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Author: Glen

I'm a preacher in Eastbourne, married to Emma.

About Glen

I'm a preacher in Eastbourne, married to Emma.

Published on Leave a comment on Trusting God's Sovereignty – Trusting God's Son

When times are tough - what is your comfort?  When comforting others, where do you point them?

In the circles in which I move the encouragements of choice involve variations on the theme of 'God's got a plan.'  Many's the time when a well-meaning brother (usually a brother) has said 'I guess at moments like this, all you can do is cling onto God's sovereignty.'  Often I've heard friends say that only sovereignty has enabled them to get through the hard times. 

Something's gone wrong here.   1.5 billion Muslims navigate through life clinging onto 'insh'Allah' (God willing).  800 million Hindus believe that karma will work everything out.  And how many westerners, even in the face of terrible suffering, will still believe 'everything happens for a reason.' 

This was really brought home to me about 5 years ago.  I was praying with a new convert from Islam.  We were worried about his visa application, but I was amazed at how he was 'trusting God's sovereignty'.  In fact he was using language that I usually associate with the most mature of reformed Christians.  I told him I was very impressed, he shrugged his shoulders and said 'In Pakistan we have a saying: 'God willing' - it means that whatever God wills will happen.'  Insh'Allah had simply been translated to a Christian environment.  Yet surely a Christian account of sovereignty involves more than simply transfering deterministic agency from Allah to the Father!  Surely there's got to be a gospel-shape, a Christ-focus, a trinitarian dynamic to Christian sovereignty.  Yet what was so striking about my friend's translated insh'Allah was that it sounded so completely like the Christian pastoral wisdom sketched out above.

Two years ago I went to northern Nigeria and the difference between Muslim and Christian accounts of sovereignty struck me again.  When I wanted something done by Tuesday, the Muslim would tell me 'It will be ready, insh'Allah'.  The Christian would tell me, 'It will be ready, if Jesus tarries.'  Hallelujah!!  Isn't that brilliant??  (King James' English lives on in Nigeria!).  But isn't there all the difference in the world between a future determined by an inscrutible divine will and a future opened up in the gospel-patience of Jesus?  I've tried to get people using 'If Jesus tarries' over here, but it hasn't taken.  Yet.

Now I'm not denying for a second the sovereign rule of the Father through the Son and by the Spirit.  And perhaps in future posts I'll outline some thoughts on what a truly gospel-shaped, Christ-focused, dynamically-trinitarian account of sovereignty might look like.  But for now I will simply question the pastoral wisdom of referring the suffering Christian to the sovereignty of God as though 'God's in charge' was the sum and substance of the Christian hope.

All too often this amounts to a 'light at the end of the tunnel' comfort.   How much better to encourage a person that Christ joins them in the tunnel.

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings.  (Philippians 3:10)

Christ is with us in suffering.  He is especially near to the broken-hearted.  As Spurgeon used to say, He never throws His children in the fire without joining them in it (cf Dan. 3; Isaiah 43:2).  In suffering we get to know the Suffering Servant with greater depth and intimacy than ever before.   To simply point to the God over and above us in suffering is deficient.  We must also point to the God beside and within us.

The gospel is not the truth that, while I may be buried in muck, God remains untouched in pristine glory and one day I'll be there with Him.  The gospel is that God joins us in the muck.  The gospel is that He stoops, sympathises and suffers alongside us.  And that He raises us with Him to the throne.   But if the gospel is not that God remains in heaven and we battle on till glory, why does so much of our pastoral exhortation betray exactly such a 'gospel.'

Why do we so often point people to God's sovereignty and so rarely point them to God's Son?  Why is the focus on the light at the end of the tunnel and so little on the One who joins us in the darkness?  The one kind of exhortation produces tight-lipped soldiers, the other produces broken-hearted lovers.  Let's aim for the latter!

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Published on Leave a comment on Why is God breaking you down?

Sometimes, when I'm sharing with Christians about tough times, I ask them: 'Why do you think God is breaking you down like this?'

Almost without fail they say something like, 'I know, I know, it's to make me stronger.'

No!  No, no, no, a thousand times no!

He's breaking you down to make you broken.  Don't, whatever you do, toughen up!

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Ps 51:17)

The LORD is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. (Ps 34:18)

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. (Luke 20:18)

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Published on 4 Comments on Barth on Preaching Christ from all the Scriptures

For Barth the three-fold Word - Christ, Scripture and Proclamation - means that preaching should always be Scriptural and always witness to Christ.   Here he makes it clear that christo-centrism is not something the preacher (or the biblical theologian) bestows on the Bible.  Rather, the Bible is already and inherently witness to Christ:

"The Bible says all sorts of things, certainly; but in all this multiplicity and variety, it says in truth only one thing - just this: the name of Jesus Christ... The Bible becomes clear when it is clear that is says this one thing... The Bible remains dark to us if we do not hear in it this sovereign name... Interpretation stands in the service of the clarity which the Bible as God's Word makes for itself; and we can properly interpret the Bible, in whole or part, only when we perceive and show that what it says is said from the point of view of that... name of Jesus Christ." (I/2, p720)

What about the Old Testament?  For Barth...

"the Old Testament is witness to Christ, before Christ but not without Christ... As a wholly Jewish book, the Old Testament is a pointer to Christ." (Homiletics, p80)

Barth does not consider the christo-centric meaning to be a sensus plenior in addition to the literal sense. 

"the natural sense is the issue... [we do not] give the passage a second sense... This passage in its immanence points beyond itself... The Old Testament points forward, the New Testament points backward, and both point to Christ." Homiletics, p80-81.

As for the New Testament, Barth insists that christocentric preaching is no less important here.

"One can never say of a single part of the narrative, doctrine and proclamation of the New Testament, that in itself it is original or important or the object of the witness intended. Neither the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount nor the eschatology of Mk 13 and parallels, nor the healing of the blind, lame and possessed, nor the battle with the Pharisees and the Cleansing of the Temple, nor the statements of the Pauline and Johannine metaphysics and mysticism (so far as there are any), nor love to God nor love to neighbour, nor the passion and death of Christ, nor the miraculous raising from the dead - nothing of all that has any value, inner importance or abstract significance of its own in the New Testament, apart from Jesus Christ being the subject of it all. His is the name in which it is all true and real, living and moving, by which, therefore, everything must be attested." I/2, p10-11

This is a helpful reminder.  We usually hear from the Old Testament sermon some "bridge to Christ" (however tenuous!).  Yet what does it say when the same preacher can manage to preach Christlessly from the New?  

Do preachers really believe that the Scriptures are already Christ-focused?  Or is it our job to add a second layer of Christ-centredness?  If a preacher breathes a sigh of relief once they're in New Testament waters, and if they then fail to witness to Christ while there - what does it say about their view of the Old and New Testaments?

Barth is really helpful here.  Scripture exists within the perichoresis of the three-fold Word.  It exists to be preached.  And it exists (every part of it) as witness to Christ.  It is not the preacher's job to make it into a witness to Christ.  If we find our Old Testament sermons involve some weird change of gears in order to 'get to Christ', we've not understood the bible properly.  If we find that our New Testament sermons fail to point people to Christ, we've not understood the bible properly.   These issues might be a sign you've bought into the wrong biblical theology. 

Just a thought.

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         Here's my length paper on Barth and Preaching.

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Published on 11 Comments on Preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God

That's what Heinrich Bullinger asserted in the Second Helvetic Confession.  And he's not alone.  Check out Luther:

"Tis a right excellent thing, that every honest pastor's and preacher's mouth is Christ's mouth, and his word and forgiveness is Christ's word and forgiveness... For the office is not the pastor's or preacher's but God's; and the Word which he preacheth is likewise not the pastor's and preacher's but God's." (Quoted from CD I/1, p107)

Or Calvin:

"When a man has climbed up into the pulpit... it is [so] that God may speak to us by the mouth of a man." (Sermon XXII on 1 Tim 3:2 "apt to teach", quoted in THL Parker, Calvin's Preaching, Westminster/ John Knox, 1992, p24)

Or, more to the point, check out the Bible!

"And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers." (1 Thes 2:13)

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands for ever."  And this is the word that was evangelized to you. (1 Pet 1:23-25)

Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. (Heb 13:7)

So do we agree that 'Preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God'?  Or would we rather Bullinger had maintained a more modest: 'Preaching of the Word of God explains and applies the Word of God'?  Can we seriously maintain the word 'is' in that statement?

Karl Barth did.  Emphatically.  If you want to read more, go here to a very lengthy essay on Barth and preaching.  Here I'll sketch out the argument in point form:

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1) The Word of God is a three-fold Word.  That is, Christ, the Bible and preaching are all called 'the Word' in the Bible.  And yet there are not three competing words or revelations but One Word of God (Christ) who comes to us in the Spirit-mediated modes of Scripture and proclamation.  Thus we have one Word in three modes.  This is Barth's primary analogy of the trinity.

2) Just as in the trinity we have distinct Persons who, nonetheless, are one, so with the Word we have distinct modes which nonetheless have a perichoretic unity.   The Son is one with the Father in His mediation of the Father.  He is no less God for being a witness of God.  But He is also no less distinct from the Father in this oneness.  In the same way preaching is no less the Word for being a witness (a Scriptural witness) to Christ. But simultaneously it is no less distinct from Christ (and Scripture) for being one with it. We need a perichoretic ontology not only for God but for the Word also.

 3) There is divinity and humanity to all three forms of the Word.  Yet, for all that, we must avoid the danger of Nestorianiam - that is, we must not conceive of the humanity as a separate existence from the divinity.  Barth is adamant that you cannot get around the worldliness of the Word - whether of Christ, Scripture or preaching.  In fact, it is not at all desirable that you should get around it.  For the Word as grace meets us where we are.  Christ the Man says 'If you've seen me you've seen the Father.'  Christ the Man says 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'  The humanity of Christ in no way jeopardizes divine revelation or salvation.  Equally, the humanity of the apostles and prophets and the humanity of the preacher does not prevent the Word from being still a divine Word.  

Just as the eternal Word did not come in a man but as a man, so on Sunday morning, God's Word does not come contained somewhere within the preaching but it comes as this human preacher in this situation witnesses to Christ.

4) We must remember the divine initiative in all this.  It is not a question of 'Can we hear God's Word in the preacher?' Rather the question is: 'Is it Christ Himself who encounters us in the preacher?'  It's not a case of pulling Christ down through correct exegesis.  If we think like this we're basically falling for an ex opere operato of the pulpit.   That is, we're imagining that our correct priestly exercises ensure a divine encounter.  We must resist this - we must begin from above.  Revelation is grace.  It is Christ who chooses to condescend in Scripture and Proclamation (not we who bring Him down).  But in this divine condescension it is Christ Himself who encounters us. 

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Let's take all these points together.  Preaching is a mode of the Word of God.  It is distinct from Scripture and Christ but inextricably linked to it.  And in relation to Christ and Scripture - that is, as Christ is proclaimed Scripturally - it is itself the Word of God.  Not a competing revelation to the Bible but rather a 'Word from Word' (parallel to Christ's divinity as 'God from God').   The humanity of the preacher is not a barrier to divine revelation but instead is the very worldiness in which the Word must meet us.  Thus the congregation on a Sunday morning is not confronted with explanation and application of the Word.  They are confronted with Christ Himself. 

Think of a preacher who challenges the congregation to confess Christ as 'My Lord and My God.' (John 20:28)  If the hearer does not trust Christ, is it only the preacher they've disobeyed? Have they not more fundamentally disobeyed Christ?  Isn't it Christ Himself who confronts them in this preaching?  It is a daunting prospect for preachers, but such is the humbling authority of 'the keys of the kingdom' (Matt 16:19; John 20:23).)

[Preaching is] "the speaking of God himself through the lips of the minister." (Karl Barth, Homiletics, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991, p67.)

"...in what Church preaching says of God, God Himself speaks for Himself." (Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, part 2, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956, p800)

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           This post contains reworking from my comments at Faith and Theology

Published on Leave a comment on What age are we in?

Are we in the Post-Christian age? 

Is this age characterized by total cultural memory-loss regarding our Christian heritage?  Is this the age in which people are so far back in their Christian understanding that the mission stategies of previous centuries are virtually useless? 

Are we in the Post-Modern age?

Is this age characterized by the total devaluation of truth-claims?  Is this the age of story rather than argument?  Of dialogue rather than preaching?  Is this the age in which declarative proclamation will be basically impotent? 

Are we in the Post-Ascension age?

Is this the age characterized by the Spirit's pentecostal power?  Is this the age in which every minute represents the LORD's gospel patience?  Is this the age in which the church is commissioned to make disciples of all nations, empowered by His resurrection authority and accompanied with His living presence? 

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I am tired of hearing Christians rehearse 1 and 2.  We all know about 1 and 2.  But what's fundamental here?  What age are we really in??

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Published on Leave a comment on “You and me, we’re not so different really…”

There's often a point in the crime drama where the bad guy tells the cop 'You and me, we're not so different really.'  Well there are two baddies in the history of trinitarian theology who really aren't that different: Arius and Sabellius.  Arius was the sub-ordinationist.  He defined the One God such that Jesus could not fit in.  Instead Jesus had to take His place under the One God.  Sabellius was the modalist.  He defined the One God such that Jesus was absorbed in, losing everything that made Him distinctly Jesus.  Instead Jesus was just the mask that the One God wore occasionally.  But you know - Arius and Sabellius weren't so different.  They both had a doctrine of the One God that couldn't cope with Jesus.

It was Jurgen Moltmann who really nailed this in my thinking. Check out this quote from The Trinity and the Kingdom of God:

A pre-conceived doctrine of the One God means "Christ must either recede into the series of the prophets, giving way to the One God, or he must disappear into the One God as one of his manifestations." (p131)

Here are the errors of Arius and Sabellius - and Jesus gets either squashed down or squished in.  The distinct Person of Christ will always lose out when 'the One God' is defined without Him.  Arius will allow Him to be Jesus and not God, Sabellius will allow Him to be God and not Jesus.  But fundamentally these errors are not so different because both prefer a pre-conceived 'One God' to Jesus. 

This leaves us no option but to begin with a doctrine of God that expressly includes the mutual relations of Father and Son.  Nothing else will allow Jesus to be Jesus and God.  Moltmann helped me to see what was at stake in this.  To begin with a definition of God that doesn't already include the distinct Personhood of the Son means either Arius's or Sabellius's error.  And, at the end of the day, they're not so different.

This is why Moltmann says:

...the doctrine of the Trinity is not only the deification of Christ; it is even more the Christianization of the concept of God. God cannot be comprehended without Christ, and Christ cannot be understood without God. If we are to perceive this, we not only have to reject the Arian heresy; the Sabellian heresy must be dismissed with equal emphasis." (p131-132)

Christ will never fit into a 'God' defined without Him.  We must begin with Him or else we will never honour Him properly.  The errors of subordinationism and modalism are simply the result of falling off either side of the wrong horse.  We must begin with Christ.

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Published on Leave a comment on "You and me, we're not so different really…"

There's often a point in the crime drama where the bad guy tells the cop 'You and me, we're not so different really.'  Well there are two baddies in the history of trinitarian theology who really aren't that different: Arius and Sabellius.  Arius was the sub-ordinationist.  He defined the One God such that Jesus could not fit in.  Instead Jesus had to take His place under the One God.  Sabellius was the modalist.  He defined the One God such that Jesus was absorbed in, losing everything that made Him distinctly Jesus.  Instead Jesus was just the mask that the One God wore occasionally.  But you know - Arius and Sabellius weren't so different.  They both had a doctrine of the One God that couldn't cope with Jesus.

It was Jurgen Moltmann who really nailed this in my thinking. Check out this quote from The Trinity and the Kingdom of God:

A pre-conceived doctrine of the One God means "Christ must either recede into the series of the prophets, giving way to the One God, or he must disappear into the One God as one of his manifestations." (p131)

Here are the errors of Arius and Sabellius - and Jesus gets either squashed down or squished in.  The distinct Person of Christ will always lose out when 'the One God' is defined without Him.  Arius will allow Him to be Jesus and not God, Sabellius will allow Him to be God and not Jesus.  But fundamentally these errors are not so different because both prefer a pre-conceived 'One God' to Jesus. 

This leaves us no option but to begin with a doctrine of God that expressly includes the mutual relations of Father and Son.  Nothing else will allow Jesus to be Jesus and God.  Moltmann helped me to see what was at stake in this.  To begin with a definition of God that doesn't already include the distinct Personhood of the Son means either Arius's or Sabellius's error.  And, at the end of the day, they're not so different.

This is why Moltmann says:

...the doctrine of the Trinity is not only the deification of Christ; it is even more the Christianization of the concept of God. God cannot be comprehended without Christ, and Christ cannot be understood without God. If we are to perceive this, we not only have to reject the Arian heresy; the Sabellian heresy must be dismissed with equal emphasis." (p131-132)

Christ will never fit into a 'God' defined without Him.  We must begin with Him or else we will never honour Him properly.  The errors of subordinationism and modalism are simply the result of falling off either side of the wrong horse.  We must begin with Christ.

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Published on Leave a comment on Quiet times

This week I've been listening to sermons from the web on Luke 14.  I'm preaching on it on Sunday.  It's Jesus at a banquet.  He heals on the Sabbath, He teaches about not taking the seats of honour, He calls people to invite the poor, crippled, lame and blind to dinner and He speaks of the kingdom as a great feast.  Wonderful stuff.

But do you know, in all the sermons I've listened to from the web, what's been the number one application of Luke 14??  Quiet times!  From both UK and US pastors, the predominant take-home message was 'make sure you get alone with God every day.'  I'm not going to name names but I listened to some big hitters.  And they preached on the feast.  The feast where Jesus tells us to throw feasts and then speaks of the kingdom as a feast.  And what's their conclusion: 'We need to get on our own more!'  ??!  Usually the logic was: Don't take the places of honour => Therefore Get humble => Therefore get on your knees => Therefore commit to quiet times. 

Now there were two notable exceptions:  John Piper was good.  And so was the Australian (obviously!) Mike Frost.  (Those two aren't usually positively lumped together but there you are).  But the rest took Luke 14 and boiled it down into some very individualistic applications.

Now I'm all in favour of ensuring that our doing flows from a lively relationship with Christ.  But why does that equate to 'getting alone with God'??  I mean how do we get from the feast to the prayer closet??  Are conservative evangelicals that afraid of getting our hands dirty in mission, in rubbing shoulders with the poor, crippled, blind and lame?  Are we that individualistic and moralistic?

Anyway...  I do think a healthy relationship with Christ means talking and listening to Him daily.  But why is the quiet time the touch-stone of evangelical spirituality?  Why is it the default application for every sermon?  (I say this against myself)  Why do we reach for the privatized exhortations so readily?

And how many times have I heard Robert Murray McCheyne's daunting challenge:

What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is and no more.

I mean it's right to be challenged by that.  But is it true?  And is it right to aim for this as the very model and highpoint of Christian maturity?  What about: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."  (John 13:35)

I dunno.  Bit of a rant really.  What do you think?

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