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Thomas Traherne, The Soul’s Communion with her Savior, Book 1.1.3

28 Saturday Jan 2023

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§. 3.

When the Angel came in unto her, and said, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among Women: she cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.[1]

I praise thy Holy Name[2],

O Blessed Jesus,

for the greatness of thine Eternal Love to this Holy Virgin,

 and to all mankind in her[3].

O make me sensible how highly I myself am favor’d in this great transaction[4],

since she was thus blessed among women[5],

that all the families of the farth might be blessed in her Seed[6].

A salutation of such infinite importance

doth worthily deserve to be frequently revolved in our minds[7],

which, being particularly brought to a private family in Jewry[8],

hath prov’d of universal concernment to the whole world[9].

O let me also taste and see [10]

how gracious the Lord hath been to my Soul:

No matter[11] for the favor of men,

so we find Grace with God[12].

[1] This is the next event in the Annunciation referenced in Luke 1:26-38.

[2]

            Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless his holy name!

Psalm 103:1

Glory in his holy name;

let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!

1 Chronicles 16:10

Glory in his holy name;

let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!

Psalm 105:3

[3] Traherne is making a parallel in this prayer between Mary and Abraham. In Genesis 12, when God calls Abram, he promises him that in him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Genesis 12:1–3. That worldwide blessing is in in Abraham’s greater son, Jesus. Mary, being the virgin mother of Jesus is the last link in that chain of blessing.

[4] Traherne here counts himself in the blessing. Mary has been blessed by being the mother of Jesus. The promise to Abraham is fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. The blessing and promised and the blessing fulfilled have now overflowed to Traherne (and so also to us).

[5] After she has become pregnant, Mary travels to visit Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist:

41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Luke 1:41–43  

[6] Here he relates the promise to Abraham to the earlier promise made to Eve, by referring to Mary’s “seed”:

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring;

                        he shall bruise your head,

and you shall bruise his heel.”

Genesis 3:15 (ESV)

[7] To just contemplate the truth of God is itself a good thing for the people of God.  Considering these things, or if you prefer, “meditate on these things” is absent element of our practice.

[8] The ancient Israelites.

[9] The scope of Jesus’ work is truly universal:

9 And they sang a new song, saying,

                        “Worthy are you to take the scroll

and to open its seals,

                        for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God

from every tribe and language and people and nation,

            10          and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,

and they shall reign on the earth.”

Revelation 5:9–10 (ESV)

[10]

            Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Psalm 34:8 (ESV)

[11]

Stop regarding man

in whose nostrils is breath,

for of what account is he?

Isaiah 2:22

[12] “No matter”, idiomatically, “who cares” what anyone thinks of me if I have found favor with God.

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.

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

Posted by in Apologetics, Christology, Incarnation

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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.

Hope Fetches Holiness

06 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in 1 Peter, Election, Exodus, Hope, Isaiah, Mortification, Obedience, Praise, Sanctification, Union With Christ

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(Some rough notes on 1 Peter 2:9)

1 Peter 2:9 (ESV)

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

The first and last clauses in 1 Peter 2:9 come from Isaiah 43:21:

Isaiah 43:18–21 (ESV)

            18         “Remember not the former things,

nor consider the things of old.

            19         Behold, I am doing a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

                        I will make a way in the wilderness

and rivers in the desert.

            20         The wild beasts will honor me,

the jackals and the ostriches,

                        for I give water in the wilderness,

rivers in the desert,

                        to give drink to my chosen people,

            21         the people whom I formed for myself

                        that they might declare my praise.

 

In referencing Isaiah 43, Peter brings the salvation of the Christians into an eschatological focus. Young states that the “new thing” brought about God “is the wondrous redemption that was wrought for His people when the promised Messiah died upon the Cross of Golgotha” (156). That is true – but it is not the end of what God is doing.

Delitzsch writes:

He [Isaiah] knows that when the suffering of the people of God shall be brought ot an end, the sufferings of creation will terminate; for humanity is the heart of the universe, and the people of God (understanding by this the people of God according to the Spirit) are the heart of humanity (197).

This is the point of Paul in Romans 8 speaking of the adoption of the sons of God:

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Romans 8:18–25 (ESV)

The redemption wrought by Christ is the beginning of the transformation of the entire physical creation. Christ has not merely wrought salvation as an escape from the world – rather, Christ’s work has utterly transformed the entire nature of everything.

Smedes comments (Union With Christ):

God wanted a new creation with people in it who were His people, and this was His election. He elected a kingdom with a King, a body with a Head, a people with  a leader, a universe with a Lord, and sinners with a Savior. He elected in the comprehensive Christ, the Christ who was – in faith – first defined as “Lord of All.” (90).

The purpose of this work – this choosing and creating – is worship:

Israel is to recount, not its own merit, but God’s praises. It is His grace and love they are to declare, not their own works and achievement. Herein is stated the purpose of Israel’s election; they are to be a people that will praise their God (Young, Isaiah, vol. 3, 158)[1].

Indeed, as Calvin notes, salvation is given to glorify God:

This people have I created for myself. The Prophet means that the Lord will necessarily do what he formerly said, because it concerns his glory to preserve the people whom he has chosen for himself; and therefore these words are intended for the consolation of the people. “Do you think that I will suffer my glory to fall to the ground? It is connected with your salvation, and therefore your salvation shall be the object of my care. In a word, know that you shall be saved, because you cannot perish, unless my glory likewise perish. Ye shall therefore survive, because I wish that you may continually proclaim my glory.”

John Calvin and William Pringle, vol. 3, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 344. Our salvation is thus anchored in God’s desire for his glory. And it is for his glory that we will persevere – and for his glory that we will exist. Thus, our salvation glorifies God – and our praises which naturally flow from the recognition of our salvation glorify God.

The middle section of 1 Peter 2:9 derives from Exodus 19 and the making of the covenant with Israel at Sinai:

Exodus 19:5–6 (ESV)

5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

It is of interest that Peter quotes a conditional promise, “If you will indeed obey my voice ….”  One great purpose of the OT is prove that Israel did not keep the command of God. Indeed, the promise of Isaiah hinges upon Israel being driven from the land due to their disobedience. How then can this promise be granted if the condition has failed?

Peter’s entire framework assumes the New Covenant. Yes, the Old Covenant failed, but God has raised Jesus from dead and granted us hope. He has redeemed us from the curse. We have been sprinkled with the blood of Christ – which recalls the sprinkling of Moses to institute Old Covenant (Exodus 24:8).

Paul’s language in Galatians 4 draws out the significance of Peter’s argument:

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. Galatians 4:4–7 (ESV)

The law brought its curse – but Christ came redeemed those born under the curse of the law. And not only did he redeem those so cursed, but he even extended adoption.  In Romans 8, Paul writes that the full extent of the adoption will be the restoration of the physical order. Peter quotes Isaiah 43 which shows that the culmination of the return from exile will be the transformation of the physical order (deserts, beasts, water). And while certainly such images help us picture the spiritual restoration of redemption – there is no reason to think that spiritual restoration will not entail physical transformation of the very  stuff of creation (especially when it is explicitly so promised).

The comprehensive work of God – physical and spiritual – extends from the incarnation of Christ (note Peter’s very physical and transcendent Christ: was “made manifest”, he bled, he died, he was physically resurrected – and “he was foreknown before the foundation of the world”).  Since the transformation is not merely “spiritual” it rightly claims our entire life.

Thus the “rules” of this new life (set forth by Peter) rightly extend to our entire life. Moreover, the difficulty of the rules does not lie in the things required – but rather requiring them in a world cursed by sin.  The difficulty with the law lies (in part/in whole?)in its conflict with the present age. Certainly living as one who belongs to the age to come will create conflict with the present age (and those who are not part of the new creation).

Accordingly since the structure of life must be aligned to the dawning age, our strength to obey must be fetched from the age to come.  There can be no holiness in this age without hope of the age to come. Holiness is an eschatological orientation. Hope fetches holiness

 

[1]

This brings us back to the main proposition of the chapter, namely, that Jehovah had not only made them what they were, but had made them for the purpose of promoting His own glory, so that any claim of merit on their part, and any apprehension of entire destruction, must be equally unfounded.

 

John Peter Lange, Philip Schaff, Carl Wilhelm Eduard Nägelsbach et al., A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Isaiah (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), 470.

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.

Edward Taylor: What Feast is This.1

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Edward Taylor, Isaiah, Lord's Supper, Meditation, Puritan

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What Feast is This?

Isaiah 25 is a poem of praise to God for reversing the power of sin and death. The power of wicked who use violence to crush the poor and powerless will be undone and also the power of death which animates the oppression will itself be destroyed (the poem is written in a “prophetic perfect” — that is, it represents a future state, but speaks of it in past time: it is a thing so sure as to be counted complete before it happens in time).

In place of death, God will raise a feast; rather than a funeral, there will be a marriage celebration:

6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. 7 And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. 9 It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

This image of a feast replacing death is used by Jesus to speak of the coming world (Matthew 8:11 & 25:1-13). The Bible ends with the invitation to a marriage feast (Revelation 19:9). Thus, the Bible opens (Genesis 2:24) and closes with a marriage. Death has intervened (Genesis 3), but God has overcome death in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Taylor takes this imagery of the feast in celebration of death being overcome and uses it to contemplate the Lord’s Supper (communion):

A Deity of Love incorporate
My Lord, lies in thy flesh, in dishes stable
Ten thousand times more rich than golden plate
In golden service on thy table,
To feast thy people with. What feast is this!
Where richest love lies cooked in e’ry dish?

Deity of love incorporate: The Son of God incarnate: John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. John 3:16, “For God so love the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
1 John 4:9-10: 9 “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Dishes stable/Where richest love lies cooked in e’ry dish: This is a reference to the communion service (the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper):

23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26.

In short, Taylor sees himself before the Lord’s Table (another name for communion), where the feast is the Lord whose death overcomes death. By means this meditation, he is seeking to see “spiritually” (if you will) — to see the truth of thing, itself; and bring his heart to a state to relish it rightly.

Stable/table: The second lines contains 11 syllables, the fourth, 9.

My Lord, lies in thy flesh: the accent should fall on “lies” & “flesh” -“–`-`-`-