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June 23, 2013

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Calvin, theology

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I’m Taking a Sabbath (And So Should You)

This is the first thing that came up when I Googled 'Sabbath.' That's culturally-telling.

This is the first thing that came up when I Googled ‘Sabbath.’ That’s culturally-telling.

I’m taking off this week on a little road-trip up to Santa Barbara. We’re packing up 20+ college students to go beach camping for our summer retreat and plan on having a blast. After a couple of days there, my wife and I are taking a mini-vacation for our 2-year anniversary, by sticking around the area in a hotel while the students head back down to Orange County. Needless to say, I am very excited.

This means two things for me: First, I won’t be on the blog much this week. Don’t worry though, I’ve prepped a few posts that are scheduled to go up, so there will be plenty of Reformedish content to read. That said I won’t be sharing them around much (so feel free to share them for me!), nor will I be commenting in response much either. You’ll have to amuse yourselves otherwise.

Second, in light of my own mini-Sabbath, I’ve been thinking about the issue of Sabbath. In fact, that’s the subject of our meditations this week with the students. Americans in general, for all of our leisure, don’t really know how to Sabbath. Surprisingly enough to some, college students are some of the worst offenders I know. They do plenty of random, “non-work” activities, but the actual practice of Sabbath is something that escapes them–so we’re going to talk about it.

Calvin on Sabbath: Too Much to Talk About
Given all these things, I was curious to go back and read what Calvin had to say on the subject. It turns out there was a lot–far too much to review here. Unbeknownst to many, Calvin’s commentary on the Torah is a lengthy Harmony of the Law comprising 4 volumes in which he comments on the narratives in Exodus-Deuteronomy (he has a separate commentary on Genesis) and, well, “harmonizes” the Law by treating the various laws according to groupings and subject matter, while still dealing with specific texts. I don’t have time to go through it all, but you can go read what he does with the Sabbath command at length here.

Thankfully Calvin summarizes a great deal of that in a shorter but still lengthy section in the Institutes as well, which contains a brief commentary on the 10 commandments in Book 2. But, of course, he outlines those comments briefly at the beginning too. That’s what I want to look at. Yes, it’s a summary of a summary, but even that is plenty of Calvin to work with.

Three Reasons
Following the Fathers he thinks that this commandment is “a foreshadowing because it contains the outward keeping of a day which, upon Christ’s coming, was abolished with the other figures” (2.12.28) Now, this is true as far as it goes, but he thinks that when we limit it to this, “they touch upon only half the matter.”

Calvin sees at least three reasons for the Lord’s Sabbath command:

  1. “First, under the repose of the seventh day the heavenly Lawgiver meant to represent to the people of Israel spiritual rest, in which believers ought to lay aside their own works to allow God to work in them.” (ibid.) First and foremost the Sabbath is not a work to be achieved on our part, but a promise, a foreshadowing, of God’s Gospel accomplishment on our behalf. God was pointing his people ahead to the day when their own ceaseless and ineffective spiritual labors would cease because Christ the Redeemer had done the great work on our behalf. Of course, for us, this serves as a reminder that the great work has already been done; we rest in Christ. At the same time, there is still an eschatological element to the Christian keeping of the Sabbath as it points to that final rest that we still await. (Heb. 4) Our current Sabbath is a down-payment on eschatological Sabbath to come.
  2. “Secondly, he meant that there was to be a stated day for them to assemble to hear the law and perform the rites, or at least to devote it particularly to meditation upon his works, and thus through this remembrance to be trained in piety.” (ibid.) God knows we regularly need to gather, hear the word of the Lord, and meditate on all of his goodness. Sabbath is not mere leisure time, but a specific rhythm by which we set aside time to recall the promises of God, his commandments, and worship Him as he deserves and our hearts were designed to do. The key to remember here is that God does not need this, but we do. He demands it as his due lawful due, but the benefit is ours.
  3. “Thirdly, he resolved to give a day of rest to servants and those who are under the authority of others, in order that they should have some respite from toil.” (ibid.) Finally, Calvin notes the very practical nature of the command: physical rest. Even before the Gospel of Resurrection taught us that the Lord is redeeming the body as well as the soul (1 Cor. 6), we see in God’s commands his care for our physical being as well as our spiritual–indeed, the two are indissolubly connected. God knows that we simply need rest from our labors, a time when we simply are still and know that the world will keep turning as we recuperate our strength for the tasks that God has set us to do in this world.

As with all of God’s good commands, there is far more to say, but in obedience to the command, I will cease from my labors and trust that God himself will teach you all that you need to know in this regard. Consider this an invitation to rest in the Lord.

Soli Deo Gloria

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June 21, 2013

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Director, Soul, and King: The Word

directorReading the early Fathers gives you a sense that they were smitten by the wonder of God’s creative glory. Ireneaus was one of the first and greatest theologians of the significance and grandeur of God’s works. Following on his heels comes Athanasius’, waxing eloquent on the subject in his work Contra Gentes. In his argument against the pagan gods, he points to the magnificent order of the universe as evidence that they could only be the result of a single, purposive God according to Wisdom–the Word Himself.

Master teacher that he is, Athanasius gives us three similes to explain how the Word gives order to the Universe:

  1. Director – “And for so great a matter to be understood by an example, let what we are describing be compared to a great chorus. As then the chorus is composed of different people, children, women again, and old men, and those who are still young, and, when one, namely the conductor, gives the sign, each utters sound according to his nature and power, the man as a man, the child as a child, the old man as an old man, and the young man as a young man, while all make up a single harmony…”
  2. Soul – “or as our soul at one time moves our several senses according to the proper function of each, so that when some one object is present all alike are put in motion, and the eye sees, the ear hears, the hand touches, the smell takes in odour, and the palate tastes,—and often the other parts of the body act too, as for instance if the feet walk..”
  3. King – “or, to make our meaning plain by yet a third example, it is as though a very great city were built, and administered under the presence of the ruler and king who has built it; for when he is present and gives orders, and has his eye upon everything, all obey; some busy themselves with agriculture, others hasten for water to the aqueducts, another goes forth to procure provisions,—one goes to senate, another enters the assembly, the judge goes to the bench, and the magistrate to his court. The workman likewise settles to his craft, the sailor goes down to the sea, the carpenter to his workshop, the physician to his treatment, the architect to his building; and while one is going to the country, another is returning from the country, and while some walk about the town others are going out of the town and returning to it again: but all this is going on and is organised by the presence of the one Ruler, and by his management…”

—Against the Heathen, -§43

Of course Athanasius notes that these pictures are “inadequate”, and “yet with an enlarged idea” they serve to illumine the way God sustains the creative rhythm of reality through his Word–“For with the single impulse of a nod as it were of the Word of God, all things simultaneously fall into order, and each discharge their proper functions, and a single order is made up by them all together.”

In all this he is a student of  the Psalmist who proclaims to us:

1The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

Let us never cease to marvel at the works of the Word.

Soli Deo Gloria

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June 14, 2013

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Some Thoughts on the Superman and Jesus Thing

man of steel 2After months of waiting, I finally watched the Man of Steel in a midnight showing early Friday (or late Thursday) night. My first comment is that the critics are idiots–it was a fantastic movie.  Unsurprisingly given the team of Nolan, Snyder, and Zimmer, this is easily the best Superman movie to date; plot, cast, visuals, emotional complexity, etc. surpass anything that’s been done with the franchise yet.

But I’m not here to write a movie review. Like most films do, it got me thinking about theology. There have been a number of recent articles on difference and similarities between Jesus and Superman. I haven’t read any of them, but I’ve seen them online and the parallels and divergences aren’t hard to imagine–intentionally so with the former.

Superman is a Messianic figure, a son sent by a father from a different world, raised by surrogate parents, come to save us all. He’s not one of us, but he identifies with our cause, fights the battles we can’t against demons too big for merely human strength. He’s a shining beacon of truth, morality, and hope to a people who misunderstand and fear him despite his unrelenting will to save. The film plays this up to the point where its unmistakable, revealing him to be 33 years of age, and even setting him in a church struggling with a decision about whether to sacrifice himself for the planet, with a stained-glass picture of Jesus in the background.

Of course, every Messianic analogy breaks down and it’s easy enough to point that out with Superman. He really isn’t like Jesus in some very important ways–one of the biggest is that he’s not really human. He might identify with our cause and plight, but he doesn’t ever fully share it. Unless he’s exposed to some Kryptonite or Red Sun, he’s impervious to just about anything you throw at him. Jesus knows what it is to feel human fear and pain–he’s wasn’t bullet, or nailproof. Superman doesn’t bleed out and die, but Jesus does.

The flidside is that he’s not fully divine either; Superman is at best a demi-God. His feats of power, strength, speed, flight, and lasers do not entitle him to the title “Creator.” He is not eternal, immutable, immortal, or omnipotent, no matter how potent he is. He is a being among beings but not the source of all being; a superior being perhaps, but still on the ‘creation’ side of the Creator/creature distinction (if that holds in the DC Universe.)

In fact, when you think about it, theologically Superman is more like the Arian picture of Christ. The teacher Arius taught a savior who was not the eternal Son of God, (“there was a time when he was not”), and yet not a normal man either. He was a mediating being, the chief over creation who was yet still a part of it, and not to be thought of as equal to the Father.

Similarly, the salvation he offers us is that of a shining exemplar, not a redeeming Savior. Yes, he sacrifices himself for us and fights the battle we could never fight, against a ruthless enemy we could not beat. And yet, like so many other popular Hollywood Messiah figures, the goal is that one day he can teach us, inspire us, when we’re ready, to live a new a better way. In a sense, he saves, yes by feats of strength and moral courage, but the redemption of mankind will come by imitation. There is no atonement, or conversion, for Superman is the heroic, morally-educative Pelagian Christ.

This isn’t a real knock on the movie, of course, or even the Superman character. It’s not Kal-El’s fault–only Jesus can be Jesus.

And that’s really the point I’ve wanted to make. While all of our heroes, in some way, seem to point us to the ultimate Hero, all of them fall short. Some have pointed out that Batman is fully human like us, knowing our pains and plight, and in that way, he’s really the more Christ-like hero. The problem is that when he dies, he dies. Part of what makes Jesus glorious, and that the Superman myth draws on is our need for a Savior who can rescue us from the curse of death; we need a hero who can’t be held down by it. Down the line I could go, with blockbuster hero after hero pointing out the various ways they either measure up, or fall miserably short.

The key difference that I’ve seen, though, is that not one of the various heroes on offer can truly offer us the redemption we need most–that liberation of the soul that comes when our sins are paid for and the Spirit is poured out in our hearts, setting us free from our bondage to sin. None but the Crucified and Risen one is strong enough offer me the salvation of a conscience cleansed from sin and reconciled with God.

Soli Deo Gloria

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June 13, 2013

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A Proper Christian Mysticism?

mysticismIs there a place for Christian “mysticism?” Thinking of the various incense-laden mysticisms of the East, some implying a denial of the Creator/creature distinction or a strong doctrine of Revelation, many Christians, especially Protestant ones, would vigorously reject the notion. Writing about the “intimacy of relation” we find in our Union with Christ, Reformed theologian John Murray does not shy away from suggesting properly Christian “mysticism”:

Here indeed is mysticism on the highest plane. It is not the mysticism of vague unintelligible feeling or rapture. It is the mysticism of communion with the one true and living God, and it is communion with the one true and living God because and only because it is communion with the three distinct persons of the Godhead in the strict particularity which belongs to each person in that grand economy of saving relationship to us. Believers know the Father and have fellowship with him in his own distinguishing character and operation as Father. They know the Son and have fellowship with him in his own distinguishing character and operation as the Son, the Saviour, the Redeemer, the exalted Lord. They know and have fellowship with the Holy Spirit in his own distinguishing character and operation as the Spirit, the Advocate, the Comforter, the Sanctifier. It is not the blurred confusion of rapturous ecstasy. It is faith solidly founded on the revelation deposited for us in the Scripture and it is faith actively receiving that revelation by the inward witness of the Holy Spirit. But it is also faith tha stirs the deepest springs of emotion in the raptures of love and joy. Believers enter into the holy of holies of communion with the triune God and they do so because they have been raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6). Their life is hid with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). They draw nigh in full assurance of faith having their hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and their bodies washed with pure water because Christ is not entered into holy places made with hands but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for them (Heb. 9:24)

-Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, pp. 172-173

So is there a place for a properly Christian mysticism? Yes–within the coordinates of trinitarianly-conceived Union with Christ, the Scriptures teach us that we can rejoice and delight in communion with Father, Son, and Spirit.

Soli Deo Gloria

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June 11, 2013

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Job, Providence, and Multiple Intentionality

JobIf anybody knows anything about Calvin, it is that he believes God to be the ultimate author of history, good or bad, with all of its twists and turns. Though not obsessed with the doctrine of providence as some might think, he does devote a significant section of Book I of the Institutes to it, defends it in a number of special treatises, and addresses it all throughout the commentaries. One particular passage on Job grabbed my attention when I first read through the Institutes, though, when I was yet early on in developing my Reformedish tendencies.

Theologians, especially those concerned that God not be considered the author of evil, tend to make the distinction between God causing a thing to come to pass directly, or merely “permitting” it to come to pass. While elsewhere Calvin seems affirm a proper place for this distinction (cf. Commentary on Genesis 3:1), he’s not too keen on those who would try to rob God of his sovereign governorship over all things by using the doctrine of permission to get God off the hook for human wickedness. Although they are fully responsible for their choices (Institutes I.17.2-3), not being compelled by some Stoic fate (ibid, I.16.8), men and women make the choices they make according to the “secret plan of God.” Calvin’s beef is with a permission that teaches “that men are borne headlong by blind motion unbeknown to God or with his acquiescence.” God’s providence does not admit of a passive permission in which he simply lets things happen, but rather it is active permission according to his own secret plan, for his own good will.

Calvin backs this up with a battery of scriptural examples and texts, but he opens with the story of Job:

From the first chapter of Job we know that Satan, no less than the angels who willingly obey, presents himself before God [Job 1:6; 2:1] to receive his commands. He does so, indeed, in a different way and with a different end; but he still cannot undertake anything unless God so wills. However, even though a bare permission to afflict the holy man seems then to be added, yet we gather that God was the author of that trial of which Satan and his wicked thieves were the ministers, because this statement is true: “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it has pleased God, so is it done” [Job 1:2 ]. Satan desperately tries to drive the holy man insane; the Sabaeans cruelly and impiously pillage and make off with another’s possessions. Job recognizes that he was divinely stripped of all his property, and made a poor man, because it so pleased God. Therefore, whatever men or Satan himself may instigate, God nevertheless holds the key, so that he turns their efforts to carry out his judgments.

-Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.18.1

The reason this passage was so fascinating to me was that it called my attention to a single instance where three wills were at work, each a key component in the action, and all for different purposes. At the human level we see the Sabaeans out of a simple human lust and wickedness pillaging and looting in order to satisfy their own desires. Satan was at work as well, goading the Sabaeans in order to afflict Job and cause him to curse God, thereby proving him wrong. God actively permitted Satan to goad the Sabaeans in order to, well, we don’t have the full reasons, but at the very least, prove Satan’s accusations wrong and vindicate the righteousness of his servant Job. The same event is the result of God’s good divine will and the two wicked wills, demonic and human. God is just in his determinations, and yet Satan and the Sabaeans are utterly wicked in theirs.

This is not the way we’re used to thinking about things. Regularly, we would try to figure out, “Well, who’s really responsible here? Who caused it? It’s either God, or the devil, or humans, so which is it?” Or we’d try and parse it out and say that this part was God, this part was Satan, and this part was humans. That’s not what we see in the text, though. Instead, it seems to point us to God working out his own will through wicked demonic and human wills at the very same time.

Calvin moves on to cite the stories of the lying spirit and King Ahab (1 Kings 22:20-22), Jesus’ death at the hands of Pilate and wicked men by the plan of God (Acts 2:23,  4:28), Jeremiah’s declaration that the Chaldean’s cruel invasion was God’s own work (Jeremiah 1:15; 7:14; 50:25), and a half-dozen other instances where human wickedness is also credited to God’s good purposes in history. As Calvin says, “Those who are moderately versed in the Scriptures see that for the sake of brevity I have put forward only a few of many testimonies.”

I’ve wrestled myself for a number of years as to just how God’s sovereignty and our real, human freedom play out. Of course, the Scriptures don’t resolve this tension cleanly for us, nor does Calvin; they just let the it hang there. The conclusion I’ve come to is that both are in the Bible and any solution that too heavily pits the one against the other–either minimizing or limiting God’s control, foreknowledge, and power or those hyper-Calvinists who would call all human freedom a chimera–are reading against the grain of the text. None of this is an “answer”, of course. I have for years gone back and forth between a more deterministic compatibilism, Molinism, and something else I’ve never really had a name for.

What Calvin does in this passage is ensure that whatever your answer, it must be one that reckons with the fact that there are no runaway wills in God’s world; his “permission” is an active one, and he does not stand idly by, wringing his hands in distress, or waiting with baited breath to see what happens next. Again, this is the God of the Gospel who didn’t just stand by and let his Son be crucified by wicked men, but purposed according to his own plan and foreknowledge to save the world through these things.

Soli Deo Gloria

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June 6, 2013

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Who Adopts Us in Salvation?

The FatherIt was in seminary that I began to appreciate the significance of adoption as a distinct moment in our salvation. Even greater than our justification, being declared and thereby rendered righteous with God the King, is being received by grace into his family as beloved children. It is as children that we call out ‘Abba, Father’ and approach the throne of grace with full confidence, knowing that the King of Glory delights to hear our prayers.

The question I had in seminary was, “Who exactly am I adopted by? Is it by the Father, or the whole Trinity?” I initially believed it to be the Father as I understood adoption to occur through union with Christ the Son into his relationship with the Father. Upon hearing me express this view, one of my professors quickly corrected me and warned against introducing a split in the Trinity. To him, it is only proper to attribute adoption to the whole Trinity.  Since that time I’ve gone back and forth, but have come to the conclusion that my initial instincts were correct.

Two principles of trinitarian theology have guided me:

  • First, that although the external acts of the Trinity are undivided, the persons are still to be distinguished. In other words, the Trinity acts in a trinitarian fashion. It’s not that the Father creates, the Son saves, and the Spirit does, whatever he does. Instead, the early church fathers would say that more properly the Father creates, redeems, and sanctifies through the Son and the Spirit. In every action, the whole Trinity is involved.
  • Second, the complementary doctrine of appropriations teaches that, although the work of the Trinity is undivided, it is still fitting to attribute certain graces and actions more properly to a particular person. So, for instance, although the Father and the Spirit are involved, only the Son is properly said to become incarnate. Only the Son is born of a virgin, dies, and rises again, and so forth, even though they happen at the command of the Father in the power of the Spirit.

With these two principles in place, we are in a position to appreciate John Murray’s biblical arguments in Redemption Accomplished and Applied for thinking it is the Father who adopts us, although he does this through the Son and the Spirit:

  1. The first and simplest is that the name “Father” belongs to the first person of the Trinity, just as “the Son” is the second, and the “Holy Spirit” is the third. Jesus directed his prayers to the Father, and he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (pg. 137)
  2. In John 20:17, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene that he is not yet “ascended to the Father”, clearly referring to the first person, before going on “My Father and your Father, My God and your God.” (pp. 137-138)
  3. In a very similar point, Murray points out that Jesus’ frequent prayer to his “Father in heaven”, or some similar form of address. He also directs his disciples to pray to their Father in heaven, implying that the same divine person is in view. (pg. 138)
  4. In the New Testament, the term “Father” is the personal name of the first person of the Trinity. The Father is often called “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3; 11:31; Eph. 1:3; Col. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:3). The phrase “God the Father” also must refer to him (Gal. 1:1; Eph. 6:23; Phil. 2:11; 1 Thes. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:2; 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Tit. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:2; 2 Pet. 1:17; 2 John 3; Jude 1; Rev. 1:6) In almost all of these passages the Father is clearly not referring to the Son or the Spirit. From there Murray says that it is important to observe that “when God is called the Father of believers we have close similarity of expression” to the point where it is an unavoidable conclusion that the same person of the Trinity is being referred to. Again, in places like Romans 1:7 where the phrase “peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” is used, both persons are mentioned and distinguished, while one is named “our Father.” (cf. 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3; Eph. 1:2; Phil. 1:2; Philemon 3)

For these reasons it seems Biblically-appropriate to understand ourselves to have been adopted through the mediatorial work of the Son and the gift of the Spirit into the Father’s family by grace. This is good news. As Murray writes:

Could anything disclose the marvel of adoption or certify the security of its tenure and privilege more effectively than the fact that the Father himself, on account of whom are all things and through whom are all things, who made the captain of salvation perfect through suffering becomes by deed of grace the Father of the many sons whom he will bring to glory? (pg. 140)

Soli Deo Gloria

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June 5, 2013

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In What Sense Was The Atonement Necessary?

redemptionThat Christ died for our sins is beyond question. (1 Cor. 15:3; Rom. 5:8-11; 2 Cor. 5:21) In what sense was Jesus’s death for sin necessary, though? The issue of the necessity of atonement is a complex one involving many layers from various angles. John Murray sheds some light on at least one area by making a very helpful distinction in his work Redemption: Accomplish and Applied between two views of the necessity of Christ’s work on the Cross that have been held throughout the history of theology.

Hypothetical Necessity – First is the view that he terms “hypothetical necessity” (pg. 11), in which Jesus’ death is held to be not strictly necessary. Theoretically it is possible that God could have saved his church through some means other that Christ’s sin-bearing death, and victorious resurrection if he so chose. He is God for whom all things are possible. Apparently in his wisdom though, he found that this was the most fitting means in that it combines the greatest amount of blessings, virtues, and so forth. Murray cites Augustine and Aquinas as historical representatives of this view. Knowing what I know of them, it sounds like the sort of conclusion they might come to.

Consequent Absolute Necessity – The second view Murray calls “consequent absolute necessity” and it is apparently the historical Protestant position (Calvin, Institutes, II.16.5). It holds that, given God’s decision to save, Christ’s death for sin was absolutely necessary. So, to be clear, first, it affirms that strictly speaking, Christ’s death is unnecessary. God did not need Christ to die. He is perfect and complete in his own life before the creation or the redemption of the world without it. And yet, consequent, or logically-following his decision to save, it is absolutely necessary given the nature of sin and the nature of God that it should happen through Christ’s vicarious sacrifice. (pg. 12) So, if moved by love, God is going to save people in a way consistent with his own holy, just, and merciful character, the atonement is necessary. It is this view that Murray judges to be the correct one and to which I myself subscribe.

Support Some might find this to be ‘vain speculation’, but Murray points various texts to the effect that such a conclusion is warranted. (See pp. 13-18) One particular argument he forwards is connected to the fact that the Scriptures point to Christ’s death as greatest proof we have of the love of God (Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:10) That God was willing to spare his own Son testifies to the costliness of his love. (Rom 8:32) Murray asks, “would the Cross be an extreme exhibition of love if there were no necessity for such costliness?” (pg. 17) Can’t we only draw that conclusion if there were no other options? If there wasn’t some extreme sense of necessity involved? I find that conclusion hard to escape. As another has pointed out, it makes no sense for your friend to tell you, “Look how much I love you!” and then jump into a lake and drown. If he jumps in front of a bus to push you out of the way, that’s another story.

Another theological objection is that this seems to put limits on God. Isn’t it arrogant to say what God can and can’t do? At one level yes, we ought to be careful about being too eager to say what God can’t or cannot do. That’s why Murray spends several pages showing that this is a judgment made on scriptural grounds; its safest to make judgments on what God has told us about himself. It must also be pointed out that there are several things it is perfectly fine to say God’s ‘cannot’ do which do not rob him of glory. God’s inability to lie, be wicked, or deny himself is no affront to his majesty. In fact, “such ‘cannots’ are his glory and for us to refrain from reckoning with such ‘impossibles’ would be to deny his glory and perfection.” (pg. 13)

So was Jesus’ death necessary? In one sense, no. Jesus didn’t need to die–he could have left us to our peril and woe. In another sense, once God decided (in some pre-temporal sense) to save us by grace, it could come in no other way than through the death of His Own Son.

Soli Deo Gloria

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June 4, 2013

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Perfection And Incarnation (Or, Some Thoughts on Zack Hunt’s Imperfect Bible)

Insert stock Bible image here.

Insert stock Bible image here.

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple – (Psalm 19:7)

If you read this blog often, you know I don’t typically pick fights with specific bloggers, or even positions–I generally just like putting forward positive content. I certainly don’t like challenging smart guys like Zack Hunt. I mean dude’s got some theological chops, a big blog, he’s going to Yale, and is a good enough writer to score a book deal; I have a kind of ugly-but-functional blog my mom reads and a poorly-followed Twitter account. Still he wrote a piece over at Red Letter Christians on the inerrancy or rather, non-inerrancy, of the Bible that I found interesting and worth examining. Also, I was kind of bored.

His basic argument, as far as I followed it, was that the reason he believed the Bible isn’t perfect is because the Bible itself told him so. Also, nobody believed in its ‘inerrancy’ until like, 150 years ago. Or something like that.

If I had to boil down the argument into one quote, it’d probably be this chunk right here:

Do you remember the other big moment when we read about something being “God-breathed” in scripture? Sure you do. We find it in the very beginning, in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 when God took the dust of the ground and breathed life into it to create humanity.

In that moment God breathed something into existence…..which wasn’t perfect. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t God.

Because scripture is also “God-breathed” it means it too isn’t God. Nor does it even come directly from God, but instead it passes through an intermediary. In the beginning, the intermediary between us and God was dirt. God breathed into it and the result was that we were created.

In the case of the Bible, God breathed His truth into the hearts and minds of people and the result was that the Bible was created. But like that ancient dirt that gave birth to us, the people who wrote the Bible, God’s intermediaries, weren’t perfect. Which is why Paul says “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.”

Hunt then goes on to affirm that we can basically trust the Bible because, even though Noah probably didn’t get all those animals on the boat, we can still believe what the story is trying to teach: God will take care of us in the storms. We don’t need something to be inerrant or “perfect” for it to convey truth, it just needs to be honest enough. A basically truthful message doesn’t need to keep all the details straight for it to be correct and trustworthy. That’s what faith is about–kinda like with your parents, you trust it even when you have some doubts about it. Holding out for some theoretical inerrancy that doesn’t fit the text itself isn’t faith, but a fearful struggle to control the divine.

Now, on the issue of faith and I’d simply note that Karl Barth had some different ideas than Paul Tillich which are worth considering. The historical point, I will leave to others to debate without comment as well. I think there is definitely something to the idea that testimony can be essentially reliable while a couple of minor details are crossed. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening in the Bible, but I think it’s important to affirm valid points when you see them.

On his argument about perfection I do have a few thoughts, though.

To be clear at the outset, I’m not going to argue in detail for some particular view of inerrancy or infallibility simply because, to be honest, it’s a short blog so there isn’t time. I do think it’s helpful to point out that there are varying views as to what constitutes inerrancy such as the Chicago Statement (which has multiple interpretations), Old Princetonian articulations, and other more rigid views. It’d probably be helpful to define it, but since Hunt doesn’t and it won’t affect my argument, I’ll leave it be. For the curious, whatever Kevin Vanhoozer says, I’m right around there.

What I do want is to briefly, and incompletely, examine a few of the basic components or assumptions in the argument forwarded by Hunt, in no particular order.

It’s Not God, But it is His Work

As Hunt astutely points out, the Bible is not God, but is “God-breathed” (theopneustos). So, it’s wrong to attribute to the Bible all of God’s perfections. Only God is immortal, immutable, eternal, all-powerful, and so forth. The Bible is not these things and to say that it is, is a sort of idolatry that ignores the fact that it is clearly a human book that “was written by people”; humans who left their individual marks on the texts they produced.

Now, to begin, I’d just like to note that the proponents of inerrancy that I know of would easily confess this. For instance, Old Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield, truly old-school on inerrancy, makes a big deal about the way Paul’s letters bear his distinctive stamp–they have the unique marks of his very human personality, thought, and history. And yet, Warfield still affirms that they are God’s works and are to be identified with him. In other words, he ascribes to a view of dual authorship whereby, without violating creaturely freedom and contingency, God somehow brings it about that Paul writes what he wanted him to write; even though they’re human words, it doesn’t prevent them from somehow being divine ones as well. That’s why Jesus can say “it is written”, and Paul can quote the OT and say “Scripture says”, as if it were equivalent to “God says.”

Warfield writes:

When the Christian asserts his faith in the divine origin of his Bible, he does not mean to  deny that it was composed and written by men or that it was given by men to the world. He believes that the marks of its human origin are ineradicably stamped on every page of the whole volume. He means to state only that it is not merely human in its origin…

The Scriptures, in other words, are conceived by the writers of the New Testament as through and through God’s book, in every part expressive of His mind, given through men after a fashion which does no violence to their nature as men, and constitutes the book also men’s book as well as God’s, in every part expressive of the mind of its human authors.

In which case, it’s not quite as simple as distinguishing Creator from creation then, because the two are related. The integrity and characteristics of the one speaks to the ability of the other.

“God-Breathed Humans” and Types of Perfection

Hunt also points out that the other thing we read in Scripture was God-breathed were humans–and they clearly weren’t perfect, just good. Cutting off a quick objection, he says we can’t simply point to the Fall either and say, “Well, we were and then we became sinful.” The Bible only says that we were very good, and yet clearly we were capable of temptation. I mean, we’re not God, so how could we be perfect? So neither is the Bible.

Now once again, yes, humans are not perfect–certainly not as God is perfect. And yet that isn’t the end of it. You see, we are meant to be perfected in redemption, just as we were meant to be perfected in the Garden. Just as there is an eschatological dimension to our salvation now, there was one then; God had the goal of bringing his “good” creation to a point of perfection. One thing we always forget about the glory of salvation is that one day we will be made like Christ, the perfectly glorified human one, without becoming the Creator. We will be a perfectly redeemed creation. What I’m trying to say is that simply pointing out that the Bible isn’t God, doesn’t mean it can’t be perfect. It means it can’t be perfect in the way God is, but it doesn’t rule out a derivative, analogical sort of perfection–perfect for the sort of thing that it is. Eventually we will be perfect for the sorts of non-divine things we are. It seems at least possible then, for something created, like the Bible, to be perfect in it’s own particular way.

Intermediaries and Incarnation

I’ll be briefer here because this point follows after the others, but Hunt makes something of the Bible coming by way of intermediaries. Just as God used dirt to make humans and so we came out a bit dirty (not in that sense), God used dirty humans to get his message across and they wrote a “dirty”  Bible. It’s good enough, but since it is the work of a human intermediary we shouldn’t expect perfection.

Now, to my mind, it seems relevant that we believe in a Gospel that has the Incarnation right at its center. The Divine Son, takes up humanity in order to perfectly say and do what God says and does in a human way. To put it another way, the man Jesus Christ’s saying and doing is simply God saying and doing as a human. Humanity made in the Image of God, set free from sin, is apparently a fit vehicle for the perfect-but-veiled revelation of God himself in Jesus. I’ll be the first to throw up a big caution before collapsing the Creator/creature distinction, but working from the Incarnation, as unique and unrepeatable as it is, we seem to be presented with the truth that a thing’s non-divinity does not disqualify it as medium of perfect, if limited, revelation.

Now, to be sure, “perfect” does not mean “complete” or “full without remainder.” In that sense, yes, we see “through a glass darkly.” This side of the eschaton we do not know all things, nor do we know them as God does; we should not expect to. We can trust that God has perfectly told us those things we need to know now in order to know God fully then. Incidentally, to use that verse as an argument for the errancy of Scripture is as persuasive exegetically as cessationists’ appeal to it as evidence that the gifts ended when we got the Bible–which is to say, not very much at all because those verses aren’t talking about the Bible.

Again, this isn’t a full response, nor was it intended to be. I’m sure I haven’t convinced anybody as to the inerrancy, non-inerrancy, or infalliblity of the Bible. There are probably 20 different issues I could have brought up that play a role in our understanding of Scripture. I simply wanted to make a few clarifying points with respect to Divine authorship, redemption, and Incarnation that might shed some light on the possibility of the Bible’s “perfection.”

Soli Deo Gloria

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June 3, 2013

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“Does God Need to Be Woken Up?” Calvin’s 6 Reasons We Should Pray

prayerPrayer is oxygen to the Christian life–without it, we’ll eventually choke and die. Knowing this Calvin devoted a significant section of the Institutes to the topic of prayer. In it he gives attention to the theology of prayer, the proper form, and has a wonderful section commenting on the Lord’s Prayer. Practical-minded theologian and pastor that he was, he knew that some have objections or questions about prayer.

A very common one, now and then, runs along the lines of “If God is God, shouldn’t he already know what we need without us having to ask for it? Does he need to be woken up or something?” Calvin says the people who ask that haven’t yet noted in scripture that”he ordained it not so much for his own sake as for ours.”  Just as in worship, God is rightly owed the praise he is offered, but the profit of this sacrifice also, by which he is worshiped, returns to us.” The same is true in prayer. So, “while we grow dull and stupid toward our miseries, he watches and keeps guard on our behalf, and sometimes even helps us unasked, still it is very important for us to call upon him.”

Calvin then lists six reasons God wants us to pray to him:

First, that our hearts may be fired with a zealous and burning desire ever to seek, love, and serve him, while we become accustomed in every need to flee to him as to a sacred anchor.

Secondly, that there may enter our hearts no desire and no wish at all of which we should be ashamed to make him a witness, while we learn to set all our wishes before his eyes, and even to pour out our whole hearts.

Thirdly, that we be prepared to receive his benefits with true gratitude of heart and thanksgiving, benefits that our prayer reminds us come from his hand [cf. Psalm 145:15-16].

Fourthly, moreover, that, having obtained what we were seeking, and being convinced that he has answered our prayers, we should be led to meditate upon his kindness more ardently.

And fifthly, that at the same time we embrace with greater delight those things which we acknowledge to have been obtained by prayers.

Finally, that use and experience may, according to the measure of our feebleness, confirm his providence, while we understand not only that he promises never to fail us, and of his own will opens the way to call upon him at the very point of necessity, but also that he ever extends his hand to help his own, not wet-nursing them with words but defending them with present help.

-Institutes, III.20.4

Without prayer, our sinful hearts are blind and deaf to the myriad ways God is constantly providing for us all that we need, confirming his promises. It is for these reasons, and more, that God invites us to pray, and indeed at times, “gives the impression of one sleeping or idling in order that he may thus train us, otherwise idle and lazy, to seek, ask, and entreat him to our great good.”

This is why Calvin thinks it “excessive foolishness” to point to God’s providence as an excuse for prayerlessness. If scripture teaches us both that God is providentially guiding all things and yet teaches us to call upon his name in prayer, then it is godlessness parading itself as wisdom to teach otherwise. Calvin reminds us of the text “For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears toward their prayers” [1 Peter 3:12; Psalm 34:15; cf. 33:16, Vg.], which “commends the providence of God” and does “not to omit the exercise of faith.” Scripure teaches both and so we should believe and practice both.

Let no one claim Calvin as a support for their prayerlessness. A strong grasp of God’s providence might stop our prayers from being panicked, wheedling, bargaining sessions, but it should never turn us away from persistently seeking out God for all of our good.

Soli Deo Gloria

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May 27, 2013

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Meet the Family

victoria_family_tree_1901Family trees can be fascinating. At some point we all get this itch to find out where we come from, who we are, or whether our ancestry contains some famous personage. We have this sense that knowing our roots says something about who we are; our identity is caught up in our heritage. I know for myself, there’s been a rumor going around that there is some Crusader blood somewhere up the family tree on my mother’s side, the Bendecks. I did some digging online–the kind you can do without paying money for blood tests and all that–and there might be something to it.

John Jefferson Davis points out that this fascination with our ancestry ought to be one more thing driving us to read our Bibles:

How do we understand our fundamental identity and purpose in life as we approach the Scriptures in prayerful meditation? Our sense of personal identity, either conscious or unconsciously presupposed, does influence the way we approach texts. If I am looking at a set of papers and hearing my friend explain her family tree and the fruits of her genealogical research, I may listen with polite and sincer interest; if someone shows me surprising new information about my family tree–that I am descended from some great celebrity from the past–then my interest is even deeper!

The Bible is, in a very real sense, my “family tree.” I read the biblical text not as an outsider but as an insider. Jesus Christ, the central character in the entire biblical narrative is not a stranger to me but–by virtue of my union with him–is my ancestor, my brother, and my beloved friend. “My lover is mine and I am his…His banner over me is love.” (Song 2:16, 4)

–Meditation and Communion with God: Contemplating Scripture in an Age of Distraction, pg. 80

This, I think, was one of the advantages of being raised in in Sunday School; I’ve always had a vivid sense that when I was learning the flannel-graph stories about the patriarchs, I was learning something about myself. In ways more subtle than a 2nd grader could grasp, I was being ecclesially and scripturally-formed.

In one sense, I’ve always known that the Bible is not about me. It certainly wasn’t addressed to me when it was written, but the original communities which formed the people of God addressed by the prophets and apostles; my name appears nowhere in the text. At a deeper level though, Scripture is not about somebody else, but intimately involves me because I am united to its main character. Because of that, when I read the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1, I’m not just reading about Jesus’ royal lineage, but my own. If I am in Christ, then King David is my flawed but glorious grandfather; Ruth is my redeemed pagan grandmother; Jacob is my ingenious but duplicitous forefather. As Paul argues, by faith I am included in the covenant people of God so that I am one of the heirs promised to Abraham (Rom. 4). Because of this, the failures of Israel are my family’s failures as are her glories.

And this is simply one more reason we should want to read our Bibles–it’s how we meet the family.

Soli Deo Gloria