Category Archives: Fellowship

The Spoken Word of God Theology for Us: On a Dialogical Theology

Posted on by

Dialogical theology. It is one of our theses we put forward in our first Evangelical Calvinism book. What is it; what are its entailments; and why am I such a strong proponent of it? In nuce, dialogical theology is exactly what it sounds like: it is a theological “method” that allows the object of theology, who is also Subject for us, to confront us, to speak to us first that we might speak to Him; that we might come to know Him as He knows Himself from a center in Himself for us in Jesus Christ. So, this approach, this theological prolegomenon, starts as God starts with us in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. This prolegomenon ingresses as God invades our humanity in and through His assumption of humanity in the humanity of Jesus Christ. It is in this [hypostatic] union that humanity comes to have the capacity to hear God’s Word, as God’s Word becomes us in the grace of Jesus Christ. It is here where a theological coinherence of knowledge can obtain, insofar as God has pre-destined Himself for this coinherence in His free election to become humanity in Jesus Christ; and all of this, in order that humans might come into the parousia (presence) of God, as God presences Himself with us in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit’s free unction of adoptive grace. Underneath this total covenantal relationship between God and humanity in Jesus Christ there are the everlasting arms of God’s triune life of love for us. It is a purely relational, even marital and filial relationship wherein a genuinely Christian theology comes to have wings to breathe and fly freely over and within the hinterland of God’s city; where God’s Word serves as the foundation of everything.

As Evangelical Calvinists (or now, Athanasian Reformed), we have taken our cue from TF Torrance (along with Karl Barth) on thinking a dialogical theology. It will serve us well then to read along with Torrance as he develops his own thinking on a dialogical theology; indeed, as he does so as he engages with Barth’s ‘double objectivity’ of God (see CD II/1), in both God’s archetypal and ectypal reality for us (ab intra, ad extra).

We may note three important implications from this double objectivity.

(i) The object of theological knowledge is creaturely objectivity bound to divine objectivity, not just creaturely objectivity in general but that specific creaturely objectivity which the divine objectivity has assumed, adapted and bound to Himself, Jesus. Thus theological activity is concerned with that special creaturely objectivity in its relation to divine objectivity, and therefore with that creaturely objectivity as it is given ultimate objectivity over against all other objectivity within the created universe. We shall see how this distinguishes theological science from other sciences.

(ii) In the nature of the case we cannot break through to ultimate objectivity, to the sheer reality of God, simply by an examination of this creaturely objectivity, for of itself it can only yield knowledge of the empirical world of nature.

(iii) Nevertheless we are bound unconditionally to the creaturely objectivity of God in the Incarnation of His Word in Jesus Christ. What scandalizes rationalist man is that in his search for ultimate objectivity he is bound unconditionally to contingent and creaturely objectivity, in fact to the weakness of the historical Jesus. To try to get behind this creaturely objectivity, to go behind the back of the historical Jesus in whom God has forever given Himself as the Object of our knowledge, and so to seek to deal directly with ultimate and bare divine objectivity, is not only scientifically false, but the hybris of man who seeks to establish himself by getting a footing in ultimate reality. Scientific theology can only take the humble road in unconditional obedience to the Object as He has given Himself to be known within our creaturely and earthly and historical existence, in the Lord Jesus Christ.

(d) A fourth scientific requirement for theology arises from the centrality of Jesus Christ as the self-objectification of God for us in our humanity, that is, from the supremacy of Christology in our knowledge of God. All scientific knowledge has a systematic interest, for it must attempt to order the material content of knowledge as far as possible into a coherent whole. It would be unscientific, however, to systematize knowledge in any field according to an alien principle, for the nature of the truth involved must be allowed to prescribe how knowledge of it shall be ordered. In other words, the systematic interest must be the servant of objective knowledge and never allowed to become its master. The order is in the Object before it is in our minds, and therefore it is as we allow the Object to impose itself upon our minds that our knowledge of it gains coherence. In theological knowledge the Object is God in Christ whom we know as we allow Him to impose Himself upon our minds or as we allow His Word to shape our knowing in conformity to Him. Scientific theology is therefore the systematic presentation of its knowledge through consistent faithfulness to the divine, creaturely objectivity of God in Christ.

It is the centrality of Christ that is all-determinative here, for He is the norm and criterion of our knowing and it is out of correspondence to Him that theological coherence grows. Scientific theology is systematic, therefore, only through relation to Christ, but its relation to Christ cannot be abstracted and turned into an independent systematic principle by means of which we can force the whole of theology into one definite and fixed pattern. Some use of formal Christology is necessary in systematic theology for the way that the Word of God has taken in the Incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ is the way in which God has revealed Himself to us and the way in which He continues to do so, but we cannot abstract it from dialogical encounter with God in Christ for it is only through sharing in the knowledge of the Son by the Father and the knowledge of the Father by the Son, that we can know God as He has given Himself to us in Jesus Christ.

Thus the organic unity of theology goes back to Christ to the unity of the Godhead, but in the nature of the case theology cannot, and must not try to seek knowledge of God apart from His whole objectivity, divine and human, in Jesus Christ. Therefore the modes and forms our theological knowledge must exhibit an inner structural coherence reflecting the nature of Christ. Moreover, it is because mystery belongs to the nature of Christ as God and Man in one Person that it would be unfaithful of us not to respect that mystery in our knowing of Him and therefore in our systematic presentation of our knowledge. It is upon this fact that every attempt to reduce knowledge of God to a logical system of ideas must always suffer shipwreck.[1]

The astute reader, among other things, will see how the above from TFT implicates a so-called natural theology, or a speculative theology. The aforementioned becomes an impossibility in the type of ‘dialogical’ ‘kataphysical’ ‘epistemological inversion[al]’ theology TFT is proposing. That is to say, for TFT (and me following), to do a genuinely Christian theology first presupposes that Godself in the objectivity of His own eternal and internal life as triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, freely chooses to make His objective Self known to His ‘very good’ creation; indeed, as that very good creation, that is “us,” was created to be a counterpoint of koinonia-fellowship that God might share His superabundant life with forever and into His eternal life of pleroma and bliss. The ground of this type of theological endeavor, for TFT, isn’t reducible to a ‘systematic’ frame wherein the would-be knower of God comes with an a priori and immanent frame of reflection to think ‘godness’ from. Instead, as TFT has made clear, it is a matter of God, the God who freely chose to become Creator because of who He eternally is in triune relationship, to impose Himself upon is, with the patterns and emphases of life and love that have always already formed His life as the Monarxia (‘Godhead’).

If you understand what Torrance is getting at in the “short” snippet above, then you will understand what has animated my own theological work for these last couple of decades. It really isn’t a matter of pointing to “my work,” or even “Torrances” though, it is a matter of pointing beyond ourselves to the risen and ascended Christ who intends on coming once again bodily; even as He comes to us moment-by-moment now by the Holy Spirit.

[1] Thomas F. Torrance, Theological Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 137–39.

Dying in Defeat, But Rising Eternally in the Victory of Christ: A Reflection on My Dad’s Death

Posted on by

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. —I Corinthians 15.20-28 

It has been just over seven months since my dad, Ron Grow, went to be with the Lord. He died a death of despair; he suffered immensely, in particular, the last two years of his life. My dad was an evangelist, church planter, pastor, and hospital chaplain over his career (along with other jobs, including a manager at a car lot). He was an extrovert, who in his good times, was exceedingly fun to be around. He would share Christ with whoever would listen; this was his orientation even as a pastor, always an evangelist. Some of my first memories of my dad are when we would go through a drive-thru at a fast-food restaurant. He would share Christ with the person taking our order, and then finish up at the window when we received our food. This sort of evangelistic mode shaped my dad’s life right up until the end; even when he was broken and defeated. 

But this was also the tragedy. My dad had many struggles (I won’t share them here). He died a bruised and broken reed. He was alone when he died in the rest-home, because of COVID restrictions. He didn’t die from COVID, he had COVID and fully recovered from that. He died because he was in total despair, and gave up. But the GoodNews, the news that he shared so frequently through his life, was that God in Christ never gave up on my dad. The Lord carried my dad into the heavenly regions the second he took his last breath on January 11, 2021 at 4am (pst). In that moment, in a twinkling of an eye, my dad slipped the bonds of his drudgery, and experience of hell on earth, and literally stepped foot into the presence of the risen Christ, the triune God, where there are God’s pleasures forevermore. My dad did not enter the heavenly realm in victory, but in defeat; nevertheless, he had someone standing in victory for Him in Jesus Christ. And so he finally knows the peace that surpasses all understanding; the peace that escaped him for so long on this earth. This was his only hope, he had given up on finding peace in the anguish of his life here. It is a tragedy that will forever break my heart; that is, until the tragedy is swallowed up by the beatific vision of the revealing of the sons of God. At that point I look forward to entering into the life my dad now knows as a translated child of God. I look forward to hugging my dad, and once again kissing him on his head; but this time, not while he’s suffering in agony, this time in the glorified fellowship that we will share together in the participatory bliss of being included in the perichoretic life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  

The Apostle Paul, by the Holy Spirit, knew that there was one last final enemy to be dealt with for Jesus. Not that Jesus hasn’t dealt with it, but that we only experience that dealing by the faith of Christ; not by sight, yet. Death is genuinely an enemy, and to experience it, the loss it produces, is full of grief and overwhelming feelings of absence. This is the experience I continually have as I think about the loss of my dad. He was a complex. He was often a rascal, and hard to deal with. Nevertheless, of course, I love him. We all experience the loss produced by the ‘last enemy.’ This is what Jesus came to save us from. It isn’t a loss that lasts, it is a loss that has been redeemed and its absence has been given the presence (parousia) of the risen Christ. This is why when I grieve my dad, and the loss of others, I can do so with the certain hope that the sting of death has lost its venom. It hurts, but only temporarily. The eternity set before us, as that has been secured by the flesh and blood of the Son of Man for us, is as stable as God’s life is in itself for the other. This is the anchor of our hope as we feel the ravages of the last enemy pressing its ugly face against us. ‘Though we die, yet shall we live.’ My dad knows this actualistically now. His pain and anguish have indeed been swallowed up by the eternity of God’s everlasting refreshment; a refreshment that is like a well-spring that bubbles over with the living water of God’s eternal life.  

In the meantime, we feel loss and absence. The last enemy is still lurking like a roaring lion seeking who it may devour. But it is only like a lion, the actual Lion of God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, has defeated death, triumphing over it, making a public spectacle of it at the cross. The absence of loved ones, and even those we don’t know, but know of, is tempered by the reality that death now is only temporary; but only for those who have given their lives to Jesus Christ. My dad knew so well, even in his most defeated moments, that his only hope was Jesus Christ. Even in his despair he would call out to Jesus, he would cry out in ‘Jesus’ name!’ He knew that this was the hope of God for him, and that Christ alone would break the seemingly bronze plate pressed upon him; that Christ alone would come and save him again and again, till finally that coming would result in being in His risen presence. This is the hope all people have been provided with through the Incarnation and Atonement of God in Christ; through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lamb slain before the foundations of the world. To be in His life, is to be in the life that death cannot ultimately touch. It might touch us in the moment, but compared to eternity it does not in fact compare to the eternal weight of glory God has won for us in His humanity in Jesus Christ. My dad lives drenched in this Christ-gained reality, along with the fellowship of the triumphant saints. He lives in this reality, just as all the saints do, not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the living God; by the grace of Christ, as that eternally crescendos in the courtroom of God for all who will (Jn 3.16). Hurry up; come Lord, Jesus; come quickly!  

A Reflection on Why People Are Important For Christians

Posted on by

It is interesting to contemplate upon things when we start with God–as we ought to–and work from there. And so in light of that, I wanted to quickly reflect upon a reason why other people (from ourselves) are important for our life as humanity in general. We need each other to understand what it means to be humans-in-relation, and this is so because we were created and recreated in the image of God who himself is a communion of relation, and in his communion there is his union given shape, and from this union, his communion is given shape. Likewise, we as God’s people who share in this kind of intimate relationship, have been recreated in Jesus Christ in order to fellowship one with the other. This fellowship is given its reality as we participate from Christ’s humanity for us. This fellowship has all kinds of questions and answers associated with it; in other words, inimical to this fellowship is that we are to be pointing each other to Christ. A way this happens, a very important way, is through studying and knowing God together.

I find the most purpose, and the most joy, when I am able to interact with other Christians, or even non-Christians, around understanding, better who God in Jesus Christ is. We are to motivate each other unto love and good works as we see the day of Christ approaching; and this takes shape as we are of those who do not become reclusive in our walks with Christ, but in the community of the saints. We need each other, because we were created and participate in the image of God who needs the other persons he is in eternal relation with to be who he is in himself and for us.

24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. ~Hebrews 10:24-25 (NIV)