Category Archives: Incarnation

Edward Taylor, Meditation 39.4

03 Tuesday May 2022

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Fifth Stanza

I have no plea mine Advocate to give.

What now? He’ll anvil arguments great store

Out of his flesh and blood to make me live.

O dear bought arguments: good pleas therefor.

Nails made of heavenly steel, more choice than gold

Drove home, well clenched, eternally will hold.

Notes:

Since a lawyer is limited by the facts of the case (attorneys’ pleas spring from the state/

The case is in), and since this case is so dire, they “knock me down to woe”, the poet has nothing to help:

I have no plea mine Advocate to give.

There is nothing particularly musical about this line: it is a plain statement of fact. And this leaves him with the wholly prosaic question:

What now?

The first line and-a-half of this stanza contain no clever image, interesting musical devices. It is just a clear statement of fact. But when we turn to the Advocate’s work, the stanza becomes “poetic”. This is an interesting rhetorical tactic by Taylor, increasing the rhetorical fireworks when it comes to the Advocate’s work.

How will the Advocate plead for the poet, when the facts are against the poet?

            He’ll anvil arguments great store

Out of his flesh and blood

The image striking: the argument will come from the Advocate’s own “flesh and blood”. Moreover, he will not merely take these arguments, they will be hammered like a blacksmith with iron at a furnace, He’ll anvil arguments.

The picture is grotesque and wonderful: how does not take an hammer and anvil to one’s own body? And yet it is out of the body of the Advocate that the defense is raised.

Here is a central mystery of the Christian claim. All human beings have a body which is ultimate derived from the body of Adam. All people are of one body: “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.” Acts 17:26 (ESV) Thus, in both a representative and physical sense, all human beings are born “in Adam”.

The Son of God is “made flesh”. (John 1:14) Christ then lives a sinless life, and yet suffers the death allotted to all of Adam’s descendants. Being innocent, and being representative, he bears the weight of the judgment against sin: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (ESV) In the end he is vindicated (as evidenced by this resurrection, Romans 1:4). Christ becomes a new Adam. (Rom. 5:12-19) As raised, he stands as a new humanity.

42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:42–49 (ESV) Much, much more could said on this point from the New Testament. But is without question the doctrine of the Apostles that the physical body of Christ in life, death, burial, and resurrection, becomes the plea for our salvation: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) The way in which that life of Christ becomes our life is a further discussion. The point here is that Taylor says nothing but what the Bible teaches. In a roughly contemporary work, William Gurnal uses an image which reminds of the language here in Taylor:

“He lived and died for you; he will live and die with you; for mercy and tenderness to his soldiers, none like him. Trajan, it is said, rent his clothes to bind up his soldiers’ wounds; Christ poured out his blood as balm to heal his saints’ wounds; tears off his flesh to bind them up.”

William Gurnall and John Campbell, The Christian in Complete Armour (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845), 6.

These arguments made from the body of the advocate bring life, “to make me live.” As Paul writes: “But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Romans 4:23–25 (ESV)

These arguments come at great cost, “O dear bought arguments”. They will also work, they are “good pleas.”

Ship’s Nail, courtesy Neil Cummings

The final couplet makes an in ironic use of nails:

Nails made of heavenly steel, more choice than gold

Drove home, well clenched, eternally will hold.

At one level, “nails” references the strength of this argument: They are “heavenly steel.” They are more precious that gold. And they have been fit so well, that the argument will be valid for all eternity: “Drove home, well clenched, eternally will hold.”

The final line contains two pauses, which slows down and underscores the proposition raised: This argument will stand.

The use of nails as the image for the argument then alludes to the basis for the argument: Christ’s sacrificial death. He was nailed to the tree, and in so doing, our sins were nailed to the tree. In this seeming loss, there was victory:

11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Colossians 2:11–15 (ESV)

Romans 12, How to Live Together, 5.5

19 Sunday Dec 2021

Posted by in Church Conflict, Incarnation, Romans

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The Incarnation

5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, 

                        “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, 

but a body have you prepared for me; 

            6           in burnt offerings and sin offerings 

you have taken no pleasure. 

            7           Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, 

as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ” 

Hebrews 10:5–7.

There is a tendency among human beings to either deny there is a soul, or to deny the body matters and the spirit is all. But the Scripture will have none of that.

The importance of the human being is seen when consider the most spiritual topics, God. While God does not have a body like a man; the Son of God became incarnate as a man (while in manner being degraded in any manner as God). The Incarnation is a mystery beyond all mysteries. But is also the basis of how we must understand all other things:

The incarnation of God, therefore, is the supreme mystery at the center of our Christian confession, and no less at the center of all reality. Consequently, all conceptions of reality that fail to see and savor that all things hold together in Christ, and that he is preeminent in all things, can never be anything but abstract conceptions of virtual realities—that is, invariably hollow and ultimately vacuous concepts pulled away from reality.

John C. Clark and Marcus Peter Johnson, The Incarnation of God: The Mystery of the Gospel as the Foundation of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 12.

There are many things which could be said of the Incarnation, but one thing which must be understood is the profound importance of the human body. To battle on our behalf, it was first necessary for the Son of God to have the body of a human being, and that the human body was the location of that conflict. Consider this verse:

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, [he shares our nature]

that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, [he destroys death from the position of a human body]

Hebrews 2:14. Think of how the Scripture speaks of our Savior. His announcement into this world is an announcement of being born a human being:

30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 

Luke 1:30–33.  Jesus is born. He is wrapped in cloth. He is laid in a manager – and at the end of his life he will again be wrapped in cloth and this time laid in a tomb. 

The crucifixion is the killing of his body. And the resurrection is the resurrection of his body.  And he is Ascended, reigning forever in a body.

The proof of the Resurrection is that his body is no longer in the tomb:

5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” 

Matthew 28:5–7. When he proves to the Disciples he has risen, it is the proof of his body:

24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” 

26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 

John 20:24–29. That body is the residence of all our blessing:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

Ephesians 1:3. Indeed our salvation is bound upon with the identification of our body with his:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrectionlike his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:1–11. Our life is a participation in the life of Christ, in his death, in his burial, in his resurrection.  

The presentation of our bodies in a living sacrifice is premised upon this union with Christ. We can offer no sacrifice apart from him:

24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. 

Hebrews 9:24–28. The sacrifice of his body is the only sacrifice for sin; a sacrifice never to be repeated. It is a sacrifice rendered “once.” 

We can only understand the sacrifice of our body in light of the sacrifice of his body and our union to that sacrifice. 

Indeed, it is in our union to Christ, a union which is not merely some intellectual proposition, but a sort of union which involves the body of our Ascended Incarnate Lord and our body is the premise of our sacrifice:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

John 14:6 We cannot offer something to the Father but in the life of the Son. We know the Father in knowing the Son. “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” John 14:9. Now these are deep waters in which it is very easy to get lost and drown. For our purposes we need merely assert that our approach to God is only in Jesus Christ, not around him. 

Jesus has made a way for his by taking our nature, by being found in a body which was offered as a sacrifice – and which was received for the forgiveness of sin. We participate in that life, that sacrifice, that resurrection. To participate in that life entails a life our body.  

What you must understand, the human body is the battlefield upon which God defeated his enemies. We participate in that victory in the identification of our life in this body with the life of the Incarnate Son of God. This identification is so great, that the Church, the sum of the redeemed are referred as the Body of Christ. 

The logic of Paul’s argument of how we are to live—and that manner of life is the nature of the “living sacrifice” commanded—is wholly premised upon our identification in the body of Christ. 

The Incarnation makes the life of the Church possible and is the basis for that life.

Seeing more clearly how the life of our body is joined up with the life of Jesus will be the next point.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 32, Stanza 4

18 Thursday Mar 2021

Posted by in Edward Taylor, Grace, Incarnation

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Fourth Stanza

Then Grace, my Lord, wrought in thy heart a vent

Thy soft soft hand to this hard work did go  (20)

And to the milk white Throne of Justice went 

And entered bond that Grace might overflow

Hence did thy Person to my nature tie

And bleed through human veins to satisfy.

Summary: This stanza turns to the means by which the grace of God was actually conveyed. The paradox and wonder of the Christian Gospel is laid out. The grace of God was provided with his own blood (as Paul puts in Acts 20:28, “the church of God which he obtained with his own blood”). In line 19, the blood comes from a vent in the heart of God. In line 24, that blood was shed through “human veins”. And in a further paradox, this pardon and mercy were obtained from the “Throne of Justice.”

Notes: 

First, note the agent of this work:

Then Grace, my Lord, wrought in thy heart a vent

Thy soft soft hand to this hard work did go  

In line 19, the agent is “grace” – as if it were an actor. In line 20, it is God’s own “hand” (his own agency). Placing “grace” as the primary motivation for this action is foregrounded in Ephesians: 

Ephesians 1:2–10 (AV) 

2 Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenlyplaces in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 

7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 8 Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; 

9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

And:

Ephesians 2:1–8 (AV) 

1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. 

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in hiskindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 

Note also the same movement of thought in Ephesians 2 as in Taylor’s poem: I am in rebellion (“Children of disobedience”), but God has shown me grace in Jesus Christ. 

This hard work: Is the death of Christ. The love of God, the grace of God is the motivation; God himself is the actor:

John 10:17–18 (AV)

17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

This work of mercy is done at the Throne of Justice: God’s mercy is not contrary to God’s justice: In forgiving the rebel, God establishes justice. The penalty of sin is fulfilled by Christ.

This then brings us to the couplet:

Hence did thy Person to my nature tie

And bleed through human veins to satisfy.

Two things are present here: Again we come to a paradox of the Incarnation. God fulfills the demands of the Law which were imposed upon human beings by becoming a human being: Thus, the penalty of death was paid by a human being  on behalf of human beings.

And in so doing, the Son “tied” himself to human nature in the person of Jesus (which is of two natures and one person). 

Justice bleeds mercy. God bleeds as a man. Grace is shown to the rebellious. The innocent gives life for the guilty. God is the agent of fulfilling justice and mercy at the same moment. 

Yahweh Elohim in the Old Testament, though just, holy, zealous for his honor, and full of ire against sin, is also gracious, merciful, eager to forgive, and abounding in steadfast love (Exod. 20:5–6; 34:6–7; Deut. 4:31; Ps. 86:15; etc.). In the New Testament God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the God of all grace and mercy (Luke 6:36; 2 Cor. 1:3; 1 Peter 5:10). There is no antithesis between the Father and Christ. As full of love, merciful, and ready to forgive as Christ is, so is the Father. It is his words that Christ speaks, his works he does. The Father is himself the Savior (σωτηρ; Luke 1:47; 1 Tim. 1:1; Titus 3:4–5), the One who in Christ reconciles the world to himself, not counting its trespasses against it (2 Cor. 5:18–19). Christ, therefore, did not first by his work move the Father to love and grace, for the love of the Father is antecedent and comes to manifestation in Christ, who is himself a gift of God’s love (John 3:16; Rom. 5:8; 8:32; 1 John 4:9–10).

Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 368.

Musical:

There are two lines which deserve special consideration. First, 

Thy soft soft hand to this hard work did go  

First, the repetition of “soft” slows down the line and creates a contrast with “hard”. The accented words are soft soft hand … hard work … go. We have an extra accent in this line. The emphatic ‘soft’ thus helps to underscore the paradox: 

Next note the  hand … hard work. Hand and hard come on opposite sides of the line pause, which is an element of Anglo-Saxon alliterative poetry: it holds the halfs of the line closely together. Next the “r” of “hard”  is picked up in work. 

The opening of the couplet begins with an accented “Hence.” This draws the conclusion from the proceeding passage. The conclusion is not a logical deduction but rather the working out of this work of grace: To fulfill justice, extend mercy, rescue me, My Lord tied his nature to mine.

James Orr, The Virgin Birth of Christ, Lecture One

09 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by in Apologetics, Christology, Incarnation, Scripture, Uncategorized

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jamesorrprofile

The work from 1907 consists of the transcript s of “Lectures Delivered Under the Auspices of the Bible Teachers’ Training School New York, April 1907.” Dr. Orr was a theology professor in Scotland and was a leading member in the production of The Fundamentals.

In these lectures, Dr. Orr addresses the question of whether the Bible truly does support the idea of Jesus being born of a virgin. The question of the Virgin Birth was becoming quite common in center theological circles at the time. Orr first sets forth the case against the doctrine in a fair (even compelling) summary:

The narratives of the miraculous birth, we are told, are found only in the introductory chapters of two of our Gospels— Matthew and Luke— and are evidently there of a secondary character. The rest of the New Testament is absolutely silent on the subject. Mark, the oldest Gospel, and John, the latest, know nothing of it. Matthew and Luke themselves contain no further reference to the mysterious fact related in their commencement, but mention circumstances which seem irreconcilable with it. Their own narratives are contradictory, and, in their miraculous traits, bear clear marks of legendary origin. All the Gospels speak freely of Jesus as the son of Joseph and Mary. The Virgin Birth formed no part of the oldest Apostolic tradition, and had no place in the earliest Christian preaching,as exhibited in the Book of Acts. The Epistles show a like ignorance of this profound mystery. Paul shows no acquaintance with it, and uses language which seems to exclude it, as when he speaks of Jesus as”of the seed of David.”1 Peter,John,theEpistle to the Hebrews, the Book of Revelation, all ignore it. If thousands were brought to faith in Jesus as the divine Redeemer in this earliest period, it was without reference to this belief. There is no proof that the belief in general in the Christian Church before the second century. (pages 7-8).

These series of seemingly confirmed “facts” set the agenda for the remainder of the book. Orr asks, “Suppose, then, it can be shown that the evidence is not what is alleged in the statements above given, but that in many respects the truth is early the reverse” (p. 10).

Orr then proceed to explain what he will argue. First, he will not take time to prove that a miracle can happen (after all, that is the point of a miracle!):  “H o w great the intellectual confidence of any man who undertakes a priori to define what are and are not possibilities to such a Being in His relations to the universe He has made!” (p. 13).

Second, since Orr is confronting professing Christians in this work (this is not an apologetic to unbelievers), “It would be folly to argue for the supernatural birth of Christ with those who take naturalistic view; for, to minds that can reject all other evidence in the Gospel for Christ’s supernatural claims, such reasonings would be of no avail.” (p. 15).

What he will deal with are those who claim that the Virgin Birth of Christ can be rejected without rejecting the remainder of Christianity (or at least being in conflict with oneself):

It is here that the position of those who accept the fact of the Virgin Birth, but deny its essential connection with the other truths about our Lord’s Person appears to me illogical and untenable. The one thing certain is:either our Lord was born of a Virgin,or He was not. If He was not, as I say, the question falls: there is an end of it. But if He was— and I deal at present with those who profess this as their own belief— if this was the way in which God did bring the Only-Begotten into the world— then it cannot but be that it has a vital con nection with the Incarnation as it actually happened, and we cannot doubt, in that event, that it is a fact of great importance for us to know. In any case,we are not at liberty summarily to dismiss the testimony of the Gospels, or relegate the fact they attest to the class of ” open questions,” simply because we do not happen to think it is important.(p. 23)

It is Orr’s contention on this point that the Virgin Birth is crucial to the doctrine of the Incarnation — a necessary relationship stands between the two doctrines (even if the Virgin Birth is not the foundation of the doctrine of the Incarnation).

There is no real doubt

19 Monday May 2014

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The Christ of history is a divine Being who was born of a Virgin, crucified, and buried; who rose from the dead in soul and body, and finally left the earthly sphere on a certain day, to share in His manhood His Father’s glory.

There is no real doubt that this description of the historic Christ would have been accepted and signed by every one of the Apostles and disciples who met together on the day of Pentecost, had the Blessed Mary chosen to unveil to them the secret of His Birth. And the rejection of it by the modern critic has become possible only by first rejecting all evidence outside the Gospels, and then reducing the Gospel narratives arbitrarily to those portions in which no stories of any abnormal event are contained.

Frank Weston, The One Christ, 1914, 2nd ed, ix

P.T. Forsyth on Human-Centered “Christianity”

27 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Atonement, Christology, Faith, Incarnation, Ministry, P.T. Forsyth, Preaching, Soteriology, Theology

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“Lay Religion” in the Person and Place of Jesus Christ: The Congregational Union Lecture for 1909, P.T. Forsyth, 1909

[This essay discussing “lay religion” which is essentially a Christianity with little to no theological content.  To this extent, Forsyth’s observations are timely and relevant to much of the current Christian church in North America – which is often even contemptuous of theology.]

 

The Gospel is a certain interpretation of Christ which is given in the New Testament, a mystical interpretation of a historical fact. It is the loving, redeeming grace of a holy God in Christ and His salvation alone. …But the Christian fact is not an historical fact or figure simply; it is a superhistoric fact living on in the new experience which it creates.3

Now such language may tempt one to wander off into a Christ who disappears in words or even less than words, a vague sort of “spiritual” sensation:

Spiritual sensibility is not Christianity, nor is any degree of refined unction. A spirituality without positive and even dogmatic content is not Christianity….4

Christianity has a definite space and understanding:

The essential thing in New Testament Christianity is that it came to settle in a final way the issue between a holy God and the guilt of man. All else is secondary. All criticism is a minor matter if that be secure. The only deadly criticism is what makes that incredible; the only mischievous criticism is what make that less credible. All the beauties and charms of a temperamental religion like Francis Newman’s, for instance, or Renan’s, or many a Buddhist’s, are insignificant compared with a man’s living attitude to that work of God’s grace for the world once and for ever in Jesus Christ.

A faith whose object is not such a Christ is not Christianity. 5

By “faith”, Forsyth means only that which can have God as its object.  Therefore, faith in Christ must entail a belief, a knowledge in the “Godhead of Christ” (6):

Theologically, faith in Christ means that the person of Christ must be interpreted by what that saving action of God in him requires, that Christ’s work is the master key to His person, that his benefits interpret His nature. It means, when theologically put, that Christology is the corollary of Soteriology; for a Christology vanishes with the reduction of faith to mere religion. It means that the deity of Christ is at the center of Christian truth for us because it is the postulate of the redemption which is Christianity, because it alone makes the classic Christian experience possible for thought. 6

Thus, Christianity hinges upon Christ’s work – and our understanding of Christ’s nature cannot be had apart from Christ’s work. Forsyth seems to have sufficiently protected theology from pure subjectivity by making plain that Christian experience must be explained theologically. He has sought to protect theology from philosophical speculation by grounding it in the knowledge  of God in Christ.

He demonstrates the principle of understanding Christ in light of his work by turning to the matter of who Christ is in light of what Christ had done. He states that Christ was not a mere man who had some divine insight which led him to a resignation to the world’s chaos and thus living above it all. Jesus was not a dreamer who simply ignored the world’s trouble and found peace for himself. Jesus did not avoid sin merely by not caring. The strength of Jesus was found in what he did:

But it was energy put forth in a positive conflict, in mortal strife for the overthrow of God’s enemy, through the redemption of the race, the forgiveness of its guilt, and its moral re-creation. 8

Forsyth then turns to an objection raised by academics: Okay, but the doctrine of the Incarnation is simply too difficult a matter for the common man.  Forsyth rejects that proposition by resort to the experience of faith and salvation in Jesus Christ. Anyone who has come to know God in Jesus Christ has come to know that Christ is God Incarnate:

It is the evangelical experience of every saved soul everywhere. …The theology of the incarnation was necessary to explain our Christian experience and not our rational nature, nor our religious psychology.9

And:

We begin with the facts of experience, not with the forms of thought. First the Gospel then theology, first redemption then incarnation – that is the order of experience. 10

At this point he defines “lay religion”:

It properly means an experienced religion of direct, individual, and forgiven faith, in which we are not at the mercy of a priestly order of men, a class of sacramental experts. It is certainty of Christ’s salvation at first hand, by personal forgiveness through the cross of Christ in the Holy Ghost.

It does not mean a non-mediatorial religion, a religion stripped of the priestly orders of acts or ideas. New Testament Christianity is a priestly religion or it is nothing. It gathers about a priestly cross on earth and a Great High Priest Eternal in the heavens.

It also means the equal priesthood of each believer. But it means much more. That by itself is a ruinous individualism. It means the collective priesthood of the Church as one. The greatest function of the church in full communion with Him is priestly. It is to confess, to sacrifice, to intercede for the whole human race in Him. The Church, and those who speak in its name, have power and commandment to declare to the world being penitent the absolute and remission of its sins in Him. The Church is to stand thus, with the world’s sins for a load, but the word of the atoning cross for the lifting of it. That is apostolic Christianity. That is Gospel. Evangelical Christianity is mediatorial both in faith and function. 12

 

The priestly aspect must not be lost in our understanding of Christianity, because without a priestly response to sin – a matter of sacrifice and atonement – sin becomes mere matter of misbehavior which can be corrected with a good example – to the loss of true Christianity:

Perhaps the general conscience has succumbed to the cheap comforts and varied interests of life; or the modern stress on the sympathies has muffled the moral note; or the decency of life has stifled the need for mercy; or Christian liberty has in the liberty lost the Christ[1]. But, whatever the cause, the lay mind has become only too ready to interpret sin in a softer light than God’s, and to see it only under the pity of a Lord to whom judgment is quite a strange work, and who forgives all because He knows all. 13

And thus, as Forsyth demonstrates, Christ becomes altogether lost.

Here Forsyth responds by noting that the revelation we have received is not the matter of some opinion but the matter of some person.  The word of opinion as the beginning and the end of all less us without any true persons. It is an odd thing, but human personhood becomes lost when we true to understand the world or ourselves without reference to God – the actual source of Personhood. But, revelation is grounded in person:[2]

Revelation did not come in a statement, but in a person; yet stated it must be. Faith must go on to specific. 15

By failing to understand this fact, theology becomes solely a matter of academic exercise and lay religion – the religion left over for everyone else becomes

…simple, esay and domestic religion, with a due suspicion not only of a priesthood but even a ministry. …It is preoccupied with righteousness as conduct more than with faith as life indeed. It thinks the holiness of God a theological term, because nothing but love appeals to the young people who must be won. If it only knew how the best of the young people turn from such novelistic piety! And the view taken of sin corresponds. Sin is an offense against righteousness or love instead of against holiness; and it can be put straight by repentance and amendment without such artifices as atonement. It just means going wrong; it does not mean being guilty. The cross is not a sacrifice for guilt, but a divine object-lesson in self-sacrifice for people or principles….Christ saves from misery, and wrong  and bad habits, and self distrust; but not from guilt. He reveals a Father who is but rarely a judge, and then only for corrective purposes. The idea of a soul absolutely forfeit, and of its salvation and new creation, grow foreign to the lay mind. And the deep root of it all is the growing detachment of that mind from the Bible and its personal disuse. 17-18.

Forsyth then traces the trouble to failure of the Christian ministry as a preaching and teaching office. Since all Christian work is valuable before God, all work is the same and none takes precedence. Such a belief washes out the preaching office:

That is one result of the laicizing of belief, of the leveling of the Gospel to life instead of the lifting up of life to the Gospel. It is the result of erasing the feature unique I the Gospel and consequently o the office which preaches it. 19.

And thus he pronounces his judgment:

In a word, as I say, lay religion is coming to be understood as the antithesis, not of sacerdotal religion, but of theological, of atoning religion; that is to say, really of New Testament Christianity. 19.

He then goes to spend some analysis on the fact that there is no true “golden age” of the church – he is not contending that the former days were better. He then notes a characteristic which has only become more plain since his lecture:

What we are developing at the moment is an anthropo-centric Christianity. God and Christ are practically treated as but the means to an end that is nearer to our enthusiasm than anything else- the consummation and perfecting of Humanity. The chief value of religion becomes then not its value to God, but its value for completing and crowing of life, whether the great life of the race or the crowning of life, whether the great of the race or the personal life of the individual. Love Christ, we are urged, if you would draw out all that is in you to be. Our eyes is kept first upon our self-culture, our sanctification, in some form, by realizing a divine presence or indwelling, with but a secondary reference to the divine purpose. God waits on man more than man waits on God. God is drawn into the circle of our spiritual interests, the interests of man’s spiritual culture, as it mightiest ally and helper. 28

This is in contrast with true Christianity:

It [this new “lay religion”] is not theocentric. For in any theo-centric faith man lives for the worship and glory of God and for obedience to His revelation of Himself; which is not in man, and not in spirituality, but in Christ, in the historic, superhistoric Christ. Christ is not the revelation of man, but of God’s will for man; not of the God always in us, but of the God once and for all for us. Christ did not come in the first instance to satisfy the needs and instincts of our diviner self, but to honor the claim of a holy God upon us, crush our guilt into repentant faith, and create us anew in the act. 28-29

 

 

[1] If anything, the circumstance is far worse now in the common culture: when sin is devolved to sympathies, then the objectivity of conduct becomes lost.  The irrational retreat to “opinion” as a the basis for decision – one where all things are equally true (and thus nothing is actually True) – creates a space where redemption becomes impossible and distraction and a seared conscience are the goals of life. The Serpent’s promise, “You shall be as gods” has left us far less than human beings. One whose “opinion” or “feeling” has become the touchstone of decision lives no better than a dog or cat.

[2] Even the revelation contained in Scripture records the personal revelation of God to a prophet. Consider the story of Samuel, 1 Samuel 3.

The Situation of Union With Christ

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Ascension, Christology, Incarnation, Union With Christ

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Lewis Smedes in Union With Christ orients the doctrine of union in the “situation” of the Christian between the resurrection and the Second Coming. But before he explores the union, he begins by noting types of doctrines of union.

First, he references the “communion with God” model.  This model denies any real union with Jesus. The man Jesus is dead and gone. While there may be communion with God (or with “Christ”), Jesus, himself cannot be an object of union.

Dawson in Jesus Ascended considers the problem which the non-union “communion” model places to the fore: How can a man, Jesus of Nazareth, be the subject of any real relationship, seeing he is physically located somewhere (“heaven”) distant from us?

Still, because a body occupies space, the spatial distinction is not merely a metaphor but a reality. There is a place where the human Jesus is. There isa  heaven in which spiritual bodies occupy space, a created realm in which creatures are, to the limits of their capacity, in the presence of God (49).

Dawson responds by noting that the trouble of union with a distant Jesus lies in our concept of space. While there is a physical location of Jesus, we must limit our conception of space to a receptacle which holds the body of Jesus.

Relying upon Calvin and Thomas Torrance, Dawson discusses the matter of “relational” space:

Rather, in a relational sense, God in Christ crosses the divide to enter our existence, our way of being. Then, through this union, Jesus returns, still bearing his humanity, to the place the place of relation described as the Father’s right hand, the ‘place’ or honor, glory, power and dominion. Thus, heaven as a relational place is where God has ‘room’ for his divine life and activity in ever-deepening communion with humanity. (49)

The non-union response would be that this distant Jesus cannot be accessed from the place of our life. However, as Calvin notes, the Holy Spirit can communicate the blessings of Jesus to us.

We see how, in order to unite Christ with the Church, he does not bring his body out of heaven. … Here it is clear that the essence of the flesh is distinguished from the virtue of the Spirit, which conjoins us with Christ, when, in respect of space, we are at a great distance from him….  He sends his grace to us from heaven by means of the Spirit. (4.17.28).

John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 3, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 424-25.

Now, of those who do admit to a union, Smedes defines three types: First, a sacramental union. Such a union depends upon an exalting humanity:

Sacramental Christology stands and falls with the historical Jesus. But it does not find its center in the meaning of the historical events of Jesus’ life; it finds the center in the elevation of humanity to a new level. There is indeed a new creation, a new being that is Christ. But the primary note in the new creation is its being, not its action. Humanity is deified; that is the core of the good news. (9).

He next defines a “transaction Christology”:

[Jesus] became a man to obey, to die, to sacrifice, to atone. The heart of Christology lies in what Jesus did personally to transact with God for our atonement (10).

Now, as  Calvin notes, Jesus does us no good as long as he remains outside of us:

As long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and is of no value to us. [Calvin’s Institute, 2.17.3, quoted in Smedes, 11).

Third, Smedes brings forward the category of Situation Christology. Situation Christology does not deny the position of transaction, but rather “stress[es] that Christ radically changed the historical situation in which men live” (15).

The work of Christ took place within history – but also without and transcending history: “The decisive event was able to alter the human situation fundamentally because it too place behind the scenes of the human situation” (18).

Yet, it is just this change in situation which leads to the present quandary:

In view of the spiritual revolution in the world situation that took place at the resurrection and in vie of the fact that the ultimate triumph is still waited for, what is the meaning of the present time? Is there a Christological interpretation of the present existence of Christian people. (22)

Smedes notes that some of tried to solve this problem by arguing that Christ merely changed the “spiritual” situation, a “spiritual” experience –but one that has no real effect no or ever upon history. Smedes rejects that position and contends,

The present reality is the reality of union with Christ. And union with Christ is the experience of people who are introduced to the new age, with Christ as Lord (25).

Union With Christ and the Incarnation

24 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Incarnation, Isaiah, John, Philippians, Romans, Union With Christ

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An infinite chasm of sin and nature stands between the Creator and his creatures:

 I am God, and there is none like me

Isaiah 46:9. As the Creator, God cannot rightly be compared to his creation:

18    To whom then will you liken God,

or what likeness compare with him?

19    An idol! A craftsman casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

and casts for it silver chains.

20    He who is too impoverished for an offering

chooses wood that will not rot;

       he seeks out a skillful craftsman

to set up an idol that will not move.

21    Do you not know? Do you not hear?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22    It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

       who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

23    who brings princes to nothing,

and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

24    Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,

scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

       when he blows on them, and they wither,

and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

25    To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

26    Lift up your eyes on high and see:

who created these?

       He who brings out their host by number,

calling them all by name,

       by the greatness of his might,

and because he is strong in power

not one is missing.

 

Isaiah 40:18–26 (ESV). The distance is made greater, not merely by division of Creator and creation – but also by the division of rebellion and sin (Genesis 3:24).  As the result of sin, the entire creation has been “subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20).

 To effect reconciliation with him, God condescended to come to us, in the Incarnation.  The work of reconciliation has its ground in God himself. As all decrees of God, God does not look beyond himself, but rather his decrees express  “his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 7).

As to us, the sending of demonstrates the love of God:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16. The wonder and majesty of the eternal Son coming to us is a constant theme of the New Covenant expression and explication:

10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying,

                        “I will tell of your name to my brothers;

in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

13 And again,

                        “I will put my trust in him.”

And again,

                        “Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

Hebrews 2:10–15 (ESV).

 

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:3–4 (ESV).

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5–11 (ESV)

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14 (ESV).

The Incarnation becomes a ground of the believer being in union with Christ – and thus becoming reconciled to God. The chasm between God and man was bridged by God in the space of Jesus. The union with Christ takes place upon various grounds.  As noted by Henry Wilkinson Williams in Union With Christ (1857), one aspect of the union between the redeemed and Christ lies in the sympathy Christ holds for us in our physical weakness and distress:

The relation between the Saviour and our race is, therefore, most intimate and endearing. Jesus, the Incarnate Son, is our Brother. His heart, while He was here upon earth, beat with the sympathies of humanity. He felt as we feel, excepting only that His spirit was free from the least stain of moral defilement.

This is major strain of Hebrews, we have a high priest who is able “to sympathize with our weakness”:

Here, then, we behold the first great fact which the mediatorial scheme presents to us. The Son of God assumed our nature, so as to become a sharer of our weakness, our sorrows, and our temptations. And in this we perceive, in part,—though only in part,—the ground of our union with Him. He has stooped to become one with us. It was an essential feature of the economy of redemption, that the great Restorer, the second federal Head of humanity, “the last Adam,” should appear among us, not in a state of dazzling glory, but in one of lowliness and suffering, distinguished from that of mankind at large only by His perfect freedom from sin. “God” sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” (Rom. viii. 3.) A bond of union was thus formed between Him and the race that He came to save; and the first great step was taken in that scheme of human recovery which was to bring His believing people into the most intimate fellowship with Himself.

Williams’ caution that such sympathy is only a part of union must be duly noted.  The union with Christ does not consist in a bare sympathy, an emotion and thought. If so, we could easily reduce union to the level of a tender hearted reader who looks upon an article and photographs of distressed persons in a foreign land, feels some brief sorrow and perhaps guilt, sends some money and then turns to another topic.

Yet, we must not abstract the believers’ union with Christ from the love and sympathy which gave rise to the Incarnation (John 3:16), nor the love expressed and encouraged in Christ’s incarnation. 

New Testament References to the Ascension.1

24 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by in Ascension, Christology, Ephesians, Incarnation, Matthew, trial, Uncategorized

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The ascension must first be understood as an element of descent:

8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

Ephesians 4:8-10

Thus, references to the ascension must not neglect the incarnation as references:

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife,
25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25.

Some observations respecting the eventual ascension. The Holy Spirit superintends the Incarnation: “she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit”. It is now the Holy Spirit who communicates the ascended Christ to us.

The work of the Incarnation sought the reconciliation: He will save the people form their sins. The work of Christ in the ascension is (in part) to make intercession (Hebrews 9:24).

The work of the ascended Christ begins with the intention of the Incarnation.