Tag Archives: christology

Edward Taylor, My Shattered Fancy.4

22 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by in Edward Taylor, Puritan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

These two stanzas go together. Each stanza begins with “I being graft in thee.” From that follows the nature of the relationship which now exists between the two. The first of these stanzas speaks of the particular relationships which have come into being. The poet primarily takes on the feminine role; the Lord the masculine. Hence he is sister, mother, spouse. Dove is neutral but in the allusion to Canticles, dove is feminine:

Song of Solomon 6:9 (KJV 1900)
9 My dove, my undefiled is but one;
She is the only one of her mother,
She is the choice one of her that bare her.
The daughters saw her, and blessed her;
Yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.

The ESV translates “undefiled” here as “my perfect one.”

The one characteristic which is unambiguously male is “son”. But in this context, it is the diminutive position, because the Lord is “father.”

Sister is likewise from Canticles (or Song of Solomon). Before reading this it should be noted that “sister” carries the emphasis of the intense closeness of the relationship is not meant to suggest something untoward:

Song of Solomon 4:9–12 (KJV 1900)
9 Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse;
Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes,
With one chain of thy neck.
10 How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse!
How much better is thy love than wine!
And the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
11 Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb:
Honey and milk are under thy tongue;
And the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
12 A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse;
A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

As for “mother”, one may ask how the poet could be in the position of “mother” toward the Lord. The answer is from the Lord himself. When Jesus’ family heard he was in a house teaching, “his family heard of it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind.’” Mark 2:20-21.

As the family pressed for admittance, the matter came to Jesus’ attention:

Mark 3:31–35 (KJV 1900)
31 There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. 32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. 33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? 34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! 35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

This also being another reference to “sister.”

As spouse:

Isaiah 54:5 (KJV 1900)
5 For thy Maker is thine husband;
The Lord of hosts is his name;
And thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel;
The God of the whole earth shall he be called.

The most extensive discussion of marriage in the New Testament, Ephesians 5:21-33, speaks directly of human marriage and then applies the same to Christ and the church.

I being graft in Thee, there up do stand
In us relations all that mutual are.
I am Thy patient, pupil, servant, and
Thy sister, mother, dove, spouse, son, and heir.
Thou art my priest, physician, prophet, king,
Lord, brother, bridegroom, father, everything.

The relationship of prophet, priest, king are considered to be the formal offices of Christ, as set forth in the Westminster Confession.

It pleased God, in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only-begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and man,1 the Prophet,2 Priest,3 and King;4 the Head and Saviour of his Church,5 the Heir of all things,6 and Judge of the world;7 unto whom he did, from all eternity, give a people to be his seed,8 and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified.9
As for Father, there is the refrain made famous in Messiah:

Isaiah 9:6 (KJV 1900)
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
And the government shall be upon his shoulder:
And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God,
The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

In the next stanza on relationship, Taylor says that by being brought into relationship with Christ, he is brought into all of Christ’s relationships. Being in Christ, the relationships an angel has toward Christ are now Taylor’s relationship:
“I thy relations my relations name.”

I being graft in Thee I am grafted here
Into Thy family, and kindred claim
To all in heaven, God, saints, and angels there.
I Thy relations my relations name.
Thy father’s mine, Thy God my God, and I
With saints and angels draw affinity.

The relating of my God-your God, my Father, your Father comes Jesus’s words as he takes leave of Mary Magdalene following the Resurrection:

John 20:17 (KJV 1900)
17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

And so these two stanzas work out the nature of the new relationships gained by the poet upon his union with Christ. First, there are the transformation of the relationships between himself and Christ; and then the transformation of his relationships to others, because he is in Christ.

It cannot be developed here, but at the Fall in Genesis 3, the totality of relationships between the humans and Creation have fundamentally changed for the worse. But here, in God’s Garden, by being brought into relationship in Christ, there is a complete restoration of relationship between God and human; human and all other creatures.

Edward Taylor, Oh Wealthy Theme.4

01 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by in Christology, Edward Taylor

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

All office fulness with all office gifts

Embossed are in thee, whereby thy grace

Doth treat both God and man, brings up by hifts

Black sinner and white justice to embrace:

Making the glory of God’s justice shine

And making sinners to God’s glory climb.

Office:  At this point, Taylor is using the standard theological language of “office” to describe the work of Jesus Christ. It is a reference to particular aspects of Christ’s work as prophet, priest and king. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, questions 23-27 read as follows:

Q. 23. What offices doth Christ execute as our Redeemer?

A. Christ, as our Redeemer, executeth the offices of a prophet [a], of a priest [b], and of a king [c], both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation.

[a]. Deut. 18:18; Acts 2:33; 3:22-23; Heb. 1:1-2

[b]. Heb. 4:14-15; 5:5-6

[c]. Isa. 9:6-7; Luke 1:32-33; John 18:37; 1 Cor. 15:25

Q. 24. How doth Christ execute the office of a prophet?

A. Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by his Word [a] and Spirit [b,] the will of God for our salvation [c].

[a]. Luke 4:18-19, 21; Acts 1:1-2; Heb. 2:3

[b]. John 15:26-27; Acts 1:8; 1 Pet. 1:11

[c]. John 4:41-42; 20:30-31

Q. 25. How doth Christ execute the office of a priest?

A. Christ executeth the office of a priest, in his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice [a], and reconcile us to God [b]; and in making continual intercession for us [c].

[a]. Isa. 53; Acts 8:32-35; Heb. 9:26-28; 10:12

[b]. Rom. 5:10-11; 2 Cor. 5:18; Col. 1:21-22

[c]. Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25; 9:24

Q. 26. How doth Christ execute the office of a king?

A. Christ executeth the office of a king, in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us [a], and in restraining and conquering all his

and our enemies [b].

[a]. Ps. 110:3; Matt. 28:18-20; John 17:2; Col. 1:13

[b]. Ps. 2:6-9; 110:1-2; Matt. 12:28; 1 Cor. 15:24-26; Col. 2:15

What Taylor means is that Christ fulfills the work of prophet, priest and king in the Incarnation, and that also Christ has the “gifts,” the abilities to fulfill such work.

Treat God and man: Christ, in his unique position as God Incarnate can deal equally with God and with Human Beings. He can communicate between the two as a bridge before the finite and infinite, the creator and creature. 

Justice and mercy: The concept which causes Taylor to so praise, is that Christ, by means of his unique position being God and Man, can reconcile two completely opposite demands. 

Justice by its nature requires satisfaction of the guilty party. If one is guilty, it is unjust for the law to ignore the demand. To understand this point, perhaps you need to feel it. 

Imagine that someone you dearly loved was victimized by a brutal criminal. This criminal was then brought before a judge, where the fact of the crime was unquestionably established. However, the judge simply determined to let the criminal free without any penalty. You would rightly be angry: the law was unjust in permitting the guilty to go free. 

Thus, God – to be God – must be perfectly just and cannot ignore crime. 

However, this presents an unsolvable problem for humanity. The wrong done to an infinitely perfect being does not permit an easy resolution. What could we possibly do to satisfy the justice of God? 

The prophet Micah put it this way:

Micah 6:6–7 (ESV) 

            6           “With what shall I come before the Lord,

and bow myself before God on high? 

                        Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, 

with calves a year old? 

            7           Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, 

with ten thousands of rivers of oil? 

                        Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, 

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” 

What we need is mercy from God. 

How then can God be perfectly just (fully punishing crime) and merciful (passing over crime)? 

Jesus as God and Man stands in for humanity. God’s justice is brought upon Jesus who suffers as a substitute and thus obtains mercy for human beings. In the act of faith and repentance, God transfers our guilt to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us and so the sinner and justice “embrace.”

The Difference Between God’s Sacrifice and Man’s (Forsyth)

19 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in P. T. Forsyth

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

In his essay, “The Difference Between God’s Sacrifice and Man’s,” P.T. Forsyth compares the death of Christ – which was a loss of his life to save others – with human heroism: again, one person giving his life to save the life of others. As he puts it, “How does man’s noblest work differ from Christ’s great work? (P.T. Forsythy, The Work of Christ, (London, Hodder and Stoughton, N.D.), 10.)

The work of a hero thrills us, we are attracted to it.  We don’t need to learn to be inspired by heroic action, it comes by nature. But the same does not happen when we consider the death of Christ as it is in the Bible (perhaps one can re-work his death into a heroic political statement, but that is a completely different thing). 

The death of Christ cannot be set up for admiration, which we then leave and go onto other things. First, the death of Christ must create in us the ability to even comprehend what is happening:

Christ’s was a death on behalf of people within whom the power of responding had to be created. (15)…

The death of Christ had not simply to touch like heroism, but it had to redeem us into power of feeling its own worth. Christ had to save us from what we were too far gone to feel. (18)

Thus, to begin to understand and have a suitable response to the death of Christ is something we must acquire as a result of the death of Christ. 

Second, the death was not merely an exemplar, it is transformative: 

That death had to make new men of us….The death of Christ had to with our sin and not with our sluggishness. It had to deal with our active hostility, and not simply with the passive dullness of our hearts. (19)

He then proposes a test for whether one has begun to understand what is happening in the death of Christ: how do you respond to being told that someone had to die on your behalf because  you were dead in trespass and sin:

If the impression Christ makes upon you is to leave you more satisfied with yourself for being able to respond, He has to get a great deal nearer to you yet….The great deep classic cases of Christian experience bear testimony to that. Christ and His Cross come nearer and near, we do not realize what we owe Him until we realize that He has plucked us from the fearful pit, the miry clay, and set us upon a rock of God’s own founding. (23)

What then does it cost us to rightly understand what Christ has done?

The meaning of Christ’s death rouses our shame, self-contempt, and repentance. And we resent being made to repent. A great many people are afraid to come too near to anything that does that for them. That is a frequent reason for not going to church. (23)

A hero’s work raises in a thrill, they think well of human beings. But Christ’s death, which is certainly heroic, does the opposite – when it is rightly understood. When we see that death, we experience shame in ourselves. As Forsyth puts, this death calls for “the tribute of yourself and your shame.” (22)

What then is the distinction between the hero and Christ?

The sacrifice of the Cross was not man in Christ pleasing God; it was God in Christ, reconciling man, and in a certain sense, reconciling Himself. My point at this moment is that the Cross of Christ was Christ reconciling man. It not heroic man dying for a beloved and honored God. (25)

Therefore, the death of Christ – when put into the correct frame – is not attractive because it first costs us shame to understand. This death is not admirable: rather it is condemning of me. Now if my understanding of the death breaks me down and brings me to repentance, it does me infinite good. But it can never be rightly understood until I take hold of the shame it costs me. 

James Denney, Degrees of Reality in Revelation and Religion

26 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by in Christology, James Denney, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

(From The Way Everlasting).

This sermon is based upon 1 John 5:6:

6 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. (ESV)

This sermon concerns the reality of Christ’s coming:

The reality of God’s redeeming love. It is easy to puzzle the mind with questions about reality, especially where God is concerned. Every one has heard of the astronomer who swept the heavens with his telescope and found no trace of God. That is not very disconcerting. We do not ascribe to God the same kind of reality as we do to the stars, and are not disappointed if the astronomer does not detect him as he might a hitherto unnoticed planet. M. Renan somewhere speaks of God as “the category of the ideal”; that is, he ascribes to God that kind of reality which belongs to the high thoughts, aspirations, and hopes of the mind. Certainly we should not disparage the ideal or its power, and still less should we speak lightly of those who devote themselves to ideals and cherish faith in them. But to redeem and elevate such creatures as we are, more is needed; and what the Apostle is so emphatic about is that God has come to save us not with the reality of ideals, but with the reality of all that is most real in the life we live on earth, in the battle we fight in the flesh, in the death that we die He has come with the reality of blood. The Christian religion is robbed of what is most vital in it if the historical Christ and the historical passion cease to be the very heart of it.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 143–144.

He then considers some ways that the reality of Christ’s coming are made bloodless, distance, mere abstractions. First consider the ethical, philosophical arguments which try to reduce Christ and his work to an ethics and example. But,

I had rather preach with a crucifix in my hand and the feeblest power of moral reflection, than have the finest insight into ethical principles and no Son of God who came by blood. It is the pierced side, the thorn-crowned brow, the rent hands and feet, that make us Christians—these, and not our profoundest thoughts about the ethical constitution of the universe.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 145. He also considers those who try to dehistoricize Christ’s coming; but that likewise will not do.

But here comes the bite of the sermon: if Christ came in such a real way, in the way of blood and water, then this lays upon the Christian the call to a life answering that reality:

It follows from this that no deliberate seeking of a sheltered life is truly Christian. The Son of God came in blood. He faced the world as it was, the hour and the power of darkness; He laid down life itself in pursuance of His calling; and there must be something answering to this in a life which is genuinely Christian. Yet we cannot help seeing that in different ways this conclusion is practically evaded. It is evaded by those who aim at cultivating the Christian life solely in coteries, cliques, and conventions of like-minded people; by those whose spiritual concern is all directed inward, and whose ideal is rather the sanctification of the soul than the consecration of life to Christ. There are so few people who make holiness in any sense whatever the chief end of life that one shrinks from saying anything which might reflect on those who do pursue it, even in a mistaken sense; but who has not known promising characters fade away and become characterless, through making this mistake? Who does not know how easy it is to miss the Gospel type, the type of Jesus, and actually to present to the world, as though with his stamp upon it, a character insipid, ineffective, bloodless? Nothing has a right to bear His name that is not proved amid the actualities of life to have a passion in it like His own.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 148–149.

This then leads to a final question: I am willing to concede and even believe this fact of Christ coming so, but it still seems distant and abstract. Christ did come in blood and water, but my life and my experience does not seem truly touched by this fact. What of that? To which Denney answers:

The answer to such questions, I believe, is suggested by the next words of the Apostle: “It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth”. There is a point of mystery in all religion—not the point at which we know nothing, but the point at which we know everything and yet nothing happens—the point at which we are cast absolutely on God. But the mention of the Spirit reminds us that though the Christian experience depends absolutely upon God, it is not for that reason blankly mysterious. The Spirit is a witness; he takes the things of Christ and shows them to us, and under his showing they become present, real, and powerful. This is his work—to make the past present, the historical eternal, the inert vital.

When the Spirit comes, Christ is with us in all the reality of His life and Passion, and our hearts answer to His testimony. We read the Gospel, and we do not say, He spoke these words of grace and truth, but He speaks them. We do not say, He received sinners and ate with them; but, He receives sinners and spreads a table for them. We do not say, He prayed for His own; but, He ever liveth to make intercession for us. We do not even say, He came in blood; but, He is here, clothed in His crimson robe, in the power of His Passion, mighty to save. Have we not had this witness of the Spirit on days we can recall? Have we not had it in listening to the word of God this very day? We know what it is to grieve the Spirit; we know also what it is to open our hearts to Him.

Let us be ready always to open our hearts to His testimony to the Son of God—to Jesus Christ who came with the water and with the blood; and as the awful reality of the love of God in Christ is sealed upon them, let us make answer to it in a love which has all the reality of our own nature in it.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 150–151.

The Heart of Christ in Heaven, to Sinners on Earth (Thomas Goodwin) 3

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Ascension, Christology, Thomas Goodwin, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

06apollo

ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO

1447
Fresco
Sant’Apollonia, Florence

As Goodwin explains, John 13 gives us a view into the heart of Christ as prepares to leave his disciples. Next Goodwin considers this aspect of Christ’s “long sermon” on leaving, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that I go away”. John 16:7 Christ will (1) send the comforter (John 16:7), and (2) prepare a place for them. John 14:3. He goes on ahead to prepare a place for them, to make certain it is done. And like the High Priest, he carries their names over his heart when enters into the holiest place.

Goodwin then draws out the implications of this going and coming, sinking deep into the concept of marriage which runs throughout the Scripture:

“I will come to you again and receive you to myself.” He condescends to the very laws of bridegrooms, for notwithstanding all his greatness, no lover shall put him down in any expression of true love. It is the maker of bridegrooms, hen they have made all ready in their father’s house, then to come themselves and fetch their brides, and not to send for them by others, because it is the time of love.

Love descends better than ascends, and so doth the love Christ, who indeed is love itself, and therefore comes down to us himself.

….”Heaven shall not hold me, nor my Father’s company, if I have not you with me, my heart is so set up you; and if I have any glory, you shall have a part of it.”

….He will not stay a minute longer than needs must, he tarries only till he hath throughout all ages by his intercession prepared every room for each saint, that he may entertain them all at once together, and have the all about him.

4 Goodwin, “The Heart of Christ in Heaven”, 100.

The Heart of Christ in Heaven, to Sinners on Earth (Thomas Goodwin) 2

27 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Ascension, Biblical Counseling, Christology, Thomas Goodwin, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

large

Goodwin begins his analysis with John 13:1:

Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

Goodwin argues that in what follows, John writes to “set open a window into Christ’s heart and give a light into, and put a gloss and interpretation upon all that follows. The scope where is to show what his affections would be to them in heaven”.

Jesus knows that the cross is coming; that “the Father had given all things into his hands” (John 14:3).  What then does Christ think of; what does he do? He washes his disciples feet: Rather than thinking of what he would gain for himself, “he takes more for his own, who were to remain here in this world, a world wherein there is much evil”. The knowledge that he is coming to the end, draws out his compassion towards “his own”: “The elect are Christ’s own, a piece of him .. not as goods…his own children, his own members, his own wife, his own flesh.” (p. 97)

Goodwin explains the purpose of washing their feet as follows:

And what was Christ’s meaning in this, but that, whereas he should be in heaven, he could not make such outward visible demonstrations of his heart, by doing such mean services for them; therefore by doing this in the midst of such thoughts of his glory, he would show what he could be content (as it were) to do for them, when he should be in full possession of it….So you see what his heart was before he went to heaven, even admit the thought of all his glory; and you see what it is after he hath been in heaven, and greatened with all his glory, even content to wash poor sinners’ feet, and to serve them that come to him and wait for him. (p. 98)

And, this washing signifies his willingness to wash away their sin.

The Heart of Christ in Heaven, to Sinners on Earth (Thomas Goodwin) 1

25 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by in Ascension, Thomas Goodwin, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

This is a fascination essay (a long essay, a very short book), divided in three parts. The essay asks the question, what is Jesus Christ like now that he is ascended? What is he like in heaven? How does he now relate to me? And, rather than give a careless answer, Goodwin very carefully considers some important aspects of the Scriptural evidence.

This essay demonstrates a level of exegesis which cannot easily be taught. There is a mechanical sort of analysis which looks at text and explicates the grammar and syntax. That is necessary, but when it comes to Scripture, that sort of analysis goes only part way. The necessary questions are why is this being said? What does this do? How does this part relate to the whole (context is king, but the ultimate context of Scripture is the entirety, not merely the surrounding paragraph)? I remember a line a poem (perhaps it was Stratford, it has been years since I read it, “Everything is telling one big story”.)

There is a goal to this essay:

The scope and use whereof will be this, to hearten and encourage believers to come ore boldly unto the throne of grace, unto such a Savior and High Priest, when the shall know how sweetly and tenderly his heart, though he is now in his glory, is inclined toward them [Collected Works, vol. 4, p. 95].

It ends likes this:

In all the miseries and distresses you may be sure to know where to have a have a friend to help and pity you, even in heaven, Christ;

One who nature, office, interest, relation, all, do engage him to your succor; you will find men, even friends to be oftentimes unto you unreasonable, and their bowels [their compassion] in many cases shut up towards you.

Well, say to them all, If you will not pity me, choose, I know that one that will, one in heaven, whose heart is touched with the feeling of all my infirmities, and I will go and bemoan myself to him.

Come boldly says the text, even with open mouth, to lay open your complaints, and you shall find grace and mercy to help in time of need. Men love to see themselves pitied by friends, though they cannot help them; Christ can and will do both.

Vol. 4, p. 150. In between the aim and the strike, Goodwin provides a tremendous, careful theology of Christ’s Ascension.

Part I will be next.