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.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
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
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
Friday, November 13, 2009
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.
Monday, November 2, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Distinction
The root for "distinction" is the latin prefix dis which means "apart" or "off, away".* This is significant for our discussion on the nature of law and gospel, for if a distinction between the two is warranted, it will always be rooted in keeping the two "apart, off, away." To distinguish between law and gospel is to keep them away from each other. This act of itself is neutral and can be either good or bad depending on what is intended in the separating. At hand right now is whether the law and the gospel should be distinguished for the salvation of the individual. Can a person enter into covenant with Christ without making this distinction? Is this distinction to be made by us or has it been made by God for us, or both? Does the distinction require a seperation of the two entities "as far as the east is from the west" (Luther) or is some manner of proximity kept?
What is at stake in this matter is the never-ending life or damnation of both me and the hearers, so those who consider this a philosophic abstraction ought to remember that God dwells in the abstract and the unreachable, and it is from the abstract that the Word of forgiveness comes to us (John 1). With this in mind we must suffer the abstracts and pay careful attention.
I want to finish this post with another scripture to chew on: "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." (Gal 3:10)
* Taken from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=distinguish
What is at stake in this matter is the never-ending life or damnation of both me and the hearers, so those who consider this a philosophic abstraction ought to remember that God dwells in the abstract and the unreachable, and it is from the abstract that the Word of forgiveness comes to us (John 1). With this in mind we must suffer the abstracts and pay careful attention.
I want to finish this post with another scripture to chew on: "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." (Gal 3:10)
* Taken from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=distinguish
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Current trends on Law and Gospel.
Recently a number of provocative conversations, essays and articles have prompted me to consider the distinction of Law and Gospel in the scriptural text, and whether such a distinction can be made. I guess this started when I read Scot Mcknight's commentary on Galatians, noticing that the bibliography of consulted works omitted any mention of Luther's historic work on this epistle. It seemed almost a statement in and of itself, especially in lieu of the fact that the only commentary written prior to the 20th century that he mentioned using was Thomas Aquinas'. When I had the opportunity to ask him about this in person, he sneered and said very sharply," I don't buy into the whole "Law and Gospel" distinction that Luther made in the scriptures."
Since the distinction of "Law and Gospel" had until now been meat and potatoes for me-one of the most freeing distinctions I have ever learned- I too was sneering (but for different reasons). To be sure, I had heard a fellow once say rather blithely that the Jewish consciousness had no knowledge of such categorizations, and that they were eisegetically imposed onto the text with Enlightenment presuppositions (a historical falsity, given that philosophic "distinctions" were used obsessively in Medieval interpretations of scripture). But nothing like this from a theologian and scholar in the Protestant quarter!
Later I read an interview* given for Ben Witherington III's first volume in "The Indelible Image" series where he mentions that," in some cases the Reformer did Paul no service by setting up contrasts between law and grace..." and in my Sermon on the Mount Class my professor began to excitedly talk about Christ bringing out a "new Law" with requirements that must be fulfilled. Verse by verse we were inculcated with the "reality" that the beatitudes were moral expectations (I never knew it was commendable to have an impoverished spirit!), that every jot and tittle of the old law must be understood and re-applied to today. The passages on anger, lust and divorce are covenantal expectations that (if not fulfilled) bring eternal damnation on the believer. At one point I asked my professor," So, this is the gospel that Christ came to bring?" to which I received an affirming nod. I gulped some air before saying rather snidely," Gee, that sure is good news." He thought so. I had never met someone who thought the "new law of the Sermon on the Mount", the law that expects much more of us than Moses did, was the gospel of our salvation! Such is where we have arrived now that the distinction between law and grace has been done away with... right back where Luther was in the 1500's, wrestling with Satans great effort to turn Christ into a "new Moses". I wouldn't be surprised if John 1:17 were re-worked to say," The law was given through Moses, and it came down much harder through Jesus Christ." Of course, not even those who think like this obey the covenant demands of Christ (numbering in the hundreds), and the ones in history who tried (most notably Tolstoy) spent their life in cyclical misery and despair. They would not be quite so quick to call this type of thinking "good news".
At any rate, this is alot of rhetoric and not enough research. In the up-coming posts this month I hope (God willing) to begin investigating the scriptural judgment of law from divers portions of the canon to test this new type of thinking. In the meantime, I leave this little chestnut for any passing reader to chew on:
"Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!" (2 Cor 3:7-9).
Distinctive or unitive? Would anyone say with a straight face that the gospel and the "ministry that brought death" are inseperable?
*Taken from "The Indelible Image---The Interview", Ben Witherington III
(http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2009/10/the-indelible-image---the-interview.html)
Since the distinction of "Law and Gospel" had until now been meat and potatoes for me-one of the most freeing distinctions I have ever learned- I too was sneering (but for different reasons). To be sure, I had heard a fellow once say rather blithely that the Jewish consciousness had no knowledge of such categorizations, and that they were eisegetically imposed onto the text with Enlightenment presuppositions (a historical falsity, given that philosophic "distinctions" were used obsessively in Medieval interpretations of scripture). But nothing like this from a theologian and scholar in the Protestant quarter!
Later I read an interview* given for Ben Witherington III's first volume in "The Indelible Image" series where he mentions that," in some cases the Reformer did Paul no service by setting up contrasts between law and grace..." and in my Sermon on the Mount Class my professor began to excitedly talk about Christ bringing out a "new Law" with requirements that must be fulfilled. Verse by verse we were inculcated with the "reality" that the beatitudes were moral expectations (I never knew it was commendable to have an impoverished spirit!), that every jot and tittle of the old law must be understood and re-applied to today. The passages on anger, lust and divorce are covenantal expectations that (if not fulfilled) bring eternal damnation on the believer. At one point I asked my professor," So, this is the gospel that Christ came to bring?" to which I received an affirming nod. I gulped some air before saying rather snidely," Gee, that sure is good news." He thought so. I had never met someone who thought the "new law of the Sermon on the Mount", the law that expects much more of us than Moses did, was the gospel of our salvation! Such is where we have arrived now that the distinction between law and grace has been done away with... right back where Luther was in the 1500's, wrestling with Satans great effort to turn Christ into a "new Moses". I wouldn't be surprised if John 1:17 were re-worked to say," The law was given through Moses, and it came down much harder through Jesus Christ." Of course, not even those who think like this obey the covenant demands of Christ (numbering in the hundreds), and the ones in history who tried (most notably Tolstoy) spent their life in cyclical misery and despair. They would not be quite so quick to call this type of thinking "good news".
At any rate, this is alot of rhetoric and not enough research. In the up-coming posts this month I hope (God willing) to begin investigating the scriptural judgment of law from divers portions of the canon to test this new type of thinking. In the meantime, I leave this little chestnut for any passing reader to chew on:
"Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!" (2 Cor 3:7-9).
Distinctive or unitive? Would anyone say with a straight face that the gospel and the "ministry that brought death" are inseperable?
*Taken from "The Indelible Image---The Interview", Ben Witherington III
(http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2009/10/the-indelible-image---the-interview.html)
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
A few words..
The first portion of the Westminster Catechism has been applied wrongly. Somewhere along the line, we took "the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever" to mean "the chief end of man is to glorify Karl Barth and enjoy him forever." If I have children, I hope they will not make the same catachetical error.
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