a shout" (1 Sam. 17:52, NIV). We do not defeat the giant for ourselves, nor do we establish God's kingdom in our power. But having already witnessed the victory, we are called to "surge forward" and join the fight.

(p. 129, Kelly M. Kapic, with Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

Three aspects of repentance

"When Peter calls his listeners to 'repent', he is calling them to change

• their whole orientation toward God, as well as
• how they view themselves and
• [how they view] the world...

Peter, the close companion of Jesus, has been transformed in his own understanding of God, himself, and the world.

• He, who first confessed Jesus as Messiah and believed this man would conquer as the new King, has recently witnessed his leader die a brutal death.
• He, who once envisioned himself as loyal and righteous, is now painfully aware of his own sin and weakness through his denial and fear.
• He, who had assumed Yahweh's concern and love was exclusively for the nation of Israel, now discovers with ever-growing clarity that God is concerned with the renewal of the entire world...

that necessarily entails a kind of disorientation and reorientation that simultaneously shakes up and revitalizes every area of his life."

(formatting mine, pp. 122-123, Kelly M. Kapic, with Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

Firstfruits

As good a summary as you will read on firstfruits in the Bible:

In the Old Testament the firstfruits offering was not only the beginning but also the best part of the whole harvest. As a gift that represented the totality, it was both the first and the finest portion of everything the Promised Land produced. Accordingly, when Paul tells us that God has given us the firstfruits of the Spirit, he is saying that we have received not only the beginning, but also a taste of the best part of the fullness God has planned for the future.

This language shifts the picture from God as recipient to God as giver. Israel's understanding of firstfruits was always as something given to God. Yet now it is God who gives to us the firstfruits...the God of the universe gives offerings to the likes of us and that choice offering is himself...

God's new creation began with Jesus' resurrection - which explains why he is called the 'firstfruits' from the dead (1 Cor. 15:20, 23) - and continues with his Spirit... those who are in Christ and have received the Spirit are now themselves called 'the firstfruits,' having been saved and sanctified by the Spirit (2 Thess. 2:13; James 1:18; Rev. 14:4).

(p. 102, Kelly M. Kapic, with Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

Random underlined bits

A few random quotes from chapter 4 of God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity by Kelly M. Kapic, with Justin L. Borger.

"God takes everything back by giving everything away... God reclaims ownership by paying an exorbitant price for what was already his." (p.70)

"He who hung the earth in place is hanged. He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place... Though the people did not tremble, the earth trembled. though the people were not afraid, the heavens were afraid" (Melito of Sardis, p.71)

"Once redeemed by God we are no longer described as slaves to sin, but surprisingly we are still described as 'slaves.' Paul concludes that 'having been set free from sin, [we] have become slaves of righteousness' (Rom. 6:18-19). Later he describes believers as 'slaves of God' (6:22). By itself, the illustration of slavery is an inadequate representation of what it means to belong to God. In fact, Paul himself seems to recognise this when he admits that he put this 'in human terms' (6:19)... While slavery is a good image in the sense that it suggests God's full lordship and our complete submission, it is also undesirable and problematic because of the hardship it suggests." (p.75)

Kelly Kapic

Kelly Kapic is a guy I think you would all love. I am reading and loving God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity. As you can see there is a lot of love going around, and it is Trinitarian love, Evangelical love, Historically-rooted love, and spreading love.

His background is in the study of John Owen (particularly the Trinitarian classic, Communion with God). He reminds me quite a bit of another former student of Colin Gunton; a certain Mike Reeves (in his theology at least).

Here is a taste of some stuff of his on the internet. But you should read his books (as this rather varied group of luminaries agree).

MP3 lecture: "Evangelical Holiness: Assumptions in John Owen’s Theology of Christian Spirituality" (WSC 2010)

Video of the same lecture:

"Evangelical Holiness" by Dr. Kelly Kapic from Westminster Seminary California on Vimeo.

MP3 lecture: Walking with God: John Owen's Vision of the Christian Life (Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective, 18th Annual Wheaton College Theology Conference, April 16-18, 2009)

MP3 sermon: "John 3:16-18: God So Loved He Gave" (New City Fellowship Church (PCA), March 30, 2008)

Article: "Are We There Yet: An Exploration of Romans 8," Modern Reformation, Vol. 15, Num. 4, (July/Aug 2006)

Article: "Simul Iustus et Peccator" (Tabletalk magazine)

Render to God the things that are God's

'Jesus said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?" They said, "Caesar's." Then he said to them, "Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."' (Matt 22:20-21)

'the language Jesus used here for "image" is eikon, from which we get the English word "icon." In a word, Jesus was able to take us back to the garden, back to the beginning, back to Adam and Eve. The denarius coin might have been made in the emperor's image. But Adam and Eve were "minted" in God's image and likeness - all human beings (including Caesar) have been made as icons of God, imaging the Creator and serving as his representatives in the world...

'Jesus makes it clear that God is not merely interested in our wallets, he wants all of us because he is the Creator of all. Since we are made in God's image - since we are imprinted with the image of God - we should render everything we have, our very selves, to him.

'But who has given everything to God? Who has lived a life poured out for others with a pure heart, upheld justice and righteousness, avoided sin completely, both publicly and privately? Who has loved God with their whole heart, soul, strength, and mind? Who has consistently loved neighbor as oneself? We owe what we cannot pay, discarding what we should love and diminishing what we should exalt. Thus, we find ourselves left with the age-old question posed by Jesus himself when he asked, "What shall a man give in return for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26)...

'Here we encounter the unspoken paradox of Jesus' encounter with the Pharisees. For only Jesus is able "to render to God the things that are God's." Only he can give what is required in exchange for our lives. Thus as he offers himself, he offers himself as a substitute for us, in our place. The paradox of Jesus' response here is that we owe everything to God but we cannot give it, so God himself will give what he demands. This will be God's great gift to the world: himself.'

(pp. 66-67, Kelly M. Kapic, with Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

As I read this I marvelled. This is the old, old story of substitutionary atonement. Yet it never fails to move my heart that God the Father would give his Son to pay the debt I owe. I've heard it thousands of times, but it never looses it's shine. There is nothing like it!

Man curved in on himself

I've been wondering about the origin of this definition of sin for a while. Kelly Kapic unpacks it.

First Augustine identified that we stop loving God and start loving his material gifts:

"St Augustine spoke of sin as that which bends or curves us to the ground, making us more like the beasts and less like the God whom we were to image. He speculated that we were created to have our heads and hearts raised toward Yahweh, and that sin is that which turns our gaze from him."

Then

Martin Luther picked up this imagery in the Reformation, arguing that sin actually bends or curves us upon ourselves (homo incurvatus in se). We were disigned to embrace God and others, but instead we are now consumed with ourselves.

(p. 37, Kelly M. Kapic, With Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

So we stop loving God and start loving ourselves. Finally, Melanchthon made the further step of locating that work in the heart.

Choice is not freedom

Christian proclamation should have criticized the Western ideology of freedom by telling the public that having choices doesn't mean freedom. The alcohol-addicted person or the drug-addicted person is also making choices. The problem is that he or she always makes the same choice - to take the drug or drink the bottle - again and again. Having choices doesn't yet guarantee freedom.

(Wolfhart Pannenberg cited in p.37, Kelly M. Kapic, With Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

Everything bears the stamp of the hidden God

"What can be seen on earth indicates neither total absence, nor the manifest presence of divinity, but the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this stamp."

(Blaise Pascal, Pensees, cited in p.35, Kelly M. Kapic, With Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

I don't think that Pascal intended it, but that chimes with a Lutheran approach to natural theology (esp. if you understand the Lutheran concept of "the Hidden God".

Prohibition and provision in paradise

As Bruce Waltke describes it, Satan distorts the perspective of our first parents by emphasizing God's one prohibition, not his provision:

Adam and Eve are surrounded by wonderful trees and provisions in the garden, including the tree of life, but all Eve can see is the one tree of which they cannot partake. Once Satan can get our eyes on what we cannot do, we are sure to do it.

The garden is Paradise: if humanity fails in this ideal setting, then there is no hope for humanity to keep faith anywhere else... In contrast to much sociological thinking, namely, that the way to improve humans is to improve their environment, humanity at its best rebels in the perfect environment. Sodom and Gomorrah, where humanity sunk to the lowest levels of violence and sex, was at the time like the "garden of the LORD" (Gen. 13:10). Our modern world is no better.

(pp. 31-32, Kelly M. Kapic, With Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity, citing p102, 101, Bruce Waltke with Cathi Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary)

Rich in giving

Romans 11:36:

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

These simple words of praise give an all-encompassing view of the world and its purpose. All things come from God, are sustained through him, and will eventually flow back to him as the ultimate Owner of everything...

God did not create to satisfy any inadequacy or need of his own, but out of the fullness of his delight and love, this delight and love flow to the creatures as generosity and back to God as thanksgiving and praise...Our good has by his hand become a means of God's ultimate glory, intrinsically connected (cf. Ezek. 36:22-27)...

As God's giving does not impoverish but enriches him, so we as we offer back to God the fits he has given and sanctified in us, are enriched in his glory and satisfied in and through him.

(pp.24-25, Kelly M. Kapic, With Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

Theological prolegomenon

This is all a bit niche interest, although it is pretty sweeping in its scope. It is a useful survey of two different responses to the Enlightenment critique of natural theology:

Prior to the Enlightenment, Lutheran scholastic orthodoxy used the concept of the natural knowledge of God to demonstrate God's existence. The Bible, by way of contrast, was regarded as a supernatural source of supernatural revelation. When this scheme was subjected to the critique of the Enlightenment, the consequence was that language about God became irrelevant to genuine knowledge, and the pathway was cleared for modern secularity. But Luther's theme of the law as the antithesis of the gospel had the potential of escaping the Kantian critique. Thus Lutheran theology would have in the category “law” a prolegomenon to the gospel which could make the transition from pre-modern to modern culture without giving up its essential proclamation. If "law" means whatever calls us into question before God, then we can see it functioning as prolegomenon in theologians as diverse as Theodosius Harnack (d. 1889), Werner Elert (d. 1954), and Paul Tillich (d. 1965), as well as in the work of contemporary Lutheran theologians Gerhard Forde and Robert Jenson.

Karl Barth's response to the critique of the Enlightenment and to the Liberal theology of the 19th Century was to reject the idea of prolegomenon altogether. If grace is revelation and revelation is grace, then the antithesis between law and gospel simply disappears. The revelation of God, whether law or gospel, is gracious.

(pp. 414-415, Walter R Bouman, "The Concept of the 'Law' in the Lutheran Tradition" Word & World 3/4 (1983))

The whole article is fairly good. I think the author is right that there are strengths and weaknesses in both responses.

Wisdom on reading well (part 2): Tom Torrance

Part two of a series about lessons authors have given me on how to read the Bible.

I've recently posted notes of Thomas Torrance's very detailed and carefully thought through principles for learning. They all deserve meditating on. I also recently read this by him:

Normally when one reads an author one understands what he says be looking with him at the 'object' to which he points or which he describes, but early in the nineteenth century there grew up the tendency to study the text of an author in its correlation with the 'subject' or the author himself rather than in its correlation with the objective reality he intended, and so to read it as an expression of his individuality or genius [...] Applied to the New Testament, however, this meant that the focus of attention was not so much upon Jesus Christ himself in his ontological reality as Son of God become man, or even as objective historical figure, but upon the creative spirituality of the early Church"

(pp. 35-36, TF Torrance, Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian)

The terrifying and comforting Triune God who is love!

1. Why the loving community of the Trinity is terrifying

The Father has loved the Son by the Spirit for all eternity. Before we were born the three persons of the Trinity were dancing and conversing together singing the praises of one another. They couldn't love each other more.

...and we killed the Father's only Son.

His wrath will be devastating (Mark 12:1-9).

2. Why the loving community of the Trinity is comforting

The Father has loved the Son by the Spirit for all eternity. Before we were born the three persons of the Trinity were dancing and conversing together singing the praises of one another. They couldn't love each other more.

...and the Father gave us his relationship with his only Son when he sent his Son to die and raised the New Adam from the dead; and the Son gave us his relationship with the Father by calling us brothers as he queued with sinners to be baptised by John and went to die between two robbers; and the Spirit has caught us up into this eternal loving community by breaking into our hearts and opening them to God.

We rejoice, and by his Spirit we intensely and eternally love the Father and Son.

What is the difference?

1. is the Trinity expelling foreign objects and destroying them.
2. is the Trinity including foreign objects in Christ and transforming them.

1. is the Trinity acting understandably.
2. is the Trinity acting incomprehensibly in Christ crucified.

1. is the Trinity acting in the Son's divine nature.
2. is the Trinity acting in the Son's hypostatic union.

1. is the Trinity speaking to us.
2. is the Trinity speaking to us by speaking to the Father in Christ.

1. is God in his eternal being, our act apart from Christ, and his response.
2. is God in his eternal being, his act in Christ on our behalf, and our response.

1. is thinking about the Trinity from the outside - looking in through the windows.
2. is thinking about the Trinity when we've been brought in from the cold.

1. is law.
2. is Gospel.

1. is death to us.
2. is life to us.

The difference is not whether we are talking about the Triune God who is love or some other God.

The loving community of the Trinity is never good news apart from Christ going to the cross for us.

Crayons v. Prayer

We pray to the real Jesus where he is now. We reach children's hearts not by offering them crayons to draw Jesus, but by showing them how to talk to him. He is real, and is not a picture.

(p.32, Edmund Clowney, How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments)

A false dichotomy but you get his point.