Tag Archive for 'cross'

Assurance

The absolutely never breaking permanent link to this post.
Published
by
bcg
on 18 April 2008
in Bible, Church and Theology
. 3 Comments

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.

Faithfulness and sovereignty

The absolutely never breaking permanent link to this post.
Published
by
bcg
on 5 February 2008
in Bible and Theology
. 0 Comments

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.

The wrath of God was satisfied

The absolutely never breaking permanent link to this post.
Published
by
bcg
on 18 December 2007
in Bible, Church and Theology
. 0 Comments

I have been reading some of the minor prophets recently, and it hit me quite how angry God is with his people, and with the nations surrounding them. Of Ninevah God says, 'Behold, I am against you, declares the Lord of hosts...' followed by some fairly graphic and disgusting things (Nahum 2.13, 3.5-7 etc). Micah begins with the promise of destruction for Israel's idolatrous behaviour. Obadiah condemns Edom, Jacob's brother Esau, for gloating over Israel's misfortune. And so on.

This made me think. Most obviously I suppose, it highlights just how angry God gets with sin. A stereotype of Protestant preaching is 'fire and brimstone from the pulpit', which reflects God's anger and just wrath, while perhaps being a bit over the top. It is an uncomfortable message, and not one people want to hear - it doesn't sit easily with the general understanding of God as a benevolent father with a big white beard. More serious are Richard Dawkins' attacks on 'the God of the Old Testament' for such unpleasant displays of vengeance and anger; unpleasant, that is, to our modern 'tolerant' sensibilities.

There are two dangers here. The first, corresponding to the uncomfortableness that people feel, is to deny God's wrath. This underestimates sin, and reduces God's holiness. Even claiming it is part of the Old Testament understanding of 'territorial gods' is false, because it is in the New Testament too. It is simply not the case that the God of the Old Testament is vengeful and the God of the New Testament is peaceful.

If we are seeking to be faithful to the Bible we cannot avoid the fact that sin makes God angry. Therefore, just as sin is not confined to the Old Testament, so God's anger isn't confined to the Old Testament. If you want proof, look in a concordance under 'wrath' and 'anger' - not to mention Jesus' display of anger in the temple (Matthew 21 etc). God's righteous anger is a central part of the message of the whole Bible, perhaps at its clearest in the prophets.

The second danger, corresponding to Dawkins' attack, is to stop here, and simply emphasise how angry God is with us 'miserable offenders', effectively denying the message of grace clearest in the New Testament (though present also in the Old). For the Bible tells us that yes, God justly punishes sin, and therefore we sinners deserve death, but that he also loves us and wants to have mercy on us. The interchange in Hosea is particularly astonishing, as we read of God's love and justice wrestling with each other.

It is for precisely this reason that the cross is absolutely central, for on the cross God's love and justice meet - they are both defined entirely and exclusively by the cross. It is on the cross, as Jesus bears the penalty for our sins, their consequence, that God fulfils his justice, whilst at the same time fulfilling his love, as he sets us free from that penalty through Jesus.

If we take the Bible as a whole, we see the Old Testament preparing us for and pointing us to the cross. It is on the cross that the tension between God's love for his people and his righteous judgement of their sins is resolved. The curses of the Old Testament, the condemnation that God speaks over the nations, over his own people, all of that wrath is poured out on Jesus, and we are saved by his blood.

And so we return to the minor prophets. As I was reading Nahum I realised that on the cross, God spoke those curses to his own Son, who willingly and obediently put himself under those curses. And he did that because he loves us so much, and because we have disobeyed him so much, and because he is so holy and just and righteous and faithful.

So on the cross, God's wrath was indeed satisfied - and, in the frequent alternative words to In Christ Alone, God's love was glorified also. However, we need to make sure we strike the balance between God's wrath and his love, so we don't cheapen his love, and so we don't turn God into Dawkins' stereotype. This balance is struck by Paul in some important verses in his letter to the Romans, on which note we will finish.

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Romans 5.6-9 (ESV)

‘The Love of God’ or the Cross?

The absolutely never breaking permanent link to this post.
Published
by
bcg
on 22 April 2007
in Bible, Church, Quotations and Theology
. 0 Comments

Susie and I visited our local church today for a baptism communion service. In some respects it was my ideal service (over in just under an hour and a quarter, very friendly, lots of families and kids), but I was deeply disappointed with the sermon.

The preacher had two passages, from Acts and John. In Acts, Saul was struck blind and spoken to by Jesus. In John, Jesus told the disciples how to catch a load of fish and then asked Peter if he loved him.

The preacher began by talking about the debate between nature and nurture, relating it to the child about to be baptised, and to his own recently baptised granddaughter, as the family and friends of each wonder about the child's future.

He wanted to offer a 'third way'. This 'third way' was above, beneath and beyond nature and nurture. The 'third way' was the love of God. This love is the foundation of life, given equally to all, unchanging no matter what kind of person we are, no matter what our nature is, or how we are nurtured.

It was a short sermon (5-10 minutes), and mentioned Jesus once. The two Bible passages were simply 'illustrations' of the love of God in action (we weren't told how, or in what way), and mentioned in a maximum of five sentences towards the end of the sermon.

I was left wondering what in fact was Christian about it. It seems to me that many people could have spoken about love as a third way, between nature and nurture, and found a couple of illustrations in the Bible, or in some novels. The rather nebulous phrase 'the love of God' occured many times.

Many people appear to use this phrase as a way of not offending anyone, of saying something without really saying anything at all. After all, what is this 'love of God'? Is it acceptance? Is it a gift of something? Is it simply 'being there'? Is it all three? Or something else? I couldn't help but wonder if the sermon wouldn't have been a whole lot better if the preacher had talked about Jesus instead of 'the love of God'.

Richard Hays writes this: 'the content of the word "love" is given fully and exclusively in the death of Jesus on the cross.' (Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997, p.202)

If we follow Hays, the main reason the preacher told us very little in his sermon, is because he never thought to give real content to 'the love of God'. He could have given us, from the passages he had, a blinder of a sermon about discipleship and life following Jesus, how difficult it is, following the way of the cross, yet how possible it is, in the power of the cross. What a sermon for a baptism! To say nothing of the baptismal symbolism of dying and rising with Christ, or of Jesus' call to follow him (in both passages).

As you can tell, I was left extremely unsatisfied by the sermon. Christian leaders and preachers need to be teaching and demonstrating to their congregations a Christian way of understanding and living in the world. Otherwise, what is the point of being a Christian? And, at the deepest leve, that Christian understanding, that Christian way of living, is in fact the way of 'the love of God', but that way has a real, concrete and historical (and human) definition: the way of the cross.

Mark 8.34.