Category Archives: Doctrine Of God

God’s Beauty in Jonathan Edwards’ Theology: With a Flourish of Inspired Worship

Posted on by
5

A word from American theologian par excellence, Jonathan Edwards, on the beauty of the triune God:

It is unreasonable to think otherwise, than that the first foundation of a true love of God, is that whereby He is in Himself lovely, or worthy to be loved, or the supreme loveliness of His nature. This is certainly what makes Him chiefly amiable. What chiefly makes a man, or any creature lovely, is his excellency; and so what chiefly renders God lovely, and must undoubtedly be the chief ground of true love, is His excellency. God’s nature, or the Divinity, is infinitely excellent; yea it is infinite beauty, brightness, and glory of itself. But how can that be true love of this excellent and lovely nature, which is not built on the foundation of its true loveliness? How can that be true love of beauty and brightness which is not for beauty and brightness’ sake?[1]

For our purposes we will ignore the implicit analogia entis procedure of negative knowledge of God in Edwards’ above rumination, and simply focus on his conclusions.

Along with Edwards I think we need to ‘Make the Beauty of God Great Again’ (MBGGA). Not that we can predicate anything of God, but indeed, we must bear witness to the reality that is in fact lovely, beautiful. In the above statement Edwards refers to brightness as a synonym of beauty with reference to God. What this conjures for me is Genesis 1, and the Light of God’s Grace made known at God’s first Word: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and earth.’ God’s Light is the primordial Light of the world, indeed the Light that will finally make the Sun and Moon no longer necessary in the Eschatological Light of the Son of Man as His presence in the abode of the Father by the Holy Spirit is unquenchably diffuse throughout the New Heavens and Earth, the Heavenly Zion as that spans the expanse of a de-futilized creation.

Further, implicit and at the base of God’s life for Edwards is that God’s beauty is fitting in the sense that God is a perichoretic relationship of interpenetrating filial and pneumic subject-in-being onto-relating Self-givenness one in the other eternal life. But it is precisely this, for Edwards, at least in my riff of him, that God’s love is indeed beautiful; that is, that God is not a philosophical monad, but instead a relationship of eternal persons in koinonial singular being as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As such it is the mysterium Trinitatis that is deserving of all praise and worship. The mystery of God’s eternal life to be basked in by His creatures in Christ, in a doxological wash of bliss and beholdenness. The beauty of the triune God becomes the purpose of the human ensouled body. It is here, in this magnificent beauty of the Father, the Son in His bosom, hovered over by the Holy Spirit that the people recreated in His image in the face of the Son, Jesus Christ, that the sons of God long for; indeed, the revealing of the sons of God as they are unfurled from their bodies of death, and finally brought into the consummate participatory Beatific vision of the triune God. And for the Christian why wait? Even though our bodies of death attempt to keep us clinging to the dust of our earthly origin, the excellency of God’s life in us raises up over and again in the intercession the Son continuously makes for those who will inherit eternal life.

Amen.

[1] Jonathan Edwards cited by Nick Needham, 2000 Years of Christ’s Power: The Age of Enlightenment and Awakening 18th Century, Volume 5 (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 2023), 364.

‘Very Man’

Posted on by

Not only is Jesus Very God, but he is also Very Man. This is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan-Chalcedonian settlement in regard to the hypostatic union of Jesus person’ being both fully God, at His very being, and fully human as the ground of His being the Man from Nazareth in the Galilee. This post is meant to dovetail with the other side of this union where we looked at the way that Barth treated the personhood of Jesus Christ as ‘Very God.’ But without Very God, the Son of God, becoming Very man, we would of all people be most to be pitied. This is the stuff of the Gospel itself.

If God did not freely elect to become human, as both the electing God and the elected man, then there would be no way into reconciliation with the inner and triune life of God. We could not become partakers and thus participants in the divine nature if God did not first become us in Christ. As any good Bible reader understands, fallen humanity left to its own devices only remains in a vicious circle of self-love; a life constrained by the love of self, and its base desires, rather than being constrained by the love of God in Christ and His holiness. It took God to invade our war torn and dead sub-humanity, and re-create it such that the fallen person can finally be elevated into the throne-room of God’s life as the Son ascends with us back to the glory He has always already eternally shared with the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit. All of this to say: the ‘man’ (human) part of the Gospel is just as important as the God part, insofar that without God becoming us it would be absolutely impossible for us to pierce into His inner and triune life and be saved. So, the man part, funded by the God part, both hypostatically united in the singular person of Jesus Christ is in fact the Euaggelion (Gospel). And for this we should be full of gratitude and worship to our Father who is in heaven.

Barth writes:

This means primarily that it is a matter of the Godhead, the honour and glory and eternity and omnipotence and freedom, the being as Creator and Lord, of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is Himself God as the Son of God the Father and with God the Father the source of the Holy Spirit, united in one essence with the Father by the Holy Spirit. That is how He is God. He is God as He takes part in the even which constitutes the divine being.

We must add at once that as this One who takes part in the divine being and event He became and is man. This means that we have to understand the very Godhead, that divine being and event and therefore Himself as the One who takes part in it, in the light of the fact that it pleased God—and this is what corresponds outwardly to and reveals the inward divine being and event—Himself to become man. In this way, in this condescension, He is the eternal Son of the eternal Father. This is the will of this Father, of this Son, and of the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. This is how God is God, this is His freedom, this is His distinctness from the superiority to all other reality. It is with this meaning and purpose that He is the Creator and Lord of all things. It is as the eternal and almighty love, which He is actually and visibly in this action of condescension. This One, the One who loves in this way, is the true God. But this means that He is the One who as the Creator and Lord of all things is able and willing to make Himself equal with the creature, Himself to become a creature; the One whose eternity does not prevent but rather permits and commands Him to be in time and Himself to be temporal, whose omnipotence is so great that He can be weak and indeed impotent, as a man is weak and impotent. He is the One who in His freedom can and does in fact bind Himself, in the same way as we all are bound. And we must go further: He, the true God, is the One whose Godhead is demonstrated and plainly consists in essence in the fact that, seeing He is free in His love, He is capable of and wills this condescension for the very reason that in man of all His creatures He has to do with the one that has fallen away from Him, that has been unfaithful and hostile and antagonistic to Him. He is God in that He takes this creature to Himself, and that in such a way that He sets Himself alongside this creature, making His own penalty and loss and condemnation to nothingness. He is God in the fact that He can give Himself up and does give Himself up not merely to the creaturely limitation but to the suffering of the human creature, becoming one of these men, Himself bearing the judgment under which they stand, willing to die and, in fact, dying the death which they have deserved. That is the nature and essence of the true God as He has intervened actively and manifestly in Jesus Christ. When we speak of Jesus Christ we mean the true God—He who seeks His divine glory and finds that glory, He whose glory obviously consists, in the fact that because he is free in His love He can be and actually is lowly as well as exalted; He, the Lord, who is for us a servant, the servant of all servants. It is in the light of the fact of His humiliation that on this first aspect all the predicates of His Godhead, which is the true Godhead, must be filled out and interpreted. Their positive meaning is lit up only by this determination and limitation, only by the fact that in this act He is this God and therefore the true God, distinguished from all false gods by the fact that they are not capable of this act, that they have not in fact accomplished it, that their supposed glory and honour and eternity and omnipotence not only do not include but exclude their self-humiliation. False gods are all reflections of a false and all too human self-exaltation. They are all lords who cannot and will not be servants, who are therefore no true lords, whose being is not a truly divine being.

The second christological aspect is that in Jesus Christ we have to do with a true man. The reconciliation of the world with God takes place in the person of a man in whom, because He is also true God, the conversion of all men to God is an actual event. It is the person of a true man, like all other men in every respect, subjected without exception to all the limitations of the human situation. The conditions in which other men exist and their suffering are also His conditions and His suffering. That he is very God does not mean that He is partly God and only partly man. He is altogether man just as He is altogether God—altogether man in virtue of His true Godhead whose glory consists in His humiliation. That is how He is the reconciler between God and man. That is how God accomplishes in Him the conversion of men to Himself. . ..[1]

Very meaty stuff!

Without getting too distracted let me lift up one aspect of this, particularly as found in the second paragraph above. Some critics might latch onto the fact that Barth writes, “. . . the conversion of all men to God is an actual event.” They might claim that this makes Barth a dogmatic universalist (or maybe some Christian universalists might want to take this in the positive from Barth). But that would be to miss Barth’s theology. Barth has just got done communicating that ‘the man’ Jesus Christ is the conversion of God for all of humanity in actuality. Even so, whilst this christological objectivism is rightly present in Barth, this should not lead the reader to imagine that Barth is operating from some type of Aristotelian theory of causation; to the contrary. Barth’s primary focus is on the primacy of Christ’s archetypal humanity as the humanity ‘converted’ to God. And within this, it can be (and should be) explicated that for Barth’s theology this entails all of humanity after Christ’s. So, there is a universalist aspect to the incarnation and its implications for Barth, just as there is for the Apostle Paul. But it would be wrong and foreign (to Barth’s total theology) to conclude that this necessarily leads to all of humanity subjectively bowing the knee to Christ as their Savior. This freedom in Christ for God has now been recreated in God’s freedom for us in Jesus Christ. But it is still required that by the power of the Holy Spirit a person says ‘Yes’ to God, from God’s ‘Yes and amen’ for them in Christ, in order to become full participants in the actual humanity of the Godman, Jesus Christ. In other words, the way of salvation has been ordained for all of humanity in and from Christ’s humanity. But the lost person must still recognize this reality and finally acknowledge (repent in Christ’s repentance for them) that without them echoing Christ’s yes and amen for them that they will be left out on the shadow-side of God’s lefthand of final judgment. Which in the end remains as mysterious as the first fall of humanity in Adam and Eve’s rebellion to God’s Word.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1 §58 [130–31] The Doctrine of Reconciliation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 125–26.

The Instrumentalization of the Christ//God’s Being Predicated

Posted on by

I have left some context out of the following, but based on what you have read from me thus far (on the blog in general and over the years etc.), how would you translate my rather technical phraseology? Maybe you don’t think it makes sense. If so, where does it fail in regard to its theological premises and mutually implicating ideas? (I wrote this as a quick off the top thought on X and Facebook)

What folks don’t realize it seems, even at higher levels, is that when considering the decretal system and God, when it comes to the incarnation, Christ is understood in purely instrumentalist terms; thus making Him the organon of salvation, but not the person (the Theanthropos) of salvation. In other words, the person of Christ (who is the eternal Logos) is so wrested from the work of Christ, in the decretal schemata, that the Christ merely becomes a token and conduit of God’s work; thus, making God a predicate of creation (if in fact the attempt is made to still see Jesus’ person as eternally Divine).

The Goliath god of the Philosophers Versus the Father God of the Son

Posted on by

. . . It is not a loud and stern and foreign thing, but the quiet and gentle and intimate awakening of children in the Father’s house to life in that house. That is how God exercises authority. All divine authority has ultimately and basically this character. At its heart all God’s ruling and ordering and demanding is like this. But it is in the direction given and revealed in Jesus Christ that the character of divine authority and lordship is unmistakably perceived.[1]

This follows from knowing God first as Father of the Son mediated through the Son by the Holy Spirit. And this is to the point and heart of an Evangelical Calvinism Athanasian Reformed mode of theological and Christian existence. The Son, the eternal Logos conditions the way we approach the Father, just as the Son has eternally indwelt the bosom of the Father. There is no discursive routing here and there on a way up to God to be taken. There is only the Son descended (exitus) to the point of death the death of the cross, and new humanity ascended (reditus) on the healing wings of the Holy Spirit as He in Christ takes us to the glory the Son has always already shared eternally with the Father. Indeed, it is in this oikonomia (economy) that God has freely chosen to make Himself known to and for the world, in the face of Jesus Christ. God’s exousia (authority) is not an authority of an abstract monad back yonder in the ethereal gases of the philosophers; such that He is some type of Goliath God. Nein. God’s authority, His sovereignty, His power is that of a gentle father with his children; it is a filial familial authority.

This is the interminable perduring seemingly unquenchable battle of the God of Jerusalem versus the God of Athens. God is Father of the Son, as Athanasius has intoned, or he is simply an abstraction plastered onto the God of the Bible; as if some type of graffiti that would seek to draw attention to its own self-projected beauty rather than the beauty of God’s manger and cross in Christ. Choose you this day who you will serve.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1 §58 [100] The Doctrine of Reconciliation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 97.

On A Critique of the Pactum Salutis and its Inherent Social [subordinationist] Trinitarianism

Posted on by

Karl Barth operated with his own reformulated Christologically conditioned Covenantal theology. For Him there is one covenant (of grace), just as sure as there are two covenants, if not three (covenant of works, covenant of grace, pactum salutis i.e., covenant of redemption) that the Federal or classically covenantal theologians such as Cocceius, Ursinus, Olevianus, Bullinger et al. articulated. Barth was a strident critic of Federal or classical Covenantal theology, insofar that he detected a primacy of the Law as the antecedent ground upon which the conditions of the covenant of grace are ultimately fulfilled in the coming of Christ for the elect. That is to say, when Christ comes, as the decree of God prescribes, according to Federal theology, Jesus actively obeys all of the commands of the covenant of works (Law) thereby fulfilling the conditions required for a full justification, again, for the elect, to obtain. This fulfillment, per the federal structure, as decretally determined by God before the foundations of the world (e.g., decretum absolutum), is what the “Feds” identify as the covenant of grace. And within this schema, many of the federalists, also place what is often referred to as the pactum salutis (pact or contract of salvation), into the mix of the economic outworking of the covenant of works/grace within the type of Heilsgeschichte (‘salvation history’) they envision.

Conversely, we have a theological incoherency; or so I will suggest, and Barth will identify in the passage I share from him shortly. Ultimately, the incoherency present within the schema presented by Federal theology affects a proper doctrine of God. What I will suggest, after Barth’s passage is shared, and in concert with his critique of the pactum salutis, is that Federal theology, inadvertently, suffers from a subordinationist, even an eternal functional subordination of the Son (EFS), insofar that the Son is understood to be a distinct center of conscious, indeed, organ of God in obediently carrying out the decree of God (and a decree that is abstract and decoupled from the triune personage of the Monarchia [‘Godhead’]. Here is what Barth has to communicate with reference to the errancy of the Pactum:

[5] The riddle posed by the older Federal theology at this its strongest point appears to be insoluble. But perhaps we shall find the solution if we examine rather more closely how it understood the eternal basis of the covenant of grace. As we have seen, it was taken to consist in an intertrinitarian decision, in a freely accepted but legally binding mutual obligation between God the Father and God the Son. Now there are three doubtful features in this conception.

For God to be gracious to sinful man, was there any need of a special decree to establish the unity of the righteousness and mercy of God in relation to man, of a special intertrinitarian arrangement and contract which can be distinguished from the being of God? If there was need of such a decree, then the question arises at once of a form of the will of God in which this arrangement has not yet been made and is not yet valid. We have to reckon with the existence of a God who is righteous in abstracto and not free to be gracious from the very first, who has to bind to the fulfilment of His promise the fulfilment of certain conditions by man, and punish their non-fulfilment. It is only with the conclusion of this contract with Himself that He ceases to be a righteous God in abstracto and becomes the God who in His righteousness is also merciful and therefore able to exercise grace. In this case it is not impossible or illegitimate to believe that properly, in some inner depth of His being behind the covenant of grace, He might not be able to do this. It is only on the historical level that the theologoumena of the foedus naturae or operum [covenant of nature or works] can be explained by the compact of the Federal theology with contemporary humanism. In fact it derives from anxiety lest there might be an essence in God in which, in spite of that contract, His righteousness and His mercy are secretly and at bottom two separate things. And this anxiety derives from the fact that the thought of that intertrinitarian contract obviously cannot have any binding and therefore consoling and assuring force. This anxiety and therefore this proposition of a covenant of works could obviously never have arisen if there had been a loyal hearing of the Gospel and a strict looking to Jesus Christ as the full and final revelation of the being of God. In the eternal decree of God revealed in Jesus Christ the being of God would have been seen as righteous mercy and merciful righteousness from the very first. It would have been quite impossible therefore to conceive of any special plan of a God who is righteous in abstracto, and the whole idea of an original covenant of works would have fallen to the ground.[1]

Briefly, points of response. Firstly, Barth argues: there is no point in constructing a covenant of works to begin with. He argues that this ultimately is really a matter of adding a hermeneutical exemplum where God’s Self-revelation, attested to in Holy Scripture, never prescribed the need for one; at least not beyond what the text of Scripture itself is premised upon in regard to its reality in Jesus Christ. If our first encounter with God in Christ is Genesis 1:1, “in the beginning God created,” then it becomes artificial to construct a latterly construed beginning point with God that is based upon an ad hoc construct wherein God first relates to us on some aspect of Law (e.g., covenant of works). Secondly, for Barth, to posit this type of negative or abstract starting point for a God-human relationship, ends up relying on the speculative machinations of the philosophers and theologians rather than the positive affections provided for by God first encountering us in the face of Jesus Christ (in the grace of creation by God’s Word cf. John 1:1). Thirdly, for Barth, when this type of competitive relationship between God and humanity, based on an abstract notion of Law, is introduced into the eternal life of God, we end up with two distinct concepts of righteousness within the Godhead; i.e., wherein the Son, subordinately, submits whatever His sense of righteousness might be to that of the Father’s sense of righteousness. This is where I would argue the pactum salutis inherently lends itself to a social trinitarianism of the type where the Son can be understood as eternally subordinate to the Father. Fourthly, as inferred from Barth’s reasoning, we end up with a ’God behind the back of the covenantal schema’ in Federal theology, which entails the notion that we can never be quite sure if His ostensible revealed will is eternally in correspondence with His eternal or hidden will insofar there is no necessary relationship between His eternal and triune person and His work in salvation in the lineaments of a historical history.

Alternatively, and rightly, Barth simply scrubs the whole framework posited by a federal theology in favor of building his covenantal schema on the direct and immediate Self-revelation of God; indeed, without additions. Barth’s approach, I would argue, fits Occam’s Razor much better than Federal theology does, insofar that Barth doesn’t need to add unnecessary accretions to what God has already and intelligibly revealed in regard to the Gospel. That is, that rather than constructing a salvation-framework that adds more to the Gospel understanding, ostensibly, that Barth is biblically comfortable with working from the person and work of God in Christ as if the whole revelation of God without adumbration. When accretions are added, we end up with the heterodox and heretical liminalities that Barth has correctly highlighted for us in his critique of the pactum salutis in particular, and Federal theology in general. In other words, for Barth (and TFT and John the theologian): ‘when we see Jesus we see the Father’ without hesitation.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1 §57 [065] The Doctrine of Reconciliation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 61–2.

The Father-Son God by the Holy Spirit: Repudiating Social Trinitarianisms

Posted on by

Torrance is discussing the impact that dualistic Hellenism has had upon Western-thought-forms; namely the precedence that classical thought has given to the optical mode of thinking and verification (so the obsession with empiricism, etc.). TFT is highlighting the impact that this methodology and epistemology can have upon our construal of God’s “Father-hood” and “Son-hood,” and how Christian/Patristic theology, primarily through Athanasius’ influence, eschewed this “Hellenizing” effect by reifying it through Christian ontology.

The contrast between Christianity and Hellenism could hardly be greater than at this fundamental level, where biblical patterns of thought governed by the Word of God and the obedient hearing of faith (υπακοη της πιτεως) conflict sharply with those of Greek religion and philosophy. The issue came to its head in the Arian controversy over the Father – Son relation at the heart of the Christian Gospel. Are the terms ‘father’ and ‘son’ to be understood as visual, sensual images taken from our human relations and then projected mythologically into God? In that event how can we avoid projecting creaturely gender into God, and thinking of him as grandfather as well as father, for the only kind of father we know is one who is son of another father? To think of God like that, in terms of the creaturely content of images projected out of ourselves, inevitably gives rise to anthropomorphic and polymorphic notions of deity and in fact to polytheism and idolatry. However, if we think from a centre in God as he reveals himself to us through his Word incarnate in Jesus Christ, then we know him as Father in himself in an utterly unique and incomparable way which then becomes the controlling standard by reference to which all notions of creaturely fatherhood and sonship are to be understood. ‘God does not make man his pattern, but rather, since God alone is properly and truly Father, we men are called fathers of our own children, for of him every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named.’ Unique Fatherhood and unique Sonship in God mutually define one another in an absolute and singular way. As Athanasius pithily expressed it in rejection of Arian anthropocentric mythologising: ‘Just as we cannot ascribe a father to the Father, so we cannot ascribe a brother to the Son’.[1]

[1] T. F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, 69-70.

Grace as God’s Person[s]: Being in Becoming

Posted on by

An email question from a reader of the blog:

𝑂𝑛𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑡𝑟𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑠 “𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒” 𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑑. 𝐼 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡. 𝑆𝑜 𝑛𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑛𝑜 𝑖𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒. 𝑊𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑖𝑠 𝐺𝑜𝑑’𝑠 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒. 𝐼𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡? 𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑠, “𝑏𝑦 𝐺𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑠𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑑…” 𝐼𝑠 𝑃𝑎𝑢𝑙 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒? 𝐶𝑎𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑚𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠?

My brief response:

𝐒𝐨, 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡 (𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐉𝐮̈𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥, 𝐓𝐅 𝐓𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞), 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬 𝐚 “𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠.” 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐝’𝐬 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐬𝐨 𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡, 𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡’𝐬 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 (𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐛𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲), 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐆𝐨𝐝’𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥/𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬; 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐝, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐆𝐨𝐝’𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡’𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐬 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧[𝐬] 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐨𝐝’𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧/𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐲, 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐨𝐝’𝐬 𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐨𝐫 “𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠,” 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐨𝐝’𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭. 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞, 𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞-𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧, 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐞𝐭𝐜. 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐨𝐝’𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐮𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭. 𝐃𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞? 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐱 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐫𝐚𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞.

Torrance’s Theological-Exegetical Gloss on Romans 8:31-39: And a Word of Encouragement About God’s Unrelenting Love For Us

Posted on by

As I have been rereading TF Torrance’s The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons, I came across a passage that struck me as a sort of theological-exegetical gloss of Romans 8:31-39. Torrance is often accused of not doing any biblical-exegetical work; but I would counter, that in his role as a Christian Dogmatist his work is saturated in the thematics that allow Scripture to say what it does about God and His works. I would contend that, Torrance, as a Christian Dogmatist, par excellence, has Scriptural themes and their reality in Christ, pervading all of his writings. What is required for the reader though, is that they be familiar enough with Scripture, as Torrance was, to be able to discern just how Scripturally rich and informed his theologizing is. In the following we will compare Romans 8:31-39 and the passage I came across from Torrance; and then in conclusion offer some reflection on its theological and spiritual implications.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And Torrance:

In the outgoing movement of his eternal Love God himself has come among us and become one of us and one with us in the Person of his beloved Son in order to reconcile us to himself and to share with us the Fellowship of Love which he has within his own Triune Life. Since in the Lord Jesus Christ the fullness of God dwells bodily we must think of the entire Godhead as condescending in him to be ‘God with us’ in our human life and existence in the world. This does not mean of course that the Father and the Spirit became incarnate with the Son, but that with and in the incarnate Son the whole undivided Trinity was present and active in fulfilling the eternal purpose of God’s Love for mankind, for all three divine Persons have their Being in homoousial and hypostatic interrelations with one another, and they are all inseparably united in God’s activity in creation and redemption, not least as those activities are consummated in the incarnate economy of the Son. In refusing to spare his dear Son but in delivering him up in atoning sacrifice for us all, God the Father reveals that he loves us with the very Love which he bears to himself, and that with Jesus Christ he freely gives us all things. If God is for us in this way what can come between us? And in giving us his one Spirit who proceeds from the Father through the Son and sheds abroad in our hearts the very Love which God himself is, God reveals that there is nothing that can ever separate us from him in his Love. Through the Son and in the Spirit, we are taken into the triune Fellowship of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Thus in an utterly astonishing way the Holy Trinity has committed himself to be with us and among us within the conditions of our human and earthly life in space and time, but, it need hardly be said, without being subjected to the processes and necessities of created space and time, and without in the slightest compromising the mystery of his divine transcendence.[1]

We see Torrance creatively interweaving classical trinitarian locus like the opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt (‘the works of the Trinity on the outside are indivisible’) into his thinking on God’s “for us-ness,” which in itself places an emphasis on the oneness of God in recognition of his works toward us in the economy of His life become revealed for us in the Son. Beyond that, we see how the canonical themes, and in particular in this passage, the themes of Romans are informing Torrance’s thought in regard to God’s love for us; and then what that love implies in its grounding in Jesus Christ.

More practically, the great hope this provides us with is without measure! I often feel like I’m just going through the motions of life; getting caught up in the necessary busy-ness of it all, and not really living into the full participatio Christ that I’ve been called to in Christ. What this passage from Torrance, as a gloss on Romans, encourages me to remember is that no matter what, it is the whole God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who is holding me deeply in His grasp, and who cannot be deterred in His tremendous Love for me. I find great hope in knowing that no matter what the goings on of my life are, that God in Christ for us, for me will never allow me to be separated from Him; that I am as close to Him as the Son of God is to His Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit. While daily requisites of life seem to plague my existence moment by moment; while my energy is zapped by the long hours of work, and the financial responsibilities that seem to be at every turn and corner of life; while health issues, and other anxieties and fears seemingly seek to suck up the time that ought to only be God’s; while all of these things and more are present in our daily lives as Christians, what Torrance and the Apostle Paul encourage us with is the reality of “so what!” God is God, and He will not be thwarted in His great love for us; just as sure as His great Love just is who He is, and He has shown us that in His undivided work for us in the three persons, as revealed first in the Son.

[1] Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 162.

*originally posted at another old blog of mine in 2019.

Living in the Mystical Union of Christ within the Mysterium Trinitatis

Posted on by

Richard Sibbes (1577-1635), Puritan pastor and theologian has a few words on the sufficiency of Christ’s offering to the Father, and the trinitarian shape of the gospel:

What a support to our faith is this, that God the Father, the party offended by our sins, is so well pleased with the work of redemption! And what a comfort is this, that seeing God’s love resteth on Christ, as well pleased in him, we may gather that he is as well pleased with us, if we be in Christ! For his love resteth in whole Christ, in Christ mystical, as well as Christ natural, because he loveth him and us with one love. Let us, therefore, embrace Christ, and in him God’s love, and build our faith safely on such a Saviour, that is furnished with so high a commission. See here, for our comfort, a sweet agreement of all three persons: the Father giveth a commission to Christ; the Spirit furnisheth and sanctifieth to it; Christ himself executeth the office of a Mediator. Our redemption is founded upon the joint agreement of all three persons of the Trinity.[1]

What amazing thoughts! Did you notice in the first paragraph how Sibbes highlights the function that our union with Christ has before the Father? We are loved by the Father, with the same love that He loves His Son, Jesus, with. Let that reality sink in, meditate upon how intimate in fact you are with the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit! We are truly represented, and known to the Father, because of the redemptive work and mediatorial Priesthood of the Son. Come boldly to the Father, come as if you are His dearly beloved Son . . . because You are! We have been enveloped into the intratrinitarian life of the Father, Son, and Spirit; snatched out of the idolatry and slavery of self-love, and brought into the union and communion of HIS love. LOVE BOLDLY!

[1] Richard Sibbes, trans. Grosart, Works of Richard Sibbes: The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax, 42-3.

*Originally written in 2009 for another blog of mine back in the day.

 

Spitballing on God’s Sovereignty and Contingent Freedom

Posted on by

How does God’s sovereignty work, in a God-world relation? First, to speak of God’s sovereignty can never be done so in abstraction from God’s cruciform life for the world in Jesus Christ. It is from within this unio mystica (‘mystical union’) of God and humanity, in the particularity of the man from Nazareth, Jesus Christ, wherein God’s actions, where His power, His sovereignty and everything else must be thought. When we ponder the end for which God humiliated Himself in the Son for the world, we recognize that this ponderance goes back even before the foundations of the world; indeed, the Lamb being slain even before the foundations of the world. So, it is as we think back from the analogy of the incarnation of God, that we might arrive upon an answer to how God’s cruciformed, Son-faced sovereignty comes to penetrate and engage this world; particularly within its fallen status. We know that God’s sovereignty is first and foremost grounded in His Divine Freedom, within His inner life of triune life, wherein He has the Self-capacity to choose what His act will be for the world which He has created; indeed, created from the seed of the women, in the man from Nazareth. As we attempt to reason from within this inner theological reality of God’s life, indeed, as we have arrived upon this primordial point of liminal access, through first encountering this God in the economy of His life for the world in the face of His Son, Jesus Christ, we come to realize that all things, as Self-determined from within the fellowshipping life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are free and open for God to act as He will. Not from an abstraction, but from the concretion of His eternally triune life. It is here that God’s a-se life Has the freedom to determine an elected contingency, first for Himself, as the Son, God’s image, freely elects to be human, which entails within that space of chosen contingency, within His to-be assumed humanity, wherein human freedom comes to find its starting point. Not as a non-contingent freedom, as the ground of His freedom is sourced by, as the eternal Logos, but as a corresponding contingent freedom with His freedom; one that is finally given agency within even His own assumed humanity for us by the Holy Spirit. So, again, things come back to this Theanthropic mystery wherein God and humanity kiss, unite, in the hypostatic union of God and humanity in the singular person of Jesus Christ.

So, God’s sovereignty works, in such a way, that humanity, and then the rest of the created order (cf. Rom 8.18ff), invades the contingent world order, which He first created, and then re-created in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, in and through the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. It is as His non-contingent Logos life interfaces with the human contingent life that the miracle of God’s sovereignty comes to shape the world; both the world now, and not yet. It is within this mediating space as that inheres within the conversating person of the humanity of God in Christ, and Godself. The fact that non-contingency and contingency can communicate, and interface one with the other, whilst the non-contingency of God’s triune life circumscribes the whole event of the contingent, is indeed, the fact of God’s sovereignty in action for the world. Contingency finds its freedom to act only as an asymmetrical correspondence with God’s act within His own humanity for the world. So, ultimately, God’s freedom, as the ground of human freedom, as that is mediated for the world in the archetypal humanity of Jesus Christ, yeasts in such a way that God’s purposes, within the cruciform of His life, are made manifest as humanity in union with Him, through His union with humanity in Christ can be accomplished without violating, indeed quite to the contrary, the contingent events of created and recreated history. His will is done first and foremost because He is the One who is free within Himself. And it is within this freedom in His eternal life of love wherein He has come to sovereignly Self-determine to not be God without us, but with us for all eternity; indeed, in the face of Jesus Christ. It is within the economy of this determinate choice to be for, with and in us, wherein the contingent order comes to serve His purposes, whilst the contingent humanity finds their respective freedom with His.

But then of course there is always the “unelected” and inscrutable reality of sin and evil in the world. This complicates things. Not as far as thwarting God’s sovereignty (as we have already defined that), but by introducing a perversion into the mix of human freedom that attempts to gain a life of its own, whilst parasiting on the real freedom God has determined for humanity in His Free Grace choice to be not-God without us; that is, not without humanity and the created order He has made humanity, His humanity in us, and ours in His, stewards over. And yet, even in the facet of sin and evil God’s cruciform humanity perdures, it yeasts in such a way that it finally gives birth to a babe, wrapped in swaddling cloths, born in a manager in Bethlehem. It is here where, when finally eventuated in the ascension, that humanity comes to have the capacity to make genuinely free choices that are in keeping with God’s sovereignly Self-determined plan and purpose for the world; indeed, as that purpose and plan has always already found its fund and orientation by its reality and elevation in the supra planned incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. And yet, there remains a battle between the old first Adam world, and the now greater and new second Adam world. Even so, God’s plan has been pervasive throughout both epochs of the first and second Adams. That is, because God first elected all of the sundry events of created history to unfold in the reality of the Deus incarnandus (God to be incarnate). This has always already been the inner reality, the beating im-pulse of the created order; i.e., God’s choice to become Creator, even as He was first Father of the Son by the Holy Spirit.

Really, all I’m saying is that the relationship between God’s sovereignty and humanity in the created order, turns out to be rather miraculous. And there remains many holes in what I have been torturously attempting to articulate. But you gotta start somewhere. And I had the urge to just sit down and spitball.