Skip to content

Tag: trinity

Published on Leave a comment on God without a Mediator?

Tim Challies has quoted a pithy saying of Ligon Duncan's:

Hell is eternity in the presence of God without a mediator.

Heaven is eternity in the presence of God, with a mediator.

What do we reckon?

Here's what's great about it.  It affirms that our experience of eternity hinges on our relationship to the Mediator.  It also affirms that God is not absent from hell.  Both those things are true and worth lifting up.

But I think there are better ways of saying such things.  Here's what's unhelpful about it:

  1. In terms of our doctrine of God - what sense can be made of 'God without a Mediator'?  Trinity means that mediation goes way back.  WAY back.  And WAY forwards.  1 Corinthians 8:6 - all things have always been from the Father and through the Lord Jesus.  All things.  And all things always will be.  Who is this God who is without His Mediator. I simply can't recognize 'God without a mediator' as the Christian God.
  2. In terms of our christology - does this sentiment give Christ His due?It could lead people to suppose that Christ is simply the wrath-averter.  Now of course He is the wrath-averter.  And if He was only the wrath-averter we would still praise Him into eternity for it.  But He is far more than this.  He is the Mediator of all the Father's business.  Christ does not exist for our benefit - we exist for His.  The saying above could be easily misconstrued to mean that the Mediator is extremely important for us - but not so important for God.  No.  He is essential to the divine life before we ever consider His importance for us. 
  3. In terms of Scripture - 2 Thes 1:9 "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." (KJV)  There's a translation issue about the preposition ('apo').  Should it be translated 'from' or 'away from'?  I favour 'from' - ie implying that Christ is present in judgement.  This goes with Revelation 14:10 where the damned are tormented in the presence of the Lamb.  See also Rev 1:18 where Jesus is presented as the Jailor of death and hades, and Rev 6:16-17 where it's the wrath of the Father together with the Lamb.  Jesus expressly says in John 5:22 that the Father has entrusted all judgement to Him. 

What does this mean?  It means that hell is being in the presence of God who continues to mediate His judgement through the Son.  There is no such thing as 'God without a mediator'. 

I've got some more to say on this, but I'll wait for another post... 

.

Published on Leave a comment on Trinity rant # 287

From a random internet sermon I listened to this evening:

God does not react.  He cannot react. God is pure initiation.  He only leads.

Where has this assumption come from?  Not trinitarian reflection.

Where does it lead?  Philosophical determinism.

What would it look like to begin with the living God Who initiates and responds, Who leads and follows?

.

Published on Leave a comment on Mike Reeves interviews Ron Frost

Ron Frost fans (this blog has quite a few), meet Mike Reeves. 

Mike Reeves fans (this blog has many), meet Ron Frost.

Here two of my favourite living theologians discuss one of my favourite dead ones - Richard Sibbes. 

sibbes

Joy!!

.

Published on Leave a comment on All interpretation is theological

This is a repost of Theology - the end of the process??

Is “systematic theology... the end process of exegesis and biblical theology"??  Ben Myers writes brilliantly against such a conception.  To imagine that a pure biblical scholar can dispassionately read off the meaning of the Bible through the use of objective interpretive tools is ludicrous.  To imagine that then the systematic theologian comes to co-ordinate these propositions into a logically cogent order is similarly misguided.  As Myers says 'It's theology all the way down.'  Theological pre-suppositions and commitments necessarily guide and shape all Christian activity from exegesis to exposition to pastoral work, to evangelism to hospitality to everything.

And yet the idea that the Bible can be neutrally read is so tempting.  We would love to conceive of revelation as propositions deposited in a handy compendium simply to be extracted and applied.  Yet the Word is a Person.  And His book is Personal (John 5:39).  It's not something we judge with our double edged swords - the Word judges us. (Heb 4:12)

Now Jesus thought the Scriptures were absolutely clear.  He never made excuses for theological error.  He never gave even the slightest bit of latitude by conceding a certain obscurity to the Bible.  He never assumes that His theological opponents have just mis-applied an interpretive paradigm.  If they get it wrong He assumes they've never read the Scriptures (e.g. Matt 21:16,42; Mark 2:25)!  So the perspicuity of the Bible is not in dispute. 

But Jesus tells the Pharisees why they get it wrong - "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." (Matt 22:29)  And, again, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." (John 5:39-40)  They are wrongly oriented to the Power of God and the One of Whom the Scriptures testify - Jesus.  This is not simply a wrong orientation of the intepreter but of the interpretation.  Scripture reading must be oriented by the Power of God to the Son of God.  Within this paradigm - a paradigm which the Scriptures themselves give us - the Bible makes itself abundantly clear.

But this paradigm is an unashamedly and irreducibly theological one.  It is the result of exegesis (e.g. studying the verses given above) but it is also the pre-supposition of such exegesis.  Theology is not the end of the process from exegesis to biblical studies and then to the systematician! 

And yet, I have often been in discussions regarding the Old Testament where theologians will claim an obvious meaning to the OT text which is one not oriented by the Power of God to the Son of God.  They will claim that this first level meaning is the literal meaning - one that is simply read off the text by a process of sound exegesis.  And then they claim that the second meaning (it's sensus plenior - usually the christocentric meaning) is achieved by going back to the text but this time applying some extrinsic theological commitments.

What do we say to this?  Well hopefully we see that whatever 'level' of meaning we assign to the biblical text it is not an obvious, literal meaning to be read off the Scriptures like a bar-code!  Whatever you think that first-level meaning to be, such a meaning is inextricably linked to a whole web of theological pre-suppositions.  The step from first level to second is not a step from exegesis to a theological re-reading.  It is to view the text first through one set of pre-suppositions and then through another.

And that changes the direction of the conversation doesn't it?  Because then we all admit that 'I have theological pre-suppositions at every level of my interpretation.'  And we all come clean and say 'Even the basic, first-level meaning assigned to an OT text comes from some quite developed theological pre-commitments - pre-commitments that would never be universally endorsed by every Christian interpreter, let alone every Jewish one!'  And then we ask 'Well why begin with pre-suppositions which you know to be inadequate?  Why begin with pre-suppositions that are anything short of 'the Power of God' and 'the Son of God'?   And if this is so, then why on earth do we waste our time with a first-level paradigm that left even the post-incarnation Pharisees completely ignorant of the Word?  In short, why don't we work out the implications of a biblical theology that is trinitarian all the way down?  Why don't we, at all times, read the OT as inherently and irreducibly a trinitarian revelation of the Son?

.

Published on Leave a comment on Calvin on Christ in OT

The excellent Marc Lloyd has posted the juciest quotation on Christ the Mediator of all revelation.  It's from Ronald Wallace's book Calvin's Doctrine of Word and Sacrament.  Here he is summarizing Calvin's view especially of christocentric revelation in the OT.

The Mediator of all revelation between God and man in the Old Testament is the Word of God, the second person of the Trinity, the same Christ who became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. Throughout the whole national history of Israel, it was always He, the Son of God, who dealt with His people in judgement and mercy, bringing them, with His Presence in their midst, light and life and salvation. Calvin asserts positively that Christ, the Word of God, who "remains with God perpetually one and the same and who is God Himself" (Inst 1:13:7), was "always the bond of connection between God and man" (Comm on Gen 48:15), and "the source of all revelations" (Inst 1:13:7), being "always present in all the oracles" (Comm on Gen 16:10). He is equally emphatic in the frequent negative assertion, "Never did God reveal Himself outside of Christ" (Comm on Jn 5:23). "Nor indeed, had any of the saints ever had communication with God except through the promised Mediator." (Comm on Ex 3:2) "God formerly manifested Himself in no other way than though Him." (Comm on Gen 48:15) God never otherwise revealed Himself to the Fathers "but in His eternal Word and only begotten Son" (Comm on Is 6:1). The whole story of the Old Testament is thus the story of how Christ, the Word of God, breaks in upon the life of those whom He has chosen to make his people, and confronts them in these veiled forms through which they can come to know His nature and have communion with Him....

The frequent appearances of the "Angel of the Lord" as the representative of God to the Old Testemant Fathers, and as a guide of the people throughout their history is a sign that Christ is always fulfilling His Mediatorial office of saviour and revealer, and uniting even then the members of His Church to Himself as the Head through whom they are joined to God Himself. Calvin, following the "orthodox doctors" (Inst 1:13:10) on this point, identifies the "chief angel" who appears among the other angelic visitors to earth with "God's only begotten Son who was afterwards manifest in the flesh" (Comm on Ex 14:19). Even then He performed in a preliminary fashion "some services introductory to His execution of the office of Mediator" (Inst 1:13:10). "There is then no wonder," says Calvin, "that the Prophet should indictriminately call Him Angel and Jehovah, He being the Mediator of the Church and also God. He is God, being of the same essence with the Father; and Mediator, having already undertaken His Mediatorial office, though not then clothed in our flesh so as to become our brother; for the Church could not exist nor be united to God without a Head" (Comm on Zech 1:18-21). "The angel who appeared at first to Moses, and was always present with the people during their journeying, is frequently called Jehovah. Let is then regard it as a settled point that the angel was Son of God, and was even then the Guide of the Church of which He was the Head" (Comm on 1 Cor 10:9).

Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament (Edinburgh, Scottish Academic Press, 1995) first edition 1953, pp8-10

 

I bang the same drum (endlessly) here.  For more quotes in support from the big guns go here.  Or read Bible Overview, especially appendix 2.

.

 

Published on Leave a comment on Trinity Rant #843

Trinity is not a nuance.

When we unfold the trinitarian life of God in His gospel work, we're not simply adding a level of detail to functionally unitarian 'God'-speak.  Trinity is not just a nuancing of more basic truths.  To speak of trinity is to uncover a logic which alters the way we conceive of everything, from the ground up.

Now of course we can still make simple looking statements like 'God must be worshipped.'  But what it means is I'll subject all of them to thorough critique.  Specifically, I will refuse to conceive of those sentences in unitarian terms.  Instead I will ensure that the Subject of that sentence can refer to each Person of the trinity and to the triune life as a whole.  And I will think hard about how these explicitly trinitarian considerations affect the truth of the proposition.  In other words I will resolve to conceive of both the Subject and the verb in these sentences in explicitly trinitarian terms. 

But does this really make a fundamental difference to 'simple God-talk'?

Yes.

The command 'God must be worshipped' can be applied to each Person and it can be applied to the triune life as a whole.   So it passes this minimal test.  But as we consider these triune relations, we realize that the Persons glorify each Other.  They are not simply recipients of worship (which the simple 'God' is) - but they are themselves worshippers.  More than this, we worship God only when we are rightly included in their worshipping life.  We must be in Spirit and Truth to worship the Father.  And we must first be the objects of His love and glorification before we find ourselves participating in the love and glorification of God.  Do you see how the Subject and the verb are radically affected by trinitarian analysis?

Or think about the concept of 'God's monarchy' - i.e. that God exercises a singular rule.  As a simple (functionally unitarian) concept this would lead us to think of God's rule in ways fundamentally opposed to a trinitarian understanding.  Trinity doesn't mean there are three thrones and it doesn't mean that the Lamb is off-centre on the throne.  It means that the Father rules through (and only though) His Spirit-anointed Son (cf Psalm 2).  Yet without this trinitarian dynamic being explicit, the triune God's monarchy will be misunderstood. 

Or again, think about this contentious statement: 'God is unoriginate.'  It was a favourite of Arius - what do we make of it? It seems completely logical. It seems to be guarding against things we want to guard against. Surely full divinity cannot be predicated of anything that has an origin outside itself.  Right?  We can't have divinity that depends on anything outside itself can we??  Well, on this understanding we look at the Son Who has His eternal origin in the Father, and we conclude that the Son is less than fully God.  That's the very logic Arius used and it's just why Athanasius got so picky and said that Arius should not name God from creation and call Him unoriginate but name Him from His Son and call Him Father. In other words - unless from the outset you define God's nature with the Father-Son reciprocity in mind you won't be able later to call Jesus God - not fully God.

'God is unoriginate' is an example of a statement that sounds good and seems to protect important things. And it might be able to be applied to the Three together (the Three do not have their source of life outside themselves) but it is unwise to make the statement simpliciter.  And it can lead to heresy when it is applied to particular Persons. 

The problem is that it has begun in functionally unitarian 'God-talk' and it simply cannot be rescued by trinitarian nuance.  That's not the direction of travel.  We can't go from functional unitarianism to trinitarian discussion as though we're moving from the synopsis to the novel.  The comparison is more like two competing treatises.

When we talk trinity we talk about basic things - fundamental, bedrock things.  We don't simply uncover extra depths when we lay bare the perichoretic life of God.  Actually we discover an essential logic that requires articulation according to this trinitarian dynamic. 

Trinity is not a nuance. 

.

Twitter widget by Rimon Habib - BuddyPress Expert Developer