Preaching the Synoptic Gospels

I finally finshed up my reading on faith and science. That was certainly a lot to think about. I’ll post about those ideas in the next few weeks as I get my thoughts together for my Sunday school series.

So, I finally get to read something I am interested in for a few weeks. I immediately pulled Brad Young’s latest book, Meet the Rabbis off the shelf – I’ve been dying to read it for months. It reminded me about how much I love the “Jerusalem School” of Synoptic  interpretation. That is something I’ve never really posted about so I thought I’d do that here. I first encountered this movement while studying the historical background of the New Testament in graduate school. It was marvelous. I thought my brain was going to explode. The context of first century Judaism is one of the most (if not the most) important aspects of Synoptic interpretation. Since the early 80s, the Jerusalem School has used rabbinical tradition and Jewish cultural context to frame the words of Jesus (It began with the work of David Flusser, Robert Lindsey, and Shmuel Safrai at Hebrew University). In its rabbinical context, Jesus’ words reveal precise interpretation – something lost in our generalized, Westernized approach to scripture. For me, they do what Robert Alter and Simon Bar-Efrat have done for the Old Testament. If you are preaching the gospels and have not digested their research, chances are good you may be missing a significant part of its meaning – particularly the parables. And that doesn’t have to do with our ability to interpret a text, but rather our inability to fully interpret without the original rabbinical references. All the Greek in the world won’t help you unearth those Hebraisms that inform that original interpretation.

Though not all of the books below originated in the “Jerusalem School,” here’s a good list to start with when learning about Synoptic context and rabbinical tradition:

Brad Young, The Parables: Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation

Kenneth Bailey, Poet and Peasant/Through Peasant Eyes

David Bivin and Roy Blizzard, Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus

David Daube,  The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism

Julius Scott, Jewish Backgrounds of the New Testament

Marvin Wilson, Our Father Abraham

David Flusser, The Sage of Galilee

David Instone-Brewer, Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testment: Prayer and Agriculture

Oskar Skarsaune, In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity

 Do yourself a favor and read everything Young and Bailey have written.

Here’s a thought: a lot of folks are worried about “postfoundationalist” interpretation of the Bible – that there is no “framework” in which to firmly place Jesus’ teachings. But it seems that Jesus made sure that his words would not be interpreted too far from his original intent. He didn’t choose archaeology or geography to anchor his teachings. He chose literature – rabbinic literature to be exact. And the literature/oral tradition with which Jesus interacted (the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Tannaitic Midrashim, etc.) has been painstakingly preserved by its followers. So, the “reference” points of the gospels are as strong today as when they were spoken by Jesus himself. Curious about the “framework” from which Jesus taught? Check out the books above.

Confessions of an Open Theist, Part 1: The Biblical Text

When I first began to study open theism, I read all the obvious books on the subject: Pinnock, Boyd, Sanders, Rice, etc. But more helpful were the resources these authors drew from. So rather quickly, I began to read the sources behind open theism books:  Dutch Reformed South African Adrio Konig, Lutheran Terence Fretheim, Methodists Lorenzo McCabe and Adam Clarke, Old Testament scholars Walter Brueggemann, John Goldingay, and Samuel Balentine, as well as theistic philosophers like Johannes Wendland, Richard Swinburne and Vincent Brummer. Scientists like John Polkinghorne and Arthur Peacocke affirm the open view as well. What’s more, the Jewish community seemed to already accept this “give-and-take” view of God, as evidenced by the modern writings of Abraham Heschel and David Wolpe, among others (not to mention ancient writings – for example, see Honi the Circle Drawer in the Mishnah). They all seemed to be taking the biblical text seriously in a way I had never seen before. Basing their conclusions on the biblical narrative alone, they all seemed to be just fine with the idea that God acted within at least a partially unknown future and invited involvement of humans in making decisions that ultimately shaped that future.

Most commonly, Old Testament passages dealing with the concept of repentance and limitation caught my attention. Here are some examples. God regretted the direction that creation had taken in the pre-flood world (Gen. 6:6). In Genesis 18:16-33, God actually involved Abraham in deciding whether or not to destroy Sodom. God commented after Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac: “now I know that you truly fear God” (Gen. 22:12). God also regretted making Saul king, but due to the insistence of the Israelites, he allowed the appointment of a king anyway. He was dismayed over the fact that his original intent was to bless Saul’s family for generations (1 Sam. 13:13, 15:10, 35). Even then, God made a way of blessing for Saul’s family (different from his original intent) through Mephibosheth (2 Sam. 9). Responding to prayer, God extended Hezekiah’s life by fifteen years after he had already decreed his death (2 Kings 20:1-6/Jeremiah 26:19). The entire book of Jonah is about God’s willingness to change his mind concerning the destruction of Nineveh. The humor of the story is found in the fact that Jonah becomes irate when God pardons them - read Jonah 4 and see Jonah rant about God’s “ungodlike” willingness to rescind judgment. 

The prophets are full of examples where God expected one outcome, another occurs, and God adapts his plan of restoration and reconciliation to accommodate the new scenario. With every twist and turn, God had an answer. God discusses his dashed expectations with Israel in Isaiah 5:1-5. Jeremiah 3:6-7, 19-20 relays God’s hopes only to have Israel choose something else instead. Jeremiah also records God expressing shock/surprise over Israel’s sin – so much so that their disobedience “never entered [his] mind” (Jer. 19:5). God uses words like, “perhaps,”  ”might” or ”may” over and over again to show his optimism for future contingencies (Ex. 4:5, Ezek. 12:3, Jer. 26:3).

Then, you’ve also got passages in the New Testament that are based upon conditional/temporal presumptions. In Matthew 26:39, Jesus asks the Father to choose another avenue of human redemption other than the cross “if it is possible.” Either Jesus is not very theologically saavy or he knows something we don’t by asking if another possibility exists. Peter proclaims that Christians can cooperatively determine the time when Jesus returns to earth, “hastening the day of the Lord” (2 Peter 3:12). The apostles often mentioned God’s continual struggle to get humans to believe in his redemptive plan and relay God’s dissapointment if they resist. See Ephesians 4:30, Acts 7:51, and Hebrews 3:8 and 15.

Our preconceived understanding of determinism and omniscience often colors the conventional interpretation of a biblical passage. The potter and the clay passage in Jeremiah 18 is a great example of this. We normally quote verse 6: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.” But verses 8-10 show God changing his mind as to how to deal with the Israelites or any other nation for that matter: “[if a] nation renounces its evil ways, I will (relent/reconsider/change my mind) not destroy it as I had (previously) planned. And if…that nation turns to evil and refuses to obey me, I will not bless it as I said I would.” The point (missed so often by those who don’t read the passage fully) is that though God certainly could make creation bend to his divine will, he doesn’t. He chooses to limit that power and, with extreme forbearance, he allows history to be shaped by human decisions by allowing people to freely love him of their own volition. In other words, a passage normally used to bolster classical understandings of God actually favors the “open view” when read fully in its context. 

Open theists take these texts seriously enough to see the future as partially open. Those who hold to classical theism usually say they have the corner market on a “high view” of scripture. And that’s the irony of it all I suppose. Rather than reading particular attributes of God into these passages, open theists merely say, “If God said ‘maybe’ or that he changed his mind, he must have meant it.” What emerges is a very different view of God than the classical one – a God willing to interact with humanity up close and personal. So hermeneutically, rather than some liberal, off-kilter movement with little biblical support, open theism is actually one of the most biblically conservative movements to come along in years – even more so than Neo-orthodoxy. Are there verses that support traditional views of omniscience (by which most actually mean prescience: future knowing)? Sure. But there aren’t as many as you’d think. And, from what I can tell, the above verses (and many others) are conditional – they show an ebb and flow in divine-human relations. Are some historical events “etched in stone”?  Sure there are. But it also appears that there are a whole lot that aren’t.

Next post: pastoral and practical concerns.

Godly Marriage, Pt. 1: Submission vs. Coercion

My wife and I have been married for about nine years. The first two years were hell on earth. Here’s why: we are both “type A” personalities. When we got married, as strong Christians, we assumed that God would automatically adjust our personalities to mesh in a glorious fashion.  That’s didn’t happen – I was offering her a divorce by the end of the first year!

Slowly over time, we developed an understanding of what godly marriage might look like. Surprisingly it looked nothing like what we saw in the church. The majority of spousal teaching we had acquired over the years taught the exact opposite of what we found to be true for us.  I want to share some of that here and in the next three posts as well.

The biggest problem surrounding Christian marriage teaching is the understanding of the word “submission.” I know…it conjures up images of wives waiting on husbands hand and foot, just happy to be alive serving their spouse and children in the name of the Lord.  I actually saw a blog on here a few months back written by a female that attempted to talk women into exactly that…like if you say it over and over to yourself it sounds better or something.  If wives would just submit to their husbands even when they don’t want to, they would find enjoyment and fulfillment in the act. For the record, that concept makes most women want to puke – and for good reason.  Submission, as it is generally understood in church circles, has ruined the true definition of biblical submission. Mostly because it was made up by men and taught by men to get what men have wanted: their wives to do their bidding.

Rather, what the church has taught is “coercion” or “compliance” the act of making another person do your will even when they don’t want to. I have actually been personally told, “you can’t submit until you disagree.” The problem with Christian men who teach such phrases is that they have no intention of listening to what you have to say in the first place. Most people assume that God requires submission in the same way – a subtle form of coercion. Like a boss at work, he makes decisions that you are expected to comply with even when they rob your emotional and physical vitality for some unknown purpose.  Usually such admonishments to submit by Christians are shrouded in mysterious phrases like, “it’s for your own good,” “you’ll see the benefits in the future” or “all things work together for good…” Who’s good are we talking about here?

We’ll discuss the alternative next post.

All Grace Is “Greasy Grace”

I just finished a really unsettling book: “Between Noon and Three” by Episcopal Priest Robert Farrar Capon. The book explored the notion of God’s grace using two “parables”: an affair between a professor and an older student and a murder by the mob. Yeah, I know – crazy. But it works. Capon is a wonderful writer with a great sense of humor. His book reminded me of something I realized several years back.

After I went to a weekend spiritual retreat called Tres Dias (similar to Walk to Emmaus or Cursillo), I was talking to Beth on the way home. “Grace is so dangerous,” I said. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Well, grace is given freely without strings attached. Ever. I’ve never been able to preach that simply for the reason that people may take advantage of the grace of God. The minister in me screams not to tell the congregation, simply because all leverage for moral conformity will be lost. They are free to abuse grace based on God’s design alone.” Beth said, “I don’t know what I think about that.”  “I don’t know either. But if I’m gonna teach the reality of God’s grace, I’m gonna have to come to terms with the fact that in God’s understanding, all grace is greasy grace, no matter what stipulations others may attach to it.” My supportive and loving wife told me to be careful as to the practical outworkings of such a notion, and that was the end of that.

But the truth is grace is dangerous. And there is only one type of grace: greasy. Now, you may have never heard of “greasy grace” but it’s a staple sermon illustration in the South. Greasy grace is the term to describe those people that take the grace of God and then live like the devil. People who cry out to God in distress but ignore him in times of comfort. In other words, greasy grace occurs when someone abuses the liberty that God gives us as Christians. I’m sure you can think of a hundred examples of what that may look like.

But here’s the reality of the free grace of God. For grace to truly be grace, permissive license and abuse must be an option. Otherwise it’s merely a suspension of moral law. The consequences are lifted, but only for a time – then the other shoe drops and we pay for our misdeeds. And that’s when some helpful person inevitably says, “Be sure your sins will find you out!” But let’s face it: it’s not grace until someone really gets away with it. Moralists hate that idea – it robs them of all control. Honestly though, people get away with things all the time. And the other shoe rarely drops. Instant Karma doesn’t getcha. We get away with all manner of sin, evil, and inconsiderate behavior.

I think we often mix up grace and moral law. Though we’d like for one to point to the other, they don’t. Apples and oranges, people. See, moral law points to grace, but it can never save us. Yet, we think yelling, ranting, and preaching moral instruction will save us. Educate, educate, educate! But in the end, moral law merely points out why we need Jesus…but it doesn’t bring us to him. Grace does. Grace, not moral law, saves us.

Capon uses this illustration in his book. Grace is like the fire department. Now the building inspector (moral law) may cite you twenty times for breaking the fire code. But when your house goes up in flames, the fire department still responds every time, whether you’ve been warned or not. A fireman never walks up to a burning house and begins to read the violations to the owner. Reminding, educating, cajoling, shaming, and guilting doesn’t stop the flames. Nope, the fireman runs past the owner and puts out the fire. Rescue (not education) is his business.

The bystanders watching the burning house could easily see the rescue as permission for the owner’s unwillingness to “follow the rules.” And the homeowner could certainly take the rescue as permission to violate the fire code again. The only person who doesn’t see it that way is the fireman that put out the flames. And that’s how God is. People may take permission but the rescuer never gives it. That doesn’t stop them from abusing grace…but neither does it stop God from giving it. The risk is inherent to the gift. Though law and grace can work together, grace is always the bigger of the two. Not because we’re worth the effort but because of the matchless generosity of the Father.

Michael Phelps and the Lost Secret of Christianity

Christianity, above all else, is a mystical religion. People often forget that, seeing it as a series of intellectual turns that formulated a robust and orthodox group of doctrines. In our overly-cerebral modern era, Christianity has only been viewed as legitimate as its ability to saddle up to the parameters established by rationalism. Christianity was deemed above all a “reasonable faith.” But with deconstructionism, post-modern mentalities, and the “enthusiasm” of the Pentecostal global phenomenon invading the twentieth century, all of that “respectability” died (thank God). In the process, Christianity recovered its long-lost mystical strain…the one essential to the early church and critical to a deeper relational theology. And that’s the lost secret of Christianity: not us living for Christ, but Christ living through us.

So how do I describe the shift in from living for Christ to allowing Christ to live through me? Good question. Try this illustration.

Suppose you want to be an Olympic swimmer. You watch swimmers at the pool all the time and like what you see. So, in your first effort to reach stardom, you buy several instructional videos and check out books from the library. In an attempt to mimick swimming technique, you watch countless hours of Michael Phelps. You listen to every press conference and can practically answer the reporters for him. Then after you have learned all the terminology and understand how to perform each swimming style, you try out for the Olympic team. The problem is: you’ve never been in the water. Oh yeah, and you’re not Michael Phelps. How do you think tryouts will go?

Second time around, you hire Michael Phelps as your personal coach. He spends hours with you by telephone and over dinner recounting stories of Olympic glory. Obviously, he’s very good at what he does and is naturally talented, so you listen to everything he says. He recommends sports philosophy books for you to read and tells you to join an a team of weightlifters to hold you accountable. After listening to Mike and following his instructions, you jump in the pool again, taking Michael’s place as the leader of Team USA. Oh yeah, but you’re not Michael Phelps. What follows is your own personal YouTube video.

Finally, with the Olympics just around the corner, you tell Michael that this just isn’t working. So he suggests a final and radical idea. He tells you, “Okay, just unzip your skin and let me step inside you and swim through you.” You say, “Do what?” He says, “You heard me – I’ll swim through you. It won’t be quite the same since you aren’t as naturally athletic as me but you’ll have all my wisdom to race with the best.” So, you agree. Mike, with his natural intuition and athletic confidence swims using your body. At your first race, things go remarkably well. All you have to do is let him play through you and the medals keep coming. However, in one race you tense up because you think Michael has a bad start. But by limiting his mobility, you guarantee that he won’t win…actually he finishes 7th. As you get out of the pool, he he tells you, “Look! I know what I’m doing - just relax and let me go where I want to go!” “Oh, sorry,” you say. And the other races go fairly well.

What three scenarios did I describe? The first one is representative of Old Testament law. In this scenario, all conformity to rules and instruction is external. Obviously, not much of it remains with you, once you actually “start the race.” There’s no first hand experience – just information. The second scenario is a common form of Christian legalism. You have someone who you think is better than you (a pastor, Christian friend, or even Jesus) “coach” you to do the right thing. You spend a lot of time practicing. The problem is that you have no internal motivation, only the motivation of someone who can make you feel guilty for not meeting their standards of perfection. And, once again, when you race, you do so only on the merits of your friend or pastor, not your own.

The final scenario describes the lost secret of Christianity. Whether you’re reading the promises in Ezekiel 11:19 or 36:26 or the first ten verses of John 15, the message is the same. Formerly a list of rules, the good news of the gospel is that rather than telling you how to live the Christian life, Jesus wants to actually live through you by the Holy Spirit. He lives a holy life in you. He loves your spouse unconditionally in you. He works hard at your job in you. He mentors your children in you. Your role is to let him. No longer are we working from the outside-in (like most religious systems do). We are now working from the inside-out. We are to “dance” so close with him that his moves become our moves. Authentic Christianity is much more like a “divine waltz” than an instructional vido or a set of disciplines the keep your from messing up.

Maybe that’s a new idea for you. You’re used to working for God rather than living in him. You use personal guilt and fear as a motivator. That may work for a time, but spiritual burnout is not far behind. But the person who can let Christ live through them finds the lost secret of the Christian faith.

The Other Side of Forgiveness

I heard an illustration concerning forgiveness by Miroslav Volf a few years ago that deeply impacted me. At that time in my life, I was wrestling with exactly what forgiveness meant and how I could forgive in a more complete way. The tired rhetoric of “just forgive and forget” or “you better forgive or God won’t forgive you” really rubbed me the wrong way. Comments like that seemed “cheap.” It dismissed the individual’s pain from the incident and seemed condone the perpetrator’s acts. His illustration helped me tremendously with this so I wanted to share it with you.

Volf says forgiveness is like a present. It is given as a gift to another. People are happy to take the gift of forgiveness…but they have to open the box in order to receive it fully. What’s inside the box? The accusation of wrong-doing. In order to take the gift of forgiveness, the offender must take the responsibility for the fact that his or her decision crushed the heart of another. Forgiveness is not only a gift – it’s a scathing indictment.

Similarly, receiving forgiveness requires us to admit that we need to be forgiven. Obviously this is true with the gift of the cross. We receive forgiveness from Christ after we admit that we need that forgiveness. And that’s usually the hardest part. Though we are happy to do this with Jesus, what about with each other? That was my question. How do I grant forgiveness without giving the impression that I condone the betrayal? That’s when I begin to understand that forgiveness happens in stages – it’s a process. A Christian needs to extend forgiveness to others, but that doesn’t mean their forgiveness will be fully received, simply because of the indictment it contains.

So, what we find mostly among people is partial forgiveness. The victim has forgiven but the accused refuses blame. Or the accused qualifies their actions were necessary for some greater good – something seen as more important than the victim’s betrayal. Or the accused dies before forgiveness can be extended to them. On the other hand, sometimes a perpetrator desires forgiveness, but the victim refuses to grant it. In all these cases, partial reconciliation is a best case scenario. Forgiveness remains in a partial state of completion. Sometimes things stay that way until the end of time – when both people can see forgiveness in the light of heaven.

So what are you saying, Sambo? I’m saying that forgiveness takes time. Forgiveness should occur when both people are ready. Forgiveness is not a cheap out for either party – the accused is not let off the hook and the victim doesn’t sweep their feelings under a rug of “Christianese.” True forgiveness is more than a concession to what we were taught in Sunday school – it is about making things right. Accepting forgiveness requires the accused to take the time to regain the trust of the betrayed – that long arduous journey is part of forgiveness. Because of this, forgiveness in our fallen world happens in shades of completion. We should be patient with others as they come to terms with the cost of forgiveness.

If you receive the forgiveness of another, make sure you are willing to accept what’s inside the box…

What’s the Point of Reading the Bible?

I grew up hearing a pastor exhort me to “get in the Word!” practically every Sunday. It didn’t matter which denomination or church I attended. The message was the same: good Christians read their Bible everyday. It makes you a better Christian. My oldest daughter came home from pre-school the other day singing, “Read your Bible, pray everyday/and you’ll grow, grow, grow/Don’t read your Bible, forget to pray/and you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink.” That exact mentality was the one I grew up with. But if I am to be honest with myself, for most of my Christian upbringing, I was not overly-enthused about reading my Bible. I saw scriptures that answered some of my questions. But I really didn’t know what I was supposed to be looking for. All I knew was that I better read my chapter a day so I could “grow” whether I understood it or not.

Things have changed now. I still retain a high view of scripture – it is certainly inspired – but now I approach it differently. I don’t engage in bibliolatry. Bibliolatry is placing a text at the center of worship rather than the “person” behind the text. In the Christian’s case, many people worship the Bible but rarely understand it’s Author. I now approach scripture from the opposite end of the spectrum. I read it as an expression of my relationship with God, not as a way to gain that relationship. I read it because I love him, not because I want to learn how to love him better. “Christ in you” (not the Bible) is the “hope of glory.” Am I saying you shouldn’t read your Bible? No, silly person. But I am saying that you should do it for the right reasons.

I like to use this illustration. Suppose I am halfway around the world for a year. Beth writes me a letter/email everyday. I check my email everyday and there’s her love letter to me. Now, after a little while, I’m gonna know pretty much what she’s going to say to me. Do you think that would stop me from reading her love letters? Hardly. I’d read every one simply because I love her. No one is forcing me read them – my love for her causes me to leap at the chance to read her words everyday.

In my home halfway around the world, do you think I would frame one of Beth’s letters and proudly display it to all visitors? No, that’s crazy-talk. But I guarantee you that a bibliolatrist would frame the letter and talk of its perfection. What would I frame? A picture of my wife. The person, not the letter. In the same way, there are a lot of people who would frame the Bible and not the Savior. God certainly didn’t do that. We are his “workmanship,” his picture of himself reflected in our goodness to others. We are his picture. The Bible is not an end unto itself – it points us to the Father. In your life, do you frame the book or frame the Savior?

Jesus and Me at 33

Most folks believe Jesus entered his ministry days around age thirty and was crucified around age 33. I (regretfully) turned 33 in September. Other than the normal depressing thoughts associated with getting older, I have been thinking lately about how young Jesus was. He was a very young man. We live in a society where someone can make an impact in their thirties but most folks don’t consider you “seasoned” until your forties. Executive level jobs are normally held for those in their forties and fifties.

Churches in particular value age as a factor in determining wisdom. Elder boards are full of people in their forties and fifties. Why do we value age in that way? Well, for one, people in their forties and above have had plenty of time to “calm down.” Their children have worn them out and they’ve stayed put in a job for at least a decade. If they have stayed married to one person, they’ve put in around twenty years. They make major decisions a little slower and are prone to weigh all the consequences of their actions. They have had time to “sift” through life and see what really matters. They’ve also had the chance to “prove” themselves to others as worthy of responsibility.

Jesus did none of that. He didn’t wait on anyone for anything. He launched into aggressive ministry without the consent of or regard for his rabbinical peers. And by today’s standards, Jesus’s ministry of healing and demonic deliverance would’ve been seen as a that of a crackpot revivalist, praying on the weak minds of the underclasses and undereducated. He would’ve been considered way too young to wield that type of spiritual authority. What’s more, Jesus’s ministry was supported by contributions, a large amount of which came from women: a gender class with its own issues of persecution and representation at that time.

Though that may be shocking to think about, what really makes me wonder most is: what was Jesus’s mindset? Not what he said, but what he thought that no one ever heard. Granted, he’s the Son of God. Sure, that’s obvious. But his thought patterns (if he was fully divine and fully human) must have at least somewhat reflected that of every 33 year old man. And though Hebrew culture at that time was very different than ours today, Jesus was still a guy.

I started thinking about this in light of my own behavior at age 33. Though I have moments of maturity…I honestly try not to have too many of those. I think there’s still a lot of “my twenties” in me at 33. I still act immature. I still have a lot of energy. I still don’t like people telling me what to do all the time. I still shout at the TV when my favorite football team scores a touchdown. In other words, I’m spunky. And I imagine Jesus was, too. I’ve calmed down a lot from previous years. I’m working on getting to a decade of marriage. That’ll calm you down. My kids wear me out – I occasionally find myself begging them to go to sleep. And what energy I have left, I have the illustrious distinction of allowing church work to take the last of it.

Jesus didn’t have a wife. Jesus didn’t have kids. He was a carpenter – and most scholars see that as more than woodworking. Jesus worked a brawny, scrappy construction job and probably walked up the road five miles to Sepphoris everyday to do it. Jesus was wiry and energetic – he’d stay up at night to pray while everyone else went to sleep. He said highly inappropriate things - stuff about eating flesh and drinking blood. He called religious people older than him rude and critical names, made fun of local lawyers, dismissed the rhetoric of the local politicians, and told incredibly outlandish stories. And then he’d pray for everyone that needed physical healing. He was young, fiery, intense, and, to some, intimidating.

But I think that’s part of the reason he could make it all the way to the cross. Beth and I were talking the other day about your twenties and early thirties. It’s like God “hardwires” you to be crazy enough at that time in life to push forward with having multiple children, finishing education, marrying someone, and working your way up the corporate ladder. And in your thirties, you still think it’d be cool to be in a rock band in your spare time!  At no other time in life do you have that level of energy to simultaneously sustain that much activity at once. It’s insane. Yet, I think that’s part of the reason Jesus ministered on earth at such a young, unacceptable age. It took a certain level of youth and intensity to be the Son of God.

I guess I’m saying that I find solace in that. Older people thought Jesus was an “upstart.” If he can wrestle with his youthfulness and meet the needs of his followers, then God can use me too. In many ways, Jesus lived the life of every person in their early thirties. Hopefully, 33 will be better to me than it was to him… 

Asking Myself Strange (Theological) Questions, Part 2

So, now that I’ve explained a few of my more recent strange questions, I’ll give you my most recent theological question that I’ve been asking myself. This question has been haunting me for about two or three weeks now. If you’ve read some of my other posts, you’ll notice I’m really interested in the razor thin line between God’s sovereignty and his willingness to be vulnerable for the sake of love. That’s doesn’t mean God’s not omnipotent – it just means that part of being all-powerful is having the ability to limit that power for the sake of relationship. We leverage our power with our friends and children everyday. Wise use of power includes it’s control.

The question is: “Does God the Father live in a state of leveraged power (humiliation) for the sake of humanity?” Now, for all you theologians out there, notice I didn’t say God the Son. The Bible is pretty clear that through the incarnation and the ascension, Christ now remains in a state of permanent humiliation. Part of humanity’s rescue was to include humanity into the divine life of God. At its basic level, that means that in Jesus, a human, now resides within the fellowship of the Trinity. Jesus, by “emptying himself of his privileges,” lives in a humiliated state of confinement that he previously did not know before the incarnation. And yes, God has now highly exalted him…but it’s within a resurrected human body that Jesus returned to the Father. So when the Son was sent, in a way he was permanently sent – it altered him forever. Jesus represents that divine limitation right now as he intercedes for us.

Okay, but that wasn’t the question was it?  I said God the Father exists in a state of leveraged power for our sakes. How is that? Well, we can agree that God is all-powerful and capable of deciding how humans enter into relationship with him. But the Father (with the Son) chose the incarnation, the cross, and the resurrection as the universal paradigm from which all humans would understand the Father’s good nature. He chose a single method of revelation and is confined to that chosen revelation: the revelation of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Father is only fully understood by limiting himself to what we understand about Jesus. Otherwise, we don’t fully grasp him. In essence the Father said, “the only way to see me is to see the Son.” That’s why Jesus said “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” It also gives new depth Jesus’s words: ”No one comes to the Father but through me.” Jesus became the point of entry by which we not only understand the Son, but also the Father. The Father chose this self-limitation for the derived benefit of helping us fully understand his goodness. So, the Father is limited to conveying his goodness through the revelation of the Son. In other words, the Father is dependent upon the Son to speak of his glory. That’s means the Father also entered into a state of humiliation with Jesus for the sake of love.

Any thoughts?

Christ, our “Substitute”?

Those who have been following this blog for a while have probably read some of my posts on “Views of the Cross, Parts I and II,” “Does Reformed Theology Restrict God More than Process Theology?” and “Does God ‘Need’ Jesus to Forgive?” I state in several different places that I believe the cross can be substitutionary without requiring penal substitution. In other words, atonement can occur without retributive action by the Father towards the Son. I’ve said all along that I believe this is a Trinity problem, not a cross problem: once the Trinity is fully understood, it’s pretty easy to recognize that Jesus is not a “sacrifice” to God. Jesus is God – Something Protestants have historically had trouble understanding. Therefore, God (represented in Jesus) died on the cross so that we could have life. That exchange of death for life is what the Bible is speaking of when it mentions substitution.

I came across a post tonight by Baxter Kruger called “The Wonderful Exchange” that does a great job of explaining this concept. So, rather than write my own, I thought I would just post his:

 

 

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich” (2Corinthians 8:9).

This short verse from the apostle Paul takes us out a merely forensic or legal view of Jesus’ coming and gives us a much richer and far more profound vision. Here, as throughout the early Church, the coming of Jesus is not merely about the taking away of our sin, but about the staggering life that he brings to us, the very life that he himself enjoys with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Cleansing is certainly critical, but the taking away of our sin is unto a greater purpose, the sharing of his life. Jesus is, as the Baptist said, “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” And he is also the one “who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” The saving work of Jesus, in the New Testament’s vision, always involves both dimensions. As John McLeod Campbell argued, there is both a retrospective and a prospective dimension to salvation in Christ. There is the removal, the cleansing, the taking away of sin, and there is the giving or sharing of life.

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons”(Galatians 4:4). 

In the West we have been so thoroughly preoccupied with the retrospective dimension of Christ’s work (redeeming us from the law, taking away our sin, justification) that we have almost forgotten the prospective dimension (baptism in the Spirit, adoption, union, the sharing of life). Hence there are thousands of books on justification and only a handful on adoption, even though our adoption stands as the driving reason, indeed as the eternal reason, for Jesus’ coming (See Ephesians 1:5).

My point is not to denigrate the work of our Lord in taking away our sin—such a work is fundamental—but to bring us back to the early Church’s vision that Jesus both takes away our sin and shares himself and his own life with us. The great early Church father, St. Irenaeus, put it this way, “our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself” (Against Heresies, V, preface).

Note John Calvin here as well:

This is the wonderful exchange (mirifica commutatio) which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us; that, becoming Son of man with us, he has made us sons of God with him; that, by his descent to earth, he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that, by taking on our mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us; that, accepting our weakness, he has strengthened us by his power; that, receiving our poverty unto himself, he has transferred his wealth to us; that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself (which oppressed us), he has clothed us with his righteousness (Institutes, IV.17.2). 

And James B. Torrance:

The prime purpose of the incarnation, in the love of God, is to lift us up into a life of communion, of participation in the very triune life of God (Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace, p. 21). 

In Paul and Irenaeus from the early Church, Calvin and Torrance from more modern times, we see that salvation in Christ is about a wonderful exchange involving not merely legal standing, but life itself. For Paul, the One who was rich before all worlds became poor in order to take away our poverty and give us his own wealth. For Irenaeus, the Son of God became what we are to bring us to be what he is in himself. For Calvin, the Son of God became one with us to make us sons and daughters with himself, and to share with us his own immortality, strength, wealth and righteousness. For Torrance, the Father’s Son became incarnate to give us a share in the very triune life of God.

For all four, not to mention the apostle John, Karl Barth and many others, the incarnation was not a mere prerequisite for a spotless sacrifice on the cross, but the way of union between all that God is as Father, Son and Spirit, and all that we are in broken human existence. Without the cross and Christ’s death on it there could be no such union, and talk of the incarnation would be a farce, but the death of Christ serves the larger purpose of the wonderful exchange of Christ taking all that is ours and giving us a real share in all that is his.

In a variation on Paul’s great statement, “For you know the stunning grace of the Father’s Son that though he was rich in the shared life of the blessed Trinity, yet for our sake he became poor, suffering our wrath to meet us, and now through his suffering we who were so poor have been included in Jesus’ own rich relationship with his Father and Spirit.”

As Professor Torrance insisted, the Christian life is about participation, about our personal participation or sharing in the very life of Jesus himself, and thus in his life and relationship with his Father, and in his relationship with the Holy Spirit, and indeed in his relationship with all creation.

May the Holy Spirit quicken us with hope that such a vision could be true, and may the Spirit of adoption give us the faith that yearns to know and experience Christ’s life within us, until the life of the blessed Trinity—shared with us all in Jesus—comes to full and abiding and personal expression in all the earth.