The "Look"

My best Michael Scofield look. Not bad, eh?

The God of the Bible

If the God you serve is a God unwilling to dine with prostitutes and scoundrels, then yours is not the God of the Bible.

And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." - Luke 5:30-32

Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. - Matt. 21:31

We're Missing Something

The story of Christianity in four words:

Creation, Fall, Jesus, Salvation.

Right?

Wrong! At least according to N.T. Wright. He says we're missing something in that industry-standard list that will actually shape how we read the entire Bible, and thus to ignore it is to miss one of the keys to unlocking who Jesus is and therefore who God is. Wright's list looks like this:

Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus, Salvation.

Scot McKnight's is something very similar (though aided by its alliteration):

Creation, Cracked Eikons, Covenant Community, Christ, Consummation

This is starting to look like a page from one of Rob Bell's books what with all the gaps, but I just thought it was interesting how quick we as Christians are to ignore Israel when it comes to the gospel of God.

Perhaps we need to introduce the song "Father Abraham" into our corporate worship times. I'll let you know how that goes...

A Litmus Test

As I ponder the words of John Stott in The Cross of Christ, I am left wondering how far away we have veered from Paul's affirmation that "we preach Christ crucified". When it comes to Christian preaching, is that what is being heard around the world? Stott says that the only authentic Jesus is the Jesus who died on the cross. P.T. Forsyth states that "you do not understand Christ till you undertsand His cross".

I remembering hearing of someone who uses the following question as a sort of litmus test for preaching: In order for your sermon to be true, did Christ have to die?

A sort of corollary question might be asked of the congregation: In order for a sermon to have a genuine impact on you, does Christ crucified need to be proclaimed?

The message of the cross may have been a stumbling block to Jews. It may have been foolishness to Greeks. But one fears we are in an even more precarious position now, because to the 21st century inhabitants the message of the cross is seemingly irrelevant.

Theosis

For Paul, theosis is “transformative participation in the kenotic, cruciform character of God through Spirit-enabled conformity to the incarnate, crucified, and resurrected/glorified Christ.”

I couldn't have said it any clearer myself.

All Things New

"He is the image of the invisible God..." - Colossians 1.15 (not referring to the above Pegasus)

Remember that catchy song One of us? Well, the quite startling claim of Christianity is that God became one of us. Just a slob like one of us. The earliest of Christians believed nothing less than Jesus being God. "My Lord and my God" said doubting Thomas after seeing the nail-pierced hands and wounded sides of Jesus. It seems to have taken the resurrection for the disciples to get Jesus' own confession that if you have seen Him then you have seen the invisible God, but once they got it there was no turning back. And rightly so. If I were to meet a man who claimed to be equal with God, and then proved to me that He was equal with God, by, say, coming back to life after a few days of deadness, I'd probably want to be a part of whatever He was up to.

And what is this image of the Invisible up to? In short, He is creating other images to be part of a world-wide community which is a reflection of the glory of God. That's the why of creation, and specifically, the why of the creation of human beings. "Let us make man in our image", declared the Triune God. The man from dust, Adam, corrupted that image. The man from heaven, Jesus, restored it to be something even greater than it originally was.

This is the good news of Christianity: the man Jesus is God, and He is once again making man in that image. The pivot which this re-creation turns on is the cross, a subject Paul briefly touches on in Colossians 1 having declared Jesus to be the image of God:

For in Him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.

The Passion of the Christ, while flawed in numerous ways, has a couple of awe-inspiring scenes. One of those is courtesy of Mel Gibson's artistic license, where he films Jesus staggering along the Via Dolorosa with Mary too traumatised to look on. However, having recalled a moment from Jesus' childhood where He falls over and she rushes to aid Him, her maternal instincts take over in the present and she flings herself towards the blood-soaked Messiah and embraces His torn body. Here Gibson inserts the words of the risen Christ from the book of Revelation: I am making all things new. This way of suffering is what the image of God had to endure in order to restore His broken images, and make us new.

The problem many have is that they can somewhat grasp the image of God sitting on a throne displaying all manner of supernatural powers which wow the world into submission. What they can't grasp at all is the image of God dying in obscurity on a cross.

"God became man to turn creatures into sons; not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature." - C.S. Lewis

The Witnesses of Old

I may not be an apologist, historian, or scientist, but I am a communist creationist. For me, either life starts with an Other with the power of being (someone eternal), or there is no life at all. And more specifically, that Other is the God of the Bible. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the God who stepped into His creation in the person of Jesus. I don't intend to give a rigourous proof for these statements, but there is one thing to note when confronted with the Bible's dramatic opening line, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" and what immediately follows.

This account of creation was not written in a vacuum. Not according to Jewish tradtion anyway (whether you want to believe what Jewish people have to say is another matter entirely). Moses didn't write about God as Creator because of some philosophical musings that popped into his wandering mind one day. Moses wrote about God as Creator because he witnessed this God turn water into blood, bring a plague of locusts upon Egypt, and lead His chosen people to freedom by parting a sea. Moses and the children of Israel experienced God the Creator in dramatic fashion, which is why it ain't no thang for Moses to begin the chronicles of God's dealings with His creation by stating the fact that God is the Creator of everything. I mean they claim to have seen Him manipulate creation in all manner of ways, and their existence as a nation is at least some kind of evidence that they might just be telling the truth.

The upshot of all of this is that one can't ignore the witnesses of old when drawing conclusions about creation. Some of these witnesses claim to have seen God control creation in miraculous ways. Other witnesses claim to have seen the same God begin a new creation through the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Isn't there a chance that they might actually be telling the truth?

Geeky Christian Circles

Imputation is one of those words you generally only come across in theology. It and its cognates are used in the context of how one is justified before God. The theology of justification (I'm boring you already, aren't I?) most Christians who read this blog have been brought up on is something not unlike the following:

We have The Law, but no matter how hard we try to keep it we will never be made right with God in that way. God's standard is perfection, and all fall short of it. Therefore in order for us to be made right with God, Jesus lived the perfect life, died on a cross, which led to this exchange: Our sin was laid on Him so that by faith His "righteousness" or perfection could be laid on us.

This exchange is what is known in geeky Christian circles as double imputation: Our sin is imputed (or attributed) to Christ, and His righteousness is imputed to us. For those of you still with me, this sounds reasonable, right? Perhaps you would use different words, but I imagine you'd be describing the same process as the one I have outlined when talking about our justification.

Up until just over a week ago I'd have signed up to this description of justification without a second thought. Me bad. Jesus good. Jesus gives me His goodness meaning me not considered bad anymore. All done by faith. Yay.

That all sounds rather lovely (and it is, don't get me wrong), but as Tom Wright (aka N.T. Wright) shows in his book Justification (I know - a whole book on Justification), this notion of imputation does not appear to be as scripturally sound as those sola scriptura Reformers once thought, and as sound as most of the Protestant Church thinks today. This may appear to be pointless theological sparring, but if so then why not just erase the first half of most of Paul's letters, which deal almost exclusively with Christian doctrine? Because pointless theological sparring is sometimes important. Of course I don't pretend that any of what I say on the matter is interesting or correct, but surely these theological debates have a purpose, right?

Anyway, I think one of the most obvious places where double imputation falls down is the entire New Testament, which doesn't once mention "the righteousness of Christ" or the "righteousness of Jesus". Surely if Jesus' righteousness or moral perfection was imputed to us we would see the phrase somewhere, but alas, it is conspicuous by its absense.

The theory of double imputation also runs the risk of presenting God as somewhat of a legalist, which is ironic since legalism is what Luther battled so hard against in coming up with this divine exchange. In this view, what God requires of us is perfection. Since we couldn't deliver, God, out of sheer grace, decided to send someone to earth who could. Therefore we stand before God on the basis of Jesus' moral perfection and our gettin' some of that by faith in Him and His sacrificial death. Perhaps that's an unfair caricature, but when I boil my own thoughts on the matter down I end up with something not disimilar to it, and it just doesn't seem to fit with the metanarrative of Scripture.

In this line of reasoning, the story of our justification starts with our inability to keep the Law. I don't deny that inability for a second, but as Scot McKnight says and as N.T. Wright implies, God is a covenant maker before He is a Law maker. Therefore the basis on which we are justified was never intended to be on the Law, but on the covenant. It's not a case of the Law not working, therefore God coming up with plan B instead. There is no plan B. God's dealings with us are based on plan A: His covenant with Abraham in which He promised that He would bless all the nations of the world through Abraham's seed. This is where double imputation -- while not completely wrong -- again falls down, or at least short. For me, it's emphasis is still on Law, and our standing before God is seen in terms of moral perfection, albeit Christ's and not ours. As Wright says however, the basis for our justification is God's covenantal faithfulness, which he basically equates with "the righteousness of God".

Therefore what is revealed in the gospel (Rom. 1:16-17) is not primarily the moral perfection of Christ made available to us by faith, but the faithfulness of God to the covenant He established with Abraham, which finds its fulfilment in the Messiah Jesus, who remained faithful even unto death so that God's plan A -- His plan to reconcile the world to Himself through the seed of Abraham -- might be accomplished.

A third issue I have with double imputation is the distance it creates between the Messiah and His people. I've seen it illustrated through the use of two circles, with our sin being shown to hop over to Jesus' circle and His righteousness coming over to ours. Almost like the equivalent of swapping Ricardo Scimeca for a "shiny" in the Merlin Premiership Sticker Collection of yesteryear. As Wright argues however, it is our being "in Christ" that justifies us. Transferal of merits doesn't quite do justice to the relational nature of our justification, whereby we are declared right with God on the basis of our intimate connection with His Son.

I'm only scratching the surface of a topic which has produced countless books over the years and quite a few recently. And what's more, I'm still thinking through this stuff myself, having been fed on double imputation for so long. I know there is a paucity of Scripture references in this post, but believe me - Wright's book is full of them. I'd be interested to know what others think. Does any of this matter when it comes to Christianity? Clearly Tom Wright and John Piper think it matters, since they've dedicated books to proving the other misguided. And what's more, they approach the topic as pastors as well as scholars, indicating concern for the sheep God has given them to look after. I'm not quite sure of the pastoral implications of all of this, but when I find out I'll let you know. I'm sure you'll be thankful for another post on double imputation [?].

Confusion With Regards Homosexuality

Following on from the previous post -- which oh so briefly outlined the corporate dimension of sexual behaviour within the church -- is the issue of homosexuality, which is the specific issue addressed by Hays in the quote I highlighted. His chapter on homosexuality is quite short and only skims the surface of what seems like such a large issue today, but it is food for thought nonetheless.

He makes it clear that the biblical view on homosexuality -- while sparse in terms of content (roughly 6 references) -- is that it is a sin. There are those who will claim otherwise by either ignoring the Bible or mistreating its texts, but Hays makes it clear that the biblical voice on this topic is univocal in its classification of homosexuality as something contrary to the created order. One of the most relevant passages in the discussion is Romans 1, where Paul writes that,

"For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."

This may sound like a harsh condemnation of homosexuality; it being a thing which provokes the "wrath of God". However, as Hays argues, this passage isn't speaking of homosexuality as that which is a provocation of the wrath of God but rather as something which is a consequence of God deciding to "give them up" to their desires. But who are the "them"? Gay people? Well, yes, but certainly not exclusively. The "them" is those who refuse to acknowledge God as God; those who substitute created things for the Creator, which is the essence of sin. Homosexuality is therefore a symptom of that great exchange. But it is not the only one.

For Paul, the same exchange which leads to homosexual acts also leads to envy, strife, gossiping, dishonouring of parents, and other such things. This is why he can write in chapter 2,

"Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things."

Note: He doesn't say those of you who gossip may judge homosexuals, since theirs is the more abominable sin. For Paul, the overarching sin of humanity is human beings substituting themselves for God. Homosexuality is a symptom of this substitution, but it doesn't appear to be any greater a symptom than lying. Is that not a sobering thought for those of us who pat ourselves on the back for at least having the right sexual orientation?

One could be forgiven for thinking that the above is not actually good news for homosexuals but simply bad news for everybody. However, as Hays rightly points out, God's "giving up" of sinful humanity, and specifically homosexuals, is not the last word. Our sin is substituting ourselves for God, but God has dealt with this by substituting Himself for us in the person of Christ. Romans, far from being a book concerned with condeming homosexuals, is a book about the gospel, and the gospel is good news about the love of God shown forth in Jesus, which is a love that reaches to gay people as much as it reaches to the rest of us. God's mercy does not cease when it encounters homosexuality. YHWH has been branded as a homophobe by some, but this accusation clearly fails to take into account the sacrificial death of Jesus on behalf of homosexuals. As Hays puts it, homosexual persons "are the objects of God's deeply sacrificial love". Not the first sentence you think of when Christianity and homosexuality collide, eh?

I write this as I grapple with my confusion with regards homosexuality. No no. Not that kind of confusion. Being straight may not have been a resounding success so far, but I'm not going to give up on it just yet. My area of confusion is rather dealing with the issue should it arise in my sphere of life, like say a friend who has homosexual tendencies looking to make an advance on me for some kind of advice from me. Thus far nothing like this has happened, but I honestly don't know how I'd say if it ever does, which is why I have turned to Hays' book on ethics. It certainly doesn't present me with all of the answers I'm looking for, and this post is by no means the final word on homosexual tendencies within the church, but I can sense a shift in my outlook as I wrestle with its contents. This shift is summed up in Hays' response to the question, "Can homosexual persons be members of the Christian church?":

"This is rather like asking, "Can envious persons be members of the church?" (cf. Rom. 1:29)...De facto, of course, they are. Unless we think that the church is a community of sinless perfection, we must ackowledge that persons of homosexual orientation are welcome along with other sinners in the company of those who trust in the God who justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5). If they are not welcome, I will have to walk out the door along with them, leaving in the sanctuary only those entitled to cast the first stone."