Why I am an infant baptist

1. Who is active in baptism? Baptism is primarily an act done to the baptised by God through the minister, not an act done by the baptised. In your baptism you are primarily a receiver and not a giver.
2. What is the act? It is the visible, physical and verbal promise declared to the baptised that Jesus Christ died and rose for the forgiveness of their sins so they now have a new identity in Christ.
3. When should someone be baptised? The promise in baptism must be received by faith to be of any benefit but that faith may come later. Faith is always preceded and created by the declared promise, so it is natural for infants to be baptised even if they do not yet believe. Because the declared promise is the cause of faith, it actually is more logical for baptism to precede first faith.

Q: How does baptism relate to preaching? A: Both are declarations of the word of promise, but baptism has a unique role as the distinctly personalised and embodied promise. We need the concreteness that baptism and the Lord's Supper provide and preaching doesn't.

Q: Why do adults have faith before being baptised? A: Faith may be present in the baptised beforehand, but only because they received the promise in a purely verbal form earlier (e.g. through preaching). Faith is not a prerequisite of baptism so as soon as someone is willing to be baptised then baptise them straight away without question. No need to test their fruits, because the promise is how those fruits are created.

I think, adult-only baptism is a symptom of getting the who? and what? questions wrong. I'm sorry for the lack of proof texts, but a quick look through the NT texts on baptism should make the first two answers clear, and the third then just follows from that.

Entering the region of judgement

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

(PT Forsyth, The Work of Christ)

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

Written for us AND to us

Listening to: Bach: Well-tempered Clavier

"The Bible is written for us, not to us"

Is that right?

I understand that it is usually meant to encourage us to take understanding the cultural and redemptive-historical context of a passage seriously, and that is a good aim. But is it a good phrase on its own?

Union with Christ through baptism and by faith means that all that happened to Christ happened to us too. We are not to be equated with Christ, but we are "in Christ", which means that we died with him and were raised with him (although both are to be consummated, esp the life).

All that was said to Christ is said to us. When God justified Christ (1 Timothy 3:16) then he justified us (Romans 4:25). When he was declared by God to be his Son (Romans 1:4), the one in whom he delights, we were also at the same time called his sons.

Similarly all of Israel is in him, but he is also in Israel (it is mutual indwelling - ala John 15:4, or think of how in the OT Israel is God's "inheritance" and vice versa). For him that meant he entered into the region of judgement that was Israel and the church (which will be judged first - Romans 2:9; 1 Peter 4:17). So for him to dwell in us cost him dearly.

But this means that the Gentile church is also "in Israel", as Paul says in Romans 11. Therefore Israel's history is our history, and what was said to them is said to us. We are now called "his people"! This is an amazing privilege because it means we join in Israel's story, which although it is a story of disciplining, persecution and sin, is the one true story with a happy ending. Or should I say, a happy new beginning?

Israel heard the word of God and so experienced all they did for us, as Jesus suffered for us. But their experience is also our experience and all that was said to them is said to us as well. Because there is both unity and distinction within the "unions" of the Bible with Christ and his people, the Bible is written both to them and to us and not just one or the other.

This means when we read passages like Zephaniah 3:17 we should read them as promises to us (and to Christ). Similarly, when Israel is rebuked for their idolatry, we should not just talk about the mistakes they made as if we have somehow advanced beyond them. Of course we should explain that they are our promises, and our rebukes only because of our baptism and Christ's death. But we shouldn't reduce the OT to mere examples for us to learn from. It really is God's word to us.

Evolution and the Bible - preliminary thoughts

Listening to: Sufjan Stevens: Illonois

I'm involved in a continuing discussion with a colleague who is also studying a Biology degree. I am bit at sea in our discussions, and as such probably confirming all her worst suspicions about Christians - although she is a very nice person, so maybe she's being more charitable to me than I deserve. Among other things it has forced me to think over what I actually believe about the Creation Narrative and Evolution - a question I've put on the back burner for years.

I would greatly appreciate criticisms on this marking post for my thinking at the moment, and pointers for other directions to consider. Please don't give it any weight in your own thinking on this matter.

With thanks in anticipation, here are my thoughts so far:

1. Richard Dawkins is right to criticise Christians who close their eyes to the world and do not see the beauty and challenges that science reveals.
2. Richard Dawkins is right to criticise the concept of Non-overlapping magisteria. There is overlap because God is the Creator and still creating. However, there there is not complete overlap between Biblical knowledge and Scientific knowledge. It is best to speak of partially overlapping magisteria which inform one another over their whole range of knowledge. Christianity is rooted in God's historical acts, but science proceeds on the basis of Christian presuppositions (leaning on Polanyi, Newbigin, Torrance, Gunton, Lewis and Plantinga).
3. Quantum theory and postmodernism teach that the answers you get are determined by the questions you ask. There is truth, although only partial truth in this. The theory of Evolution is the answer to the question "how could life have developed in a world where God is uninvolved?" Having said that, it is difficult to know how science could answer the simpler question: "how has life developed?".
4. The philosophy put forward by popularisers of science seems unable to deal with 'the one and the many'. Often it seems to drift to 'the one' and put forward some kind of pantheism where there is no distinction between humans and animals, and our purpose is derived entirely from the whole. Less palatabley it emphasises 'the many' and suggests we are all out for ourselves, each trying to enjoy life while it lasts with no purpose outside of our own existence. Trinitarian Christian theology is much better at doing justice to both the one and the many and relating them together (no doubt Colin Gunton would say something better).
5. Evolution explains how life develops but doesn't explain how life began.
6. The distinction between macro and micro evolution is not in the Bible and not in science.
7. The biggest problem I can see with an old earth from a Biblical point of view is that the Bible seems to teach as foundational that the universe was not always marked by death and decay.
8. I just don't understand how Intelligent Design is any different from the God of the Gaps.
9. John Walton is a gifted speaker. I think he is right that Genesis is more concerned with the creating of function than creating of material, but it would be wrong to say that it is only concerned with the creating of function. Which then leaves the question of what Genesis is saying about the creating of material (not 'how much it is saying about the creating of material').
10. Naturalistic evolution is self-refuting (as Lewis and Plantinga have argued).
11. What does it mean to "know nothing except Christ crucified" in this discussion?

A meal

Listening to: Sufjan Stevens: The Age of Adz (HT Chris)

This is not a great interview with Sufjan Stevens, but I do love his freshness and creativity. At one point he really brings out the weirdness but also the wonder of our faith:

What’s the basis of Christianity? It’s really a meal, it’s communion right? It’s the Eucharist. That’s it, it’s the sharing a meal with your neighbours and what is that meal? It’s the body and blood of Christ. Basically God offering himself up to you as nutrition. Haha, that’s pretty weird. It’s pretty weird if you think about that, that’s the basis of your faith.

[...The cross is] a really morbid symbol you know. It is very grotesque when you start thinking about it. But it’s also beautiful you know, it’s the ultimate sacrifice. And I think it relates to the meal as well because it’s Christ giving up his blood and flesh as food and that then itself is the giving up of his body for eternal life, therefore salvation.

Blogs of quotations

I follow two blogs which just quote books they're reading. They're both excellent.

Here is the latest from Tolle Lege:

“The Word that is preached, taught, sung, and prayed, along with baptism and the Eucharist, not only prepare us for mission; it is itself the missionary event, as visitors are able to hear and see the gospel that it communicates and the communion that it generates.”

(Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way ,Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011, 902)

And from Ed Shaw:

'Sometimes the most effective thing you can do to combat temptation is to leave your accountability group for a while and sense a foretaste of the New Jerusalem with your local congregation, singing hymns and songs, eating bread and drinking wine, and hearing the voice of Jesus through the preached Word. As you do so, remember you're part of a transnational, transgenerational, trans-ethnic body of the redeemed. Those singing with you in heaven right now have already been through your struggles. The cloud of witnesses gathers round you, spurring you on in hope. Those round you are likewise groaning for the same redemption for which you long. And before all of you stands Jesus - who was tempted, tested, tortured, and yet is, finally, triumphant. As you perceive his invisible glory, you begin to see what seemed incredible in the wilderness. You will find you'll be able to say, as did writer Flannery O'Connor: "I believe love to be efficacious in the loooong run."'

(Russell D Moore, Tempted and Tried, p.189)

Mike Reeves audio

As it is buried in a post from 2009 I thought I'd let you know that I've done a big update of my ever-expanding list of Mike Reeves MP3s. There is hours and hours of great stuff there for you to get your teeth into and I think it is complete, but let me know if you see some omissions.

Also, to those of you who are already familiar with Mike Reeves, I'd be interested in a little poll of which MP3s you'd most highly recommend, as I promised some people who heard and enjoyed his seminars at New Word Alive that I'd dig up some MP3s for them to listen to!

Means and ends

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

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

(The Household of God)

This chimes with what PT Forsyth says about prayer:

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

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

(p. 16, The Soul of Prayer)

An old myth: the Pharisees' problem was they were law-keepers

I'm a bit fed up of writing on the Lutheran doctrine of 'the law' at the moment, because you're not supposed to end with the law, only start there. It's getting me down, because the end of the law is Christ, not reflection on the law. I think this may be the last for a while.

Years ago I was struck by someone saying that Jesus never criticised the Pharisees for keeping the law, but actually he often criticised them for failing to keep it. To self-righteous people who thought they were good he held up the mirror of the law and showed them their true selves, in the hope they would give up trying to impress people and God with their obedience, and instead trust in him for forgiveness.

For example:

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!...Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matthew 23:23-28)

"And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions." (Mark 10:17-22)

"Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honour your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honour his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God." (Matthew 15:2-6; cf. Matthew 12:2-6)

However, the far greater criticism he has for the Pharisees, and which purveys all the NT Gospels is that they reject him. He is the Mosaic law personified. He is good and lovely, but with a burning intensity that outshines even the law written by the hand of God. As such, people either tried to kill him or ran to him attracted by his goodness and hungry for mercy.

To those already broken by their sin and helplessness who flocked to him in droves, he showed that other aspect of the Mosaic law - mercy and exodus from slavery - when he took upon his shoulders the curse of death we deserve for not living the life he lived.

He fulfilled the law in two senses: he embodied it in his life, and he ended it in his death.

Responding to flaws in your church

• Don't complain - because there is so much you have to be thankful for, and flaws should come as no surprise.
• Consider whether you may be wrong - don't tell me you've never been wrong about something before.
• If you think it really is a flaw then confess - because the church is not 'it' or 'them', but 'us', and because you probably only noticed the flaw because you're so proud of how you've everything right anyway.
• Only then, constructively criticise - because it matters that the Gospel is heard, that we live holy lives, that we respond to great need and that God is glorified.
• But finally, chill out - because it's Christ's church and he will build it, it is God's mission and he will achieve it and the Father will certainly glorify his Son.

[PS bizarrely this post actually came from reflecting on how great my church is, so don't read anything into it :-)]

The King's English

My last post is about as good as I get at blogging, so read that and then give up on this blog and check out the consistently brilliant and Christ-exalting The King's English by Glen.

The security of God's love

Where do we find security in our relationships of love? I'd suggest that there are usually two places:

1. A high view of ourself - we think we've got something so attractive about us that love is the natural way people should relate to us. We are good looking, we're witty we're intelligent or we know the right people. In short we have something to offer.
2. A low view of others - we think that they need us. Perhaps we trust that our girlfriend will never dump us because she can't deal with being alone, or that a friend will always be happy to meet up because they have a constant need to talk to someone... anyone.

I think we apply these human ways of thinking to God. They manifest themself like this:

1. Some kind of legalism. Either human beings in general are basically lovely, or if everyone doesn't merit love, at least we do by virtue of who we are or what we've done.
2. Some kind of doctrine of divine necessity. In order to be true to who he is, he had to love us. Perhaps he needed an object to love, perhaps he needed to display his glory. It is probably less common that legalism, but it is out there as an idea.

In contrast to both of these the Bible says that God loved us totally freely. We don't deserve his love and he didn't need to give it, but still he set his love on us.

As Susanna Wesley says:

[God] is being itself, and as such must be infinitely happy in the glorious perfections of his nature from everlasting to everlasting; and as he did not create, so neither did he redeem because he needed us; but he loved us because he loved us

(cited in p. 61, Fred Sanders, Embracing the Trinity)

That final phrase is almost lifted from Deuteronomy 7 where, if you follow the logic through, Moses says the same thing:

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers (Deut 7:7-8)

Speaking to a friend today he confessed that there is something slightly terrifying about that. God seems to leave us nothing to grasp hold of in order to give us security of his love. We can't point to something in ourselves or in the rules of logic. He simply asks us to trust him personally.

Except, he does do more than that, as the verse in Deuteronomy suggests. He makes an oath. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews says:

"when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us." (Heb 6:17-18)

He voluntarily ties his love into his unchangeable nature. In the past he wasn't bound to love us, but now he has freely bound himself to love us in his word of promise.

And when you heard 'word' in that last sentence, I hope you know where you need to go!

This promise is supremely found in the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, who suffers in our place and is raised again for our justification. All so that we can be adopted and joined into the divine life. So now if we are 'in Christ' God cannot cease to love us without denying his own self, and God's love for us is even more secure than the universe.

As Karl Barth says:

He loves them with the same eternal love with which He loves the Son (Jn. 17:23 ["I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."])." (my bold, CD IV, 2, 758)

Picking up on the distinction I made in a previous post, God the Father's freely placed love-for-the-unlovely church becomes bound, by the Son's mission in the Spirit, to his love-for-the-lovely Son; and that love-for-the-lovely is so integral to his being that it is as secure as his existence!

Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Exodus thoughts

I'm reading Exodus again, and it struck me that you won't find a better summary of the book than 3:8:

I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land

Often we think of Exodus as release from physical slavery. We then compare this to Jesus who releases us from spiritual slavery. However, as someone pointed out to me recently, the Israelite's exodus is more spiritual than we think and our exodus more physical than we think.

The Hebrews were not able to worship YHWH while in Egypt because if they tried they would be stoned (8:26). Pharoah was their God, and while they lived in Egypt they had to worship him. YHWH is very clear, and Pharoah understands that the reason they want to be freed is to "serve" God by "sacrifice" on his holy mountain (just try these searches on for size: "that they may serve me", "sacrifice"). They were freed from worship to other's false God's to worship their true God.

But our bondage is physical too. We are in "bondage to corruption" (Rom 8:21), because spiritual slavery ends in physical death. We need physical freedom as well as 'spiritual' freedom. But for Moses and for Paul there is no tension, because the two always come together and are always achieved by our great liberator, Jesus Christ.

Our exodus is greater, because our saviour did not just achieve it but went through his own exodus which was also both physical and spiritual (Luke 9:31).

Finally, Tim Keller's sermon on Exodus 14 at TGC is worth a watch, or listen on MP3.

Getting Out - Tim Keller - TGC 2011 from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

The bronze serpent

"the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, 'We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.' So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.' So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live." (Numbers 21:6-9)

"as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." (John 3:14-15)

These passages were favourites of the Lutheran reformers. They often appear in their writings and also their art. Philip Melanchthon's coat of arms (above) was even the bronze serpent on a pole.

It was a favourite of theirs because it was a clear demonstration of what faith is. Faith is simply looking to Christ, specifically Christ crucified, and trusting the promise that if you look to him you will be saved.

However, I've always found the story in Numbers a bit odd. Perhaps it is just me, but why a bronze serpent?

I think the answer struck me yesterday. The serpent on the pole is a rigid and lifeless serpent. Jesus lifted up on the cross is a dead man. In Numbers God is promising the death of that which causes death and so life as a result. In John he is also promising the death of the law which causes us death so we can enjoy life as a result.

Looking at a dead serpent is not very palatable and looking at a dying man isn't either. But if that means the death of death, then it becomes a Good Friday.

Meetings at the well

Genesis 24: Abraham's servant and Rebekah

The young woman was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. Then the servant ran to meet her and said, "Please give me a little water to drink from your jar." She said, "Drink, my lord." And she quickly let down her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink.

Genesis 29: Jacob and Rachel

While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherdess. Now as soon as Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well's mouth and watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother.

Exodus 2: Moses and Zipporah

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them, and watered their flock.

John 4: Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." ... The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."

I've some detailed thoughts on the connections between John 4 and Genesis 24 here.

Today I'd just like to note that Jesus begins by testing the Samaritan Woman, as Rebekah was tested by Abraham's servant. Through that test Rebekah was shown to be worthy of being Isaac's wife and the Samaritan unworthy of being a member of Jesus' bride. As well as this moral worth, Rebekah is physically beautiful. The Samaritan woman has had 5 husbands, and it is probably fair to speculate that she was past her prime by this stage.

However, Jesus doesn't reject this woman. Like Jacob and Moses before him he acts as a saviour. They provided water from the well, but Jesus provided living water.

God's love in a rubbish diagram

How can you describe God's loving activity in a diagram? It feels so stupid to even try. God wrote a whole Bible, and I try and sum it up in a diagram! I know it is so incomplete but hopefully it communicates something true.

This is what I'm trying to express:

• God's love breaks down into two categories: God's love for the lovely, and God's love for the unlovely. Too often we oppose love to wrath. Or we equate love with mercy. Both are category errors of massive proportions with massive implications. Often I want to ask, "which love are you talking about?"
• God's love for the lovely is initially our problem. But God's love for the unlovely means we are born again into Jesus Christ in whom God's love for the lovely become good news. There is a story. Initially God's love for the lovely (including, but not equal to wrath) is bad news, but it becomes good news if we are found in Christ as it means we are glorified and the enemies of the church are destroyed.
• Everywhere you see an arrow see the Spirit. The Spirit is how God acts, and God's love is always active. The Spirit's principle action is love, so we can call him God's love (although he is also a personal lover).
• I know that the it is a big omission that the diagram doesn't show how God's love for the unlovely is the reason that Jesus Christ is sent to be born in the flesh.
• God's Son becomes flesh in order to experience the wrath that is a result of God's love for his Son. That is amazing love. Or, as the Bible calls it, 'grace'.
• Yes, you've guessed it. God's love for the lovely corresponds to 'the [Lutheran doctrine of] law' - it is good, but death for sinful humanity. God's love for the unlovely corresponds to the 'Gospel' - wonderful undeserved grace!
• God's love for the unlovely is totally incomprehensible. I dare you to make sense of it! It is pure grace, there is nothing in it for God, but he pours it out anyway!
• One of the most amazing things that Martin Luther ever wrote was the final theological thesis of his 1518 Heildelberg Disputation. You could meditate on it for ages:

The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it.

Thoughts welcome. Praise God for love!

We are how we worship

Worship is where we meet God, and worship is how the Spirit forms us into the people of God... worship is a formative encounter with a living, active, covenant-keeping Lord... We are what we worship; we are also how we worship.

("Buried Treasures?" by James KA Smith)

I appreciate Jamie Smith's continual attempts to remind us of how the form of our worship shapes us.

God and his Gospel

"whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it" (Mark 8:35)

Still thinking over my previous post on 'perichoretic salvation' I am struck today how, as Peter Mead comments, we often "have the notion that we know about God" already. Cor Deo and the like are excellent at saying 'actually you don't know the half of who God is'. He is much better than you think or could even imagine. I am really thankful for people like them encouraging me to seek to know God better and love him more.

However, this can be perverted (not by them) into saying that we just need more information about God. The cross becomes an exclusively revelatory event and before we know it grace has been lost and we're having to love and emulate this wonderful God in our own strength.

In contrast to this revelatory emphasis I know many will talk about 'gospel' all the time but never about God! We are 'saved', but are left wondering whether salvation all that attractive.

I don't think the answer is to equate the gospel and God. God is the Gospel is probably a great book and a helpful corrective, because without God the Gospel is not good news, but I'm not sure about the title. Perhaps the answer is to keep them distinct but intimately united, not separating them but not equating them either. I.e. lets be Trinitarian about this...

The Life of God in the Soul of Man

Henry Scougal's classic little book The Life of God in the Soul of Man has had a massive impact on many, including George Whitefield who said he "never knew what true religion was" until he read it. Fred Sanders includes it as one of his ten favourite theology books. You can read the book online for free, but I'd also recommend JI Packer's introduction to the CFP edition, which is also online. He sings its praises but he also offers a helpful corrective:

One could wish, however, that his exposition had been more explicitly and emphatically Christ-centred. Like so many seventeenth-century writers, he lets himself assume that his readers know all about Jesus and need only to be told about real religion, the life of faith and faith-full turning Godward as opposed to the orthodoxism, formalism, emotionalism and legalism that masquerade as Christianity while being in truth a denial of it. Had Scougal elaborated on the Christian’s union with Christ, which the New Testament sees as regeneration by the Holy Spirit; had he explained incorporation into the Saviour’s risen life, whereby Jesus’s motivating passion to know and love and serve and please and honour and glorify the Father is implanted in sinners so that it is henceforth their own deepest desire too; had he thus shown, in black and white, that imitating Jesus’s aims and attitudes in serving God and mankind is for the born-again the most natural, indeed the only natural, way of living, while for the unregenerate it is hard to the point of impossible; his little treatise would have been immeasurably stronger. As it is, Scougal’s profile of divine life in human souls is much more complete than his answer to the question, how do I get into it? – or, how does it get into me? This is a limitation.

Perichoretic salvation

In my previous post I quoted Fred Sanders who asked:

• Did Good Friday and Easter happen so that Pentecost could benefit us, or
• did Pentecost happen so that Good Friday and Easter could benefit us?

Another way of asking the question is:

• Do we receive the Spirit in us because we are in Christ, or
• are we in Christ because the Spirit is in us?

Yet another way of asking the question would be:

• Is salvation the Trinitarian life of God in the soul of man (ala Scougal), or
• is salvation the soul of man in the Trinitarian life of God?

If we believe that perichoresis (mutual indwelling) of the three persons of the Trinity is not a static state of being, but is a dynamic and continuous activity, then it is never 'or' it is always 'both' - distinct but one.

PS did you like my pompous title?!

The missions of the Son and the Spirit - each of them is a means to the other

Which of the two missions [of the Son and the Holy Spirit] is the means and which is the end? Thinking in terms of redemption accomplished and applied, it is easy to consider the Spirit's work as the means of delivering the Son's work. In that case the Son does the the thing itself - reconciling God and man - and the Spirit serves his work by applying it to individual lives. Pentecost, in this view, happens in order to fulfill and extend Calvary and Easter. On the other hand, when we consider the intimacy of spiritual fellowship that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit involves, it begins to look as if all God's ways lead up to the sending of the Spirit.

If God's goal is to dwell among his people, the atonement was a necessary step to make indwelling possible. The temple of human nature had to be cleansed to make it ready for the Spirit's indwelling. So the Son by incarnation prepared one perfect human temple, his own body, for the Spirit to be present in. And by atonement the Son purified the other temples, preparing them to receive the Spirit on the basis of the Son's finished work. "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us ... so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith" (Gal 3:13-14), Calvary and Easter, in this view, happen in order to make Pentecost possible. If we have to ask whose work is the means and whose is the end, our answer must be either that the question is badly formed, or that each of them is a means to the other. The Spirit serves the Son by applying what he accomplished, and the Son serves the Spirit by making his indwelling possible. Both the Son and the Spirit, together on their twofold mission from the Father, serve the Father and minister to us.

(pp.148-149, Fred Sanders, Embracing the Trinity: Life with God in the Gospel)

Reconciliation - notes and questions

Listening to: Caitlin Rose: Own Side Now

"God... through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)

This passage has been going round my head a lot lately.

Notes:

• Relationship to the Father as sons is the goal achieved by reconciliation.
• Paul does not say, "God is reconciled to you, now please be reconciled to him"... Paul never says that in his letters, although that is usually how we present the Gospel ('God has moved toward you, now move toward him' is poor). Instead Paul says that in Christ, the representative man, the new humanity has been reconciled to God! As Torrance says, the covenant has been fulfilled from both sides already.
• Nevertheless, there is a note of urgency as out of "fear of the Lord" Paul seeks to "persuade", "appeal" and "implore" his hearers to be reconciled.

Questions (a big plea for help!):

• How does verse 19 differ from verse 18? "reconciled" v. "reconciling", "us" v. "world", "through Christ" v. "in Christ", "giving" v. "entrusting", "ministry" v. "message"... what's the significance?
• How does this passage compare with Romans 5:10, "we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.... now that we are reconciled [past, linked to death], shall we be saved by his life [future, linked to life]"? ... cf. also 2 Timothy 2:11: "If we have died with him [past, death], we will also live with him [future, life]" (also Romans 6:8)

Michael Horton's summary of the Gospel

What is your greatest fear? If I were asking that question in many parts of the world, answers would probably cluster around basic needs such as running water, food, vaccines, and shelter. For most of us in the United States, though, our greatest fears are more likely to be things like the fear of loneliness, some cataclysmic event that throws me off the ladder of upward mobility, divorce, or the inability to find any ultimate meaning in life. None of these fears is illegitimate, yet none is ultimate. These fears haunt us only because we have the luxury of having them haunt us. Until we are confronted with the reality of God—in all of his blinding majesty, weightiness, and frightful claim on our lives—we are overwhelmed by secondary troubles. But when for some reason there is the slightest glimpse of God in his holiness, we either do our best to domesticate him, turn him into a pet by suppressing the truth, or run for the hills to escape the confrontation.

God should be your greatest fear. Yet there is no salvation from God's just judgment from anywhere else than God himself. Only the same God who fills us with fear is able also to give us peace. If we are to escape this judgment, it will only be the result of the greatness in God's heart and not something in our own. That God has moved toward us—even lunged toward us—not in judgment, as we should have expected, but in loving embrace and reconciliation, clothing us in Christ's righteousness so that we can be acceptable in his holy presence, is the good news that you are called here and now to embrace. Christ lived a perfect life in the place of sinners, bore their sins on the cross, and was raised again for our justification. This means that "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Not because of anything that you have done, experienced, attempted, or decided, but because of what he has accomplished for you, can you be assured of God's favor. It is good news, not good advice. It is not a call to self-improvement, but to die to self altogether and be raised a new person, in Christ. It is the free gift of forgiveness of sins, right standing with God, adoption as his heirs, and liberation from the tyranny of sin. As his ambassador, I am calling you in his name to be reconciled to God by turning away from all other saviors and lords and embracing Jesus Christ as your righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Come to him now. His love is greater than your enmity toward him; his grace is greater than your sin; his peace is greater than your fears.

(HT 9 Marks)

Listening to a recording of a piece of classical music you often think that there are bits you like more or less than another recording. Similarly in this presentation of the Gospel of course there are always things you would change, but it is still a delight to hear the melody played so well! Amazing, and very Pauline.

Another bit of wedding advice

Listening to: GF Handel: The Messiah (Pinnock)

Weddings are often the highlights of my year, so although I didn't watch all the Royal Wedding I enjoyed watching some of the highlights (esp the cartwheeling verger).

The sermon was very brief, and understandably couldn't say very much, but I think Huw Edwards' brief final comment on the BBC was the best analysis it is likely to receive. He called it "advice".

The same summary could be given for many wedding sermons I have heard, from evangelicals as much as anyone else. Usually the advice is very thoughtful and helpful, and the the Bishop's was too.

He was realistic about the difficulties that face married couples, and the reasons not to build our security on your spouse. Nevertheless, he said this was "a day of hope".... why?

Firstly, because of the potential for them to be "what God meant each one to be".

Secondly, because they had made a "solemn decision that, whatever the difficulties, [they] are committed to the way of generous love".

Thirdly, because they have each other to change them into "their work of art".

What about the God of hope?

The Bishop briefly, but nicely, described "a generous God who so loved the world that he gave himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ". He encouraged William and Kate to live "in the Spirit of this generous God...following the example of Jesus Christ".

This is good but inadequate. In the Bishop's sermon God is the God of hope because of his example and what he enables, not for what he has achieved in our place and promises to achieve in us.

So it included no substitution and no promise, and because of that there was no Gospel.

Despite including so much that was good and true, without the good news, the advice was hopeless. Even the attractive 'promise' of his opening words by St Catherine of Siena threw the happy couple back on their own efforts to emulate the generous God: "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire."

From that very moment, I was reminded of Oswald Bayer's quotation:

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.

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

So wedding preachers, please give us God's acts and promises as well as the advice, or you'll crush us all!

Ramblings on mustard seed faith

"The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith!'

And the Lord said, 'If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.'" (Luke 17:5-6)

One of the themes of New Word Alive was 'faith'. We were wonderfully taught that it is the object of your faith that matters most and not the strength of your faith.

• Mike Reeves taught us that true faith is in God, not faith in your faith.
• Steve Casey taught us that faith is confidence in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ for now and eternity, but false faith is confidence in this world for now and eternity.
• Rico Tice, in preaching on the suffering Christians of Heb 11:36ff, taught us that faith is in God, not your agenda for God.

It is who our faith is in, and not the quantity of our faith that saves us. A mustard seed is enough to move a tree or a mountain.

But the size of our faith does matter because, while it may not affect our salvation, it does determine how much of that salvation we know here and now. A person of little faith is just as secure and just as loved by God as the person of great faith, but they may live indistinctive lives. A person of great faith will live out of the salvation they know they have received and make a great difference to the world as they serve their neighbours and spread the Gospel, despite great personal cost.

• The size of your faith does not make a difference how much you receive from God (the vertical dimension).
• However, the size of your faith does make a difference how much you give to others (the horizontal dimension).

How does Jesus increase the faith of the disciples in Luke 17? He increases their faith by telling them they have already received all they need from him with their week faith. He takes their eyes of their faith and encourages them to live out of what they have already received.