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Published on 12 Comments on Is it good because God says it is or…

In the interests of keeping damned dirty philosophy out of The King's English... here's a little diversion on the topic of "Behold it was very good"...

There's a very ancient question in philosophy: Is a thing good because god says it is, or does god say it's good because it is good?

We probably want the answer to be the latter.

Instinctively we don't trust god (or the gods) and we don't want to cede to divinity the right to judge.  We'd rather be the arbiters and we'd rather there be a standard of good outside of god to which god just has to shrug his shoulders and say "Gotta admit, that's good."

Now within the terms of this thought experiment, that's interesting isn't it?  We'd probably rather trust an impersonal standard than a personal god.  There's a window onto our hearts.

But the reason the philosopher likes posing this question is because at this point she has you!  "Aha!" comes the gleeful riposte, "now you have something outside of god - something to which god is subject.  Gotcha!"

While this is a problem for the god of philosophy, it's not a problem for the God of the bible.  For all eternity there has been something alongside the Father - and not just one thing, because if that were the case then all of reality would fall into 'Father' and 'not-Father'.  If there were only two eternal Persons, the only sense of distinction that could exist would be between self and not-self.  Otherness would be tantamount to negation, or at leasty threat.

But no, in the living God there is true distinction and particularity because besides the Father there has always been His Son and His Spirit.  There not only can be things 'outside' the Father which move Him - He always has been most moved by His Son and effusive in the praise He showers upon Him.  This praise is intimately linked to the Spirit in Scripture (for instance, Isaiah 42:1).

Now Jesus both is good and is called good by the Father.  And neither truth is more foundational than the other - for the goodness of the Son and the loving praise of the Father are (here's a word for you!) equiprimordial - that is, equally old.  Equally ultimate.

When the Father creates a world through and for His Son, the very dynamic for creation is that eternal praise.  The world exists to be drawn into and under the Son - to share in this life of goodness and appreciation.

So the Father's approval of the world is not simply a divine imposition.  He is moved to make this acclamation - and moved by something 'out there'.  But the 'out there-ness' is not a brute fact.  The world is not good in and of itself.  There is none good but God alone!  The world is good as an expression of the Father's love for Christ, as a proclamation of Christ the Craftsman's glory, as an inheritance for the Beloved Son.

God loves the world for the sake of His Son.  And its goodness - in fact all goodness - is always related to its orientation towards Christ.

Published on Leave a comment on Bacon, Bible and the Boys 2 – Three Persons United

Part two of a series of four men's breakfasts.  (Part one here).

Audio here (we only get through about 10% of the notes!).

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THREE PERSONS UNITED

Introduction

Last time we thought about the God who’s revealed in Christ alone. Jesus IS the revelation of God

Without Jesus, God is not known, whether through reason, religion or natural revelation (creation).

People often assume that Christless reason/religion/natural revelation gives some God-knowledge

But the God that’s known in these ways is the omnibeing: high on power, low on personality.

That is not the God Jesus reveals!

The bible tells us that we know the living God only in Jesus.

And when we look to Jesus we see Someone very different.

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...continue reading "Bacon, Bible and the Boys 2 – Three Persons United"

Published on Leave a comment on Could God shine without Jesus?

I was in a little bible study on Hebrews 1 recently.  We were looking at v3:

The Son is the radiance of God's glory

Someone asked the excellent question: "Does this mean that God couldn't shine without Jesus?"

What would you reply?

Perhaps our knee-jerk response is to say "No of course God could shine without Jesus.  He's God after all!"  Well let's hold our horses just a minute.

Athanasius and Arius had a disagreement over a very similar issue.  They both looked at verses which called Jesus "the Wisdom of God" (e.g. 1 Cor 1:24) and it led to a similar question:  Could God be wise without Jesus?

Again... how do you instinctively want to answer that question?  Don't you want to say, "Don't be silly, God is wise, Jesus is wise, the Spirit is wise - the Father doesn't need Jesus in order to be wise.  He just is wise"

Really?  But what does the verse actually say!?

Athanasius took verses like this seriously and followed them to their conclusion.  So he argues like this:

And if the Son is the “Word” and “Wisdom” of God, how was there “a time when He was not?” It is the same as if they should say that God was once without Word and without Wisdom.  (Depostion of Arius)

Here's the argument:

1. The Son is the Wisdom of the Father.

2. It is inconceivable to have the Father without wisdom.

3. The Father must have always had the Son.

Now it doesn’t take much thought to imagine the Arian come-back.  Surely Arius could simply reply that the Father has always had wisdom in Himself, i.e. considered apart from the Son.  But this was a move which Athanasius was unwilling to make.  He just took the verse at face value - Jesus is the Wisdom of God.  Thus the logic of Athanasius’ position - without which his argument fails - is that the Father must have the Son to have wisdom.  And without the Son He is not wise.

To be clear - Athanasius assumes that the Father does not have wisdom in Himself.  Rather the Father has wisdom in His Son who is His wisdom.  But, and here's the argument for the Son's eternity, God is never without His Son, indeed He is in His Son and the Son in Him.

Therefore a time without Christ is as absurd as a Father without a Son which is as absurd as a God without wisdom.  But truly God would be without wisdom if He did not always have His Son.  That's Athanasius's thinking.

And I think it's so refreshingly different to the majority of today's sytematic theologies.  So many theology books consider the divine attributes first before discussing the Persons-in-relationship.  So they build up their statements of God's perfections (whoever this God may be): "God is wise, God is powerful, God is immense."  And then they raise the issue of triunity and introduce us to the three Persons.  Of course now that they've determined what it is to be God, they'll have to convince us that all three of these Persons qualify.  So each Person must now prove that they've individually got the full complement of divine attributes.  And then, by the end of the process, we've finally got the omni-being thrice repeated.  All hail the Unoriginate!

Yet we must prefer Athanasius here.  The Persons do not have identical CV’s of God-stuff with only the Names at the top differing.  Rather the God-stuff is, irreducibly, the communal life of different Persons inter-penetrating each other in non-reversible relations.  Each Person therefore shares in the common divine life not because they've got identical CVs but because they so belong to one another that Each has a complete share in the life of the Others.  Yet their distinct giftings are properly unique to the Persons in their distinct existences as Begettor, Begotten and Proceeding.  The Son is the Wisdom of the Father.  The Father is not wise in Himself but only in the Son and by the Spirit.

Ok, now that we're thinking about this... let's touch on that old thorny issue - the ignorance of the Son about His return. (Matt 24:36)  Well, now that we're thinking in Athanasian ways, the Son's ignorance is fine, right?  I mean, clearly we don't have to go down the tortuous road of saying "He's ignorant according to His human nature, He knows according to His divine nature."  Instead, don't we just say that the Son entrusts knowledge of that day to His Father.  Simple right?

In a certain sense He has knowledge of that day because the Father does.  But much more fundamentally He's happy to depend on His Father completely such that, considered by Himself, He is ignorant.  And this doesn't make Him less divine - it reveals His true divine nature as the Sent One who goes at the Father's inititative.

I don't see a problem with this solution.  It's no more (in fact it's much less) shocking than the fact that the Father is without wisdom when considered apart from the Son.  Father and Son depend on each other (and on the Spirit - 1 Cor 2:10f)  in order to know what they know.  The Persons are not identical and they are not self-sufficient - they really do depend on each other for everything.

So then, this has been a very roundabout way of answering a simple bible study question.  But I hope we're now in a position to give a straightforward answer: Could God shine without Jesus?

No!  So it's a good thing He's never without Him.

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Published on 3 Comments on Orthodox Israelite Belief – Two Persons called Yahweh

From Professor Mike Heiser, Academic Editor of Logos Bible Software and author of website, The Two Powers:

For the orthodox Israelite, Yahweh was both sovereign and vice regent occupying both 'slots' as it were at the head of the divine council. The binitarian portrayal of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible was motivated by this belief. The ancient Israelite knew two Yahwehs one invisible, a spirit, the other visible, often in human form.  The two Yahwehs at times appear together in the text, at times being distinguished, at other times not.

Early Judaism understood this portrayal and its rationale. There was no sense of a violation of monotheism since either figure was indeed Yahweh. There was no second distinct god running the affairs of the cosmos. During the Second Temple period, Jewish theologians and writers speculated on an identity for the second Yahweh. Guesses ranged from divinized humans from the stories of the Hebrew Bible to exalted angels. These speculations were not considered unorthodox. That acceptance changed when certain Jews, the early Christians, connected Jesus with this orthodox Jewish idea. This explains why these Jews, the first converts to following Jesus the Christ, could simultaneously worship the God of Israel and Jesus, and yet refuse to acknowledge any other god. Jesus was the incarnate second Yahweh. In response, as Segal's work demonstrated, Judaism pronounced the two powers teaching a heresy sometime in the second century A.D.

Here's his video on 'The Two Powers' in the Hebrew Bible

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAzdtt1FY3g"]

There's quite a bit on my own blog about this:

The Angel of the LORD part 1

The Angel of the LORD part 2

The Angel of the LORD part 3

Trinitarian passages in the OT

Some multi-Personal passages in more depth – Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah

But Professor Heiser says it a lot better and with a lot more learning behind him.

His website on The Divine Council is also fascinating.

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Published on Leave a comment on Motivation for Mission – Mike Reeves

An extraordinary recent talk from Mike on John 20:19-23: Join the sending love of God.

And if you missed this one from four years ago, listen now:  Why Go?

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Published on Leave a comment on When was Christ begotten? [Repost]

Jesus is God's Son. And there was never a time when He was not God's Son.  Equally, there was never a time when the Father was not Father of His eternal Son, Jesus.  Wind back the clock into the depths of eternity and no matter how far back you go you will always find this: The Father possessing His Son in the Spirit, The Father pouring His life into the Son by the Spirit.  The Son receiving His anointing from the Father.  The Son determined in the Spirit by the Father.  The Father and Son have existed in a Begetting-Begotten relationship eternally.  Such relationship is not simply what our God does, it's who He is.  He is this eternal fellowship of the Three.

When was Christ begotten?  The early church rightly answered He is 'Eternally begotten of the Father.  God from God.  Light from Light.  True God from True God.  Begotten not made.  Of one being with the Father.'

Well then Psalm 2 throws up an interesting issue.  Always and everywhere in Scripture Psalm 2 is said to refer to Jesus.  And no matter how you get there, I hope you'll agree that it does.  Well verse 7 is the Son speaking and He says this:

I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you.

Well now, how do we cope with the Son of God saying such a thing?  What is the 'today' on which the Son is said to be begotten?  Doesn't this just collapse into Arianism?  Perhaps we think the Father should have said 'Today I declare what has always been true of You - You are My Son, eternally I beget You'?  But he doesn't say that.  He says there's a day of begetting.

Well what day is that?

Answer: Easter Sunday.  Paul correctly identifies the 'today' for us.  In Acts 13:32-33 he tells us that David's intention here is to prophesy Christ's resurrection:

We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: `You are my Son; today I have become your Father.'

The resurrection of Jesus is the 'today' in which the Father begets the Son.  The Father and Son exist in a Begetting-Begotten relationship.  And Easter is the Day on which that relationship is (and here I'm reaching for words) manifest?  - too weak.  Concretized?  - closer.  Established?  - too far?

Well if we think that's too far, perhaps we also think Peter went too far in Acts 2:36.  Again speaking of the resurrection he says:

God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Jesus is made Lord and Christ through the resurrection.  He already was Lord (v34) and Christ (v31), yet the resurrection 'made' Him Lord and Christ.

One other Scripture to consider.  In Hebrews 5, the writer sees the resurrection of Psalm 2:7 as Christ's calling to the Priesthood.

No-one takes this honour upon himself; he must be called by God, just as Aaron was.  So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father."  (v4-5)

God calls Jesus to the Priesthood by raising / exalting Him.  And yet at the same time Hebrews had introduced us to the eternal Son in already priestly terms (Heb 1:2,3).  The Son's mediation in creation, revelation and providence is already priestly, and yet He is called to this priesthood on the basis of His death, resurrection and ascension.

This co-ordination of eternal priestliness and His historical calling continues in chapter 5.  Verse 6 reminds us from Psalm 110 that Jesus is a 'priest forever in the order of [beginningless] Melchizedek'.  Yet almost straight away we are told He is 'designated' priest on the basis of His suffering perfection and exaltation. (v10).

So which is it?  Is Jesus eternally begotten or begotten on Easter morning?  Is Jesus eternally Lord and Christ or made so by resurrection?  Is Jesus eternally God's Priest or called Priest on the basis of His suffering perfection and exaltation?  The answer is yes.

How do we put words to this?  Well Ben Myers has done a pretty good job here as he summarizes the argument of Adam Eitel:

God's being can thus be described as a kind of being-towards-resurrection; the resurrection of Jesus is the goal of God's eternal self-determining action. In this historical (or better, this history-creating) event, God becomes what God eternally is - and this is just because God eternally is what he becomes in this event.

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Published on 5 Comments on Trinitarian community means Cross-centred community

Here I spoke about trinitarian marriages.

Here I spoke about trinitarian families.

Here I spoke about trinitarian churches.

In each case it's about differently aged/gendered/gifted people taking on different roles but united in love and common purpose.  I spoke about the heresies of arianism, modalism and tritheism which they could fall into.

But I'm just aware that these models of how community should be are Law.   Law is holy, righteous and good.  Law describes the good life - the life of the truly Righteous One.  But there is no power in Law to be able to effect what it describes.

We can day-dream about a truly Athanasian marriage/family/congregation.  And we can bemoan a Sabellian one.  But we can't create one by simply defining the Original, despising the counterfeits and trying harder.

Which is why, when the Scriptures describe trinitarian community, they centre on something that I, in my descriptions, left out.  Christ's cross.

So think of Romans 14 and 15 - a wonderful passage on crunchy community - unity with distinctions upheld by gracious deference to the other.  But at the heart of it all is the cross (14:9,15; 15:3,7) which creates such community.

Or think of 1 Corinthians 11-14.  We begin with Father-Son unity (11:3); we continue with the expression of this unity in marriage (11:3ff); we see it play out in the body (12 and 14) and in chapter 13 we see it all held together by love.  That's fantastic.  But what have I missed out?  The Lord's Supper - 11:20-34.  This community is not created by trying hard to imitate the trinity.  It is created by the cross as experienced in the sacrament.  The one loaf creates the one body - a body in which the weak and despised are received and knit together.

So anyway, just a thought that brings me back to some earlier posts:

Triune glory is cruciform glory

Participating in God means participating in the cross

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can become a triune community by trying to be a triune community.  Or can you?

Right now I'm thinking that a community created by and centred on the cross will be a triune community.  Descriptions of true triune community can diagnose problems in our communities.   But they can't solve them.

Which means maybe I should just put away my fancy diagrams and preach Christ and Him crucified.

What do you think?

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Published on Leave a comment on He who loves his wife loves himself

I've just been at a wedding and was reminded again of one of my favourite marriage verses: "He who loves his wife loves himself." (Eph 5:28).

It occured to me that Paul could not have said this the other way around.  He who loves himself does not actually love his wife.  In the marriage covenant, other-love is self-love.  It's the only self-love allowed.  But the reverse is not true: self-love is not other-love

Now think of God.  If you really wanted to, you might want to talk about "God loving Himself."  But of course you'd only do so in the same way you'd talk about a husband loving himself.  How does a husband love himself?  He lays down his life for his wife.   How does God love Himself?  The Father commits all things into His Son's hands.

Any talk of self-love in God must be explicitly talk about triune relations - the Father loving the Son in the Spirit.  You simply can't talk about God loving Himself without emphatically underlining the multi-personal, other-centred nature of this God and this love.  Otherwise you make Him like the selfish husband.

In trinitarian theology there's an old argument about how you should proceed.  Should you "begin with the One" and then show how there are actually three Persons in this One God.  Or  should you "begin with the Three" and show how those Three are the One God?

Well surely we must acknowledge from the outset the tri-personality of this God.  Or else all that you say under the category of "The One God" will start to sound like the selfish husband who, from the overflow of His self-centredness, manages to love another!  So wherever we 'begin' three-ness must be on the table.  (More on this here).

There is a way from Trinity to aseity.  But there is no way from aseity to Trinity.

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Published on Leave a comment on Here’s why trinity matters…

Thought this was relevant to the triune creation stuff I've been blogging.  This is what you get when you mess with "Let us"...

It's also a good reminder not to make "nothing" into a big black something.  To say that God creates out of nothing is not to imagine a gigantic, universe-shaped hole into which creation then slots.  It means that before creation, the Father, Son and Spirit were all of reality.  When He creates God is massively relativized by the cosmos.  Creation is the beginning of the Lord's humbling that climaxes at the cross.

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