Missions

1. Whenever we ponder the subject of Missions, we would do well to constantly remember that it is not some justifying work that we are up to. It would be nonsensical to suppose that we earn or add to our salvation by going out and telling people about the grace of Jesus Christ. Those who think like this may do well to sit tight at home.

2. "I tell you the truth...no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age...." Mk 10:39-30.

3. From this proposition it is clear that missions is about Jesus and the good news. We merely go out because the gospel is so radically good and Jesus is so profoundly beautiful. I would argue that a true missionary is the happiest person alive. Missions without joy is not missions.

4. It is also clear that the purpose behind this work is neither political nor cultural nor economic...but theological.

5. It is written in Isaiah: "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news..." and therein lies the hammer against alot of current missiology. We are not going out to different places to get good news but to bring it. Missions is certainly not about fuzzy conversations with Muslims or Jews or Buddhists, it is not about stilling ourselves to hear the voice of God already speaking in the other, nor is it one big pat on the back of indigenous idolatry. The missionary comes to deliver something that has not yet been heard: news...good news. He is coming to proclaim that Christ is the Lord and the Savior of all men, and thus these particular men. And as for Belial: "What harmony is there between Christ and idols?" to paraphrase Paul. We are not looking for something but always bringing something.

6. Yet since missions is always about the gospel, it can never be a work apart from grace. God has given us the ministry of reconciliation in mercy (so Paul). The atrocities committed in the name of Jesus Christ throughout the ages does not nullify this point but establishes it. Mercy is only ever rendered to sinners. The Missionary is the sinner.

7. But since this ministry is indeed a work of mercy, we may certainly not lose heart. To quote from Boris of Goldeneye: "I am invincible!!!!" Yes indeed, and yet far more than invincible... a conquerer.

8. And again, since the gospel is a matter of free grace, we ought not to lose heart if we gain not a single convert. Henri Nouwen once said that "ministry is not based on success but on promises." And that alone is enough, for we are merely conveying to others what God has already done on their behalf.

9. And if there be opposition, we must remember that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Salt stings and light blinds. "If they hated me, they will hate you also."

A Theology of Atheism?

"If he is cursing because the LORD said to him, 'Curse David,' who can ask, 'Why do you do this?'" "Leave him alone; let him curse, for the LORD has told him to."

-David (When Shimei stood to mock him in his flight from Absalom)

Have you ever wondered what theological purpose atheists serve for this earth? How exactly do they serve the Sovereign Lord, and what has he raised them up for? It would be interesting to investigate this question via scriptural exegesis and solid theological (and philosophical work).

I used to think that they were a sort of bulwark of reason and scientific knowledge. In that sense one could propose that they have been sent to rebuke the Church's severe lack of understanding and thoughtlessness in regards to the aforementioned epistemic regimes. But that cannot really suffice for a doctrine of atheism. I have seen just as many close-minded and thoughtless atheists in regards to reason and science as I have Christians within the church. Besides, there are still far too many good scientists and philosophers in the church for any need of this rebuke (one is reminded off-hand of the quantum physicist John Polkinghorne or the phenomenologist Paul Ricoer). What then?

This might be pseudo-Barthian, but could it be that their publications of rhetoric and mockery against Christianity or even religion in general are their raison d'être? A Christopher Hitchins or a Richard Dawkins cannot teach us much about reason, but what they can do is shame us and oppose us with their ice and their slander. This has the effect of humbling all of our religious attempts to move beyond or manipulate the Revelation of God in Christ. We think we have scientific ownership of God much as 'scientismists' (my own word) claim in regards to truth and reality. Both of us are dead wrong. God opposes the proud. But often he will use a proud man to bring down another proud man.

Just some naive considerations.

The Cosmos and the Eschaton: Renewal or Destruction?

It's become somewhat of a fashion in the church (and the theological intelligentsia?) to supplement our discussions of ecology with a bit of revised eschatology. Lately I've heard- in popular books on theology, in my college, and in the pulpit- some pretty excited talk about the continuity of the present cosmos with the future one. In keeping with the spirit of theological neology; the latest idea about Heaven and the future of Earth is the real-meal-deal. Any previous doctrines in this respect require demythologisation, discarding or simple neglect. Today it is not uncommon to believe that the orthodox view of heaven has a developmental history that goes something like this: the scriptural narrative was exegetically distorted sometime in the early centuries of the church to keep in step with the influences of platonic philosophy (does that not already reek of absolute ignorance in regard to patristics?). This trend of syncretism saw the body as essentially unworthy of future glory, along with the present cosmos. And so an eschatology was promulgated in which the universe would be completely destroyed and remade in complete (perhaps even disembodied) discontinuity with the previous one.

It gives me shivers and a bit of bile when people attribute every doctrine they do not like to some nebulous outbreak of platonism in the early church (ie. the doctrine of God's atemporality, impassibility, the duality of the soul etc..) But I'm getting a little off topic.

In light of this deconstruction, the fashionable eschatology of our day advances in a manner something like this:

1. God would not destroy his good creation. Therefore the present cosmos will not be discarded.

2. God has taken steps to reconcile the universe to himself (cf. col 1:20).

3. The future age will see a marriage between Heaven and Earth.

4. The universe as we know it will be "renewed"....made exponentially better. It will not be destroyed.

As in all theological trends, there is something to this idea. In one of Peter's first recorded speech's in the book of Acts, he mentions that Jesus "must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago by his holy prophets. (3:21)" Moreover, the book of Colossians speaks of God reconciling "all things" in this universe to himself.

Doesn't this unquestionably call for an emphasis on continuity? This could be. But if we are going to synthesize and establish a biblical definition of continuity, we need to make use of all of the relevant biblical themes. I put this recent trend to the test with a few simple questions:

1. 2 Peter ch.3 provides a number of necessary predicates for our talk of continuity. Is the "renewal" trend ready and willing to make usage of these predicates?

Can they say, for instance, that "the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men"?

Do they agree that "the heavens will disappear with a roar, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare"?

Will they teach that "That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat"?

While holding to the "renewal of all things", do they equally agree that "everything will be destroyed"?

2 Peter is merely an isolated test case. The prophetic texts also use phrases like "dissolve", "rolling up like a scroll", "withered", "shriveled", "shake", "tremble", "darkened", "perish", "discarded", "wear out", "vanish like smoke" and so on.

However we emphasize continuity in our eschatology; we cannot explain away these statements as mere inconveniences. We have to use them. We have to learn from them. They have to formulate a true constraint and a true provision in our definition of the future cosmos.

Did God know I Would Exist?

Open theism is a remarkably popular theological trend these days in certain evangelical circles of North America. One of its main tenets is the unknowability of the future which exists as a consequence of God's decision to create a cosmos with genuinely free moral agents. John Polkinghorne explains:

"If even the omnipotent God cannot act to change the past, it does not seem any more conceivable that the omniscient God can know with certainty the unformed future. He may well be able to make highly informed conjectures about its possible shape, he may have prepared his plans for any eventuality, but in his actual experience and knowledge he must be open to the consequences of the exercise of human free will and...the evolution of cosmic free process." (Science and Providence p.90)

Other open theists argue that a substantial act of libertarian freedom must normatively preclude any comprehensive foreknowledge on the part of God (for a survey of these writers, see Terrance Tiessen's Providence and Prayer p.71-119).

This prompts me to ask a number of important critical questions:

Was my parents decision to conceive me an act of libertarian freedom? If so, was God unaware say, fifty years ago that they would choose to have a second child (who turned out to be me)?

If God knew that I certainly would exist, would this not require that the birthing of specific individuals into the world is a deterministic procedure? Were-to use the critical tone of open theist polemic- my parents mere puppets in a cosmic show, tautologously deciding to do something that was already foreknown and thus completely controlled by God?

If someone were to say that God knew me from eternity and would have found another way to ensure my coming-to-be had my parents decided against conception, I would say: What do you mean? For there is no logically adequate way to show how I could truly be I without my inherited gene structure, and my social conditioning (both of which have arisen out of the specific context of my parents putatively free decision to conceive).

Frankly, I see no way to ensure my existence from eternity if libertaran freedom requires an open future. God did not plan me but responded ad hoc to my parents sexual decision and worked with it.

This has very profound and vast consequences for how one would talk of Christ's redemptive work on the cross. For instance:

If the future was open as to whether or not I would come about, can I appropriately refer to the cross as an act of love for me? Did Jesus die concretely for my sin? Apparently not, since all of my sins-arising from the open and uncertain possibility of my coming to being roughly 2,000 years after the death of Jesus- could not have been known by Jesus and thus in no way atoned for.

At the very least, the penal-substitutionary, the ransom, and the governmental understandings of atonement would have to be discarded wholesale. Yet even the moral-example theory suddenly loses its lustre! Jesus certainly did not leave an example for me, but for humanity in general, more specifically those human beings who were alive to witness the cross. I could only truly extrapolate from the cross a personal redemptive love by saying," Look at what he did for the world of his time! If I were alive then, he surely would have done it for me!" I certainly could not say that Jesus died with "my name graven on his hand, my name written on his heart". After all, true love always makes provision for the freedom of the other. God so valued the freedom of my parents that he limited his knowledge as to whether I would exist or not.

Is this blasphemy, heresy, stupid theology or all three at the same time? Or is it just the case that God knew all along that I would exist because He ordained me to exist in Christ from all eternity, knowing fully my parents decision to conceive? I leave it to the reader to judge.

Polemical Disputations on Faith and Works.

1. Much to the chagrin of all modern sophists who pose as theologians of the Word, faith and works are not irrevocably tied together. They are to be distinguished.

2. "Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness" Rom 4:4-5.

3. If one attempts to marry "belief" and "good deeds" in order to be justified before God, he gains neither justification nor good deeds nor belief (God help us all).

4. For the justification of God is rendered only to those who "do not work but trust God".

5. And good deeds are only substantially "good" in the sight of God after the man has been justified.

6. And "belief" is only present in the one who-though fully wicked- casts himself on the promise of God's grace rather than the synergistic potential of good deeds.

7. It is the undeserved favor of God, not substantially good deeds, that serve as the foundation for our eternal life (Ti 3:4-5).

8. It is the purpose of God, not "anything we have done" that wins us a place in Heaven (2 Tim 1:9).

9. Therefore justifying faith must always be divorced from the realm of human activity according to the Word of Christ.

10. It has been duly established by God that the realm of justification (from first to last) serves as a locus of reality where faith and works are forever separate. This is why we call the Word of God "good news".

11. Those who try to marry faith and deeds for justification succeed only in denying the Word of God, blaspheming His promise, scoffing at the "Good News" and propelling troubled souls into uncertainty about their salvation. We cannot guard ourselves against this enough.


Dear Father,

We are all of us impious wretches. On the one point you wish to console our broken souls, we take it and malign it with all of our "good deeds". Save all of us, from greatest to least, from disbelieving the simple truth of your gospel, that you saved us apart from anything we did or ever will do. I am so frustrated with myself and with others. In Jesus Name.

Amen

Thoughts on my flu.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was absolutely correct when he referred to sickness as judgment (cf. spiritual care). In the event of our sickness we have to do with the troubling reality that no one-not even God's child- is exempt from punishment for sin (1 Pe 4:17). Not that there is always necessarily a causal relationship between a concrete sin and subsequent illness, for we may well learn to say with Job: "Though I were innocent, I could not answer him; I could only plead with my Judge for mercy" (9:15). In truth our weakness instructs us with the reality that no one is blameless, and our hardships are endured as discipline. Within this frame of time the nature of God as Abba is ferociously tested and called into question through God's own hiddenness and wrath. We cannot bring ourselves to imagine that God would be the sort of person who would throw His arms around us, kiss us and weep with utter love. We begin to accept judgment as the proper revelation of God and lose hold of His generous adoption of us. God is now solely Master, Judge, Avenger, Hidden, Wrathful, Infinite and Terrible. The sacred scriptures witness against us; the beautiful creation witnesses against us, the promises dissapear, personal sanctity slithers away, conscience condemns, the brethren tremble and the fire of Hell irrevocably summons us. We cannot see Jesus as anyone other than the eschatological judge who approaches us only to say," Depart from me, you who are accursed, into the eternal fire!" Sickness is temptation; sickness is truth. But it is not true enough.

Forty Theses Against the Godless and Impious Doctrine that Salvation-once conferred on man- can be Lost.

1.Salvation is referred to by Paul as “the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). Since the gifts of God cannot be revoked (Rom 11:29), it follows that those who suppose salvation can be revoked despise the nature of the gift and treat God’s Word with contempt, which clearly says that it cannot be revoked.

2. James speaks in similar terms when he calls the gifts of God “good and perfect” (1:17). But how can it be said that God’s gift of salvation is perfect if it lacks: 1.Certainty 2.Eternality and 3. Immutability? Thus to teach that salvation can be lost is to mock God, who promises a perfect salvation.

3. In order to confirm the unchanging and glorious salvation given to us in Christ, God took an oath in His own Name (Heb 6:16-20). Those who maintain that the salvation given to us in Christ can be lost blaspheme God most severely, making Him out to be a liar.

4.Furthermore, they make God out to be a promise-breaker and thus lead many into the sin of unbelief.

5. These mockers think that the security of God’s oath rests on human perseverance.

6. And since human perseverance is faulty, they judge God’s oath to be insecure.

7. But Christ has become our high priest forever, and He most certainly will not fail.

8. Furthermore, it has been decreed from Heaven that God “will keep (us) strong to the end, so that (we) will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful (1 Cor 1:8-9).”

9. Those who affirm that salvation can be lost treat this promise as nothing, which clearly states that we shall be kept strong to the very end.

10. They also inadvertently scoff at God’s faithfulness which is enjoined by Paul to certify this promise.

11. They refer to passages like Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-31 to build their case. Thus they choose a hermeneutical axiom which begins with God’s wrath and judgment, whereas “Mercy triumphs over judgment!” (Jas 2:13).

12. Nor do they take into account that the apostasy spoken of in Hebrews is juxtaposed with the “things that accompany salvation” found within the church towards which the letter was written (6:9-10).

13. They say that salvation is only secure on the condition that we persevere unto the end. Thus they teach that a man is saved by God on account of his works rather than by God’s grace.

14. But this is clearly refuted by Paul, who says that God “saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy (Titus 3:5).” It follows that the righteous activity of perseverance will not merit salvation.

15. The Arminian says that God is free to take back what He has given, but the Christian says that God is free to keep His Word.

16. The Arminian says that some of those whom God has justified are later damned, but the Christian says that “those he justified, he also glorified (Rom 8:30).”

17. The Arminian declares that God consigns some of His own children to the everlasting lake of fire. The Christian declares that God keeps and protects His own.

18. For our earthly fathers, twisted as they are, would never allow their own sons and daughters to burn… not even for an hour.

19. But the Arminian teaches that the Heavenly Father revokes the bond of love with His child and banishes him to Hell. In the end the sinful, earthly father is richer in mercy.

20. But God alone is merciful, and thus the Arminian has an idol for a god.

21. They also make God out to be a tyrant much fiercer than has ever before been conceived, who suffers his very children to burn forever in agony without so much as lifting a finger to help them.

22. And if they say that our position as sons and daughters must be maintained, they make adoption out to be a wage earned rather than a gift freely given.

23. For which earthly father with even a smidge of compassion would dare to tell his own flesh and blood,” You must work to maintain your status as my son.” Surely we would call such a father a scoundrel and a knave, not fit to have children!

24. In this manner the Arminian speaks evil of God and will not suffer to imagine that He may be more gracious than an earthly father.

25. But God is a gracious Father to those who believe (Gal 3:26), thus it would take great mental gymnastics to imagine that He would let His beloved child burn.

26. And yet an Arminian insists that God is love, and love always values free will. Thus if we as His children choose the path that leads to destruction, God will honor our choice.

27. In this they rob God of all responsibility, who does not forbid His children from running into eternal destruction.

28. Yet not even an earthly parent- who sees his stubborn child attempting to run into a busy thoroughfare- would dare to honor the free choice of the child and look on as he is crushed. Such a parent would be judged wicked!

29. How much less will our Heavenly Father honor our blind and stupid wills when they rush off towards Hell and destruction?

30. Moreover, the will that even considers evil an option is not truly free.

31. And the scriptures have decreed that “there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God (Rom 3:11).”

32. How then can the Arminian say that there are some who seek God? They cannot do so without pitting themselves against this word.

33. Yet they point to the droves of people in history or their own personal experience who professed Christ with all sincerity but later fell away.

34. In this manner they think that their personal experiences nullify the clarity of God’s oath and promise.

35. But God has declared that those who leave the faith “did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us (1 John 2:19).”

36. Since “none of them” who go out from the faith belonged to us, it follows that none of them were ever Christians.

37. And if they insist that these people truly were Christians, we choose to disregard their balbutiations in favor of the Word, which says that “none of them belonged to us.”

38. For surely one Word of God trumps the testimony of 10,000 Arminians!

39. Jesus Christ Himself witnesses to the eternal security of the believer when He says that,” a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever (John 8:35).”

40. And since a son belongs to the family of God forever, we profess that our salvation can at no time be lost.

*The author of these disputations is not a Calvinist. Nor does he think that he need be one to maintain the Christian truth of eternal security. The author also wishes to have it made clear that a person who holds to the Arminian doctrine can indeed be a Christian, but that his doctrines belong to the unbelieving nature which wars against his soul.