Archive for the 'Theology' Category

Assurance

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bcg
on 18 April 2008
in Bible, Church and Theology
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I had a long conversation last night with a good friend about various theological topics.  Some of them will find their way on here, in time.  The first of them is the doctrine of assurance.  How can we be confident that we are saved?  Is such confidence possible?

For Methodists, 'assurance' historically refers to a feeling of peace and joy that our sins are forgiven.  An example might be John Wesley's famous line, 'I felt my heart strangely warmed.'  He goes on to say:

I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation. And an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Assurance of God's love

On this understanding, assurance is the feeling that accompanies faith in God's promises.

The difficulty is of course that feelings can mislead us.  It is entirely possible for someone to feel 'assured' of their salvation, without having the accompanying faith.

It is therefore perhaps more helpful to talk about assurance in terms of faith.  God has promised that those who believe in him will have eternal life, that if we believe in the salvation won for us by Jesus on the cross, we will be saved:

It is not possible for someone to be genuinely broken by sin, genuinely to believe that Christ is the only way to salvation and genuinely to have asked God for salvation, and yet still to be unsaved.

Assurance and Election

This is the most we can say: God has promised certain things in Scripture.  Therefore if God is true to his Word, then what God has promised will happen.  At the end of the day we can never be 100% certain that God exists, or we would not have faith, we would simply know.

However we can be almost 100% certain that he does, and therefore almost 100% certain that we will be saved if we trust in his promises.

Common Worship Ordination

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bcg
on 9 April 2008
in Church, Life and Theology
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I have to confess that there are many parts of the Church of England's new Common Worship services that I don't like.  The Baptism service, for example, is hugely long, overly complicated and (I think) theologically wrong.  (For more on that you might want to read my essay on baptism.)  The pattern of daily prayer changes every day, and there are so many options that it is difficult to see what is 'Common' about the new services.

Despite all this, my wife and I spent the day in Durham Cathedral yesterday - where we will be ordained in June - going through the ordination service, both practically and theologically.  As the last part of Common Worship to be published, there has been a lot of time and effort put into the service, and I think it has paid off.  The prayers are good, there is a focus on the call to preach and to serve, and even on the importance of the Bible!

The ordination itself, where the Bishop lays his hands on each candidate, takes place within the context of the main prayers in the service.  From the service booklet we were given yesterday (all forty pages of it!) it really does seem like the transition between prayers - ordination - prayers is seemless.

The centrality of prayer in the service caught me by surprise, but actually I think is absolutely right.  It means that our life as ordained ministers begins firmly within the context of family, friends and the wider church praying for us, and it means that we ourselves begin on our knees.  This all acknowledges just how important it is that God enables us to perform our various ministries (ordained and non-ordained), that we can't do any of it in our own strength.

I was looking forward to the service before - now I can't wait!

Resurrection Life

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bcg
on 25 March 2008
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On Sunday I preached on the final day of the college mission to Larkhall, Bath.  The text of the sermon can be found here.

Rather than preach directly from a passage, I preached on the meaning of Jesus' bodily resurrection, both for life in the future, and life here and now.

Since working at A Rocha two years ago, I have become more and more aware of how important it is that a) Jesus was incarnated, b) he spent three years preaching and healing the sick, c) he was raised bodily from the dead.

All these things amount to a wholehearted affirmation of God's good creation.  Many evangelicals seem to be drifting to an almost gnostic position, hugely prioritising the 'spiritual' over the 'physical'.

We must remember that when God's kingdom comes, we will not be living in a vacuum, floating on clouds in the sky, but on this earth, transformed.  Heaven comes down to earth, not the other way round.

A further thing I have often wondered is if we should translate 'spiritual' in the New Testament as 'Spiritual', i.e., of the Holy Spirit.  I'm sure someone has thought this before!

Evangelical humility

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bcg
on 7 March 2008
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Evangelicals need to approach their theological formulae with more humility than in the past.  It is the scriptural word that is infallible, not our ever imperfect attempts to restate it in appropriate contemporary ways.

Ronald J. Sider, 'Evangelism, salvation and social justice: definitions and interrelationships,' International Review of Mission 64 (1975): 267.

Faithfulness and sovereignty

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bcg
on 5 February 2008
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Some of the BA students in college have been writing about the impassibility of God, which has prompted not a few discussion in the Common Room over coffee and snooker.  One of them has written three blog posts about it, here, here and here.  A good article I have read on the subject can be found here.  A further post can be found here.  There is such a wealth of information on the internet, this is not an attempt at a comprehensive study of the subject, but a few thoughts in what I think is the right direction.

Definitions

The first problem we encounter is defining the slippery term that is 'impassibility' (cannot suffer).  Its origins can be found in Greek philosophy, along with 'immutability' (cannot change), in the understanding that perfection is static and supreme, immovable.  They have 'cold' overtones, of unemotional behaviour, pure logic and reason, a being totally unaffected by anything or anyone else. 
However they also have many positives, for example, they assure us of a firm foundation, consistency, confidence in God's promises, and the affirmation that God is perfect, and can get no better or worse.

A further problem is that the words are negative, telling us something about what God is not, rather than something about what he is like.  This tends to have a de-personalizing effect on the subject - after all, we usually describe one another using positive terms rather than negative (e.g. 'she has brown hair and likes pizza' instead of 'she doesn't like driving and hates cauliflower').  For us to know something about God, we have to use language we understand.  Therefore, if our language is telling people something about God that is not right (e.g. that he is cold and unaffected by his world) then we either need to define our language better, or find different words to explain the same concepts.

When encountering any thorny theological problem, the first step is usually to look at the Bible, to see if it helps us.  We will find that in this case it has the potential to make things even more confusing!

Scriptural Evidence

Scripture unequivocally states that God does not change:

'For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.'
Malachi 3.6 (ESV)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
James 1.17 (ESV)

25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
    and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you will remain;
    they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe,
    and they will pass away,
27 but you are the same,
    and your years have no end.
Psalm 102.25-27 (ESV)

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 13.8 (ESV)

I could go on, for there are many more such verses.  They highlight a key concept for us: God is not like us.  His ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts higher than our thoughts.  Even though we are authorized by Scripture to use human language (anthropomorphisms) to describe God in ways we can understand, it does not follow that God is exactly like us, or exactly like the words we use to describe him.

A classic example is this: God is just, God is merciful.  Both are affirmed throughout Scripture, both are true.  The problem the Bible poses is this: how can God be both just and merciful at the same time, when faced with his sinful people?  It isn't that God is just one day and merciful the next: he is just and merciful all the time.  We see this supremely and perfectly on the cross, where God's justice and mercy met in the death of his Son.  The crucifixion doesn't give us a new word, like 'just-ercy' or 'mer-stice', it simply shows us how it can be that God is just and merciful at once.

Back to the problem at hand.  Just as with 'justice' and 'mercy', there is an 'opposite' to God's changelessness: his loving involvement with his people.  Throughout the prophets God wrestles with the problem of loving his people, being hurt by their rejection, wanting to punish their sins, and wanting to forgive them so they might turn back to him (e.g. Jeremiah 4.19-26).  And of course there is the love of God for his world, so great that he sent his only Son to die for his enemies.

God is intimately involved in his creation.  He was when he made it, when he walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, when he called Abraham, when he rescued his people from slavery, when he called David, the man after his own heart, when he punished his people for turning away from him, sending them into exile, when he brought them home again.  And, of course:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1.14 (ESV)

So what next?

This rather long post is coming to an end, do not fear!  We need to find a way of expressing the truths about God's changelessness, his difference from his creation, whilst at the same time not denying his involvement in that creation, supremely in his Son Jesus.

I suggest that instead of 'impassibility' (cannot suffer) we say 'sovereignty', and instead of 'immutability' we say 'faithfulness'.  Starting with the second, the whole reason the Bible emphasizes that God does not change, is to affirm his faithfulness to the covenant he made with his people: 'God doesn't change, so what he promised yesterday he promises today, and will promise tomorrow.'  Unlike we humans who break our promises, God never does.  Once he has spoken, that is it for eternity: his words never pass away.

And yet, God remains free always to act in surprising ways, for it isn't our understanding that will never change, but God himself who will never change.  Further - and this is the crunch - God was free to submit himself to the powers of history, in Jesus.  As Jesus said, at any point the Father could have sent legions of angels to protect Jesus.  His suffering (and suffering it was - read the ends of the gospels) was not forced upon him by the world, but by his and the Father's will.

Just as with the 'problem' of God's justice and mercy, in the cross we see a glimpse of how God was both God (totally different to his created things) and man (at the mercy of bloodthirsty creatures).  At any moment Jesus could have saved himself, as he was taunted to do by the Pharisees and scribes.  But he didn't.  He chose to suffer with us his people, he chose to be obedience to his Father.  At all times God remained sovereign and faithful - and free.

Let us never imagine that we can define God so accurately that we can restrict his freedom to be himself.  Everything we say about God is only transitory, is only partial - only when we are with him in his kingdom will we finally know as we are fully known.  Until then, let's do the best we can, knowing we will always fall short.

Do we choose God?

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bcg
on 1 February 2008
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This is by way of an extension of a previous post on this topic.

A friend at college used to sing 'I have decided to follow Jesus', emphasizing the 'I' to annoy any Calvinists he might come across.  And from John 6.37 & 40 he would seem to be right:

37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  (ESV)

Those verses suggest a personal responsibility on behalf of 'those who come', the 'everyone who looks' to look and come to Jesus.  But that is not the end of the story - John 6.44:

44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.  (ESV)

As I quoted Charles Simeon, we must find the truth in both statements: we choose God, but no-one can choose God unless the Father draws him (or her).

Why gravity

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bcg
on 30 January 2008
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I saw the end of a programme last night called Horizon, which was looking at the theory of gravity.  The bit I saw was the tail-end of the explanation of Einstein's theory, which moved into the theory of quantum gravity (or the quantum theory of gravity..?).

It was all very interesting - I used to read New Scientist so I'd read a lot of it before - but the closing moments of the programme really made me sit up.  The presenter was summing up his conclusions, saying that a full understanding of gravity won't come from looking at the stars and galaxies, but from the smallest particles.  He said that this would help us to explain what happened at the Big Bang, and - here it comes - why we exist.

Now, I have no doubt he has great credentials as a scientist, but it was my understanding that science looks into the question 'how it is' that we exist, not 'why'.  I suppose that may be a technical distinction, but it is an important one, because it goes some way to showing how science and faith can go together: science looks empirically at the world to find out how it works; faith listens with gratitude to the Creator of the world to find out why it exists.

I'm sure that discovering how gravity works will be a huge step forward for modern science.  But it will not help us one bit in discovering why gravity works, or who made it work.  That is why we need both science and faith, why scientists can have faith, why scientists should be careful not to make grander claims for science than are warranted (for example, Professor Dawkins), and why theologians should be careful not to make sweeping scientific statements based on theological reasoning (for example, young-earth creationists).