CLASS NOTES: SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY III, Dr. David G. Dunbar
September 9, 1997
List of Assignments....packet in Bookstore....first book not in print independently....some other books not available yet...
Texts:
"The Cost of Discipleship" a Christian classic
"Seeing God" will have a practical impact
"Redemption: Accomplished and Applied"...classic Reformed theology...
Oden, "The Transforming Power of Grace..." evangelical Methodist...
Warfield, "The Person and Work of Christ"...pinnacle of Old Princeton scholarship....
Bloesch....deals with Christology....
"Christus Victor", overstated but classic...
Assignments...
Complete all readings...about 1100 pages...
Midterm...20%
Final...60%
5 - 7 double space response paper...no plastic covers...don't run over that...Probably comparing Bonhoeffer and Oden...not a research paper...showing that you read intelligently these works...interact and learn to think critically and intelligently about important theological works...
Assignment due dates...
Midterm--October 21, 1997...relatively short...Christology and doctrine of Atonement...
Paper due December 2....
Office hours...6 -7 PM Tuesday....make appointment ahead of time if possible...See Sherry Kull
Last class on December 9, Final on 16th....
Expectations of class...
Important theological concepts...
Focus of whole course is the gospel....ROM 1:16 NIV I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. {17} For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
Goal to fill us up with the POWER that comes from the gospel....likelihood, at some point, the dynamite goes off in your life in one way or another....that's the very nature of the gospel....Packing more and more truth....Packing lives full of a greater power than sin....Some will have life-changing experiences...."I came here a victim needing healing and left a sinner needing grace..." comment from a graduate....
This is an opportunity to wrestle with the central issues of our faith with a sense of anticipation that God is going to use it in your life....
Not just interested in getting you a set of notes....not afraid to preach at us....Grab it with more than just your head....
Ask God to give us open minds and hearts that can absorb the truth....Deepen knowledge but that we'll be changed by it...that our love for Christ will be increased...that our experience of grace will be deepened....assurance of salvation....ability to minister truth of gospel will be increased...
Philosophy of teaching....
Professor believes you should be exposed to a variety of views on major issues...
You will hear what the professor believes....and he will try to sell you on it....
But you don't have to agree with him...We're not into indoctrination, we're in to education....
You should be willing to think Biblically and theologically...that's what we're about here....In the end the concern is to point you to Scripture that we both need to hear....Even if we can't agree on the meaning, we look at the text and agree it must be true...Liberal approach says, "This is what it says, we're not sure what it means, but it doesn't matter anyway..." We have a source that we agree is true...We may not agree on the interpretation, but we do agree on the source....
Don't feel free to ignore the issues or dodge the questions....
We need to develop a sense of balance...One of the signs of true Christianity...Avoid "Knee-jerk Christianity"...defensive posture that says, "My mind is made up....and I'm just here to confirm what's already known." On the otherside is "Loosy Goosy Christianity" which hears anything at all but never engages the mind or exercises no discernment....A balance somewhere between those two approaches....You don't want to have an unteachable spirit....Bible is perspicuous....it can be understood...there are things you can develop convictions on....
I. The Person of Christ
The central problem of Christology is to define the relationship of the divine and the human in Jesus of Nazareth, to explicate the meaning of the biblical affirmation: "the word became flesh."
Begins with fundamental problem historically....John 1:14..."the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us...."
John starts in eternity and all of a sudden Christ is 30....
LOGOS became flesh...Greek words...Greek idea...philosophical idea before NT...REASON....not just a Greek idea, but an OT idea...The WORD is an Old Testament idea...."By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made..."
Old Testament people believed that God was "other" than of this world...
Somehow God has shown up in this man Jesus....in a different way than in Isaiah or Moses....
Hebrews....God has spoken in these last days by a Son....through whom he made the world....brightness of his glory...express image of his person....worthy of greater honor than Moses....
So here's a problem....The WORD became FLESH....that idea carries problems with it....Did God get converted into humanity? Did he cease to be God? Did deity and humanity get together and develop a tertian quid, the greatest of all creatures?
Church spent hundreds of years working on this....lots of implications...
For the early Christians, it wasn't an "of course"...
The Jews understood "God is One"....Babylonian captivity cured them of polytheism...
Early apostles convinced that God was in Jesus...Did Jehovah disappear? Complex...
A. The Orthodox Tradition
Early church wrestled with issue....Kept coming back to the data of the NT and trying to affirm the data....Misreading to think they started out with Greek philosophy....
Gregory of Nazianus...4th Century...he lays deity and humanity one against another....confesses that it is, not worried about how that can be...."What he was he continued to be, what he was not he took to himself..." "In the beginning he was uncaused...but after ward, for a cause he was born...so that you might be saved..." "He was born but he had been begotten..." "The first is human, the second is divine..." In his human nature he had no father, but in his God nature he had no mother..." "baptized as a man, remitted sin as God..." "tempted as man, conquered as God" "He hungered but he fed thousands..." "
Eastern church has the idea of THEOSIS...divinization as a result of Christ...not a pantheistic idea really....appeal to 2 Peter 1 - partakers of the divine nature...
They wrestle with the Scriptures...
1. Development through Nicea (325 AD)...first ecumenical council....Constantine converted in 312....Nicea a critical juncture...
a. Rejected solutions
(1) Ebionism (2nd century) Attempted to solve the problem
by outright denial of deity of Christ. Rejected virgin birth; Jesus
was the natural son of Mary and Joseph. He was the predestined
Messiah and at the appointed time would return to earth to reign.
Ebionites...a Jewish Christian sect in 1st and 2nd Century...denied the deity...rejected virgin birth...Predestined Messiah...chosen as Son of God at his baptism...At that point, the man Jesus was united with the eternal Christ...the divine power coming upon him....Work of Jesus was that of a teacher, not a redeemer or savior....Believed he would return to earth to reign....
Cerinthus' teachings related to the Ebionite teaching...showed up in Ephesus in latter part of first Century and knew Apostle John...Iranaeus tells us John wrote his gospel to refute the teachings of Cerinthus....
1JO 2:22 NIV Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son. {23} No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
1JO 5:6 NIV This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.
Not by water only....is water a reference to physical birth and blood to his death? Or is water a reference to his crucifixion (blood and water flowed out)? Or is water a reference to baptism and blood a reference to his death? Why "not by water only?"
Cerinthus distinguished between the earthly Jesus and the heavenly Christ....According to him, the earthly Jesus united with the heavenly Christ at baptism...and departed Jesus before crucifixion....Presupposition of the impassibility of God, a Greek notion....
If this background is part of why John wrote, then BOTH makes sense...The one who is Jesus, who is the CHRIST, who is present at both baptism and death...unity of the person....
The denial that he is the Christ may be a Cerinthian denial...
This is a hypothetical explanation but you can't prove it...Iranaeus a pretty reliable guy....
Ebionites...root refers to the poor....
(2) Docetism (from dokeo, to appear), (2nd century) Based on dualistic assumption of divine impassibility and inherent impurity of matter. Denied therefore a true incarnation.
The humanity of Jesus was an apparition....affected a lot of 2nd C. groups....The Gnostics were affected by this teaching....Gnostics had "secret teachings", some of which was heavily Docetic....Presuppositions: God is impassible, can't suffer; If spirit good, then matter inherently evil....
Gospel of John a forthright attack on Docetism....
Intimations of this in 1 John again.
1JO 1:1 NIV That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
1JO 4:1 NIV Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. {2} This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, {3} but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
Apocryphal Gospel of Peter says that when Savior on cross, he kept silence as feeling no pain...
Bloesch states that there are basically two deviations from Christian thought: Man and not God; God and not man....Ebionite; Docetic...
(3) Dynamic Monarchianism (Adoptionism) In its various forms adoptionism holds that Christ is a man possessed by the Holy Spirit. He is not divine, though some hold to a divinization after the resurrection. A major representative of this view in the early church was Paul of Samosata whose teaching was formally condemned at the Synod of Antioch in 268. He held that Christ was an ordinary man in nature but was indwelt by the Word. The relation of the word to Christ was analogous to that of the Logos to the prophets, Moses, and the saints, although to a more intense degree.
Adoptionism...Jesus adopted as God's son...Monarchianism....If God is one, Christ can't be God....Christ a man possessed by the Holy Spirit...
Paul of Samosata...held that Christ ordinary but indwellt by the word....Jesus not somebody qualitatively different from the great saints....but quanitatively greater...Has more of the Spirit....
Continues through the history of church....characteristic of liberal Protestant styles in 19th and 20th Century...Really an elaboration of Cerinthus....
(4) Arianism....Basic premise is the affirmation of the absolute uniqueness and transcendence of God.
From this premise it was clear that the Son could not be God in the true sense.
Rather he is the first and highest of all creatures. The term "god" could be applied to the Son only in an honorific sense.
Arianism....the man who ultimately sparks the controversy that leads to Nicea...basic premise is absolute, uniqueness and transcendence of God....Son could not be God in true sense....First and highest of all creatures....the term "god" could be applied to the son only in an honorific sense....
The Word is a created being...Beget in Psalm 2:7 could only be taken figuratively...Orthodox said that was to be taken more literally....sons begotten of Father share in nature of Father...shares in substance...homoousion...same substance....Arius disagrees....
Raises interesting stuff about interpretation....Some say you interpret "literally"...
PSA 2:7 NIV I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: He said to me, "You are my Son ; today I have become your Father.
Arius says figurative, orthodox said literal...
HEB 3:2 NIV He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house.
"appointed" (NIV)...in Greek, poieo, to make
Arians took it literally MADE, orthodox said figurative...
Arius said He was a creature and therefore must have had a beginning..."There was when he was not..." (Time, they acknowleged, was created..."
Said he was liable to change...some said he was liable to sin....
b. The Mainstream of Tradition....people that had views closer to the truth...
(1) Ignatius (d. 107)..."there is one Physician, composed of flesh and spirit, generate and ingenerate, God in man, authentic life in death, from Mary and from God, first passible then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord."
(2) Irenaeus (c. 130-200)...combats Gnostic denials of Incarnation by arguing for the unity of the God-Man...."only if Jesus truly divine....on other hand had to be human....
Motif develops: what is not assumed is not redeemed...whatever Christ doesn't take of ours is not saved...We have fully human bodies....He had a fully human body....fully human mind....
As a church, we are confessing something we believe to be true, but we're not explaining the mystery....who can explain God....we try to confess it faithfully....
"eternally begotten"...."eternal generation"...in some way the Son derrives his existence from the Father...a human word picture....But in human realm, generation is a one-time momentary thing...God is timeless...For God eternity is NOW....Idea goes back to Origen...an atemporal notion...Professor questions the Biblical grounding of "eternal generation"....
(3) Tertullian (c. 160-225) Christ exists as one person in two distinct natures ("substances"). The humanity of Christ is complete. Each nature continues unaltered and unimpaired after the union.
Very bright fellow....Word existed with Father from all eternity...distinct as a person but one of essence...Some kind of plurality in the Godhead from all eternity....Christ has soul as well as body....
Point of unity in Jesus is the Word (LOGOS)...that will become the dominant understanding of the later church...
Both substances continued unaltered and unimpaired...Spirit
performs miracles, flesh suffers...United not confused....not merged
one into the other....
c. Nicea (325)...called by the emperor Constantine to deal with the Arian question. The statement of the creed is specifically a rejection of the teachings of Arius. Rejection of Arianism...first ecumenical creed....the Nicene Creed (see Photocopy)....Niceno-Constaninopolitan Creed....381....Trinitarian Creed....Middle paragraph really gets amplified...Holy Spirit teaching still relatively brief....
"I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son of God...Begotten of the Father before all worlds...begotten not made...." "God from God....Light from Light...Very God from Very God.."
Important technical word: homoousion....ousia means "substance" or "essence" homo means the same...The son has the same essence (Deity) as the Father....
Every good heretic worth his socks affirms the Bible..."I just want to believe the Bible..." False teaching many times uses the Bible in a false framework....
Creedal language develops in order to clarify how we understand the Biblical language....
Some wanted to use "homooiousion", of like substance....Homoousion wins out....
9/16/97
The account of Thomas, the Israelite philosopher....
LUK 2:41 NIV Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. {42} When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. {43} After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. {44} Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. {45} When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. {46} After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. {47} Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. {48} When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." {49} "Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" {50} But they did not understand what he was saying to them. {51} Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. {52} And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
How does this account differ from that of Thomas?
People find favor in Luke...
Power demonstrated almost routinely in Thomas...
John 2 - Cana was first miracle...
Character has short temper in Thomas...
What's the motivation behind Thomas?
Writer seems to believe the child was human with some power...
Ebionitic or Docetic?
Does this seem a man adopted by God or a God who isn't really human? Does this seem like a real childhood? No...Point...he created sparrows...he killed someone....This really falls into the DOCETIC line...A God dressed up as a little boy...a fake humanity...not real childhood....
Could have been written to fill in the missing pieces...
What is in striking contrast in the Luke account...
Description in line with the rest of his ministry...in character....
More cohesive
Thomas closes with the Luke account...but adds "all paid attention to him....such glory we have never seen and heard before..."
In the Thomas narrative, we're removing the mystery of who he is...
The Luke account has some mystery to it....Mary trying to figure it out...He grows in wisdom...This child is a puzzle....Luke doesn't solve the puzzle....The Bible doesn't solve the puzzle...Christian theology, if it's good theology, doesn't solve the puzzle either...The mystery of the Word becoming flesh...the infinite God uniting with a human nature....
Where the heretical teachings fall short is that they try to get inside and solve the mystery...making it simpler than it actually is....
This is unique...sui generis...one of a kind...
New Testament Apocrypha, Westminster....
2. From Nicea to Chalcedon (451)
a. Rejected solutions
(1) Apollinarianism (ca. 352) Stressed the unity of the God-man by teaching that the Logos took the place of the human spirit in the trichotomous human nature of Christ. The Word was the sole life of the God-man; his humanity was not therefore in common with us....Deity and humanity forged into a single person or hypostasis...Logos took the place of the spirit in the trichotomous nature of Christ....Christ takes human nature to himself but lack a rational soul....
Main tradition of the church rejected this....said his position
Docetic because he doesn't have a full humanity...Argued that if he
lacked a rational mind or will, he was not really man at all..."What
is not assumed is not redeemed..."
(2) Nestorius (5th century) stressed the distinctiveness of the two natures with a particular concern to maintain the reality of Christ's humanity. Objected to the description of Mary as "theotokos" preferring rather the term "Christotokos."
Patriarch of Constantinople....the flip side of Apollinarianism...great emphasis on the reality of Christ's manhood...The two natures of Christ remain distinct even after the union of humanity and deity...He is leary of the traditional doctrine called "the communication of properties"..."commmunication of attributes..." They said part of the mystery of the Person of Christ is that it seems that sometimes there are things that sound like divine attributes but the Bible seems to describe human attributes...vice versa...While deity and humanity distinct, there is a kind of interpenentration or sharing of attributes...
Some ways of speaking developed in the early church:
Description of Mary as the Mother of God....grows out of the discussion of the communication of properties...properly speaking, Mary is certainly not the mother of God...She is the mother of the humanity of our Lord...But the Fathers saw this interchange and to speak of her as the theotokos, or bearer of God....
ACT 20:28 NIV Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
Fathers said "God doesn't have blood..." It says the flock of GOD...which GOD purchased with his own blood....Another illustration of the communication of properties....
Nestorius didn't like theotokos. He liked to call her Christotokos...the bearer of Christ...wanted to point to the concrete historical person....
In effect, Nestorius lengthens the gap between the deity and humanity of Christ...
They thought he was saying it was same kind of union you would have in any godly person....probably not fair to Nestorius....
Reaction came in 431 at the 3rd council at Ephesus..
Primary sources for theology of early church:
J N D Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines
(3) Eutycheanism...historically he is reckoned as the exponent of an extreme form of Monophysitism, the teaching that Christ's humanity was completely absorbed by his deity.
Eutyches shows up...docetic form of Monophysitism....one
nature...Refused to concede that Christ's flesh the same substance as
ours....
b. The Creed of Chalcedon (451)
451...council of Chalcedon...gets sorted out there...(see Handout)...
"inseparably"...you can't pull them apart...
"inconfusedly"...a rejection of Eutycheanism...
This creed is not an explanation of the mystery of the God-Man...doesn't explain how this 12-year old boy can grow in wisdom and knowledge and yet amaze his teachers...
This great credal statement confesses certain truths on the basis of Scripture...These are the false explanations.....Doesn't give you the right explanation....
Part of theology is understanding where the limits of the mystery are...If you go beyond those limits, you'll get into trouble....
3. Chalcedon to the present
Continuing discussion of the person of Christ in the ancient church led to the explicit rejection of Monophysitism at the 5th Council of Constantinople (553) and to the rejection of Monothelitism at the 6th Ecumenical Council in 680.
Monothelitism....one will...
Church rejects that Christ had only one will....
Church says he has full humanity with a full human will...at the root of this is the concern that Jesus is complete in his humanity....Only difference between us and him was this issue of sin....
During the middle ages there are no outstanding developments. At the time of the Reformation there is a dispute between Lutheran and Reformed (Calvinist) theologians over the communication doctrine.
Luther had an idea which he called communcatio majesticum...the union of natures was such that the divine nature in the exalted Jesus communicates its properties to the human nature...The result is that the human nature of Christ is omnipresent...doctrine of ubiquity...If the human nature of the exalted Christ is omnipresent, it can be present in Communion, consubstantiation...body and blood of Christ really present in and with the bread and wine....
Reformed much more skeptical of this idea...Calvin not interested in the idea the Christ omnipresent....Calvinists argue for a real spiritual presence but not a real bodily presence....
Transubstantiation in Luther's day just represented one strand in the Medieval Church....Once you get to the High Middle Ages, then they get into substance and accidence....Then transsubstantiation begins to be argues...Substance changed into the body and blood of Christ...Aristotelian distinction...
During the last 200 years scholarly interest, especially in the Protestant tradition has focused on the humanity of Jesus (e.g., the Quest for the Historical Jesus) often at the expense or even denial of his deity.
Naturalism of the Enlightenment has influenced this....disposes people to looking at Jesus as a man....
kinosis theories....minimizing the deity...emptying....
Some of that kinosis stuff is not real far off the mark...Christ does undergo some type of limiting in the Incarnation....The Kinosis theories, though, are another effort to explain the Person....a sort of divine amnesia...through his life he figures out who he is....How do you explain what is inexplicable based on the data we have...The mystery of Jesus who is the Christ....we confess a mystery....for us men and for our salvation....no analog...
B. The Names of Jesus
Christology of the New Testament
1. Son of Man....D. Guthrie, NT Theology, G. E. Ladd, A Theology of the NT. This is the favorite self-designation of Jesus. The term appears some eighty times in the NT as a title for Jesus. Further, except for Acts 7:56 and John 12:34 it is never used by anyone but Jesus himself. It apparently never became a Messianic title for Jesus in the early Church. In non-titular sense, see Heb 2:6-8 (Ps 8:4-6); Rev 1:13; 14:14.
His audiences were puzzled by his use of it....Stephen uses it at his death....may have had some currency with the Jewish Christians for a time...
Distinctively the way He described himself...
The term was understood by many earlier theologians (e.g., the Patristics) as a reference to Jesus' humanity as contrasted with Son of God which designated his deity. It appears that so simple an analysis can no longer be maintained. We must explore the background of such terminology and the probable meaning of the term in context.
We ought probably to see the background of the Son of Man in terms of the OT. It is used in the Psalms (e.g. 8:4) as well as in Ezekiel, but the most probable source for our Lord's use is Dan 7:13ff (so Moule, Origin, 12).
The heavenly court room...
DAN 7:13 NIV "In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. {14} He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. {15} "I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me. {16} I approached one of those standing there and asked him the true meaning of all this. "So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things: {17} 'The four great beasts are four kingdoms that will rise from the earth. {18} But the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever--yes, for ever and ever.' {19} "Then I wanted to know the true meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others and most terrifying, with its iron teeth and bronze claws--the beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. {20} I also wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell--the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully. {21} As I watched, this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them, {22} until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom. {23} "He gave me this explanation: 'The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. {24} The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. {25} He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time. {26} "'But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. {27} Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.' {28} "This is the end of the matter. I, Daniel, was deeply troubled by my thoughts, and my face turned pale, but I kept the matter to myself."
Dominion given to one like the son of Man....the explanation of the one horn who makes war against the saints...the court sits...handed over to the saints...interesting parallel between the Son of Man and the saints...
Here we find a man-like figure who is given universal eschatological dominion. Many scholars feel that the passage combines the ideas of suffering and vindication, which if true would be most significant for the Messianic self-consciousness of Jesus. Also a corporative mode of thought.
Horn makes war against the saints...
Corporate mode...individual also stands for the group...corporate personality....fortunes of the individual are the fortunes of the group....
The usage of this title in the Gospels may be grouped under four headings:
a. The earthly Son of Man...the reference is to Christ's earthly ministry. Mt 8:20 (Lk 9:58), "he foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay his head." See also Mk 2:10 (Mt 9:6; Lk 5:24); Mk 2:7 (Mt 12:8; Lk 6:5); Mt 13:37; Lk 19:10.
b. The suffering Son of Man...eg., Mk 8:31 (Lk 9:32); 10:45 (Mt 20:28)
MAR 10:45 NIV For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
MAR 8:31 NIV He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.
c. The Apocalyptic Son of Man...this speaks of a heavenly Son of Man, and the glory of Christ as his Second Coming, Mk 14:62 (Mt 24:30; Lk 21:27); Mk 8:38 (Mt 16:27; Lk 9:26).
MAR 13:26 NIV "At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
A straight out reference to Daniel 7....
d. The pre-existent Son of Man...these passages pertain specifically to John's Gospel and speak of Jesus having been sent and of his descending from heaven (1:51; 3:13-14; 6:27,53,62).
JOH 1:51 NIV He then added, "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
Imagery of Genesis...Jacob's latter...the One who establishes communication between heaven and earth...
JOH 3:13 NIV No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man. {14} Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
JOH 6:27 NIV Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."
The question remains, why did Jesus adopt this term? By it he was able to make high claims for himself.
Because it was something Judaism wasn't doing much with as a title...they didn't see it as a clear Messianic title...Jesus able to use it an fill it with his own content...some pretty bold ideas....able to claim Messianic dignity but also to claim something of supernatural quality....
G. E. Ladd believes that there is here not only a claim to Messianic dignity, but an implication of supernatural character and origin.
Yet because the term was rare and without nationalistic, political overtones, Jesus was able to avoid certain of the misapprehensions of the popular Messianic hopes.
The somewhat cryptic term allowed Jesus to fill it with his own meaning while inviting men to explore more fully his own person and work.
Son of man not strictly speaking a term that designates his humanity....
2. The Messiah
"Messiah" is the transliteration of the Heb meshiach, anointed one. Translated into Greek it is christos, Christ. In the OT priests, kings, and also (two) prophets (Ps 105:15; 1 Kgs 19:16) were Messiahs, i.e. anointed. The idea behind the anointing was that of consecration to the service of God, and perhaps also of enduement with power for the task.
In latter day Judaism it came to be associated with hopes for the coming of a king who would restore the political fortunes of Israel and usher in the end of the age. Many OT prophecies were connected with the Messianic expectation.
David's descendent who would bring deliverance to the Jewish people...
Jesus, however, used the title of himself rather sparingly. Although he never denies the true concept of Messiahship, and occasionally even confessed himself to be the Messiah (Jn 4:25-26; Mk 9:41), he is generally slow to adopt this language (cf. Mk 8:29-30; 14:61, in each case referring "Son of Man"). He rejects kingship as understood by his fellow Jews (Jn 6:15; cf Matt 16).
MAR 14:61 NIV But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?"
JOH 6:14 NIV After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." {15} Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
The title was to become exceedingly important Christologically. Especially would it come to be used of Jesus subsequent to the resurrection. It was appropriate to speak of his kingship openly for now it could not be misunderstood (Acts 2:36; 4:26).
Clearly not the Christ of Jewish expectation....
ACT 2:36 NIV "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."
ACT 4:26 NIV The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One. '
Quoted from a Messianic Psalm...Psalm 2....
His kingdom is not to be seen in ordinary political categories. It is a transcendent, spiritual kingdom. Note that for the Apostle Paul the term is so common that in most cases it is no longer a title but a proper name.
3. Son of God, Son
The "Son of God" terminology derives from the OT. There it may be applied to
(a) the people of Israel, Ex 4:22; Jer 31:9; Hosea 11:1;
(b) to officials in Israel, especially the Davidic king, 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 89:27; Jn 1:49;
(c) to angels, Job 1:6; 2:1, Ps 29:1;
(d) to the pious in general, Ps 73:15. The term suggests the ideas of obedient service and closeness to God.
The idea that Jesus was the Son of God or simply "the Son" was important not only to the NT writers, who use it widely, but it was crucial for Jesus' own self-consciousness.
He frequently designates God as "Father" or "my father." Jesus taught his disciples to treat God with a sense of familiarity and intimacy which was foreign to the Judaism of his day (cf. Mk 14:36, Abba).
MAR 14:36 NIV "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."
abba, Aramaic...shows up only a couple of times in NT....Here and twice in Paul's writings....an Aramaic word in the middle of a Greek composition....Disciples and Jesus probably spoke Aramaic...Uses the word Father over and over in the Gospels...pater in Greek...Mark gives us the Aramaic as well....what you would use as an adult to your dad...not "daddy" per se...apparently, the early Church heard something so important to them in the way he related to his father, that they didn't even translate it....The Jews of his day heard some type of familiarity that was so open that they thought it was blasphemous....Perhaps significant that Mark gives us that when Christ was in the garden contemplating the cross...His unity, love and devotion to the father shone out in such an extraordary way that they preserved that word...Where is God more delighted with his Son than when he contemplated his total obedience...
Two other occurences:
ROM 8:15 NIV For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."
Spirit of Jesus...the one who denied himself...Paul wanted us to understand that the same Spirit has come into your life so you may have courage and confidence and boldness to take on your lips the same title that Jesus himself used....
At the same time, however, Jesus did not give the impression that God was their father in the same sense that God was his father. Only in the Lord's prayer does he speak of "our Father."
At other times he speaks of "my Father" (Matt 11:27; Lk 2:49) or "your Father" (Matt 5:16, 45; Lk 12:30; cf Jn 20:17).
That Jesus regarded himself as the Son in a unique sense is implied by:
the temptation narratives,
his question to his parents (Lk 2:42-52);
in the way in which he was understood by his opponents (Jn 5:18),
in his statement that no one knows the Father but the Son (Matt 11:27),
by John's use of the term monogenes(1:14,18; 3:16,18). 1:18 is probably "only God." So also John uses uiJo" for Christ but teknon for believers. Paul, although using uiJo" for Christ and believers, yet speaks of believers as sons by adoption (uiJoqesia).
We suggest that the sonship of Christ may be regarded from two standpoints:
a. The Mediatorial Sonship
Some passages use the term son in describing him as the mediator....Matthew 11:27...no one knows the Father except the son....A functional task here...
JOH 14:8 NIV Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." {9} Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
Jesus is the revealer...
b. The Ontological or Divine Sonship
More than functional here...statements which imply that the Son has an eternal relationship with the Father...They point to his deity...Son of God doesn't always refer to something clearly divine...sometimes functional, as above...But at other times when Son of God is clearly a reference to deity...
Questioned in recent years by NT scholars....some say later tradition developed this "stuff" about divine sonship etc....Oskar Kuhlmann..."action...not in view of his being..."
NT doesn't speculate on themes like the two natures of Christ, it does point to a Christ more than a divinely inspired man, more than a function that Jesus carries out....
Hebrews and John talk in ontologically-grounded terms:
JOH 5:26 NIV For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.
More than just function...getting into deity...
HEB 1:3 NIV The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
More than just a revealer...very close to ontological language...
HEB 1:8 NIV But about the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.
HEB 7:1 NIV This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, {2} and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, his name means "king of righteousness"; then also, "king of Salem" means "king of peace." {3} Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever.
Complex passage....appears in OT text...Melchizedek just appears....not genealogy...a priest in his own right....
Becomes a picture of the Son of God, who literally is without
father, mother...Son of God takes on that ontological quality
here....reference to divinity....Melchizedek the type, Jesus the
reality...
September 23, 1997
What does Warfield mean by supernaturalistic Christianity? Christianity which asserts the supernatural aspects of the gospel....Church and theology at time of Chalcedon was based on the witnesses to the real Jesus...They wanted to make Jesus perfectly natural...But as far back as the Apostolic witness, the witness is thoroughly supernaturalistic....As far back as we go, it's supernatural...Protestant liberalism wants a natural man but the witnesses are against it...They started with the idea of a supernatural Jesus...When they say that he never existed, they took a fatal step...If the supernatural Jesus didn't exist, then the natural Jesus didn't need to exist...Some radical critics in the 19th C. denied that Jesus ever really existed....Warfield one of the great minds of Christian theology of our century....Heavy reading, but worth it...
In regard to readings, you'll be asked if you've read the readings...If not, what percentage....The goal on readings is to read intelligently...you won't get everything...Give it an honest reading...with the television off...not highly distracted...you have to focus...
4. Lord, kurio"
The Greek kurio" could be used in more than one way in NT times. Without the article it was an ordinary form of polite address like our "Sir" (Jn 12:21). It could also be used by students to address a teacher. With the article it could denote a person of important status, like a master of slaves, or even the Roman Emperor (Acts 25:26). There was also a religious usage as this term was applied to deity and stressed the gulf between a god nd his worshipers. Significant here is the fact that in the LXX the divine name YHWH was rendered by kurio".
A broad term...a very basic term pretty much equivalent to our "Sir.." John 12:21...
Also used as a term to address a teacher...
With definite article it could connote an important person...
Religious use most significant...deity...LXX designation of YHWH...
In the Gospels this term is frequently used of Jesus in the popular sense of "sir." Other uses suggest the idea of authority without necessarily implying the divine sense of Lordship (Jn 13:14; Matt 21:3; 9:21; Lk 6:46).
The application of kurio" with its unqualified ascription of deity and sovereignty to Jesus seems to have taken place fully after the resurrection. It is in his triumph over sin, death, and the powers of darkness that Jesus is now recognized to be Lord of all (Acts 2:36; Phil 2:11). To be a Christian now means to confess that "Jesus is Lord" (Rom 10:9, 1 Cor 12:3).
They begin to transfer idea of deity after the resurrection....
ACT 2:36 NIV "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."
Decisive focus of the resurrection as establishing the reality of Jesus' messiahship and Lordship...
Some liberal theologians say this is adoptionistic....They say the early church didn't have a developed Christology....
That which was not obvious prior to the Resurrection is now made evident to the whole world...Disciples no longer confused...immediate illumination after the Spirit comes...Prior to that they questioned ..."Don't leave home without the Holy Spirit..."
PHI 2:8 NIV And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! {9} Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
PHI 2:10 NIV 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.
Name above every name...kurios...
ROM 1:1 NIV Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God-- {2} the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures {3} regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, {4} and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. {5} Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.
Declared to be the son of God with POWER....the resurrection is the enthronement...
To be a Christian means to confess that Jesus is Lord...ROM 10:9 NIV That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
1CO 12:3 NIV Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.
Bonhoeffer: "Only he who believe obeys and only he who obeys believes." Is belief an assent without entailments? We will discuss this in the doctrine of sanctification....McDermott a good book for wrestling with this...
C. The Deity of Christ
The NT is clear in its witness to the deity of Christ. John tells us that the Logos was with God and was God (Jn 1:1). The Son is "the one and only God" who is at the Father's side (1:18). Thomas addresses the risen Christ as "my Lord and my God" (Jn 20:28). So close is the identification of Jesus and God that the one who sees Jesus sees the Father (Jn 14:9). There are also those passages in John which presuppose the pre-existence of Christ (Jn 1:1-2; 3:17; 5:23; 17:3,5; 1 Jn 1:2; 4:14).
John starts out with the Logos who was with God and was God...
Monogenes...only begotten...unique or one of a kind...the one and only God...
My Lord and my God...kurios...in context of worship...after resurrection...joined with God....
Pre-existence...sent of the Father...
In the Pauline literature we have not only the direct references of Paul to Christ's deity (Rom 9:5; Phil 2:6; Col 2:9), but we have the frequent use of the term "Lord" used in the absolute sense to describe the risen Christ.
Thus Paul will frequently join the name of the Lord Jesus together with God the Father and (at times) the Spirit as the source of divine blessings to believers (Rm 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; 13:14; Gal 1:3; Eph 1:2, etc.). In Paul, like John, the pre-existence of Christ is stressed (Phil 2:6ff; Gal 4:4).
ROM 1:7 NIV To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
1CO 1:3 NIV Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2CO 13:14 NIV May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
The Book of Hebrews also presents a high Christology (1:1-3, 8).
HEB 1:1 NIV In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, {2} but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. {3} The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
NT clear on the deity of Christ, but doesn't try to define the mystery of how Christ is both God and man...
Two points call for special attention:
1. The Miracles of Christ ...witness to his divine mission...
ACTS 2:22 NIV "Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know....
JOH 20:30 NIV Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. {31} But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
His PERSON attested to here as well....
At first miracle, John says, "He thus revealed his glory..." Glory is a divine quality....Not just a man here....Not just a Spirit-filled man...You may do miraculous works, but the works you do do not attest us...The works we do in the Spirit attest to Jesus...
ACTS 3 - "in the name of Jesus get up and walk..." A continuation of the works of JESUS...only indirectly and in a lesser sense do the miracles attest the apostles...They are servants of Jesus who is the Christ...
ACTS 14 - Paul and Barnabas and their miracles...God enabled them....the signs confirm the message about the Christ....
2. The divine consciousness of Jesus
The idea of Sonship unique in itself...They heard this level of intimacy with the Father that offended them...This suggested that Jesus had a level of consciousness about who he is...
It's very significant that Jesus believes, according to the witnesses, that he will ultimately be the judge of every human being who ever lives and not only will he be the judge, but their entrance into heaven will be dependent upon their attitude toward Him...
JOH 5:25 NIV I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. {26} For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. {27} And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. {28} "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice {29} and come out--those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.
MAT 7:21 NIV "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. {22} Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' {23} Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
Christ either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord...CS Lewis...
MAR 2:5 NIV When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
He's anything but predictable....
In this same light, He made demands of absolute allegiance of his followers...
MAR 8:34 NIV Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. {35} For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. {36} What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?
MAT 10:35 NIV For I have come to turn "'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law-- {36} a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' {37} "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; {38} and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Only GOD has the right to do this....if he is only a man, he's a cult leader...If he is more than that, then he's God....
The I AM statements in John....
Predicate form...
JOH 6:35 NIV Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
John 8:12
John 10:10, 14:6
Also in the absolute form...just I AM...
JOH 6:20 NIV But he said to them, "It is I; don't be afraid."
EXO 3:14 NIV God said to Moses, "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I am has sent me to you.'" {15} God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob--has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.
He speaks as no one else speaks, the I AM of the OT, one who makes absolute claims with no apology...
Bonhoeffer....Chapter 2...the call to discipleship..."Follow
me..." Matthew's call...the response of obedience....How could
the call immediately invoke obedience? The one who calls us on the
authority of who he is...That's what we encounter...not a series of
reasons...just a call...The response of obedience which says, "Lord
you have called and I follow..."
9/30/97
COL 2:9 NIV For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, {10} and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.
A thematic statement for the whole letter....
What's this class all about? Trying to understand Christ...we say what He's not, so we understand who He is...Great mystery....This is where it all is...all of ministry and all of significant life is bound up in this reality...In him you have been made complete...Nothing more important than to chew on that....If we don't build around that we are incomplete...
How do you do this practically in being strenghthened in the faith and being built up in him? How do you build yourself up in Christ?
Class suggestions: prayer journal...solitude and meditation...on what? knowledge...Ephesians 3...dwelling in your hearts by faith...thinking on God's Word crucial, but then having it work itself in life...meditation....how's it lived out in your relationships?
Everything in Christianity is Christocentric...
Read the gospels meditatively regularly....They (the disciples) are what you are, a disciple...Ask their questions and apply it to yourself...These questions lead you to what life is all about...They focus our attention on Jesus...Out of that encounter, Christ is increasingly made unto us wisdom and righteousness and knowledge and redemption....Pre-resurrection...
The Epistles...post-resurrection....
D. The Humanity of Christ
If the deity of Christ is clearly affirmed in Scripture, then it is certain that his humanity is also quite clearly affirmed.
No type of Docetism found in Scripture...writers all in agreement that Jesus was a man in the fullest sense...the last Adam...As Adam is the beginning of the human race in Genesis, Jesus is the beginning of the new human race...he is the prototype...
Hebrews 2...the one who sanctifies and those he sanctifies are of ONE...NIV says "one family"...they've got to come from the same background...
He had to take flesh and blood....{HEB 2:16 NIV} For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants. {HEB 2:17 NIV} For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.
If he had come to save angels, he would have become an angel...
HEB 2:10 NIV In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. {11} Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. {12} He says, "I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises." {13} And again, "I will put my trust in him." And again he says, "Here am I, and the children God has given me." {14} Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil-- {15} and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
His identification with us goes even to the point of death....
The term "Son of Man" which Jesus applied to himself denotes not merely "man" as we have seen, and yet it does point us to the fact that he is a man. Likewise, Paul's designation of Jesus as the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45) has as its assumption that Jesus was a man even though the term connotes much more than this. For Paul, Christ is a descendant of David according to his human nature (Rom 1:3); he is the Son who has been born of a woman (Gal 4:4); he was the one who took upon himself the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness (Phil 2:7, cf Rom 8:3); he appeared in a body (1 Tim 3:16).
John's opposition to docetic denials of the humanity of Christ is to be seen in his affirmation that the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14). This incarnate life he has both seen and touched (1 Jn 1:1). To deny the reality of the incarnation is the mark of false prophets and deceivers (1 Jn 4:2; 2 Jn 7). Hebrews is also clear in its testimony. The sanctifying priest and those he sanctifies must be of the same stock or nature (Heb 2:11). Thus Jesus took upon himself our flesh and blood (2:14) he was made like us in every way (2:17). It is interesting that the writers who present perhaps the highest
Christology also place greatest stress on the reality of Christ's humanity.
1. The Birth of Christ. The circumstances of the birth of Christ are mentioned in two of the four Gospels (Mt, Lk).
There is no suggestion that the birth per se was abnormal.
The conception of Jesus, however, is unique. With the teaching of the virginal conception of Jesus we are placed squarely in the realm of the supernatural. In answer to Mary's question, "How will this be since I am a virgin? the angel replies, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Lk 1:35).
The question may be raised of the theological significance of the Virgin Birth.
Differentiating between naturalists and supernaturalists...
Why the Virgin Birth?
Class answers: Standard answer...has to do with sinlessness of Jesus...
Galatians 4...born of a woman...
Doesn't seem to be developed theologically in NT....we're working
from inferences....We are left to speculate a bit...we must be
careful...The idea that God is at work here is a safe place to
start...
Carl Henry has argued that proponents of the Virgin Birth have been too slow in recent years to recognize its theological significance. Henry argues that the exclusion of male initiative in the conception of Jesus makes it "quite clear that what is to be done is something which man of himself cannot do...." (Erickson, p. 312). Linked with this is the concept of the hopeless sin and guilt of man.
It excludes any human action...As God begins to work, it is quite clear that it is GOD who is working....
Carnelle says the virgin birth has a SIGN Function to confirm faith...Mat. 1:20....connects OT prophecy with NT fulfillment...
Distinction between Virgin Birth and Immaculate Conception....
Immaculate conception Catholic doctrine that states Mary was born without original sin...established as Catholic teaching in 1854...for the Roman Church there is a difference between things which are common opinion and those things which are officially defined by the Church...teaching rooted back in Middle Ages or earlier...followed by the teaching of the bodily assumption of Mary...1950...caught up soul and body directly into heaven....Takes the idea of Jesus' character one step backward...he would need a sinless mother...what about Mary's mother then?
Virgin Birth has to do with Christ....
The sinless sin bearer must come into the world in such a way as to be one with sinners, but yet free from the guilt of fallen humanity.
But the NT itself gives no such theological interpretation.
2. The development of Jesus
The NT gives us almost nothing regarding the period between his birth and baptism at about the age of 30.
We find Jesus in the temple at the age of 12 listening to the rabbis and asking questions (Lk 2:41ff).
He is called the carpenter's son (Mt 13:55) and was probably trained in the same skills himself.
Beyond these few details Luke simply states that "he grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him" (2:40) or again that "he grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men (2:52).
3. The personality of Jesus Popular conceptions of the character of Jesus as a mild-mannered Clark Kent-type of rabbi spouting pleasant maxims about the love of God and the universal brotherhood of man often obscure for us the power and complexity of Christ as he appears in the Gospels. Leon Morris, The Lord From Heaven, pp. 15-16: " . . Jesus was dynamic. His was a personality that gripped men."
Bultmann had become so sceptical of Christ that he said, "We know only two things about him--he lived and he died..."
The idea of Christ being gigantic, winsome, forceful...these words too poor to show forth what he is...
We find that Jesus is FULL....sense the fullness of his personality....it's so refreshing to walk with him and see how complete his humanity is...they bring little kids to him....they bring dirty, sick people to him and he heals them...when he talks to powerful people he's not intimidated...when he meets with nasty, ugly stuff, he gets angry about it....He gets upset about the right stuff....We often comes back with another question and we say "Why did he say that???"
We're at best, fractured...Jesus has it all together....He's what we're going to be...
Let me quote from a book by Beverley Nichols some paragraphs in reply to the radical French scholar, Prof. Guignebert:
' . . . all he will admit, in his most generous moment, is that "the outline of a man and the traces of an individual activity are still to be distinguished".
'Ye gods! If you have ever done any writing you may have a faint idea of the immense difficulty of making a character live even for a single publishing season, in a single language. And if you have ever done any reading, the remotest acquaintance with European literature will inform you that there are no "characters", not even Don Quixote (the most lifelike evocation of an individual in literature) which are more than tiny shadows against the immense reality of the character of Jesus.
'You cannot deny the reality of this character, in whatever body it resided. Even if we were to grant the Professor's theory that it is all a hotch-potch of legend, somebody said "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath"; somebody said "For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul"; somebody said "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of God"; somebody said "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God"; somebody said "All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword".
'Somebody said these things, because they are staring me in the face at this moment from the Bible. And whoever said them was gigantic. And whoever said them was living, because we are in the year 1936 and I am "modern" and you are "modern", and we both of us like going to the cinema and we can both drive a car and all that sort of thing, and yet we cannot find in any contemporary literature any phrases which have a shadow of the beauty, the truth, the individuality, nor the indestructibility of those phrases.
'And remember, I have only quoted five sentences at random.' "Gigantic" seems more than appropriate. Or forceful, or again, winsome and attractive, or a host of others. For the personality of Jesus is full we sense in him the completeness of our own shattered humanity and it is this in part which makes him so attractive. In him are joined holiness and love, toughness and tenderness, zeal and humility, in marvelous fashion. On the one hand, we have the cleansing of the temple (Jn 2:15ff), the condemnation of the Pharisees for being blind guides and whitewashed tombs (Mt 15,23), and the rebuke of his own disciples for their pride, exclusiveness and lack of faith (Jn 13; Lk 9:51-56; Lk 24:25). On the other hand, he shows compassion to sinners, he eats with prostitutes and tax collectors, he inspires the intense devotion of zealots and sons of thunder like James and John. He restores the fallen Peter and renews his commission in the kingdom. Jesus then is the true image humanity in its God-intended fullness...'
4. The finitude of Jesus
The Bible ascribes limitations to the person of the Lord...
MAT 4:1 NIV Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
He's really hungry...40 days is about the limit for humans....
John 4 - thirsty and tired by the well...
Matthew 8:23 - he sleeps in the boat during the storm...
John 11 - goes to visit Lazarus...already dead...v. 34...where have you laid him? Why did he need to ask where he was? How is it that he knows certain things and doesn't know others...
Matthew 8:10 - surprise....astonished at Centurion's faith...Luke 7:9...
Matthew 24 - knows not the hour...v. 36...
What Hebrews says in doctrinal form is fleshed out in the gospels...
5. The sinlessness of Christ
Two questions: sinlessness and impeccability...
Sinlessness....
The Holy One...
Luke 4:34...John 8:46...which of you convicts me of sin?
Acts and Epistles bring same witness...Acts 3:14...holy one....Acts 4:27....holy servant....2 Corinthians 5:21...him who knew no sin....Hebrews 4:14-15....without sin....tempted in every way.... 1 John 3:5
NT doesn't tend to any Docetism in the reality of temptation or his struggle....He himself tempted in every way....Temptation to abandon the course set before him was the central temptation....Pursuing the path of suffering that ultimately leads to the cross....reaches a high point at the Garden....Heb. 5:7-10...prayers and petitions....reverent submission...learned obedience by the things he suffered......
Learned obedience...literally....didn't say he "learned to obey..." There was placed before the Lord in the will of God a pattern of life that would ultimately lead to death....He didn't learn to obey so much as learned the experience....
Luke 22:39...v. 43...angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him....unique to Luke...reality of the struggle so great that an angel comes...real temptation....
If it's true He didn't sin, is it also true he COULD not sin...There has been a significant portion of Christian tradition that said he could not...If that's true, then how real is the temptation...
The problem is that it raises a question that the NT has no concern to answer....We don't have to be all that concerned about getting the right answer...It affirms he was really tempted...it affirms he didn't succumb...
G.C. Berkouwer in his work on the person of Christ, raises this question to show how complicated it is...doesn't come down with the traditional arguments...Says we must affirm it in the sense that God's purpose was to offer a sinless sacrifice, announced prophetically, and in the announcement of the will of Christ himself....Not possible in that sense...
But that's not where the question is being asked...What's being talked about is the psychology and ontology of the Christ....
We remain agnostic on the subject...
10/7/97
Regeneration precedes faith in Murray's understanding....His exposition of John 3...unpredictablility of the working of the Spirit...
Assignment.....Murray easier to get a handle on than Odin....Odin trying to do an ecumenical, evangelical approach to theology....You have to figure out why he quotes various people....You're not expected to understand everything....Theologians don't always write to be understood....You'll be stretched to think about things you've never thought about before....Original thinking....Thinking originally for you...You develop a certain confidence in your ability to read and interact with some of the great minds of the Church....that's what a graduate education is about....It's a satisfying thing to do...Start to exercise some independent judgment....What's happening in your head as you read these books...
"The Great Catechism of Gregory of Nyssa"...early Father....4th Century...how the Incarnation relates to the power and majesty of God...His descent is a kind of super-abundant exercise of power....like a flame going downward, going contrary to its nature...
Impeccability....
E. Hypostatic Union
Comes from hypostasis, a term which the Fathers used to describe Person....the two ousia in one hypostasis...
Here we confront one of the most profound mysteries of our faith that in the one person of Jesus Christ there is a union of perfect divinity and perfect humanity. There are not two persons but one.
Discussion of the impersonal human nature of Jesus...the idea that the man Jesus never existed apart from this union with the divine Logos....but to say that is not to give an explanation....How are we to think about this question of divine and human linked together in the one concrete person of Jesus of Nazareth? Do we draw it so close that deity and humanity are lost? Monophysites...one nature...Other extreme is to separate them so much that it becomes schizophrenic...
You encounter a unity in the gospels...not as wooden as placing one against the other like Gregory of N...did...
Canonic approaches...attempts to get a unified picture...saying that the Logos surrendered certain or all attributes and/or divine consciousness....that helps to unify but it feels reductionistic when you come to Luke 2 where Christ says I must be about my Father's business...He obviously hadn't forgotten his origin...
Many evangelicals speak of the self-veiling of the divine glory of Christ...John 17:7...glory I had....yet he did display something of the divine...Does he hide the divine? if he does, that doesn't really give you an explanation for the unity of the person....
Paul Feinberg talks about a "voluntary non-use of divine attributes and dependence on the Holy Spirit..."
Question: What about the transfiguration? Matthew 17....shining like the sun...anticipatory of John 17...end of Matthew 16...coming in his kingdom...a restoration of glory in some respect that will take place....
Question: Humanity or Divinity? Can't there be a co-mingling instead of a sharp distinction.....Chalcedonian formulation....two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably...This is the God-Man....
We're not explaining it...in the end, we confront the mystery of this person who showed up on the stage of history...God's son, made of a woman....The incarnation had a beginning but it never has an end....
Mainline orthodoxy has continued to speak in terms of a duality of
natures even in the earthly life of Christ, but to refer to a veiling
of Christ's divine glory, a hiddenness (cf John 17:5). The greater
problem seems to come in terms of the exercise of divine attributes.
Are those restricted? If so how? Feinberg speaks of a voluntary
non-use of divine attributes and a consequent dependence on the Holy
Spirit. This is probably a good start but is by no means a complete
explanation perhaps no more can be said.
II. Work of Christ...traditionally has discussed
atonement...but this course will also cover ministry of Christ and
death and resurrection of Christ...
1CO 15:1 NIV Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. {2} By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. {3} For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, {4} that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, {5} and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. {6} After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
Christology an attempt to unpack something which at first glance looks like a simple statement: the Word became flesh...took a while to figure that out...
Paul's statement very compressed:
Christ died for our sins....Died a historic fact....he was the Christ...the Messiah died....For our sins...we haven't always thought about it in light of the history of the Church....
A. The Ministry of Christ: the preaching of the kingdom and the presence of the king
One of the most prominent features of the teaching ministry of Christ was his emphasis on the "kingdom of God," or as Matthew sometimes varies the term "the kingdom of heaven." (We take these terms to be synonymous, "heaven" being a case of metonomy, cf. Lk 15:21). Metonomy...one thing mentioned because of association...
Jesus took up where John the Baptist left off. John had preached repentance in view of the imminent appearing of the kingdom (Mt 3:2).
Following his baptism, his decisive confrontation with the Devil (Mt 4:1-11), and the subsequent imprisonment of John, Jesus took up the same message (Mt 4:17), proclaiming it throughout Galilee (Mt 4:23).
Subsequently, the same message is committed to his disciples (Mt 10:7).
1. The meaning of the term...There is a growing agreement among NT scholars that the kingdom is to be understood as an active, dynamic idea rather than a passive one, i.e., it is not so much the idea of a sphere or
domain of authority as it is the exercise of authority, the rule of God.
It's not so much the idea of a domain of authority, but more of the actual exercise of authority...God's kingdom is the rule of God....
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done....seems to be exegetical...the coming of the Kingdom is God's will done on earth the way it's done in heaven (perfectly)....
OT full of idea that God's sovereignty extends thorough the whole creation...Psalm 22:8; Psalm 103:19; Daniel 4:34;
Already-not yet tension....sin is rebellion against the will of the Lord...He rules right now in spite of the rebellion, but there will be a day when rebellion will be suppressed....
Psalm 2 - kings of the earth gather against the Lord and his Christ...God laughs at them...
The coming of the kingdom will be the coming of God's rule...coming of Messiah...tied into the idea of a Davidic successor...
NT makes those connections rather cautiously...Kingdom as Jesus proclaims it essentially a spiritual kingdom....For the Kingdom to be at hand, that tended to mean political overthrow....restoration of kingship...
Jesus says, "My kingdom is not of this world..." not out of this world ektu kosmuu...my kingdom doesn't have its source in this world....Yet he's a bigger threat to Caesar than they ever understood...Christians would later not worship Caesar and died saying Jesus is king....
Not in the first place a visible external reality...Luke 17:20 -
comes not with observable signs...is in the midst of
you...sprirituality of this kingdom brought out further by its
fundamentally spiritual requirements for membership....You must
repent....You must be born again or born from above....you can't see
it unless you are...One's life must be marked by a standard of
righteousness which exceeds that of Scribes and Pharisees....Matthew
5:20....
2. The presence and futurity of the kingdom
Two perspectives on the kingdom are found in the teaching of Jesus.
Some sayings indicate that the kingdom is a future, eschatological reality, while others indicate that the kingdom has already come in the ministry of Jesus.
Not infrequently NT scholars have emphasized one at the expense of the other.
A. Schweitzer is a classic example of the school of "consistent eschatology" which argues that Jesus had an exclusively futuristic expectation of the kingdom.....He said Jesus expected it to break in, but it didn't and he got put to death...
On the other hand, C. H. Dodd is an example of so-called "realized eschatology." Dodd argues that Jesus' understanding of the kingdom was that of a reality already present and that there was no expectation of anything further. "what you see is what you get..."
Both views are present in teaching of our Lord....the already and the not yet...a handy phrase to point to a lot of NT teaching....Sense that something has already happened of a decisive nature....John talked about the "last hour" having already come...yet there is something yet to be fulfilled....
We see it in conflict with Satan and exorcism of demons...Matthew 12:28...Matthew 13...parables of kingdom suggest that kingdom in one sense is present now....
Still future...will appear in power...Mt. 16:27...Matthew 26:29...will drink wine with disciples...will shine like the sun...
Kingdom a way of speaking of the overarching purpose of God in humanity...He will place his King on Mount Zion...will reign to all enemies put under his feet....Hebrews....Final manifestation...all opposition put down....God's will being done in bringing salvation to those who need it....
Close tie between kingdom now and church....
Call of Christ is a call to commitment to the program of the Kingdom...If the Kingdom is ultimately what God is concerned about, then you and I are called to be concerned with what ultimately concerns God...his kingdom....
MAT 6:33 NIV But seek first his kingdom and his
righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
3. The kingdom in the teaching of the apostles
One is struck by the fact that whereas the kingdom teaching is central and explicit in the ministry of Christ, it finds surprisingly little discussion in the rest of the NT. Paul's letters contain but 13 references. Luke mentions the kingdom after the resurrection. Jesus appeared to his disciples and instructed them concerning the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). Yet the record of the earliest Christian preaching makes no reference to the kingdom.
B. Atonement
What kinds of questions might we ask? Why was blood necessary? Did he die for all? What did his death accomplish? How did the God-man die? How does it impact me? Did he take our place? What is the "for" my sins? Why the time between the times?
Three-fold typology: what is the primary direction or movement of what Jesus does on the cross...Aulen....
Movement in the direction of God....a divine transaction....OBJECTIVE....outside of us...towards God...Aulen calls it the LATIN view...Tertullian...Augustine....Anselm...
Movement in the direction of sinful humanity....SUBJECTIVE...
Aulen (overstated)...CLASSICAL...DRAMATIC....a history going back to Patristic period and in the New Testament....He says this view got overshadowed by the other two....A champion came to the fore....Luther....(Aulen's a Swedish Lutheran)....Says Luther rediscovered the dramatic motif...the POWERS....Satan...Sin personified....even the Law gets personified...
1. Survey of doctrinal development
Views on the nature of the atonement may be roughly classified in one of three categories: objective, subjective, and classical.
a. Objective views. These view the atonement as terminating primarily on God himself.
(1) Anselm (1053-1109) First to do a really systematic study, Cur Deus Homo? Why God became Man? why the God-Man....
The center of Anselm's teaching is the honor of God. Man is obligated to honor his creator by obedience.
Set-up as a discussion between himself and a student named Bozo...he asks questions at the right time...and only questions he can answer adequately....Raises the question, "Why can't God merely forgive sin?" A very important question because in the subjective view, the assumption is that God can and does....Anselm has set us up....
Anselm: you have not yet considered the gravity of sin....In the objectivist view, sin is so serious that God must demand or require something...He can't simply say, "Let bygones be bygones..."
If you agree with Anselm, you will have to be an objectivist in regards to the atonement....
Sin is seen as an affront to God's honor. For this the sinner must make reparation or satisfaction to God. Punishment would lead to such satisfaction, but if punishment is to be remitted, some other means of satisfaction must be found.
Either punishment could be meted out...but if they were punished, there would be no more sinners....God himself must make the satisfaction, but God doesn't owe it, man does...Hence the need for the Incarnation....Man owes something to God which he can't pay...that's why God becomes man--to pay it for him....His life was so valuable...Given to those who trust in him...forgiveness and life...
In view of the infinite worth of God, however, man is powerless to render any satisfaction. God himself must make satisfaction if it is to be made at all. But it is due from man not God. Man ought to make it, but God alone can make it.
Hence the need for the incarnation. The God-man has offered up his
life as a satisfaction for sin. His was of such super-abundant value
that it demanded a reward from God. Yet there was nothing that could
be given to Christ, and so the reward, in the form of forgiveness,
accrues to men.
(2) Protestant Reformers. Clearly objectivist...There are broad areas of agreement with Anselm, but note some differences:
(a) Reformers see sin more as affront to law and therefore as guilt. Thus the work of Christ becomes penal sacrifice to satisfy the justice of God....We're guilty and Christ suffers under our guilt...
(b) Instead of satisfaction or punishment, the Reformers teach satisfaction through punishment...God's Law satified by the judgment falling on somebody....The punishment is the satisfaction....
Anselm says God's honor can be satisfied if you the sinner are punished or apart from that, if someone could do some great work, that would satisfy the honor of God....He said Jesus owed obedience to God, but he didn't owe death...so he laid down his life in a super-erogitory work....a work that gets special credit...
(c) Distinguish active and passive obedience and include both in the saving work of Christ....Murray talks about this...Christ's work satisfies the judgment of the broken law as well as fulfills the active obedience....
Anselm doesn't work with these two categories of obedience....
b. Subjective views. These view the atonement as terminating exclusively or at least primarily on man.
(1) Abelard (1079-1142) In reaction to Anselm, Abelard denies that Christ's death is a satisfaction offered to God.
Offensive that God's character would require this....God could not take such pleasure in the death of his Son that he would make it the basis of forgiveness. Indeed, no ground for forgiveness is needed other than the love of God.
Apart from any satisfaction God is pleased to pardon the penitent sinner. In affirming that we are justified and reconciled by the blood of Christ, Abelard means that the death of Christ reveals God's great love for us and awakens a responsive love in our hearts. Such love liberates us from the power of sin and leads us to a loving obedience which is the ground of our forgiveness.
Also called MORAL INFLUENCE THEORY....Christ doing something
primarily that we need as sinners....We don't need someone to pay our
debt as much as someone to wake us up to see God's great love for
us....Christ died because we were sinners, alienated from God, so
that we would be drawn back...we respond to God....God forgives
us....
2) Socinus (1539-1604) The theory of Socinus is a direct frontal attack on the Reformation understanding of the atonement.
Fundamental is his denial that the justice of God demands satisfaction as a condition for forgiveness.
Either God forgives freely or he forgives on the basis of Christ's sacrifice, but one cannot maintain both. Socinus opts for the former.
God forgives freely, requiring of man only repentance and obedience.
Christ therefore did not atone for sin but only gave an example of faith and obedience both in life and death. That Christ was our penal substitute is impossible since guilt is personal and cannot be transferred to another.
Central texts of these folks are the book of Hebrews....In the 70s there were articles by Hughes...Socinus said Christ's priesthood is exercised only in context of heaven...therefore not a priest on earth....True offering of Christ offered only when he entered heaven....
Much more Biblically focused than Abelard...elaborate exposition of Hebrews...very complex scheme....
Argues that the idea of his vicarious death impossible because guilt not transferrable....Death necessary to show extent of perseverance...The idea of the martyr who perseveres...and to sympathize with us...
Radical wing of the Reformation...the Socinians....the rationalists of the Reformation periods...Unitarians....Socinus was a brilliant man...gave the Reformers fits....
In some way the love, mercy and grace of God intersects somewhere with God's justice in the Objective View...Where does it intersect with the Subjectivists? For them, love mercy and grace overrides his justice and holiness...Denying that there is a problem....It's either or with them...They choose the love side...the rationalist approach....
Objectivist view stands in tradition of Augustine, God loved us even when he hated us....Atonement of Christ is the resolution of the tension....Romans 3...that he might be just and the justifier....
Objectivist views tend to hold that tension more than the subjectivist view....
(3) Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) Extremely bright...Governmental theory: shows attempt to mediate between Socinian and Reformed view. Subsequently held by New England theology and Charles Finney.
Grotius held (with Socinus) that sin does not demand punishment because law is only a product of God's will. Says the law of God is not the reflection of his being, but a matter of his will only...If God wants to, he can relax the law...
Christ's death was not a satisfaction for sin in the true sense, but a revelation of God's regard for his law and his hatred for sin in order that his moral government might be upheld.
God was pleased to accept Christ's death as a substitute for our penalty although it was merely a token payment. Christ then takes hold on men's hearts, they repent, and God removes their penalty. He rejects explicitly the notion of payment which would release ipso facto.
Objectivist in that God needs to be dealt with, but more subjective because God doesn't really need some kind of payment for my sins....
Was an Arminian...doesn't want to go down the particular redemption road....says it's not a true payment, but a token....A lot of modern evangelicals and fundamentalists will want to affirm Christ's death as a full payment for sin, but they don't want to go with the Reformers down the road of particular redemption....
c. The classical view. Largely neglected as a theory of the atonement in the history of doctrine, the classical theory was brought into great prominence by the work of Gustav Aulén, Christus Victor (1931). Aulén argued that the early fathers (and indeed the NT itself) had understood the work of Christ primarily as a dramatic conquest of the forces of evil which held man captive. This view had been lost in the Middle Ages but rediscovered by Luther before being once again submerged by the later Reformation theologies.
Lost in Melancthon....
From Luther's writings (Galatians commentary...) Galatians 3:13...redeemed us from the curse of the law....sins of entire world past present and future attack him and try to damn him...In Christ is invincible righteousness...One of them must yield and be conquered...Sin of entire world attacks righteousness....What happens? Righteousness invincible...Sin a powerful god that devours the human race....Sin attacks Christ...All is conquered in Christ...Death clashes against life...
Aulen overstated...because Luther also talks the Objective and Aselmian views....inestimable mercy and love of God...oppressed by the law...sent his son into the world...heaped all sin of all men upon him...Law says "I find him a sinner...let him die as a sinner on the cross..." By this deed the whole world expiated from all sins...If the sins of the entire world are on the one man, they are not on the world....If Christ made guilty of all sins, we are absolved of all sin....
Either your sin is on you or your sin is on Christ....classic Reformational objective view....
Luther not just Classical, but also Objective....
The truth is a combination of all three views to some degree....Cross goes toward God, man, the powers....
10/14/97
Midterm next week....Responsible for materials covered up to tonight...Should be equipped to define various kinds of teachings...ideas of particular people...summary of what Abelard said about the Atonement...know who areas is and what the squabble was over Arianism at Nicea...Why was homoousion the question...The implications of that discussion...Know representative Biblical themes or passages...use your Bible intelligently if asked to discuss reconciliation....Know something of history...something of the Biblical side...and work with ideas...Toward that side of things, a section from "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time...." Read over in prep for exam and think through it...What's going on with this guy? What's he trying to say about Jesus? How do you analyze what he's saying....Essay question: reflect on these pages...Very contemporary work...Think in light of the history of theology and what you've learned...Roman Catholic scholar...West Coast...contemporary....As you get into various ministries, you'll be ministering to people who read this type of material....
Readings from books will not be covered on this test...About an hour....
Format...short answers, essays, multiple choice...Open brain, open Bible...no notes...
We do blessed little worship in our churches....it's celebrating what God has done...
Last week: objective, subjective, dealing with the enemies of
human kind, aspects...
2. Aspects of the Atonement
a. Obedience. In his obedience Christ became the sinner's
vicarious representative. Not only did he bear the judgment due to
our sin, but he also perfectly fulfilled the demands of the law and
thereby merited eternal life for us.
{ISA 52:13 NIV} See, my servant will act wisely ; he will be
raised and lifted up and highly exalted. {14} Just as there were many
who were appalled at him -- his appearance was so disfigured beyond
that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness--
{ISA 53:1 NIV} Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? {2} He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. {3} He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. {4} Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. {5} But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. {6} We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. {7} He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. {8} By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. {9} He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. {10} Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. {11} After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied ; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
Messiah described as God's servant....the measure of a servant is in his obedience, carrying out the will of the master....
MAT 3:13 NIV Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. {14} But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" {15} Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented. {16} As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. {17} And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
Beginning of his ministry marked by this commitment to fulfil all righteousness....
Why the baptism? Appropriate to fulfill all righteousness...
{JOH 6:38 NIV} For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
{JOH 10:17 NIV} The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. {18} No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."
His obedience extends to the laying down of his life....
{ROM 5:19 NIV} For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
{HEB 5:8 NIV} Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered {9} and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him
{HEB 10:3 NIV} But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, {4} because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. {5} Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; {6} with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. {7} Then I said, 'Here I am--it is written about me in the scroll-- I have come to do your will, O God.'"
{PHI 2:5 NIV} Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: {6} Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, {7} but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
Death is the measure of the obedience of the servant of the Lord...
What is his work of obedience? Is it primarily subjective in effect? The obedience of the perfect example? Does he come to show us what it is to be a servant of God? To some extent yes....He washes feet and says to serve each other....a moral example
But when you look at these passages, there is more going on than merely him being an example to us....in Romans 5, the many have been made righteous...
Portrayed as a VICARIOUS OBEDIENCE....not just in the sense of illustrating something, but in the sense that his obedience takes place as our representative for us...does it in our stead and in our place....
Active...in the law there are two distinct elements, doing the Law...the Law demands the best of us in the service of God...POSITIVE...Some groups deny this side of it...Arminian theologians tend to minimize this aspect...many Bible-believers....tend to see the perfection of his life qualifying for his perfect death....
The whole of Christ's life in its perfection has saving virtue...
Passive...the Law says that when God's creatures fail to do what He commands, his justice and holiness demand sanctions...the soul that sins shall die...Penalty....His obedience fulfils every requirement of the broken law...He suffers all the judgement that sinners deserve to suffer...He suffers it VICARIOUSLY...not for himself, but for us...He became sin for us...2 Corinthians 5....
Bad term...Christ does suffer actively...Passive sounds like PASSION....
We don't need someone to just die for us...we need someone to obey for us...to do what I don't do....I don't fulfil all righteousness...
Hard to point to one text which covers it all...Romans 5 comes as close as possible...
ROM 5:18 NIV Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. {19} For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
{ROM 5:17 NIV} For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
Stands in contrast to the condemnation...Is it the gift of the cross? or is it more complex than that?
{ROM 4:25 NIV} He was delivered over to death for our sins and was
raised to life for our justification.
Justification tied to the resurrection....
Is the gift the gift of the cross and the resurrection? or is it even broader than that???
When we get to justification, we talk more of all that Christ is being reckoned to me....
2CO 5:21 NIV God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
b. Sacrifice. The work of Christ as a sacrifice for sins is one of the chief themes of the NT.
Christ is referred to as a slain lamb whose blood avails to remove sin (Jn 1:29,36; 1 Pet 1:18,19; Rev 5:6-10; 13:8).
Which lamb is he talking about? Passover, daily...Whatever, it has broad background in OT...
He is referred to as the true passover lamb (1 Cor 5:6-8). The book of Hebrews in particular associates the work of Christ with the sacrificial ritual of the OT of which it is the perfect fulfillment. Christ is not only offering but offerer as well; not only sacrifice but sacrificing priest... (Heb 9:13-14; 10:9-14).
Not only the offering but the offerer as well...not only the sacrifice, but also the sacrificing priest...
{HEB 9:13 NIV} The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. {14} How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
{HEB 10:9 NIV} Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. {10} And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. {11} Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. {12} But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. {13} Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, {14} because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
What does sacrifice mean? To say that his work his sacrifice is not sufficient....We ask because in modern context this has gotten a lot of discussion...It's asserted that sacrifice refers symbolically only to the surrender of one's life to God...On this reading, the sacrifice is in no case substitutionary in a penal sense...That is to say, the death of the sacrifice, then, is not a picture of a victim suffering judgment or penalty, it is rather the picture of a surrender of life...In that interpretation, the death is only incidental to the surrender of life...Sacrifice symbol of total commitment to God...Sacrifice is unto death, but the death is incidental....Leon Morris...has whole chapter on meaning of blood...because there is a debate on whether blood symbolizes death or life...."The life of the flesh is in the blood..." Symbolizes life released for the service of God...
Once you take that tack, if blood only means life surrendered, then there is not idea that God is somehow wrathful or angry in this whole thing....If you interpret the death of Christ in totally subjective category, as him being an example, you have a full-blown theory...
Prof would argue that this approach is a weakening of the Biblical understanding of what sacrifice is...
{ISA 53:5 NIV} But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. {6} We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Some would argue that his piercing was symbolic of his going all the way....subjectivist understanding...
But the punishment that brought us peace was upon him....laid on him the iniquity of us all...Hard to interpret this as a subjectivist approach...
Numbers 25 - atonement made...plague stopped by death of offending sinner...atonement made with no sacrifice...that suggests that there is an alternative...It either falls on the guilty or it falls on a sacrifice...that suggests exchange...
{2SA 21:1 NIV} During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the Lord. The Lord said, "It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death." {2} The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not a part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah had tried to annihilate them.) {3} David asked the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? How shall I make amends so that you will bless the Lord's inheritance?" {4} The Gibeonites answered him, "We have no right to demand silver or gold from Saul or his family, nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death." "What do you want me to do for you?" David asked. {5} They answered the king, "As for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel, {6} let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and exposed before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul--the Lord's chosen one." So the king said, "I will give them to you." {7} The king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath before the Lord between David and Jonathan son of Saul. {8} But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah's daughter Rizpah, whom she had borne to Saul, together with the five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite. {9} He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed and exposed them on a hill before the Lord. All seven of them fell together; they were put to death during the first days of the harvest, just as the barley harvest was beginning.
Verse 14...then God blessed...
We understand his blood as being penal substitution....not just a symbol of life...What does blood shed symbolize? Death....
The son of man laid down his life for us in the specific sense in that he stood in our place...
MAT 20:28 NIV just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
anti - "for" - the sense of "equivalence", "exchange", "substitution.."
MAR 10:45 NIV For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
2CO 5:21 NIV God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
GAL 3:13 NIV Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."
huper - "hyper" - in behalf of, in the place of...
ISA 53:6 NIV We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
1PE 2:24 NIV He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
c. Propitiation. The verb hilaskomai and its cognates occur
relatively infrequently in the NT. Four of these usages are related
to the work of Christ (Rom 3:25; Heb 2:17; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10).
ROM 3:22 NIV This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, {23} for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, {24} and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
ROM 3:25 NIV God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement (PROPITIATION), through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished--
As Murray talks about it...God sets forth Christ as a proptitiation...
Context: the guilt of mankind...threatening judgment...
What stands between a guilty world and any kind of hope? One is the concept of propitiation....
{HEB 2:17 NIV} For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement (PROPITIATION) for the sins of the people. {18} Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
{1JO 2:1 NIV} My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. {2} He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
{1JO 4:10 NIV} This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
C.H. Dodd argued it should be expiation and not propititation....
Following the work of the Cambridge NT scholar C. H. Dodd and a number of others, modern theology has largely come to understand the word to mean "expiation" rather than propitiation.
Propitiation is seen to be a pagan idea unworthy of the NT conception of God. The NT has nothing to do with a capricious and vindictive god who arbitrarily punishes his worshipers and must then be bribed back into a good mood by sacrifices.
Dodd said God doesn't need to be bribed...That's right, but does that mean propitiation doesn't mean propitiation...Expiate seems to water it down...simply means "atone" in modern theology...
The word is in some sense an earlier word, or a word that focuses on the process by which atonement is achieved rather than just the result...How is atonement accomplished? Through propitiation...
The word brings before us, perhaps as powerfully as any word in the Bible, is that sin affects God, not just man....Sin offends God...Sin is an assault on God's holy character...Sin is rebellion....trespass...unfaithfulness...As a result, sin provokes a response of wrath on the part of God towards the sinner...A wrath which can only be averted by a propitiation.....
Dodd's view ties in with blood merely being symbol of life...an elaborate way to work the package together to say sin is a problem for us but not for God..
The NT says sin is a much bigger problem for God than it is for us...We say, "What's the big deal, it's only an apple..." It is GOD for whom it is a big deal...He says sinners deserve to die...God says "I am the holy one...the soul that sins will die..."
The doctrine of propitiation says Christ's sacrifice turned away God's wrath...It rendered God propitious towards his people by satifying the just demands of his holiness....
As the sacrifice, he absorbs the wrath of God in himself...
Propitiation is NOT the turning of God's wrath into love...that's a pagan notion....When Mueller writes, "God's wrath was turned into grace", he fell off the trolley...Rather, according to 1 John 4:10, propritiation is precisely the expression of God's love...God propritiates himself...He provides the propritiation to turn away his own wrath...God's love doesn't minimize the reality of his wrath...
Augustine says, that in a strange way, God loved us even when he hated us....God is so holy that he is necessarily angry and wrathful towards sinners. He is so loving that he and only he can provide the sacrifice and he is willing to do....This is love, not that we loved God, but he loved us...
Not only just, but the justifier...Mercy and peace of kissed each other....
Our ideas of love tend to be reductionistic....We love cheaply...without expecting or demanding much...There is a sense in which God's love is a very demanding love....And in grace, he enables it to happen...
Jesus bore God's wrath against sin...How do we understand it? How does that happen?
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? A cry of lonliness and dereliction....none of has ever been completely alone and completely cut off from God....End result of sin that people will be one day cut off from the source of life...joy...love...peace...
What you should experience is what he suffered? And he never experience our alienation to begin with....
Somehow, for the Son of God to bear our judgment, some kind of break had to come at the deep level of how God relates to God...
Penalty for sin - eternal separation of God...
d. Reconciliation. Four important NT passages treat of Christ's work as reconciliation. The Greek is katallass and its cognates.
This word has to do with the doing away of an enmity and the reuniting of estranged parties. The estrangement is that between God and sinners.
We are told that sinners are enemies of God (Rom 5:10; Col 1:21; James 4:4; 2 Cor 5:18-21).
The way to overcome enmity is to deal with the source of alienation. Christ reconciles us to God by taking away the sin that is the source of enmity.
It is significant that the NT nowhere says that God is reconciled, but only the sinner. This emphasizes the fact that God is not the source of the enmity. It is man who has sinned, and therefore it is man who must
be called upon to be reconciled (2 Cor 5:20).
Murray says He is alienated to us as well as us to him....
Murray at that point really back to propitiation....
God initiates the restoration....
Paul speaks of it as already achieved...committed to us the word of reconciliation...God in Christ reconciling the world to himself...
Now the word goes out, "Be reconciled.." Alternation with Paul between the indicative and imperative...Indicative = the fact, Imperative = the command....Those outside Christ turn it around and try to act like a Christian to be a Christian...Paul says, "You are, therefore you should..." Fact: God was reconciled Imperative: Be reconciled...experience what God has already done....Santification doesn't say act like a saint so you can become one...You are one, now act like one....
e. Redemption. A term broader than the Bible...Both in extra-biblical and biblical literature, the NT word group lytron points to the idea of deliverance from some evil by the payment of a price.
Thus prisoners of war or slaves could be released by the payment of a ransom (lytron).
In the NT the evil from which men need deliverance is the bondage of sin and death. The ransom price for their redemption is the death of Christ (Mk 10:45; Gal 3:13; Heb 9:15; Eph 1:7; 1 Pet 1:18-19).
Redeemed by blood of a perfect lamb...
A metaphor...Jesus pays the price...Who does he pay it to? In Patristic Period, we have pictures of Christ paying the ransom to the devil...Some say to God...Some would say to death...
Profs suggestion: Redemption is a metaphor. Not all points of
comparison are wise to draw out....The question of who gets paid may
get us into trouble...Most of us struggle with trying to get all the
details of the metaphor to fit...What is intended? Three things. 1)
The costliness of salvation...it comes about when you pay a
ransom...ransoms tend to be expensive...In this case, God's Son, the
one he loved...This should provoke great worship from us...It cost
him nothing to create the world..He spoke and it was done...It cost
him his Son to redeem the world...Somebody stole what God made for
nothing....It cost him the most valuable thing that he had to get it
back....Redemption says that the salvation of sinners is costly to
God....As Bonhoeffer says, it cannot be cheap for us...Salvation is
expensive for God; 2) Substitution....ambivalence in the word...can
point to the ransom itself...its a substitute....That which they pay
is a substititute...an equivalent value to what is held...Christ is
in or place...He is given over to death for us; 3)
Deliverance....What is redeemed is somehow in bondage...Redemption
means freedom...
f. Victory. The work of Christ is seen in terms of a
victory won over the powers of sin, death, and the devil. It is this
aspect which Gustav Aulén sought to make the dominant motif of
the NT.
While it seems clear that the sacrificial penal motif is the leading category of interpretation, we should not overlook this dramatic theme.
In Christ the believer triumphs over death: death is swallowed up in the victory which Christ has achieved by his cross and resurrection (1 Cor 15:54). In the cross Christ triumphs over Satan and his emissaries (Jn 12:31; Col 2:15; Heb 2:14,15; 1 Pet 3:18).
JOH 12:31 NIV Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.
Talking about his death...lifted up...will draw all men to himself....
His death is already the proclamation of victory....
g. Example. Since conservative theologians often neglect the "subjective" aspects of the atonement, we would do well to observe that the sufferings of Christ are frequently set forth in the NT as an example (Mt 16:24; 20:25-28; Jn 15:12-13; 2 Cor 8:9; Col 1:24; Heb 12:3; 1 Pet 2:21; 1 Jn 3:16).
Jesus death as an example for us in the way we ought to live...
{MAT 16:24 NIV} Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Bonhoeffer: "When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come die..."
{HEB 12:3 NIV} Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
You haven't yet shed blood....
We live in this narcissitic, pusilanimous age that says take it easy, lay back....God says GET TOUGH! A call to be tough disciples.....
{2CO 8:9 NIV} For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
Whole section on giving...give generously because when Jesus died he gave everything....
10/21/97
10/28/97
3. The Perfection of the Atonement
The perfection of the atonement refers to Christ's work both in regard to its finality and its completeness....
Distinction between godly discipline and the ongoing satisfaction we need to make for our sins....Law and judgment and punishment and family, fatherly care are two different worlds...One pertains to OT mentality, the other the NT reality...Help others grow in this mentality....
a. Finality
b. Completeness
Subject of particular redemption...quote from the Westminster Confession, Chapter 8, paragraph 8...later Calvinistic creed...about 100 years after Reformation...Who is it that Christ has purchased? Murray discusses this...A question that got some discussion before the Reformation....It's a debate as to which direction Calvin went on it...Luther discusses it a bit it "Bondage of the Will"...
For whom did Christ die? Two answers: Universalist Particularist..
Universalist...Christ died in some sense for everbody....Absolute universalist says Christ died for everybody and he's going to save everyone....Origen....Looking for a time of redemption for the whole universe...Not too many in orthodoxy that hold to that...Much more common, and the majority position within evangelicalism is conditional universalism....Christ died to save all on condition they will believe...Oden falls into this camp....Roman Catholic position, Arminian position, Wesleyan-Arminian view....Oden is Wesleyan...
Particularist...intention of Christ's death is the salvation of the elect....that Christ dies for those whom the Father has given to him...the chosen...That lies behind this Westminster statement...He hasn't purchased redemption for everyone....Since what Christ does is the actual purchase, then everyone would need to be saved...
What do you make of the discussion??? Historical rooting not so much in understanding of God, but more in radical understanding of the effects of sin that are discussed at the Reformation....Luther concerned that he got saved in context of Medieval works righteousness....Luther eventually concluded that all the talk about "doing the best you can" is what needed to be thrown out....Deep sense that sin is a bigger problem than Medieval church was willing to face....Your understanding of the solution (of salvation) is going to depend upon what you see the problem to be....If we say faith precedes regeneration, we're saying the problem is not that serious to begin with....
Calvinist historically says that Jesus secures the end...otherwise we have no assurance...He secures both the beginning and the end....
Professor is here: This is one of the five points of Calvinism...TULIP...Total depravity...unconditional election...Limited atonement...Irresistable Grace...Perseverance of the saints....Limited atonement leads to the most acrimonious and unprofitable discussions...It isn't that productive...Nothing he would ever want to preach on...what possible good would it do? Would never teach it in a Sunday school class....That dicussion reflects the controversies of the 17th Century...Somehow it has a datedness about it....Limited Atonement is a logical extrapolation from the other points....Only an issue because ELECTION is an issue...which is much broader biblically...If you always let people frame out the options, you'll always get caught...tertium quid non dator...you haven't given me a third option....Is it the case that the mystery of what Christ has done on the cross (buying, paying, redeeming), that God has multiple purposes??? Are we able to sort through the complexities of that? Trying to resolve this is not exegetically honest...The data of Scripture doesn't allow me to take that step...Comes down more firmly on the election issue...more Biblical data...
C. The resurrection of Christ
Our concern is to elaborate briefly the theological import of the resurrection. This has been largely neglected in standard systematic theologies. We must see that Christ's death and resurrection are closely associated in NT and both have redemptive significance.
1. The vindication of Christ, 1 Tim 3:16 - 1TI 3:16 NIV Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.
Early Christian hymn....justified in Spirit...taken up in glory...This one statement, "justified in the Spirit"...Richard Gaffen, Westminster Seminary...makes case that in spirit refers to the resurrection existence of Christ....Pre and post-resurrection existence....What could it mean to say that in the resurrection, God justified or vindicated Jesus...Seems that this vindication theme strong in early Christian preaching....
ACT 2:23 NIV This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. {24} But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
ACT 3:13 NIV The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. {14} You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. {15} You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.
ACT 5:30 NIV The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead--whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. {31} God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.
That vindication is seen on two fronts:
Jesus was falsely accused...charged with being an imposter, a blasphemer, a false Christ, a deceiver...God has cleared him of these charges...
Jesus was the substitute...In the reckoning of God, as Luther says, "Be Paul the blasphemer and persecutor..." He is the guilty Israel..the guilty gentile nations...He does pay the price....GAL 3:13 NIV Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." Self-confirming aspect for those who crucified Jesus...someone hung up was cursed of God.....Fulfillment of suffering messiah motif in OT...total paradigm shift for Paul....
Resurrection says that for the substitute has been made...our curse is finished...It is finished....
A sense in which when Jesus is justified in the resurrection, all his people are justified...Whatever happened to Christ has happened to all his people....
2. The proof of Christ's Lordship. It is the Christus Victor theme which stands out clearly in reference to the resurrection. The triumph achieved through the cross (Col 2:15) is confirmed in the resurrection. Death (and hence, sin) are vanquished at the resurrection (Rom 6:9; 1 Cor 15:55-57; Rev 1:5, 18). Christ has ascended to the glory of the right hand of the Father and thus all his enemies must ultimately be subject to his Lordship (Phil 2:9; 1 Pet 3:21-22; Heb 1:3,13; 8:1; 10:13; Rev 1:5).
COL 2:15 NIV And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
ROM 6:9 NIV For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.
Death did have power over him...The measure of sin's
power...death....wages of sin is death....Jesus as the sin-bearer,
subjected himself to the power of sin....Sin is more than guilt...It
is also power...Jesus deals with sin comprehensively...with its guilt
and its power....Resurrection is the demonstration that the ultimate
power of sin and death is now lost to Jesus...The mastery of sin is
broken...That's the basis upon which Paul talks about the Christian
life...breaking of guilt AND power of sin....already broken in the
resurrection....If it's happened to Jesus it's also happened to
us....
3. The inauguration of his intercessory ministry, Rom 8:34; Heb 4:14; 7:23ff; and the Spirit's ministry, Ac 2:33; 1 Jn 2:1-2...Ministry of Christ and the Spirit are united...You can't really speak of one without the other...
ACT 2:33 NIV Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.
Resurrection means that history has now entered its final epoch...the last days have come...The endtime biblically is everything from the resurrection of Jesus til the final wrap up...Everything after the resurrection is the unfolding....Last days telescopic...everything after this is the fulfillment of Joel's prophecy...
1JO 2:1 NIV My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. {2} He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
Parakletos...one who speaks in our defense...counsellor...
ROM 8:34 NIV Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Jesus has entered into a new phase of his work...intercession...v. 26 links this with the Holy Spirit...
HEB 4:14 NIV Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. {15} For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. {HEB 4:16 NIV} Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Has overcome every enemy...knows what it is to suffer....has passed through the heavens...He's the victor....Has all resources but has suffered our situations...Power and symphathy combined...
HEB 7:24 NIV but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. {25} Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. {26} Such a high priest meets our need--one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.
4. The prolepsis of the final judgment. In the resurrection of Christ we see the final destiny of the people of God.
Anticipation of the end....forecasting of the end...throwing forward...
The resurrection of Christ is seen as the anticipation of the end of history...Biblical understanding seems to be that in Jesus, the end of everything has already come about...a distinctive aspect of the eschatology of the NT where the end is anticipated....In Jewish eschatology, you have this age and the age to come....separated by the resurrection and the final judgment...History runs its course, God wraps it up in judgment and then the age to come..
Complicating factor in the reality of the unfolding of God's plans, is that the coming of the Messiah turns out to be a two-stage coming....Which end is the end...
END
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______________________________ Cross New creation/world/last days
Old World
Problem is, the world doesn't know it's dead yet...World passing away and the true light already shining...Resurrection anticipates the final judgment....In the resurrection, the end of history is thrown into the center of history...Judgment of world is already here...Now the prince of this world shall be cast out....
Oskar Kuhlmann likens death and resurrection of Jesus to Allied invasion of Normandy...When was the victory secured? V-E Day...1945...In principle and reality, the victory was secured when the Allies successfully stormed the beaches in June 1944....After beaches stormed, a lot of fighting...But in fact, the Nazis never turn it around again....the Cross is D-Day...We see the end from the middle...
1CO 15:20 NIV But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. {21} For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. {22} For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. {23} But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. {24} Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. {25} For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. {26} The last enemy to be destroyed is death. {27} For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. {28} When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. {29} Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? {30} And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour?
Leviticus 23...wavesheaf offering....beginning of the harvest season...firstfruits an offering...a symbolic gesture of faith that if you give the Lord the first, you trust him with what you'll get later....anticipates the whole harvest....
Pentecost...the harvest in full swing...
EPH 2:5 NIV made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. {6} And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, {7} in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. {8} For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--
COL 3:1 NIV Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. {2} Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. {3} For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
11/4/97
Review of exam....Essay question discussion....
III. The Application of Salvation
The question before us in the remainder of this course is how the
objective work of Christ accomplished at Calvary comes to bear on the
lives of believers. This raises two interrelated biblical themes:
union with Christ and the ministry of the Holy Spirit...They occur
together and are linked, how we don't exactly know....Told disciples
to wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit...Right from the start,
ascension and coming of Spirit in closest proximity....The Spirit is
the work of Jesus in the world...Jesus gives the Spirit..."He
will baptize you with the Spirit and with fire....
A. Union with Christ
The NT testifies to a mysterious union that exists between the risen Christ and his people....sometimes called a "mystical" union...This union is more to be experienced than explained although the Bible gives us many different perspectives from which to view this reality....Being united with Christ is mysterious...
1. Terminology
a. Pauline terminology...
In Christ...
With Christ...
Christ in you...
Murray talks about this some in his book.
EPH 1:2 NIV Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. {3} Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. {4} For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love {5} he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- {6} to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. {7} In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace
EPH 1:11 NIV In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, {12} in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. {13} And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, {14} who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory. {15} For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,
ROM 6:1 NIV What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? {2} By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? {3} Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? {4} We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
{ROM 8:17 NIV} Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. {18} I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. {19} The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.
COL 3:1 NIV Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. {2} Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. {3} For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. {4} When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Paul uses a variety of metaphors: temple, citizens, family
members...
EPH 2:19 NIV Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, {20} built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. {21} In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. {22} And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
{1PE 2:4 NIV} As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him-- {5} you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
ROM 5:12 NIV Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned-- {13} for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. {14} Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. {15} But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! {16} Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. {17} For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. {18} Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. {19} For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
Connection between us and Adam and a connection between us and Christ....
Adam did something which affected us beyond just setting us a bad example...We've come into a different world...Original sin...
Paul now says there is a parallel link between Jesus and his people....We receive righteousness and life through Christ...
Explaining one mystery with another one...
1CO 15:21 NIV For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. {22} For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. {23} But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. {24} Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. {25} For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. {26} The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
1CO 15:45 NIV So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being" ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. {46} The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. {47} The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. {48} As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
EPH 4:15 NIV Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. {16} From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Imagery of the body....
"As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you've done it unto me..."
EPH 5:23 NIV For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
b. Johannine terminology
JOH 14:20 NIV On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
JOH 14:23 NIV Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. {24} He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
JOH 17:20 NIV "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, {21} that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
JOH 15:1 NIV "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. {2} He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. {3} You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. {4} Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. {5} "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. {6} If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. {7} If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. {8} This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. {9} "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. {10} If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
2. The nature of the union
a. mystical (?) ...not just mysterious, but as some sort of interpenetration that takes place between Christ and our own persons or spirits....mysticism in the more classical sense of fusion of divine and human...or an absorption of the human....Some elements of Roman Catholic theology sound like this...leads to some sort of ontological change in our humanity....In incarnation, God took up humanity into himself...Somehow, divine life gets infused in us...There is also in evangelical popular theology a kind of mysticism which, if you took it seriously, sounds like classical eastern mysticism...They talk of the goal of Christian life to yield up of self in such a way that Christ effectively obliterates our personality...They talk Gal. 2:20 very literalistically...Fairly common in some circles...The absorption of the individual personality into the Christ personality....In fact, the people who talk that way don't take it real seriously...The probably don't really think it through....Imagery becomes one of total passivity...denying self so effectively...This kind of thing is not the way to go....
b. moral (?)...that this union is primarily a moral union...Christ lives in us in the sense that the work of Christ is continued in us....To be in Christ, then, is to act as Christ acted...to act today as he acted historically in the past...no mystery here....not really a personal union...a similarity of two lives...a way of describing discipleship....There may be a sense in which some of that is appropriate to think about, but it is not exhaustive of what the NT has to say...
c. historical (?) ...being in Christ is a redemptive-historical category....The idea is that a lot of times, when Scripture seems to talk in personal cateogories, it's really talking redemptive-historical....To be in Adam is to be part of the historical reality that came about through the results of disobedience (Gen. 3)...part of the old creation, marked by the power of sin, death, Satan, the Law....To be in Christ is to be part of the historical reality brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus...the New Creation...2 Corinthians 5:17...For some of the language, this understanding does work pretty effectively....
d. spiritual....a connection between Christ and his people that takes place through the ministry of the Holy Spirit...It is through the Spirit that the Lord visits his people..."I will not leave you orphans...I will come to you"...He comes to them not just as the resurrected Christ, but to be with them forever in the ministry of the Spirit....So close is the identification between the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit that Paul can say the Lord is the Spirit.... 2CO 3:17 NIV Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. {18} And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Is Paul a modalist? No....Paul's understanding in light of the resurrection...a close function...
Something of a moral dimension....to live as Jesus lived...Something of historical-redemptive thing....But there is more than that..."Christ in you, the hope of glory..." Moving into the realm of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the personal representative of Jesus, so closely identified with the Lord Himself, that we can say the Lord is the Spirit....
3. Jesus and the Spirit
Union with Christ is effected by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit in fact continues the work of Jesus in the world and in the lives of the disciples (Jn 14:16, 26; Rom 8:26,27).
JOH 14:16 NIV And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--
JOH 14:26 NIV But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
a. The Spirit comes to universalize the presence of Jesus...Jesus, in his humanity, was localized...the Spirit is not localized...goes into all the world through the believers...
JOH 16:7 NIV But I tell you the truth: It is for your good
that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come
to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
b. The Spirit is stamped with the personality of Jesus....Holy Spirit takes on a fully personal quality that is not seen in the OT...In OT Holy Spirit seen more as a force or power...Now seen as third person of the Trinity...However His personality is not independent of Christ...Characteristic of HS to glorify Jesus...
JOH 15:26 NIV "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.
JOH 16:13 NIV But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. {14} He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.
JOH 14:26 NIV But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
If the Spirit is stamped by the personality of Jesus, to live a Spirit-filled life is to live a Christ-like life....How do we measure Spirit-filling? An ecstasy? emotional elation? an experience that feels qualitatively different? More realistic and Biblical is to measure by asking if you're walking as a disciple of Christ...
c. The Spirit produces the character of Jesus.
2CO 3:17 NIV Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. {18} And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
GAL 5:22 NIV But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, {23} gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. {24} Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.
GAL 2:20 NIV I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
We see the qualities of the fruit of the Spirit in the accounts of the life of Jesus...
Three elements:
Spirit of Sonship....GAL 4:6 NIV Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." {7} So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
Same word for God Jesus used in contemplating the cross...
Same word comes into our hearts...we are sons like His son....
Spirit teaches us to talk like Jesus talked...
ROM 8:15 NIV For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." {16} The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
Spirit of Servanthood.... {2CO 3:7 NIV} Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, {8} will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? {9} If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!
2CO 4:1 NIV Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. {2} Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. {3} And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. {4} The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. {5} For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
2CO 4:11 NIV For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. {12} So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
We have a continuation of the ministry of Jesus, a ministry of service...
1PE 4:12 NIV Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. {13} But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. {14} If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
The Spirit rests on those who suffer for Christ....Peter has come a long way!
COL 1:24 NIV Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. {25} I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness--
Spirit of Witness...
{ACT 1:8 NIV} But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." {9} After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. {10} They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.
{ACT 4:29 NIV} Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. {30} Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." {31} After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
{ACT 13:1 NIV} In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. {2} While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." {3} So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. {4} The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus.
Major strategic move...
Spirit comes to guide and direct....
Bearing witness to the truth....
d. The Spirit unites God's people....builds the people of God into one temple....
{1CO 3:16 NIV} Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?
{EPH 2:14 NIV} For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, {15} by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, {16} and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. {17} He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. {18} For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. {19} Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, {20} built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. {21} In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. {22} And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Ephesians 4...unity of the Spirit...
Spirit is Christ's personal representative...we are linked to Christ through the Spirit...the qualities of Jesus come into our lives...Life in the Spirit....we do experience without being able to totally articulate a lot of what it means....
B. Grace
Mercy has in view God's attitude and actions towards those whose situation is bad in one way or another...those hurting, those suffering...
Grace has the idea of God's gift and goodness given to those who don't deserve it...
Predominant in the NT discussion of salvation is the emphasis on grace (charis 155 times in NT, 100x in Paul).
The associated ideas are often present even when the words are not, e.g., in the teaching of Christ....seen in his actions...woman at the well...seen in his teachings...The father who takes back the prodigal...
Such usage applies not to the theological concept of "common grace," i.e., grace of a non-salvific sort bestowed universally on sinners by the HS....God's goodness...
Rather, the NT refers to what is called "special grace." In this more restricted sense it points to all that God has done for the redemption and restoration of fallen mankind....
"Grace" then, par excellence, is found in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ for us.
Christ is the bringer of grace (Jn 1:14-17)..."grace upon grace...full of grace and truth..." The Incarnation is a manifestation of grace (2 Cor 8:9). 2CO 8:9 NIV For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
TIT 2:11 NIV For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.
ROM 5:1 NIV Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, {2} through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Grace is a sphere in which you stand....You have a standing or existence in grace...
HEB 13:9 NIV Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them. {10} We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.
Have to have your heart strengthened daily by grace...If you don't develop the mentality of grace, you start out and end up thinking you deserve it or earn it, or it depends upon you to make it happen...Ultimately if you become the bottom sum of the Christian life, you're in trouble....You do have responsibility...you have to add in the fact that you fail...At the bottom, the sum has to come up to grace...
It is the grace of God which brings salvation (Titus 2:11; Eph 2:8; Rom 3:23-24). Indeed, the whole of the Christian life stands under the banner of grace (Rom 5:1-2; Heb 4:16).
1. Free grace...it comes to those who do not and cannot merit such favor...grace stands in antithesis to law in NT...The Law represented a hypothetically alternative way to get where you need to ago....
ROM 4:4 NIV Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. {5} However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. {6} David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: {7} "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. {8} Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."
ROM 10:4 NIV Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. {5} Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them." {6} But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' " (that is, to bring Christ down)
In one way or another, Paul is saying the Gospel brings to an end Law as a means of righteousness....Law here represents the Old Testament regime or understanding...In our own experience, Christ's coming brings an end to the atttitude that says that Law is a means of righteousness....
{GAL 5:4 NIV} You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. {5} But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. {6} For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
It's either Christ and grace or Law and Works...
{GAL 2:21 NIV} I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
To embrace the Law is to deny grace...Grace and Law as a way of life are antithetical...Law speaks of what you can accomplish...Grace speaks of what God has already accomplished...
Martin Luther begins to discover the gospel, gets incensed of indulgences and does his 95 Thesis thing...Had no idea that Rome would be seething in three months...First they try to hush him through his own order....Call him to Heidelburg...Prepared 30 some theses for debate...The Heidelburg Disputation much more focused....Gospel coming into focus...Thesis 26: "The Law says do this, and it is never done; Grace says, 'Believe in thisone!' and forthwith everything is done..."
We stand in his debt....Between doing and believing lies this important issue of grace...So hard for people to understand....So many think Christianity is fundamentally about doing...they love to feel guilty (if their honest)...If they're dishonest, they tell themselves they're doing pretty good and then they feel proud...On the other side is grace...Grace is marked by freedom from guilt and humility rather than pride...
Grace is described as a gift or a promise...
GAL 3:18 NIV For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.
EPH 2:8 NIV For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- {9} not by works, so that no one can boast.
ROM 4:16 NIV Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring--not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. {17} As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed--the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.
You receive the promise by believing...
You've got to live your life on the promises....
1CO 4:7 NIV For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
Grace gives us humility...there is no place for arrogance....How can you brag about grace unless you've forgotten what it is? How can you be arrogant about what happens in your church? If there's anything good happening it is what God is doing....If we live by grace, more and more, we will be people of humility...Grace is humble, gracious....Grace is God's free gift given to people who don't deserve it...We should, by our living, give that grace to other people...With God, it's not because of who you are, but in spite of who you are...
11/11/97
Phillip Yancey has just come out with a book on grace....
Talked about grace as free....Luther said "do this and it never gets done..."
Difficult to get across that grace is really free....Yancey says that Christ was such an example of grace that people came to him, yet the Church today is not a place that people find grace...
Many think grace is something to get in and then they switch to
performance....
2. Transforming grace....demanding grace almost says it too strongly....transforming grace helps, but doesn't quite say it...Costly grace vs. cheap grace....Bonhoeffer concerned about a theology of grace which says grace is free and therefore if you belong to the church that believes in grace, then all is forgiven and you can live unconcerned with no effect...Looking at a church marching arm in arm with Naziism and neo-paganism...Saw it as a problem of discipleship and understanding what grace really was....Lutheran church prided itself in understanding grace....Real grace, says Bonhoeffer, is costly...it cost God his son...also costly to us...it lays claim on our lives...."When Jesus call a man, he bids him come and die..." That has to be seen as grace...a call to follow Jesus...a call to die in a way that finds true life...The call is costly....Grace has in view the whole of God's salvation...
Grace is redemption, not only from the penalty of sin but also the power of sin....it is therefore transforming....
{TIT 2:11 NIV} For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. {12} It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, {13} while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
{ROM 6:1 NIV} What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? {2} By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
To ask the question, betrays a misunderstanding of what God has done in Christ...a faulty question fundamentally...We have died with him and raised to new life....
God's gift of forgiveness and enablement...
3. Sovereign grace....the Calvinists would call it irresistable grace (that's subject to some confusion in that we all resist grace)....The point is that we talk about the connection of grace with God's ultimate purpose in history....It's the grace of GOD...the one who sovereignly acts to accomplish his will....Grace is resistable...sinners can and often do oppose grace....
{ROM 5:20 NIV} The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
Sin will ultimately dealt with on a cosmic scale...God is sovereign in his grace in that way....Ephesians 1...God will gather all things in Christ....the Kingdom will come
God's grace is sovereign in individual lives....Resistable but when the Calvinist uses the term, he is talking about the fact the ULTIMATELY grace is sovereign....Grace accomplishes his purpose...God accomplishes his purpose....
Francis Thompson..."The Hound of Heaven"...
We need to see Christians from many
aspects...Justification....Discipleship....Sanctification....Faith....Repentance....Shouldn't
be thinking of them as steps so much as different ways to look at the
process of us becoming conformed to the image of Jesus...Different
ways that grace works itself out in our lives....
C. Election
A grid to look at first: Four basic approaches to the doctrine of election....
1. Various views on election
a. Traditional view...particular election...that God chooses individuals for salvation...In some sense, it's particular...salvation comes to particular people by God's specific choice...two alternatives:
Calvinistic...that election is rooted in God himself...that the cause, grounding and basis of choice rooted in God himself...
Arminian...that election is based on God's foreknowledge of
individual response to the gospel...the foreknowledge of faith...He
chooses those he knows will believe....Still particular, but the
cause of the choice is outside of God...it resides in us....
b. Barthianism....Karl Barth...Difficult to
read...complicated....Germanic style, "circling the wagons"
gradually....multi-volume systematic theology...argued that election
to be understood totally in Christ...It focuses on Jesus
Christ...Jesus is simultaneously God's elect, and the reprobate
man...the man of God's choice, also the man who suffers under
judgment, excluded by God...In Christ, God elects the human
race...all of humanity is both reprobate and elect in Jesus...If
that's the case, then it would stand to reason that his position is
universalistic...He sounds that way in places...but in other places
he sounds like there is a danger that people can be lost....
c. Corporate view...in debted to Barthian ideas to some degree...says that the Church as the Body of Christ is elect in Him....election, then, does not terminate on individuals at all, but on the group....It doesn't terminate on specific individuals...There are specific people saved or lost, but it's the group that is chosen....Fair number of Reformed have embraced this: GC Berkouwer, Herman Ridderbos, Philip Edmund Hughes...Whole group of Calvinists that follow corporate view....
Corporate election is a "half-way house" in some Calvinist camps...a failure of Calvinistic nerve...Does God's salvific work come down to individuals in the sense that God is the mover and the shaker? Is his grace sovereign with individuals or is it not?
For Pinnock, God doesn't know the future...Oden is not in that camp...
d. Metaphorical view....you don't actually hear it called that...but a number talk about election and explain it metaphorically..."It sounds like it means this, but it really means this..." I. Howard Marshall, professor of NT at University of Aberdeen....looks at NT terminology for predestination and foreknowledge..."pro" preposition in Greek...Marshall says that "pro" stresses God's initiative....The question is, is that all there is to it? To say that God starts the process...
William Craig, Trinity...kind of like Tom Oden...wants to sound
the note of human freedom....the idea of predestination doesn't fit
neatly with that....Realizes though the terminology is in
Scripture...Thinks that when God chooses to establish certain
conditions in the creation of the world, the outworking of cause and
effect will produce a certain kind of world...The choice of that
certain world, given those initial conditions, is a sort of
predestination....
2. Biblical Data
Consider three interrelated biblical themes: election, predestination, foreknowledge.
a. "Election," " elect" (verb), "elect" (adj.)
The basic idea is that of choice, man's or God's choice. In the theological sense it points to God's choice of a person or group for a particular position, a particular task, or for the blessings of his salvation....root = ekklegomai....in Heb, baw-care....In OT, election focuses particularly on the nation of Israel...
Thus, the nation of Israel is repeatedly spoken of as "chosen"
or "elected" (so Abraham is spoken of as "chosen,"
Neh 9:7) or "elected" to the privilege of covenant relation
to God (Deut 4:37-38; 7:6-7; 10:14-17; 14:2; cf. Rom 3:1-2). Israel's
election also involves a particular task, namely that it should be
his servant to show forth God's glory among the nations (Isa 41:8-9;
43:10; 44:1-5; etc.) failed to do (Isa 42:1-4; cf. 49:5-7).
{DEU 4:37 NIV} Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, {38} to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.
Love and election go together...purpose...inheritance...
DEU 7:6 NIV For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. {7} The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.
Choice out of a mass...
Chosen to be holy...
Not based on merit...size not the criterion...
{DEU 10:14 NIV} To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. {15} Yet the Lord set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. {16} Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. {17} For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.
Chooses, yet no partiality...
I own everything...yet I chose you...theme of grace...
Chosen, yet a personal response required...holiness...
Election demands a particular type of people...therefore you see warning...
{DEU 14:2 NIV} for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession.
Connection between holiness and privilege...
Treasured possession...special...
{ISA 41:8 NIV} "But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend, {9} I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, 'You are my servant'; I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
However, when Israel fails in its task of glorifying God, the Lord raises up his Messiah to be the "elect" servant to bring about what Israel has
Connection between service and election...
ISA 43:10 NIV "You are my witnesses," declares the Lord, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.
The chosen servant...to be witnesses....
Problem is, the nation that has been called fails to do so....So in the course of these Servant Songs, we see a corporate thing, and then you see the One who comes to do what the nation has failed to do....
{ISA 42:1 NIV} "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen
one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring
justice to the nations.
Some think Matthew 3 is a conflation of Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1....Sonship and Servanthood...Sonship and Election...
{ISA 49:5 NIV} And now the Lord says-- he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength-- {6} he says: "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." {7} This is what the Lord says-- the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel-- to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers: "Kings will see you and rise up, princes will see and bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you."
You can see election used in corporate sense...
In the NT the noun "elect" can be used as synonymous with "Christians" or "God's people" (e.g. Matt 24:22,24,31; Rom 8:33; 2 Tim 2:10). Christians, like Israel of old, are "chosen" or "elected" to show forth the praise of God (1 Pet 2:9).
1PE 2:9 NIV But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. {10} Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Christians the new chosen people...
{JOH 15:16 NIV} You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
Christians are chosen "from the beginning" (2 Thess 2:13). In Eph 1:4 this choice is said to take place "before the foundation of the world." Christians are chosen "according to the foreknowledge of God" (1 Pet 1:2) and in accordance with the predestination purposes of God (Eph 1:11).
b. Predestination, foreordination
The word prooridzo signifies "to set apart from the beginning," "to decide beforehand."
It is thus related to God's sovereignty and the purpose by which he governs his creation (Eph 1:11). See 1 Cor 2:7, related to God's plan of salvation; his wisdom, 1:30. In his predestinating purposes even the evil plans of men are included (Acts 4:27-28).
{EPH 1:11 NIV} In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, {12} in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
Predestination terminology here placed in large context of the PLAN...
{1CO 2:7 NIV} No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. {8} None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. {9} However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" --
Not the plan of God more broadly, but specifically as it works out in Christ....
{ACT 4:27 NIV} Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. {28} They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
In this predestination terminology, you have two notions:
Cosmic predestination....God in his omniscience and omnipotence causes all to work in his sovereignty...a segment of that is the salvific aspect, which gets the most discussion....
Salvific predestination...in this narrower sense, it's God's decision beforehand to glorify his own name to redeem lost sinners through his son...
{ROM 8:29 NIV} For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. {30} And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Tied to becoming like Christ...the end result and destiny in view...
Pinnock says predestination doesn't have to do with salvation but conformity to Jesus...but that seems strange because salvation is becoming conformed to Christ...a false dichotomy...
In a more specific sense, "predestination" is closely linked with election (Eph 1:11). It is God's "decision beforehand" to glorify his own name by redeeming lost sinners and making them like his Son (Rom 8:29-30; Eph 1:4-5).
c. Foreknowledge, foreknow...fairly limited terminology in NT....
Acts 26:5; Rom 8:29; 11:2; 1 Pet 1:20; 2 Pet 3:17; Acts 2:23; 1 Pet 1:2
The word group is used of human knowing (Acts 26; 2 Pet 3:17). As an action of God it is referred to Christ as one "foreknown" before the creation of the world (1 Pet 1:20); (cf. Amos 3:2). It is referred also to Israel as the chosen people (Rom 11:2) and to Christians in connection with predestination (Rom 8:29) and election (1 Pet 1:2). It is applied also to God's foreknowledge of the events surrounding Christ's crucifixion (Acts 2:23).
Humans can foreknow in a limited way...
{ACT 26:5 NIV} They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee.
Same word...they have known me for a long time...
From God's point, though, it is prospective...God knows the future...Can be said to have foreknown Christ from before the creation of the world....or God is the one who foreknew Israel....
{ROM 11:2 NIV} God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah--how he appealed to God against Israel: {3} "Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me" ?
Forelove...to love in advance....
{1PE 1:2 NIV} who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. {3} Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
11/18/97
"What's So Amazing About Grace?" Phillip Yancey...
Most come to seminary already thinking they know what election means...That makes it difficult for us to wrestle with the Biblical data...
Discussion on Romans 9.....
ROM 9:1 NIV I speak the truth in Christ--I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-- {2} I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. {3} For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, {4} the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. {5} Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
1.) What is the problem that spurs Paul's thinking on the doctrine
of election? The failure of Israel to respond appropriately to Christ
in light of the election and advantage....The people with all the
special privileges and promises killed the Messiah they were looking
for....The issue of Israel...Raises verse 6...
{6} It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are
descended from Israel are Israel.
Can you paraphrase the though of v. 6? How does Paul begin to answer the problem of 1-5? God's word hasn't failed because not all physical Israelites are true, spiritual Israelites....God's expressed purposes haven't failed...What does that say about the state of Judaism then? It's all a part of God's Plan from the beginning...Some sense in which the grieving Paul must say, "This is God's purpose..." We'll have to test that...We've said "word" means the purpose of God...
At this point Paul is going to illustrate the principle: God's Word has not failed...He goes back to the Patriarchal history....
{7} Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."
Talking about all three generations here...Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob....
Abraham had Sarah and Ketural...and Hagar as concubine...
Sarah has Isaac...
Keturah has 6 children...
Hagar has Ishmael, father of the Arab races....
Isaac marries Rebekah...
Rebekah has Esau and Jacob (Israel)...
Jacob wants to marry Rachel but Laban surprises him with Leah...2 concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah..
12 sons born...
Nor because they are descendents are the all Abraham's children....
Nor because they are descended from Israel (12 tribes)....
What kind of children is talking about? Verse 8...it's not the natural children who are God's children but the children of the promise...
The children are SPIRITUAL CHILDREN...the children of the promise...The promise goes through Isaac to Jacob....Paul says not everyone descended (natural descendents) are heirs to the promise...
{8} In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring. {9} For this was how the promise was stated: "At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son." {10} Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac.
They had the same father and mother in the second generation....Line of promise goes through Isaac and Rebekah...but then it splits with Esau and Jacob, the twins...
{11} Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand:
God's purpose in election....
{12} not by works but by him who calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger."
The right of primageniture overturned on basis of God's choice...
Determined before they were born...
Not on works, but on the basis of the one who calls...
{13} Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
Paul citing this as historic confirmation....Showing the historical outworking of what has happened...God's purpose has stood fast...
3) Is election corporate or individual? Both corporate and individual mixed here...
{14} What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!
Why does Paul ask this question? Who's talking about the justice of God here? Why does he ask that? This is a question which Paul anticipates and then asks...He struggled with it every day....He knows what he has said has gotten onto the same street...
When we come to the doctrine of election and follow Paul's logic, all of us will have a problem with the righteousness of God...Paul knows it...He's been there...
The answer is NO....but having said that, we expect further clarification...
{15} For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
Exodus 33....
{16} It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.
How does that answer the question of God's unjustice???
4) How do you understand the conclusion drawn in verse 16? What is it that does not depend on us but God?
God's purpose in election...
What about verse 18? Does this up the ante of the discussion...Does God cause sin? A new wrinkle....
{17} For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." {18} Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
Just as we thought we were getting out of the sticks, we have an
added wrinkle...mercy and hardening and God doing that...
{19} One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?"
Is everybody just a puppet on a string?
{20} But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what
is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'"
He answers, "You'e just a clay pot..."
This is the heart of the election discussion....RIGHT HERE....Many mysteries which we cannot understand....Election is one of those mysteries....
An issue here that determines where we go theologically..."Why do you take such a strong stand on the issue of divine sovereignty?" It's right at this spot....
Israel has largely turned away...Has his purpose failed? No. Are you telling us God is not just? No. God shows mercy to whom he chooses to show mercy...Doesn't depend on desire or effort...Is there some explanation? Why did he choose them? He hardens whom he hardens...He can make clay for good or ordinary purposes if he wants to....At this point Paul knows what we're going to say...Why does God blame us? Here's the issue...Paul has brought us very consciously to this point and raised this very sharp-edged question....If Paul has an answer to the question, he has to give it here....He doesn't give an Arminian answer here...He says, "You shouldn't talk back to God..." We have a God who is big and mysterious and wonderful who calls us to himself and when we stand before him in his grace, we have to say, "I don't have a clue why I'm here...I've done the same things Jacob has done...I meet others who are sharp, good people and they aren't here...If I was doing this choosin' thing, I'd have done a better job..." What's the answer to this? GRACE....
ROM 11:1 NIV I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. {2} God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah--how he appealed to God against Israel: {3} "Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me" ? {4} And what was God's answer to him? "I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal." {5} So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.
Some of Israel saved....
Paul refuses to give an explanation that gets God off the hook....
{21} Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same
lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
{22} What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power
known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared
for destruction? {23} What if he did this to make the riches of his
glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance
for glory-- {24} even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews
but also from the Gentiles? {25} As he says in Hosea: "I will
call them 'my people' who are not my people; and I will call her 'my
loved one' who is not my loved one," {26} and, "It will
happen that in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not
my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.'" {27}
Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the
Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be
saved. {28} For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with
speed and finality." {29} It is just as Isaiah said previously:
"Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have
become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah." {30} What
then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue
righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;
{31} but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained
it. {32} Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it
were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone."
{33} As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes
men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who
trusts in him will never be put to shame."
3. Summary of teaching of election
a. Election is God's decision to redeem certain particular sinners
and make them like Christ (Eph 1:4-5; Rom 8:29)....election does have
to do with salvation...Does not deal exclusively with salvation
because we see that those chosen are chosen to represent God and
serve him...There is responsibility that comes with election....John
Darby observed that election is directly linked with
sanctification....We are chosen to be holy...If one thinks he is
elect and is complacent, that is a gross misunderstanding of
election...
b. This election implies a corresponding "reprobation" or rejection of other sinners who continue on in their lost condition (Rom 9:10-13; 11:1-7)....that is the toughest part of the doctrine of election....Part of the mystery...
c. Election is both corporate and individual in the Bible. The elect is defined in terms of certain specific sinners (Rom 9:11; cf. Jn 17:9; Acts 13:48).....Often blended together in the Bible....
ROM 11:25 NIV I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. {26} And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
At the end of the Gospel Age, there will be a renewed outpouring of the Spirit upon ethnic Israel....Some interpret "all" as spiritual Israel....Prof sees it as ethnic....
V. 11 - the fullness of Israel...which will bring in even more Gentiles....
ROM 11:33 NIV Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! {34} "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
This is where election should bring us....
Very clear that Paul doesn't have everything worked out on the doctrine of election...
d. Election is pretemporal (cf. Eph 1:4; 1 Pet 1:20), i.e. it is more than simply the division brought about by the preaching of the gospel. To say as Berkouwer does that "before the foundation of the world" points to the "depth aspect" of election seems to be less than exegetically sound. Rather we should accept this pretemporal idea as showing the eternal grounding of salvation that which God determined to do for us "from the beginning" (2 Thess 2:13). The emphasis is on grace; cf. Rom 9:10-12; 16.....Not adequate to say that election is just the distinction between peoples when the gospel is preached...
e. Election is unconditional, i.e. it is founded upon grace (Eph
1:4-6; Rom 11:5). That election (and predestination) are in
accordance with foreknowledge does not change this (1 Pet 1:2; Rom
8:29). We should not see here foreknowledge of faith in man, but
rather a personal "knowing-in-advance" which is itself an
act of grace. Amos 3:2; Jn 8:54-55; 10:14-15; Gal 4:9....Not based on
us....Not implying that election is therefore arbitrary....Election
is not arbitrary because the God of the universe is the all-wise,
all-knowing God who does all that he does to display his great
glory....All his works are done in wisdom.....If election is the
election of grace, then why ever it is that God should have elected
me, the one thing I'm sure of is that I can't find anything in me
that gives me any sense that there is something that is a plus that
God should have chosen me and not someone else....Paul said God
showed mercy to him so that he could display God's glory....
f. Election focuses on the doctrines of grace and glory, not on the question of God's justice, Rom 9:14-24....Paul doesn't have an answer about the justice of it all...
g. Election is not symmetrical, i.e., God is not the "cause" of the loss of the unconverted sinner in the sense that he is the "cause" of the salvation of the elect. Election is not therefore a denial of man's responsibility. It is rather a denial that man can of himself do anything to "apply himself to the things that lead to salvation." There is a fearsome side to election....God chooses and he also passes by....God does something in regard to Pharaoh....But that sounds symmetrical....But as we listen to the NT, for the most part, it seems that God is not the cause of the loss of the unconverted sinner in the same sense that he is the cause of the salvation of the elect....
ROM 9:30 NIV What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; {31} but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. {32} Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone." {33} As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."
An antinomy or paradox...the strongest statement of the sovereignty of God with the strong affirmation of human response....
What you have historically in this debate is that invariably, human responsiblity and God's sovereignty gets played off at the expense of the other...
Professor thinks this paradoxical relationship is an area of truth where reality is bigger than we are...Biblical faithfulness calls us to maintain both of these in balance...Not a 50-50 or 75-25 deal....It's 100-100% on both sides...
h. Election must be seen as "in Christ." We are chosen "in connection with" him. The knowledge and assurance of our election then are to be found in Christ and our union with him. Christ is the mirror, says Calvin, in which we see our election (Inst. III.24.5)....Our election in connection with Jesus....How do you know you are elect? Calvin puts us on the right track...the mirror is Christ...I look at Jesus in faith...
i. Election is thus to be a source of comfort and encouragement to the people of God, Rom 8:29-39; 2 Pet 1:10; 1 Pet 1:2; 2:9....
Election is not some kind of abstract theological teaching....It is extremely powerful and important....
ROM 8:28 NIV And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. {29} For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. {30} And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. {31} What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? {32} He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? {33} Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. {34} Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. {35} Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? {36} As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." {37} No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. {38} For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, {39} neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
At the end of everything else, does God hold onto you because you hold onto him, or do you hold onto God because he holds onto you? God is ultimate, not you....If you can believe that and work with it, there is tremendous security....Come hell or high water, God is on my side...Encouraging...
{2PE 1:4 NIV} Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. {5} For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; {6} and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; {7} and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. {8} For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. {9} But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. {10} Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, {11} and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To whom do you make it sure, to God or us? To us.
God knows those who are his...
Election is unto holiness...
1PE 1:1 NIV Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, {2} who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
1PE 2:9 NIV But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
12/2/97
Study for final, Wednesday, December 10, 1997....6:30 P.M.
D. Faith and Repentance...two sides of one reality...the response that we make to the divine initiative...The apppropriate response to God's work on our behalf...Paul and James both refer to Abraham as the model for faith....Both cite Genesis....Hebrews also gives prime space to him as the model of faith...
The subjective appropriation of salvation is marked by the appearance of faith and repentance.
These are the sinner' response to the call of God.
1. Faith
Everywhere the Bible speaks of faith (or trust) in God as the appropriate response to his person. The model for the people of God (both OT and NT) is Abraham who "believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness" (Gen 15:6; Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6; James 2:23; Heb 11:8-12). The great cloud of witnesses who testify to the truth of the Christian way are all
marked by faith (Heb 11).
Indeed without faith it is impossible to please him (11:6). Or as Paul states (quoting Hab 2:4): he who is righteous lives by faith (Rom 1:17). Jesus contends against his opponents for their failure to believe (Jn 8:45, etc.) and repeatedly stresses faith as a condition for experiencing the miraculous.
a. Terminology...you can pick this up in lexicons and concordances....faith...believe...trust....Idea of believing IN or believing ON seems to be an advance over the classical terminology of must "believe"...move beyond agreement and credance in certain facts into belief in a person....
b. Definition. Heb 11:1 defines faith as "the being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Heb 11:1; cf 2 Cor 4:18; 5:7).
2CO 4:16 NIV Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. {17} For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. {18} So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Develops this down through chapter 5...
{2CO 5:6 NIV} Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. {7} We live by faith, not by sight.
Faith has to do with unseen realities...
Confidence in what is not outwardly visible...something that can be anticipated but not yet possessed...Hope is faith projected on into the future...The call of faith is thus a call away from earthly supports and security to live on the edge of existence...
Characteristic of faith is its confidence in what is not outwardly evident or visible; that which comes in the form of a promise; that which can be anticipated but is not yet possessed (hence, it is often connected with hope). The call of faith is thus the call away from earthly supports and security to live on the edge of existence.
GEN 12:1 NIV The Lord had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. {2} "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. {3} I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." {4} So Abram left, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran.
Leave country, people, household...giving up SECURITY....COMFORT....COUNTRY....LANGUAGE...
CULTURE...
Gets a PROMISE in return...
From Ur...later known as Babylon....Tigris and Euphrates...a river valley...water, crops, trade, fertility...
Ends up in Canaan...across the Great Arabian Desert....On the edge of the desert...if the winter winds don't come off the Mediterranean, you don't get rain, you don't get spring crops...very tenuous...God teaches them how to trust him....God often gives us an option: what you trust most in or trusting in him...If you trust in him, he'll never fail you....But the promise is something you can't see and can't take to the bank and put it in a banking account...The other stuff is all stuff you can see....
If you were going to design a Promised Land, it would have been Ur....
God says to him at 75, "give it up,"...
Finds out later, when he gets there, there's a famine in the land...v. 10...
{5} He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. {6} Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. {7} The Lord appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. {8} From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. {9} Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev. {10} Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.
So he finds another river valley....gets into trouble there...
GEN 15:1 NIV After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward. " {2} But Abram said, "O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" {3} And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."
God gives him another promise...
{4} Then the word of the Lord came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." {5} He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
Another promise...
{6} Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. {7} He also said to him, "I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." {8} But Abram said, "O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?" {9} So the Lord said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." {10} Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. {11} Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. {12} As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. {13} Then the Lord said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. {14} But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
What's God saying? "The small print is, they get the land, but not for 400 more years..."
But he still believes God...
{15} You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried
at a good old age. {16} In the fourth generation your descendants
will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached
its full measure." {17} When the sun had set and darkness had
fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed
between the pieces. {18} On that day the Lord made a covenant with
Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the
river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates-- {19} the land of
the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, {20} Hittites, Perizzites,
Rephaites, {21} Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."
GEN 16:1 NIV Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar;
Later God comes back...says...no that's not how we're going to do it...
Promise fulfilled 25 years after....
Romans 4 - considered his own body as good as dead...strong in faith...what God has promised, able to perform...
Then God tells him to kill the son who fulfills the promises....no grandchildren yet....
What do you do in a situation where God acts in a way which seems to contradict his promises? Do what Abraham did....
Hebrews 11...so convinced of certainty of the promises that he reasoned that if God took him, God good bring him back....
We face similar situations...
Abraham holds onto what he can't see but believes will happen....
We're called to trust God's promises...called to insecurity to rest in the ultimate security of God...
(1) Knowledge (Notitia)...We must know at least the basic facts of the gospel..."Faith comes from hearing the message..." Romans 10...What's the minimal content of the message? Bible doesn't say...Drive of faith is always to believe whatever God says....If it is impossible to have true faith apart from some knowledge, it doesn't imply that just because you have knowledge you have faith in the robust, Biblical sense...Faith is more than just knowledge...
More than mere historical faith....(Protestant reformers talked about this)...a knowledge of the facts of the gospel but not an experience of the saving power of the gospel...Luther would describe this as a "devil's faith"...Pointed to James, "the devils also believe and perish..."
(2) Assent (Assensus)....This is the idea of agreement with the truth of the gospel message....Hard to see a difference between notitia and assensus....they seem to merge together....
(3) Trust, Confidence (Fiducia)...clear distinction here....saving faith in the full, Biblical sense is a knowledge about God and Christ and it's a knowledge that passes over into confidence or trust....Not merely faith that Jesus is the Savior....
There are all kinds of churches out there where people know and assent to the basic facts of the gospel but there's not trust....They've never personalized the facts so they realize their guilt was laid on Jesus....Intellectualized, distant...
Fiducia is the grateful acknowlegement that "my" sins were laid on him....
A challenge to get people to see the difference....That's the miraculous working of the Spirit of God....Faith is MY confidence in the promises of God...
c. The efficacy of faith....effectiveness...power of faith...The efficacy of faith lies not in itself but in its object. It is true that the Bible speaks of faith as that which saves (Mt. 9:22; Lk 18:42; Acts 15:9), but we must not therefore think that faith is something that merits the favor of God. It is not some magical power by which we control God. We must be careful when we speak of saving faith. Strictly speaking it is not faith which saves but Christ who saves through faith (Eph 2:8).
Difference between faith and the power of positive thinking...If our faith is ultimately faith in faith, it's groundless and empty....It is not Bibilical faith...Biblical faith has efficacy in view of its object...
Faith does talk about saving us ("Your faith has made you whole")...but even here, the focus is on Jesus....
Faith has its object (Christ or God)....not something that merits the favor of God...not something by which you can control God....
Many Christians don't know the difference between faith and magic....Geehardus Vos speaks of the difference...Magic...certain rites by which people can control God....God serves me...A lot of Christians think of faith as magic...a way you get God to be your servant....
Faith lays hold onto the promise of God and submits to the God who makes promises...I trust his promise and that he'll fulfil them in his way....
It is Christ who saves us through faith...Faith is our response to the God who makes promises....
Those who say "It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe..." miss true faith...
d. The possibility of faith....How can I as a sinner, not very trusting, separated from God, dead in trespasses and sins, be a person who rests my confidence in the living God??? Big debate among Christians through the centuries. What is the grounding of faith and how does it get going...Entire spectrum of positions...The left begins with the Pelagians...
Pelagians...say anybody can believe because humans have the innate ability and the freedom of will to obey God...no impairment in human personality....
Semi-Pelagian or Arminian....the will is impaired but not so much that the will cannot respond to God initially and move toward God in faith....
Wesleyan/Arminian Tradition....every human being so hurt by inroads of sin that in and of themselves they cannot exercise faith or initiative toward God....However, God has so acted in terms of universal prevenient grace that every human being has been give a sort of base level ability to respond to God...They don't have it naturally, but God has given them a level of grace so that they can respond....One of Oden's issues is theodicy...is God fair?
Augustinians....and their descendents...Luther (but not most of the Lutherans--his followers moved closer to Arminianism...Calvin and his descendents in the various reformed camps....Roman Catholics spread over the spectrum....Sin has affected everyone so that no human has the ability to reach God....Ability to reach God granted specifically to those who are the elect of God....the coming of grace to enable them or regenerate them is part of that process which ultimately and infallible results in salvation....PARTICULARISM....specific people enabled to respond to grace and sealed by the Holy Spirit, able to persevere in faith...ultimately glorified....
For most on the spectrum, you believe to be born again. For Augustinians you are born again to believe...
2. Repentance...faith and repentance go together...As evangelicals we need to build the idea of repentance into our preaching on faith....Two aspects of the same response...
Repentance is the necessary concommitant of faith. Paul reminds the elders at Ephesus that he had solemnly testified both to Jews and Greeks "of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21).
The basic idea of "repentance," metanoia, is a "change of mind," i.e., a change in thoughts, attitudes and the direction of our lives. More particularly it is a turning from sin unto God....Not the sort of change of mind that you hear in some evangelical writers where you change your opinion of Jesus...Not just a mental thing....Metanoia is a change of life...I as a person going my own way, turn from that, and turn back to God, having faith and confidence in his promises....
1TH 1:4 NIV For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, {5} because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. {6} You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. {7} And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. {8} The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia--your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, {9} for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, {10} and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
Repentance is turning...a change of direction....turning to God in the person of his Son, saying all I did before is worthless compared to what I have in Christ....
Turned to God from idols...
Repentance and faith go together....We are so concerned today to tell people they need to believe that we forget to tell them they have to repent and live as a Christian....
We need to be careful that we don't get into talking about
repentance so much that it becomes a preliminary to the gospel or a
qualifying to ourselves worthy of the gospel...So much of theology is
BALANCE....In heaven there is joy over one sinner that repents...If
there is joy in heaven, there ought to be some joy on earth...You
can't go around living in perpetual sorrow....You can have a good
grasp of sin and not have a good grasp of the gospel....personalized
confidence and trust in him...."In your presence is fullness of
joy"...A good theologican is one who can sit on the donkey
without falling off on one side or the other...Right now we're in the
Lordship/Savior controversy....Will we go so far that we say people
must straighten out their lives before they can come to Christ...
So Peter exhorts his hearers to "repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, and that times of refreshing may come from the Lord" (Acts 3:19). And Paul states: "first to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds" (Acts 26:20). The same thought is expressed without the word itself in a passage like 1 Thess 1:9-10.
This repentance entails a grieving over sin which Paul calls a "godly sorrow" (2 Cor 7:10) and which is evidenced in various biblical examples of repentance (Ps 51; Lk 22:62).
Issue of Theodicy...the fairness of God...no matter which position
you take, somewhere you run into a problem....If God is good and God
is powerful, you have a problem of theodicy....
F. Justification...center of the debate that led to one of the biggest splits in the history of the church, the Roman Catholic/Protestant division....
1. Historical Focus
The doctrine of justification brings us to one of the most crucial discussions of theology.
It raises afresh all the questions of the nature of faith, grace, human works, etc. It is of course the central issue for the largest division of western Christendom. Perhaps we can best frame the issue by considering the historical discussion.
a. Council of Trent (1546-1563)....Roman Catholic response to the Reformation.... Decree on Justification (1547):
IV. Justification ". . . a translation from that state wherein a man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace, and of the adoption of the sons of God, through the second Adam, Jesus Christ our Savior. And this translation, since the promulgation of the gospel, cannot be effected, without the laver of regeneration, or the desire thereof, as it is written: unless a man be born again of water and of the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
Key thing here is that it's a translation from one state to another....
"No one can know with a certainty of faith...that he has obtained the grace of God..." Decree of Justification, chap. IX, Council of Trent...
They respond to Luther that you can't know for sure....A lot of that in groups today....
"Having been justified...they, through observance of commandments...increase in that justice...further justified..." Decree on Justification, Chapter X, Council of Trent...
They are saying justification is a process...faith plus good works....A process of moral transformation...Synergistic...God works, I work...Progressively justified...
Justification in RC theology, justification = sanctification...
In Reformational theology, justification and sanctification are clearly distinguished...
b. Luther and the Reformation
Was trained to think justification was totally of God's grace, but God calls upon us to do the very best that we can...In fact as sinners, outside of his grace there is nothing we can do...So he gives us a prevenient grace (Semi-Pelagianism)...a base-line ability....We do the best we can...Having made this faltering start, God now gives us additional grace...Then we can begin to do works that are truly meritorious....From one perspective, his teachers were able to say it was entirely of grace...But on the other hand, you'd have to say salvation depends on you doing your very best....
Problem is, Luther is an Augustinian...one of those profound souls in the history of the Church that looks at himself more honestly than most of us do...
Luther, trained as a monk and thoroughly immersed in medieval piety, found several problems: 1) could God really be pleased with the works of sinners? 2) could a man do his very best? 3) could a man love God?
Luther said he was angry at God...couldn't love a God like that....The system that was calculated to give encouragement gave discouragement...At one point his confessor said, "God is not angry at you, but you are angry at God..."
Great intellectual ability...gets appointed as professor of Bible at University of Wittenberg...begins to study the Bible in preparation...Does intensive study of the book of Romans....Romans 1:16 stuck with him...in it the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD is revealed...faith to faith...Luther was bothered by that passage...He had understood the righteousness of God was something that punished sinners....Raged against God in this....Kept pounding at the door...Came to the "Tower Experience"...Hermeneutical revolution.....suddenly dawned on him that the righteousness of God is not the active righteousness of God who judges, but the passive righteousness that God gives us a gift...hallmark of the Reformation....
Righteousness of law earthly....by that we do nothing even when we do much...we don't fulfil it even when we fulfil it....Christian righteousness is heavenly and passive...we receive it from heaven...we accept it by faith...this righteousness means to do nothing, hear nothing, know nothing about law, but Christ has gone into heaven for us.... (Intro to his commentary on Galatians)....
Good news is about a whole other kind of righteousness...
Says you can be confident that you are saved....
Medieval church says justification means to make a person righteous....
Luther says, simul justus et peccator, at the same time just and a sinner....Simultaneously a sinner and righteous because in terms of active righteousness I'm a sinner, but righteous in Christ...Doesn't mean 50-50%...One hundred percent sinner, one hundred percent righteous in Christ...not a process....
DEU 25:1 NIV When men have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.
Justify the righteous, condemn the wicked....
When the judges condemn the wicked, they DECLARE him wicked...When they acquit, the DECLARE or DEMONSTRATE them to be righeous....
1KI 8:32 NIV then hear from heaven and act. Judge between your servants, condemning the guilty and bringing down on his own head what he has done. Declare the innocent not guilty, and so establish his innocence.
Declare innocent not guilty....
1CO 4:4 NIV My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
I am not thereby justified...
MAT 11:19 NIV The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by her actions."
What people do shows or declares something about who they are....
Wise people are justified by wise people....Dummies are not justified...Their wisdom is not demonstated...
MAT 12:37 NIV For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."
Not made righteous by words...
By your words you will be shown to be righteous or unrighteous...
1TI 3:16 NIV Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.
Vindicated = justified in the Spririt...How? By the resurrection...declared or showed him to be righteous by raising from the dead....
Very seldom does justification mean to be made righteous...means to be declared or demonstrated to be righteous...
2. Biblical usage
a. Old Testament
b. New Testament
3. Summary of the doctrine of justification
a. "To justify" in its usage generally means "to declare to be righteous." In Romans and Galatians observe the judicial or forensic contexts (Rom 3:19-20; 8:33; Gal 3:10-11)....The charges are dropped...
GAL 3:10 NIV All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." {11} Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."
Law shows up the fact we are not righteous....
Does James use justification differently than Paul? Calvin said yes.
ROM 3:19 NIV Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. {20} Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
The idea is not that we are made holy subjectively. We ought not to understand justification in the Romanist sense of an infusion of grace, as renewal or sanctification whereby we are made holy.
Justification deals with a new relationship with God....
Calls the things that are not as if they are....
12/9/97
Tonight, justification and sanctification...
Handout...Christianity Today article, "Evangelicals and Catholics Together: A New Initiative..."
Medieval church argued that justification was a process....Luther said that if you put it that way, you don't understand Jesus' justification....Big battle in 16th C. was between "faith alone" and those who said works were part of justification, faith or grace plus works....
p. 36...last paragraph, bottom of first column...gift of justification received through faith...By faith, WHICH IS ALSO THE GIFT OF GOD, we repent...sola fide...
Not a statement of the Catholic church...all signees American Catholics...an incredible statement that they would say Sola Fide...Reformers watchword...they agree with that...
Justification deals with righteousness...how can I be righteous before God...Paul addresses this mainly....James talks about it with a bit different spin than Paul....Paul is main theologian of justification....
Luther's insight...he struggled with Romans 1...righteousness of God...revealed from faith to faith....righteous shall live by faith....Came up with two kinds of righteousness: 1) Heavenly, passive... 2) Earthly, active....
MAT 3:13 NIV Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. {14} But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" {15} Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented. {16} As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. {17} And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
Jesus ministry...to fulfil all righteousness....
Baptism is something John calling sinners to...
Where is this heavenly, passive righteousness? Found in Christ....God opens the heavens over the one man in the history of our race that God is delighted in....
Next to follow is the temptation....war is declared...a line is drawn in the sand...This man Jesus comes to do God's will...Meets Satan under most adverse conditions and wins....God pleased...raises him up again...
Justification is this...I don't stand in front of God righteous
based on what I do...Even when I keep the law I break the law...No
hope in earthly and active righteousness....My hope is grounded in
that which is outside of me...in Christ....in connection and union
with him that this declaration stands over me...in faith relation
with Christ...Yancey says, "There's nothing I can do to make God
love me more...There's nothing I can do to make God love me less..."
b. This justification is not grounded upon anything in us.
(1) It is not grounded upon works...works have to do with the Law...the Law cannot justify...it cannot empower us to perform...it's effective in showing us our failure....Works the result of justification and not the cause of it...James 2 does not contradict this...James talking about justification under a different perspective...talking about final justification rather than initial justification....
(2) It is not grounded upon faith....distinguishing between ground of justification and condition of justification....Faith is a condition, but they are not justified because they believe but when they believe....The ground is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus...all he is for us sinners...
c. The ground of justification is the death and resurrection of
Christ (Rom 3:24-26; 4:25; 8:34). Justification is seen as an action
which first took place in Christ (1 Tim 3:16). However, the
resurrection of the Lord is not to be seen in isolation but as
"first-fruits" (1 Cor 15:20) and as "last Adam"
(1 Cor 15:45).
1TI 3:16 NIV Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.
Justification first takes place in Christ...He was the first to be justified [vindicated]....
ROM 4:25 NIV He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
We are justified with Jesus because we're united with him in his justification....
Firstfruits of those that sleep....Jesus' resurrection the harbinger of all the resurrections of his people....His justification is the firstfruits of aall other justifications....
His death is my death...his resurrection is my resurrection...
d. Justification thus comes to the one who is in faith-union with Jesus Christ. We are thus justified "in Christ" (Gal 2:17; cf. Phil 3:8-9).
{GAL 2:17 NIV} "If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!
{PHI 3:8 NIV} What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ {9} and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
What's the nature of this union? How does the Holy Spirit bring about this connection?
e. "To be justified" then in the Pauline sense would appear to mean that the believer is accepted in the place of Christ. The forensic declaration of the righteous status of Jesus (in the resurrection) is that of all those "in Christ."
F. Sanctification...McDermott gets at some of these issues, as does the Bonhoeffer book....
1. Preliminary considerations
Old Testament...qadosh...basic thought of sanctification or holiness is the idea of setting apart...hence, of making holy or of consecrating to divine purpose or use...not strictly an ethical term....When the pots in temple described as holy, that's not ethical...holy because it's consecrated to a particular function....Sabbath in Exodus 20 is described as holy...Holy because God set it apart as holy for worship....
When applied to persons, can have non-moral connotations...if you touch a dead body, that would make you unclean...On the other hand, you do tend to move into distinctively ethical directions...set apart in ways that impact their life and behavir....Psalm 24...who shall ascend? Clean hands...behavior...
New Testament...hagios...occasionally hosios...holiness now a moral or life quality more than it is dress, behavior, food, etc. Part of the real tiff between Jesus and Pharisees precisely there...Believers described as sanctified..hoi hagoi...the holy ones...the saints...Saints and sanctified comes out of the same root....
a. The basic meaning of "sanctify" is the notion of
"setting apart," separating for divine use, hence, "to
make holy." Thus, various persons or even objects in the OT
were"sanctified," i.e. consecrated for special service to
God.
b. Relationship to justification
Justification has to do with the effect of Christ's work for us; sanctification has to do with the effect of Christ's work in us. Justification changes our relationship to the law, its categories are judicial and forensic. Sanctification focuses on our consecration to God and the subsequent change of our character its categories are those of devotion and moral renewal. Further, justification is an act; sanctification is a process or a work....
Chart: Problem: Sin - in Adam....Guilt and Power....Guilt says, Because I am a sinner, I'm liable to the judgment of God...Sin is more than guilt...Sin is a state of existence...Sin is POWER....everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin....
Solution: Salvation - in Christ....Justification and
Sanctification....Justification answers the problem of
guilt....Sanctfication answers the problem of sin's power...
c. We may distinguish various aspects of the one process of sanctification.
(1) Definitive (positional) sanctification our focus is again on the objective work of God as preceding the subjective effects in us. Scripture seems to speak to the effect that believers are saints, i.e., "holy ones," by virtue of God's intention and purpose, even when the lives of those saints remain less than saintly (Rom 1:7;1 Cor 1:2; Eph 1:1; Phil 1:1). Sanctification may be spoken of in the past tense (Heb 10:10; Acts 26:18).
Murray later wrote an article about instantaneous aspects of sanctification..."Definitive Sanctification..." Position of saint as set apart...saints...holy ones...
1CO 1:1 NIV Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, {2} To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ--their Lord and ours: {3} Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. {4} I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. {5} For in him you have been enriched in every way--in all your speaking and in all your knowledge-- {6} because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. {7} Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. {8} He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. {9} God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. {10} I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.
Perfect tense...completed action in past which carries on into the presence....
Called saints...
This is definitive sanctification....
Classic example of the relationship between the indicative and the imperative...With Paul, frequently, the indicative or statement of reality is the foundation for the imperative, or exhortation...The indicative is the horse, the imperative is the cart....Most hear it in the reverse....non-Christians here us talk and hear, "Do this, so you can be this..." NT talks, "This is who you are...on the basis of that, this is what you need to do..."
There's a lot of pastoral care that takes place from imperative to indicative...that's why they are powerless in preaching the gospel...they are legalists....
Need to have a sense of balance here...Take guard against guilt motivation...it is the gift that keeps on giving...but what it gives is not health in the end....You get a lot more really significant activity out of grace than you do out of guilt....
Difference between this and justification: Sanctification in this definitive sense says, "You've been forgiven and justified, but you need to understand, that by the Holy Spirit, I've also taken you and set you apart for me....You aren't just righteous before me, you are mine..." "I have redeemed you, you are mine..." "here's how you need to understand yourself...you are my holy people..." WHO WE ARE GROWS OUT OF OUR SELF-UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT GOD HAS MADE US TO BE...
We have not only been set apart, but in the coming of the Holy Spirit, this union with Christ is set up...I have the life of the one who was raised from the dead...In some initial, immediate sense, there is some power at work in my life, that goes on to work progressively...New life has come...the germ of the new power that is going to free me from the bondage of sin....
(2) Progressive sanctification this is the process by which God works changes in our character to make us more like Christ (Rom 8:29; 1 Thess 4:3,4,7; 2 Thess 2:13; Rom 6:19; Heb 12:14).
What Reformed theology talks about in talking about sanctification...
1TH 4:3 NIV It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; {4} that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, {5} not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; {6} and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. {7} For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
1TH 4:9 NIV Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. {10} And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more. {11} Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, {12} so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. {13} Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. {14} We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. {15} According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.
One of best sections on progressive sanctification...
Progressive sanctification is where the debate occurs....
(3) Complete or final sanctification this is perfection or glorification. It is the immediate transformation of the believer into conformity with the image of Christ and takes place only at the Second Coming of the Lord (1 Jn 3:3)....Really glorification....Transformation that takes place is not complete until Jesus comes back.
2. Summary of biblical materials
a. Sanctification is presented in Scripture under a number of metaphors.
(1) New birth: Tit 3:5; 1 Pet 1:23; 2:2; Jn 1:13; 3:3-8; 1 Jn 3:9
(2) Growth: 1 Pet 2:1ff; Eph 4:12-16
(3) Resurrection: Rom 6:1-14
(4) Freedom and Sonship: Rom 6:15-8:27
(5) A new creation: 2 Cor 5:17; Eph 2:10; 4:24; Col 3:10
Sanctification has in view a new principle of holiness in the life of the believer. This entails a radical break with the old life.
Yancey says the doctrine of grace walks very close to the edge of misunderstanding....We will run the risk of being misunderstood....If you read Murray, did you ever feel tempted to misunderstand him in regard to antinomianism? No way. That tends to be true of Reformed theology....But when people heard Jesus and Paul preach, they said, "This is pretty dangerous..." Paul addresses this in Romans 6:
ROM 6:1 NIV What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? {2} By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
Indicative: we died to sin....
{3} Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? {4} We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. {5} If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. {6} For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- {7} because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Talked about guilt, chapters 3 - 5...Now he talks about the POWER of sin....
{8} Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. {9} For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. {10} The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
Now switches to the IMPERATIVE:
ROM 6:11 NIV In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. {12} Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. {13} Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. {14} For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
Verse 14 an indicative...
{15} What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! {16} Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? {17} But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. {18} You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. {19} I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. {20} When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
We have died....when? In his commentary on Romans, Cranfield lists four senses of the believers death: 1) the believer's redemptive-historical death...when Jesus died, he died as the firstfruits....died as representative man....2) regeneration (the baptismal sense); 3) daily mortification....I die daily....4) Eschatological....mortal body will succumb to death....mortal body will be raised to new life...
1 and 2 seem most prominent in the passage....Prof tends to move back and forth between them....In his mind, what took place at Calvary comes over to the present for us...as if time and space disappear in the miracle of faith and work of Holy Spirit....Indicative: WE DIED....and WE ROSE AGAIN....the result: NEW LIFE....Why? Because this is what happened to Jesus? Whatever happens to Jesus happens to his people....
Sin becomes rendered powerless...verse 9 is an incredible verse in the literal sense...hard to believe and hard to think about anybody saying it....I wouldn't feel comfortable saying it if Paul didn't say it....Death no longer has mastery....kurieui...death no longer has lordship over the Lord...death did have the Lordship...Somewhere in that experience of death..."It is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness...." Fitting to identify himself so completely with his people that he would submit himself to the lordship of death...The resurrection means that death's lordship is broken...Whatever happens to Jesus happens to all his people....
Count on what Jesus has done...don't offer yourself to sin...don't
let sin reign...The POWER of sanctification....
b. Sanctification is based upon our union with Christ in his death and resurrection, Rom 6:1-11; Col 3:1-12.
c. Sanctification is effected by means of the indwelling spirit of God, Rom 8:13; cf Gal 5:17ff; 1 Pet 1:2.
d. Sanctification is effected by means of the Word of God, Jn 17:17,19; Ps 1:2,3; 19:7-11; 119:9,11,104; 2 Tim 3:16,17; 1 Pet 2:1-2
e. Sanctification is coordinated with the response of obedient faith to the will of God, 1 Thess 4:1ff; Phil 2:12-13; Eph 2:10; Heb 13:21. Note the large number of commands addressed to the believer.
3. Views of Sanctification...what expectations do we have in the process of Christian development? Four different paradigms...
a. Perfectionism...the idea that the state of complete sanctification is achievable by believers in this life....Often the thought is that this state is achieved by an instantaneous experience subsequent to regeneration...a second order experience...Usually the people who argue for this position (Charles Wesley..."A Plain Account of Christian Perfection") end up changing their definition of sin....Characteristic of this view point is a two-stage change of life....Higher level of perfection (avoidance of all conscious sin)....
What is it that is being emphasized? We need to take the biblical teaching about holiness seriously....Bugged by a lot of lackadaisical Christians who don't take the Bible seriously....2nd Blessing....
b. Triumphalism....more common...looks like previous one....two stage change of life...they became more cautious about the Perfectionism language....Triumphalism says that the attainment of Christian maturity is a sharp transition....Suggests that the mark of the transition to maturity is victory..."Victorious Christian Life" movement....Spiritual believer vs. fleshly Christians....B-team and A-team Christians....A-team could be Spirit-filled...could spin out into speaking in tongues, etc....could be that you no longer struggle with sin....If Spirit-filling is what it means then what you want at the transition is tongues-speaking....If you're into the Kessick movement, the slogan was "Let go and Let God..." The transition was that you came to a place in your life where you became frustrated....like getting saved all over again...Give up trying to get anywhere....Then, when you find yourself struggling, you're back on the B-team....Using Romans 7 and 8 for exegeting this....Common link is that there is a 2nd experience after salvation to get you where you want to be....Triumphalists want to say "You can't do the Christian life on your own!"
It is not an overarching explanation we can press onto everybody's life...because when I read NT, I don't find Paul saying there is any specific experience subsequent to regeneration that I have to have....The NT does call me to follow Jesus and set him as the goal and model...that we need more of Christ....that is different from saying there is some particular event....
Other problem is that the way it's set up, it doesn't really then have any place to help me understand struggle and defeat in the Christian life....Another guilt motivator...
Causes an in group and an out group....
Campus Crusade for Christ...blue book experience..."the Spirit-filled life..." A life lived out when you opened your life so Holy Spirit would come in and do something that has never happened before....
This can be a component in helping people along, but we can't say everyone will have the exact same experience....You can be helped, but hese views only show part of the map....
c. Legalism....says that the key to sanctification is keeping the Law....whichever law...legalism is the assertion that the key to sanctification is obedience....Calvin speaks of the third and principal use of the law: 1) Civil use; 2) Knowledge of sin; 3) the Christian life....But he qualifies it...Says its to be the guide and structure of the kingdom life...That could be dangerous...A lot of evangelicalism has been legalistic....Problem is thinking that rules get you somewhere in holiness....
The significant truth in the approach is that obedience is important....But you must ask, "How do you get obedience?"
d. Antinomianism...Flip side of legalism...argues the grace means freedom from the law and freedom period...Really ends up saying that sanctification is optional...Says you can be justified but don't really need to be sanctified...Zane Hodges...series of books, "Gospel under Siege", "Absolutely Free"...goes so far as to say that if you suggest to people that if they're not living like a Christian and ask them whether they are a Christian, you've compromised the Gospel....Says you can be justified and you don't have to be sanctified....Does some amazing exegetical maneuvers...almost a cult-like book....
e. Synthesis....real life has a graph of ups and downs...with incredible variety and diversity....Must be careful we don't push everybody into a cute model...Grace comes with power to transform lives....Try to figure out where the Holy Spirit is with people...God in his wisdom may say that person X does have a problem in some area, but that's got to wait because he's got a bigger problem with his marriage....God may be working with the front-burner issues and put the others on the back burner....No preconceived grid...Basic grid is: They've been united with Christ, therefore the power will work with them....Old man has died....Learn to ask "What do you think God wants to do in your life?" Get in and support what the Spirit is doing....We expect that if the branch is in the vine, the Father's going to prune....Not antinomian, not legalistic...not guilt trips...
12/10/97 - How to Study
Taylor's basic philosophy...type up notes each day...read through entire notes when you type them up...always re-reading....
Prof used to try to repack the info in brain and then under pressure not able to recalll significant things...
Some gifted and able to recall...most not...We need other means...
To avoid the gap, get studying moved up....Back up about 2 weeks...10 days...Assume 3 exams on 3 successive days...Giving self 7 days prep time for each exam....Start studying day 1 for test A...
If sufficient time, first day is to read through first half of notes...thoughtfully...no noise...1 1/2 hours....Purpose to reconnect all those connections you haven't looked at for a while....
Day 2...read 2nd half....Test B, read first half...Day 3...3 sets of notes....
Get comfortable with all material as soon as possible...
Day 4...By then you know half the material...from then on, you don't want to focus on that...At this point you want to ISOLATE WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW....Sit down and write your own test questions...short answer definitions....Pick out 20 terms that he will probably ask....Take it closed book...Then you find out what you don't know....By blanking out then, you save yourself from blanking out on the final...
Pick 2 or 3 things and write an essay question for each....High likelihood that one of them will be on the test....Do a page on each one...compare them with the notes....
The real benefit of the final is reviewing the material and consolidating it...
What about multiple choice? When you do definitions, work on precise definitions....On quotes in multiple choice, say to yourself "don't panic"....May quote something you haven't seen...quotes something reflective of a particular person's thoughts...See if you can detect the drift of the question....What clues me into the person who said this???
Day 5...mark the stuff you don't know in your notes...
Day 6...look only at the stuff you marked....go over those weak spots...
Know issues of debate....at different places we have worked with debated issues...shown different perspectives....View the paradigms...doctrine of atonement...objectivist, subjectivist...Aulen, etc. Typology of doctrine of election....That helps you get categories....
Know places of interface between Protestant and RCC thinking...so much of who we are as Protestant evangelicals comes out of the Reformation, a response to Medieval Catholicism....Mass, sacraments, transsubstanciation, satifaction, penance, justification, Mary...
Identify key biblical texts...Romans 9 and election, Matthew 3, Romans 8:28-39, Romans 6, 1 Corinthians 15, firstfruits....
Definitions are important...evangelicals have their own equivalent of "symantic mysticism"....We have terms we've heard a lot but have never asked, "What do you mean by that?" Redemption, for example, is a pretty specific idea....deliverance with the payment of a price...
Recommends that you look for 4 or 5 essay possiblities....make an outline for each...
Some true-false...option to write an explanatory sentence....