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A study in Christian Theology
conducted Autumn 2007 at
St George's Reformed Episcopal Church
134 Emerson Street, Hamilton Ontario
AN INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
Unit 1
The Origin of the Christian Religion and its Historical Context.
What do we mean when we say that Christianity is true?
What evidence do we need if we affirm that Christianity is true?
Unit 2
The Reliability of the NT Part One:
When was it written? By whom? The "Synoptic Problem".
Unit 3
The Reliability of the NT Part Two Before the Gospels:
The Gospel before the Gospels. Rabbi Jesus, Rabbi Paul, and the Oral Tradition.
Unit 4
New Testament Christology
Unit 5
Jesus' View of the Scriptures and Jesus' View of Himself.
Unit 6
The Trinity, in the New Testament and afterwards.
Unit 7
The Atonement.
Unit 8
The Resurrection and the Ascension.
Unit 9
The Second Coming, the Christian Hope, and the Problem of Evil.
Unit 10
The Way of Salvation.
Unit 11
Church, Sacraments, and Ministry Through the Ages.
Unit 12
Why the Reformed Episcopal Church?
UNIT 1
The Origin if the Christian Religion and its Historical Content.
What do we mean when we say that Christianity is true?
What evidence do we need if we affirm that Christianity is true?
1. Christianity began in Judaism
Christianity originated within the Jewish religion in the early days of the Roman Empire. Jesus was a Jew. The better we understand Judaism, the better we can understand Jesus, the New Testament, and Christianity.
2. Chronology of Judaism -- dates before 1050 BC are very approximate.
1850 -- GENESIS -- Abraham migrates from Ur to Haran to Canaan. Hebrews spend about 400 years in Egypt.
1440 -- EXODUS -- The Exodus. Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt. The Hebrews spend 40 years in the wilderness of Sinai.
1400 -- JOSHUA -- The Hebrews begin the conquest of Canaan.
JUDGES -- Judges rule the Twelve Tribes for about 400 years.
1050-1010 -- SAMUEL -- Saul is King.
1010-970 -- SAMUEL -- David is King.
970-931 -- KINGS -- Solomon is King.
930 -- KINGS -- The Kingdom is divided: Judah (South), Israel (North).
740-700(+) -- ISAIAH prophesies Israel's exile and restoration.
722 -- Israel and Samaria are conquered and exiled to Syria.
626-582(+) -- JEREMIAH -- Jeremiah prophesies Judah's exile and restoration.
597 -- KINGS -- Judah is conquered. First Exile to Babylon.
EZEKIEL -- Ezekiel in exile prophesies Judah's destruction and restoration.
587-6 -- KINGS -- Babylonians come back. The Temple is destroyed. Second Exile to Babylon.
539 -- DANIEL -- Persia conquers Babylon. Daniel prophesies in Babylon.
538(+) -- EZRA, NEHEMIAH -- Some Jews return and begin to rebuild the Tenmple and the City.
433 -- MALACHI -- The Old Testament closes with the prophecies of Malachi.
3. Between the Testaments
a. Between Malachi, the last Old Testament prophet, and John the Baptist, there is a gap of about 400 years. During this period no divine prophecy was given, and therefore no Scripture was written. (The Jews do not count the fourteen books of the Apocrypha as Scripture, and neither does the Reformed Episcopal Church.) Nevertheless, the events of this era were significant for the coming of Jesus, for the development of the Church, and for the writing of the New Testament.
b. Because of the Exile and the destruction of the Temple (586 BC), the Jewish liturgical year of feasts and sacrifices in Jerusalem came to an end. To fill the void, the Jews in Exile created the synagogue (= assembly; Yiddish "shul"), where the emphasis of their worship changed from sacrificial liturgy to the study of Scripture. The liturgy of the synagogue included prayers, hymns, Bible readings (they had lectionaries), and sermons, but no sacrifices. Religious leaders were no longer priests but Tanakh scholars: scribes and rabbis. (The word "Tanakh" is formed from the beginning letters of Torah, the law; Neviim the Prophets; and Khetuvim the writings. Together these make up the Scriptures of what Christians call the Old Testament.) Even after the return and rebuilding of the Temple (completed 516 BC), the synagogue continued to be a focal point for Sabbath worship, both in Israel and in the Diaspora (= the Dispersion of Jewish exiles and emigrees in the surrounding nations), while the Temple functioned as a sort of national cathedral for high and holy days. Synagogue worship provided the model for worship in the first churches.
c. Empires come; empires go. The Persian Empire (of which the Holy Land was a vassal state) fell to Alexander the Great, who in his 13-year reign (died 323 BC) conquered the semi-circle of lands comprising the Greek peninsula, Asia Minor (today's Turkey), Mesopotamia, Persia, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, and as far as the Western tip of India. He had intended to conquer Europe, too, but died at the age of 33. Aristotle so admired Aristotle, his university professor, that he wanted to improve the world by spreading Greek language and culture everywhere -- whether the rest of the world wanted it or not. This process is known as "hellenization", from Hellas, the Greek name for Greece. Three facts give evidence of Alexander"s success in this policy, despite the later ascendancy of the Roman Empire and the Latin language: First, by the second century BC the Jewish community in Alexandria was using a Greek translation of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint (LXX), which was also the Bible of the writers of the New Testament. Second, the accusation over Jesus' cross (the Romans were in power by then) had to be written in Greek as well as in Latin and Hebrew. Third, the New Testament was written in Greek, including those passages that may have originally been spoken in Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew. If the New Testament had been written in any other language, the Gospel would not have spread so rapidly spread throughout the Gentile Mediterranean world. Some scholars think that even Jesus and his disciples sometimes spoke Greek.
d. After Alexander's death, his five generals divided his empire, and were often at rivalry over each other's interests. The two generals most important to New Testament studies are Ptolemy, who took control of Egypt and Palestine, and Seleucis, whose empire included Asia Minor, Syria, Babylon and, in 198 BC, Palestine. Because Ptolemy continued Alexander's hellenizing with a tolerance for multiculturalism, a large Jewish community flourished in Greek-speaking Alexandria, where the LXX was translated and Rabbi Philo interpreted the OT in ways that he considered compatible with Greek philosophy. (The Septuagint, from the Latin word for 70, is represented by LXX, the Roman numeral for 70. It is so named because of a tradition that 70 scholars translated it from Hebrew to Greek in 70 days.)
e. In 167 BC, the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV took a more aggressive approach to hellenizing Palestine: he set up a statue of Zeus in the Temple, sacrificed a pig(!) on the high altar, burned copies of the Jewish Scriptures, and prohibited circumcision and Sabbath observance. He called himself Antiochus Epiphanes (= the Illustrious, or the Manifestation of God); the Jews called him Antiochus Epimanes (= the Fool). He created such outrage that a remarkable guerilla revolt led by Judas Maccabeus enjoyed repeated success in defeating large Seleucid forces, reoccupied Jerusalem, and cleansed and rededicated the Temple in 164 BC. Their success is still celebrated in the feast of Hanukkah.
f. From 142 to 63 BC, Judea was an independent kingdom. Two religious groups were politically influential: the Sadducees (they favored hellenization, considered only the Torah to be Scripture, and did not believe in the resurrection), and the Pharisees (they resisted hellenization, believed the entire Tanakh, and believed in the resurrection). Most of the scribes mentioned in the New Testament were likely Pharisees, teachers and preservers of the traditions that interpreted the minutiae of how one should observe the Torah. (The Torah, the five books of Moses, is the Law, and the scribes were its lawyers. The Tanakh is the entire Old Testament, comprising the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.) The Jewish royal family and many of the priests were descended from Judas Maccabaeus, but they had lost the unity of purpose that characterized them during the Maccabean revolt. Another group, the Essenes, established the monastic community at Qumran, near the Dead Sea, and were likely the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Any notion that John the Baptist or Jesus spent time among the Essenes is only speculative.
g. The Sadducees and the Pharisees competed bitterly for power, playing off members of the royal house against one another. In 63 BC, when the king sought a Roman alliance against the Pharisees, Pompey entered Jerusalem and precipitated a civil war that cost 50,000 lives. In 37 BC, Rome installed Herod, a half-breed Jew at best, and a cruel man, as its puppet king. Herod died in 4 BC. Memories of the success of 164 BC enhanced the desire for the coming of the messianic kingdom, and inspired several unsuccessful revolts against Rome. Political messianism was so deeply ingrained that after the Resurrection some disciples asked Jesus, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6)
4. "Whaddaya know for sure?"
a. The hotbed of politics, religion, and intrigue referred to above was the world into which Jesus was born. It was in many ways the antithesis of what he came to achieve by his teaching, his atoning death, his resurrection, and his promised coming again. But two thousand years after the "Jesus event", many good people, including some church people, have misgivings about the historicity of that event. In 1906 Albert Schweitzer wrote The Quest of the Historical Jesus, and concluded that no biography of the historical Jesus could be written. Rudolph Bultmann subsequently introduced the technique called "form criticism" and taught that we can understand the gospels only if we demythologize them. In our own day, the popular writer Tom Harpur, a former Anglican minister, says that there never was any historical Jesus, and that the only way to get any spiritual benefit out of the gospels is to re-mythologize them. He says, in fact, that a mythological meaning was the only meaning they were ever intended to have. For those who adhere to the Christian religion, for those who teach the Christian religion, for those who have or who desire to have any sort of personal intimacy with God through faith in Jesus the critical question is "Whaddaya know for sure?" When I was a young lad, "Whaddaya know for sure?" was just a cute way of saying "Hi!" but no one ever hung around expecting an answer. Nowadays as, I think, always it is the most important question in Christian theology.
b. To address this question, it will be helpful to show:
-- i. that the earliest Christians understood that they were dealing with historical
events, not with myths and legends: see 2 Peter 1:16-18; 1 John 1:1-4
-- ii. that the earliest Christians based their faith on reliable eye-witness evidence of
the most outrageously impossible historical event, the resurrection of Jesus: see
1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Acts 2:29-34
-- iii. that doctrines like the deity of Jesus and the Trinity come not from the 3rd or 4th century but were already held by the Christians who wrote the New Testament: see Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:38; and 8:16
-- iv. that the New Testament, whose earliest documents date from only 20 years after the "Jesus event", accurately report what was said and done: see 2 Peter 1:15; 2 Timothy 4:6-13; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; 1 Thessalonians 4:1
Those are among the questions that we shall seek to answer in the units that follow.
UNIT 2
The Reliability of the NT Part One.
When was it written? By whom? The "Synoptic Problem".
1. Chronology
Herod, in whose reign Jesus was born, died in 4 BC. Therefore, the calendar for the years AD (= Anno Domini = in the year of the Lord) must be "out" by at least four years. In fact, it is probably out by six or seven years. However, this does not imply any error in the Bible. The errors were made by the chaps who devised our calendar. For reasons to be discussed in Unit 13, we shall assume that Jesus' time on earth was more or less from 7 BC to 27 AD.
The dates in the following chart are approximate:
AD 27-30 -- Jesus' ministry
AD 30-65 -- missionary activity during the "oral period"
AD 48-85 -- letter writing by Paul and other New Testament writers
AD 65 -- publication of the gospel called "According to Mark"
AD 75 -- publication of the gospel called "According to Matthew"
AD 85 -- publication of the gospel called "According to Luke" (it may be much earlier)
AD 85 -- publication, also by Luke, of "Acts of the Apostles" (it may be much earlier)
AD 90 -- publication of the gospel called "According to John"
2. Documentary Evidence for the New Testament
The New Testament has the best documentary evidence of any book from the ancient world.
The earliest extant copies of Homer's Iliad date from 500 years after the author. The earliest extant copies of works by Julius Caesar date from 1000 years after the author. The earliest extant copies of Plato's writings date from 1200 years after the author. The earliest extant copies of Aristotle come from 1400 years after the author, and for centuries were known only throug translations from Arabic. But a fragment of John's gospel, preserved in the John Rylands Library, is dated only 20 or 30 years after the original. We also have large portions of Paul's letters, John, and Matthew, a mere 150 years removed from the originals, and complete copies of the New Testament from the third and fourth centuries.
Moreover, we have only 7 ancient copies of Plato, 10 of Caesar, 49 of Aristotle, and 643 of Homer. But of the Greek New Testament we have some 5600 fragments and complete copies from the second to the fourth centuries, plus over 19,000 New Testament manuscripts in Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic.
Among the ancient manuscripts of the Greek NT, variations from one manuscript to another do not exceed 1%. Therefore we are able to establish the original text of the NT with remarkable accuracy.
The full text of Codex Sinaiticus, one of the most valuable manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, copied between 330 and 350 AD, and originally including the complete text of the LXX, was released in digital format on 24 July 2008. It can be found at www.codexsinaiticus.net. The Wikipedia article on Codex Sinaiticus is worth a read.
3. Archaeological Corroboration of the NT
At the beginning of his gospel (1:1-4), Luke insists that he is recording what had been delivered to him by those who knew the facts from first-hand experience as eye-witnesses. We see Luke as a scrupulous historian in such passages as 3:1,2, where, for example, he carefully dates the start of John the Baptist's ministry, which on our calendar works out to about 27 AD. Many books have been written showing how archaeological discoveries corroborate the accuracy of the New Testament. For our present purpose, two examples will have to suffice:
Luke states that the Romans ordered a census around the time when Jesus was born. At 2:2, Luke notes that this census was first implemented "when Cyrenius was governor of Syria." But, said the doubters, whereas Jesus was supposed to have been born around 7 BC, Cyrenius (a.k.a. Quirinius) did not become governor of Syria until 6 AD, at which time he did in fact implement a census, but that was at least a dozen years after Jesus' birth. So has Luke made an error? And if so, how does that affect his credibility on other matters? In this instance the doubters were silenced when a Roman inscription was found at Antioch showing that Quirinius had previously been posted to Syria as a military commander from 10 to 7 BC. He would also have had to govern the tribe that he was sent to subdue. So Luke got it right: the census of 7 BC was, as he says, Quirinius' first.
In Luke 24:39 the resurrected Jesus says, "Behold my hands and feet." Doubters used to object that there was no archaeological evidence of nails being used during crucifixions, only rope. Luke, they said, did not have first-hand knowledge as he pretended. Theythought he was actually inventing his "facts", and got them wrong. This time the doubters were silenced when in 1968 the skeleton of a crucified man from the first century AD was found in a cave near Jerusalem with an 11.5 cm spike embedded in his heel, and fragments of the wood still attached. The present writer saw this heel bone when it was displayed at the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa-Hull in 2004, with an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Examples like these do not prove that Jesus is divine nor that the New Testament is his inspired word. But they do lend weight to the New Testament authors' claim to be reporters of fact rather than inventors of myth.
4. The Inter-relationship of the Gospels
a. The earliest of the gospels is generally thought to be The Gospel According to Mark. Conservative scholars have traditionally dated it around AD 65. Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, a city in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), wrote: "And the presbyter [someone named John, but not the Apostle] said this: 'Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intent of giving them a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care: not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements." The statement at 2 Peter 1:12-16 may reflect Peter's intentions for Mark. Papias is second century; he knew John the Apostle and was a colleague of Bishop Polycarp. Papias is quoted in Eusebius, a third century church historian.
b. The Gospel According to Matthew has been dated by conservative scholars around 75. With regard to Matthew, Eusebius quotes Papias as saying: "Matthew put together the sayings (logia) [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could. That may mean that The Gospel According to Matthew was not written by Matthew, but by someone else who combined material from Matthew's collection of "Hebrew" (possibly actually Aramaic) sayings with the narrative written by Mark. Matthew's collection of sayings may therefore be earlier than Mark's gospel.
c. Papias' statement that "each one interpreted them as best he could" shows that Matthew's collection of Jesus' teachings circulated within the early church. One of Matthew's "interpreters" may have been the Gentile physician, Luke. Luke wrote, in typical Greek literary style, a two-volume work that we know as The Gospel According to Luke and The Acts of the Apostles. The conventional date for these is around 85, but certain historical factors such as a favorable view of the Roman government (presumably before the persecutions) and the absence of any reference to Paul's death may suggest a much earlier date. Perhaps in the passage at 2 Timothy 4:9,11,13, Paul is actually convening the publishing conference that produced Luke-Acts.
d. If you place the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke side by side in parallel columns, you will see that they have a lot of material in common, generally in the same order and often word for word. These three are therefore known as the "synoptic" gospels, syn-optic meaning "seen together". What one sees, in fact, is that Matthew and Luke appear to be made up of Mark plus a collection of sayings (logia) known to both, plus some other material unique to either Matthew or Luke. The sayings source is known as "Q", from the German word "quelle", which means "source". Q could be the collection of Jesus' sayings that Papias attributes to Matthew. If it is, then it rightly claims eye-witness authority.
e. The Gospel According to John is very different from the synoptics. It does not follow the chronology of Mark's narrative: indeed, John seems to imply a three-year ministry while the synoptics seem to imply only one year. But that will not cause us any misgivings, if we remember Papias' caution that Mark did not record the events "in exact order" nor intend to give "a regular narrative". The Gospel According to John is traditionally held to have been written by the Apostle in exile on the island of Patmos, and is traditionally dated around AD 90. This date is supported by the fact that a papyrus fragment of John's gospel was found in Egypt and has been dated +/- AD 112. That fragment resides in London at the John Rylands Library.
UNIT 3
The Reliability of the NT Part Two.
The Gospel Before the Gospels.
Rabbi Jesus, Rabbi Paul, and the Oral Tradition.
1. Before the Gospels
There is a gap of perhaps 35 years between the events of Jesus' ministry (AD 27-30) and the writing of the gospels (AD 65-90). This gap was bridged in the early churches by two kinds of communication: one oral, the other written. The written bridge is the epistles (= letters) of Paul, Peter, James, and John. These were circulating among the churches before the gospels were written. The earliest letters, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, give us evidence for Christianity as early as AD 48, two decades before the earliest gospel. The oral bridge consists of the formal and informal oral tradition, which began with Jesus himself and persisted as long as the churches remained culturally Jewish. When their deaths were imminent, both Peter (2 Peter 1:15) and Paul (2 Timothy 4:9-13) recognized the need for permanent written records of the tradition.
2. Rabbi Jesus
The Sanhedrin did not regard Jesus as a proper rabbi, any more than the Church of Rome recognizes Billy Graham as a proper clergyman. Nevertheless, Jesus functioned as a rabbi, and used rabbinic methods of teaching to train his itinerant college of disciples. Let's watch him at work in a passage from Matthew and a passage from Mark:
Matt 11:25-30:
25 At that time Jesus declared, "'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.' 27 All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
verses 25-26 -- Jesus prays as the ultimate rabbi, giving thanks for the knowledge of God that God has made known only to Jesus' followers.
verse 27 -- Jesus says that this knowledge was "delivered" (= handed down) to him not through generations of rabbis but directly from God. Jesus has thereby done an "end-run" around all previous rabbis back as far as Moses.
verses 28-30 -- These verses are about Jesus' authority to impose halakoth, or rules of conduct. He contrasts his "easy" yoke with the "heavy burdens, hard to bear" that some other rabbis of his day were "binding" on their followers (Matthew 23:4).
Mark 7:1-23:
1 Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" 6 And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men."
9And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother' and 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' 11But you say, 'If a man tells his father or his mother, "Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban"' (that is, given to God) 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do."
14And he called the people to him again and said to them, "Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." 17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, "Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?" (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."
verses 1-5 -- Jewish leaders criticize Jesus' disciples because they do not observe the traditional practice of ceremonial washings.
verses 6-13 -- Jesus replies that these traditions are only human commandments, not God's, and that they create a phony righteousness. One of them, the practice of Qorban, actually deprives parents of needed help.
verses 14-16 -- Then Jesus teaches them a better tradition: it's not what goes into our mouths that defiles us, but what comes out of our hearts. This memorable statement is a halakah: a proverb about how to live, literally how to "walk".
verses 17-23 -- Still teaching as a rabbi, Jesus gives his followers a midrash, an explanatory talk, on the halakah. They will recall this halakah verse when they need to make a decision about some doubtful practice, and they will be able to teach it to others, along with the explanation.
3. Rabbi Paul (and the other apostles) and Formal Oral Tradition
a. From Paul's letters we learn that even before the letter-writing period the gospel was transmitted by oral tradition. Nowadays, we store information in books and in electronic media like tape recordings and DVDs, so it is hard for us to imagine a time when people could actually depend on their memories. (For some of us it gets harder with each succeeding year!) But oral cultures, such as those of the Middle East, had developed techniques for remembering and passing on information accurately from generation to generation. Even today many Muslims can recite the entire Koran from memory.
b. In the following six passages you can get some idea of how the rabbinic oral tradition operated in the early church. Wherever you find Paul using the words "deliver/ed", "receive/d", and "tradition", you know that this is what he is referring to.
1 Corinthians 15:1-6
This passage shows that an "official" narrative of Jesus' last days was already circulating before 1 Corinthians was written, around AD 55. It also emphasizes the importance of eye-witnesses to the truth of that tradition.
1 Corinthians 11:1,2
The tradition dealt with both doctrine and lifestyle. A rabbi "delivered" his teachings not only orally but also by the example of his way of life. "Leadership by example" was expected. Paul is an imitator of Jesus when he follows the rules of conduct that Jesus prescribes.
1 Thessalonians 2:13,14
Note that the Christian oral tradition is received and revered - as the equivalent of Scripture. In Greek Paul calls it God's "word of hearing", i.e., the oral word of God.
1 Corinthians 11:23ff.
A liturgy for the Lord's Supper was already in use during the oral period. Paul had never met Jesus, except in his vision on the Damascus Road, and we have no indication that Paul ever had a discussion with the resurrected Jesus about liturgics. Therefore, the words "received from the Lord" cannot mean that Paul personally received the tradition directly from Jesus himself. Rather, they must mean that this tradition had been passed down to Paul in unbroken succession from Jesus through the apostles. The date of this letter (AD 55), combined with Paul's testimony that this tradition can be traced right back to Jesus, makes the words of the institution of the Lord's Supper the best attested words of Jesus that we have.
1 Thessalonians 4:1 and Colossians 2:6
In the Greek New Testament, the expressions "how you ought to walk and please God" and "Christ Jesus the Lord" both start with the Greek word for "the". The use of "the" in the first instance makes no sense at all unless "The How-you-ought-to-walk-and-please God" is the title of a unit of instruction that the Christians in Thessalonika had "received" and would recognize by its title. In the second instance, although "Christ Jesus" occurs 19 times in the New Testament, it is never preceded by "the" except here. Therefore, when Paul says that the Christians at Colossae "received" "The Christ Jesus the Lord", he is likely speaking not of their conversion, which had occurred some time before, but of a unit of instruction on the Lordship of Christ. You can find the course outline for one such unit of instruction at Hebrews 6:1,2.
4. Informal Oral Tradition
a. In addition to formal oral tradition, there were -- indeed, still are -- also varieties of informal oral tradition, that operated with varying degrees of control and accuracy. Church of England Professor Kenneth E. Bailey describes how, during his years in Lebanon, he observed the operation of several sorts of informal oral tradition, including proverbs, traditional poetry, parables, story riddles, and accounts of persons important to the community.
b. Professor Bailey met Arabs who had committed to memory collections of several thousand proverbs, similar to those in the Old Testament book of Proverbs. They could recite them word for word, and any errors in recitation were promptly corrected by knowledgeable hearers. He found the same intolerance of inaccuracy in the recitation of even lengthy traditional poetry. It is likely that Jesus' Jewish followers would have preserved his words with similar reverence.
c. In the case of parables, story riddles, and accounts of historically significant members of the community, Professor Bailey found a narration that combined accuracy with flexibility. As long as the main characters, the sequence of events, and the "punch line" remained intact, the narrator could tell the story after his own flourish.
d. Two excerpts from Professor Bailey's 1995 essay will illustrate:
i. "...the setting is informal. The traditional scene is the gathering of villagers
in the evening for the telling of stories and the recitation of poetry. These gatherings have a name: they are called haflat samar. Samar in Arabic is a cognate of the Hebrew shamar, meaning 'to preserve'. The community is preserving its store of tradition. By informal we mean that there is no set teacher and no specifically identified student. As stories, poems and other traditional materials are told and recited through the evening, anyone can theoretically participate. In fact, the older men, the more gifted men, and the socially more prominent men tend to do the reciting. The reciters will shift depending on who is seated in the circle. Young people can have their own haflat samar where the same selection process prevails but produces, naturally, different reciters. I have often been seated in such circles when some piece of traditional oral literature is quoted. I might not happen to know the story and so proceed to ask what it is all about. Someone then says, 'Elder so-and-so knows the story.' The ranking social/intellectual figure then proceeds to tell the story with pride. By contrast, in the recitation of formal controlled oral tradition there is a specifically identified teacher with a recognized title and a specifically identified student. The two of them often meet in a special building, a school or college."
ii. "Sixteen years ago, seated in a haflat samar, someone responded to the group conversation with 'Wafaqa Shannun Tabaqa' (Shann was pleased to accept Tabaqa). I immediately sensed that this was the punch-line of a story, and the story was unknown to me. So I asked, in good biblical fashion, 'What mean ye by these things?' The circle quickly sensed the formal nature of what was happening, and someone said, 'Rev. Dagher knows the story.' In fact, they all knew it, but the ranking patriarch was given the honour of telling the story to the newcomer. The story had three basic scenes and the proverb as a punch-line at the end. Ten years after hearing this story I dredged it up out of my memory and ran an experiment in one of my classes in Beirut. The class contained village boys from Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. The Egyptian had not heard it. The other four knew the story in all its details. Had any of them ever read it? No, they had only heard it orally. They all knew it as an old story and thus as part of the tradition. 'Did I tell it correctly?' I asked. Answer - yes. We then examined what must be present in the recitation for them to sense that I was telling it correctly. We produced a list. The proverb that appeared in the story (the punch-line) had to be repeated verbatim. The three basic scenes could not be changed, but the order of the last two could be reversed without triggering the community rejection mechanism. The basic flow of the story and its conclusion had to remain the same. The names could not be changed. The summary punch-line was inviolable. However, the teller could vary the pitch of one character's emotional reaction to the other, and the dialogue within the flow of the story could at any point reflect the individual teller's style and interests. That is, the story-teller had a certain freedom to tell the story in his own way as long as the central thrust of the story was not changed.
iii. Professor Bailey's complete article can be found on line at: http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_tradition_bailey.html. If you do a journal search, it will be identified as: Bailey, K. E. "Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels." Themelios 20.2 (January 1995): pp. 4-11.
e. Let us see how these ideas apply to some familiar NT examples:
i. To accurately retell the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-23), one must include four kinds of soil: beaten path, rocky ground, thorns, and good soil. One must also include three outcomes: birds, withered, choked, and the thirty-/sixty-/hundred-fold harvest. But the sequence of the thirty/sixty/hundred can be changed with impunity, and Luke can even omit the thirty and sixty in a more tightly written account addressed to Gentile readers.
ii. In the case of Jesus' resurrection, it is obligatory to report the presence of angels at the tomb, but it is not critical to how many of them were present is not critical to the central thrust of the report. The so-called "discrepancies" in the resurrection stories may be troublesome by current expectations, but for the tellers and hearers of these stories they not of any consequence.
iii. The "riddle story" about Jesus and the woman taken in adultery (John 7:33-8:11) illustrates how persistently a piece of oral tradition can survive. This story does not appear in some Greek manuscripts. Some manuscripts include it after John 7:36 or John 21:25, or even after Luke 21:38, with variations in the text. Although it may not have been known to Mark or John, some copyist remembered it as a part of the "heard word of God" (1 Thessalonians 2:13) and recognized that it deserved to be preserved for future generations. Clearly, the punch-line ("Let him who is without sin...") is what gave the story value, made it memorable, and affords assurance that it is authentic.
UNIT 4
New Testament Christology
1. Definitions
The following words come from Greek:
Christology -- Any word that ends in "-ology" means "the study of", and sometimes "the doctrine of". Christology, therefore, is the study of, or the doctrine of, what we believe about Jesus.
orthodox -- the correct opinion on any matter: orthos = straight, correct doxa = opinion
catholic -- universal: kata = according to holos = the whole, the majority
heresy -- an opinion that cuts one off from the universal church: hairein = to cut
2. Three modern Christological heresies
a. Some 20th-Century scholars pursued what Albert Schweitzer called The Quest for the Historical Jesus. They thought that many of the New Testament stories about Jesus were mythical or legendary rather than eye-witness historical fact. The myths and legends, including the story of the resurrection, they said, developed in the Christian community in the centuries after the crucifixion. Therefore, it became popular to distinguish between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. The problem, as Schweitzer and others discovered, was that after the so-called myth and legend had been stripped away, their so-called historical Jesus was nowhere to be found. And, of course, their so-called Christ of faith was only a figment of pious imagination, but of little use or interest except to the credulous and those who confuse poetry with faith. In this way, recent generations of New Testament scholars have helped empty the churches.
b. In 1985 several New Testament scholars, mainly American, formed The Jesus Seminar. They saw Jesus as a prophet of the "social gospel" and espoused a "liberation theology". They examined each saying of Jesus and tried to decide whether it was authentic, voting on each with four colors of marbles according to its probability. They "discovered" that only 14% of the New Testament's Jesus-sayings were authentic. Of course, with a preconceived bias against miracles and against the doctrine of his deity, their results could hardly have been otherwise. They show a preference for the Gospel of Thomas, a Second-Century Gnostic work.
c. In his recent books, The Pagan Christ (2005) and Water Into Wine (2007), Tom Harpur, a former Anglican minister and former professor at Wycliffe College, Toronto, propounds the view that Jesus never really existed, but that the early church made him up from ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian myths and legends. Whereas in his first book, For Christ's Sake (1993), Tom promoted the teachings of a demythologized historical Jesus, now he wants us to derive spiritual benefit from a "re-mythologized" Jesus who never really existed. But despite his theological drift, I am enormously grateful to Tom for having introduced me to the writings of Birger Gerhardsson, the Swedish theologian who pioneered the study of oral tradition in the New Testament. Professor Gerhardsson's work restores the credibility of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the New Testament.
3. Orthodox Christology
The orthodox view is that Jesus is the unique Incarnation of God (in+carne = in the flesh). This idea met with opposition from the very beginning. Jews had difficulty with the idea that God might come in the flesh. Greeks scoffed at the idea that a mere man might rise from the dead. Some early heretics believed that the divine Christ borrowed the body of Jesus at baptism, then "dumped" him before the crucifixion. In our day, the stumbling block is not Jesus' humanity but his divinity, so that is what we focus on in this lesson. It is important to insist that although the word Incarnation does not appear in the New Testament, the idea of the Incarnation certainly does.
4. Pagan testimony to orthodox Christology
Pliny the Younger, Governor of Bithynia, a province in Asia Minor, wrote to the Emperor Trajan in AD 111 asking advice about prosecuting Christians, who practised a religio illicita, an unlicensed religion. He describes Christian worship as he learned of it from some of the accused. This is the earliest non-Christian evidence that the doctrine of the deity of Jesus was firmly established among early Christians. Here, in translation, is what he said:
"They affirmed the whole of their guilt, or their error, was that they met on a stated day before it was light, and addressed a form of prayer to Christ, as to a divinity [ut deo], binding themselves by a solemn oath [sacramento], not for the purposes of any wicked design, but never to commit any fraud, theft, or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up, after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to eat in common a harmless meal. From this custom, however, they desisted after the publication of my edict, by which, according to your commands, I forbade the meeting of any assemblies."
5. Who did Jesus think he was?
The recurring statement "but I say unto you": Matthew 5:21f, 5:27f, 5:31f, 5:33f, 5:38f, 5:43f
The enduring Word in Mark 13:31; compare Isaaiah 40:8
The healing and forgiveness of the paralytic let down through the roof: Mark 2:1-12
The reference to the Son of Man: Mark 14:62, Matthew 26:64, Luke 22:76 compare Daniel 7:1-14. Note that "Son of Man" is not a reference to Jesus' humanity, but to his divinity. Some hymns, and a whole lot of liberal preachers, miss this point.
The "I am" sayings at John 8:24 and 8:56-59; compare Exodus 3:13ff. The Greek of 8:24 does not have the word "he" after "I am".
Why is it significant that the above were believed, recorded, and promoted by Jews? Deut 6:4
6. Who did Paul think Jesus was?
Romans 9:1-5, espec v.5. Note: the RSV translation of 9:5 is incorrect; KJV and ESV and NIV are correct.
Philippians 2:5-11, espec 9,11. What is "the Name" (ha Shem) that is above every name? It is not "Jesus", which was common in Hebrew as "Joshua", but the sacred name of God that God proclamed at Exodus 3:13ff, and which the KJV translates in capital letters as LORD.
Col 1:15-20. Gnostics were already at work in Paul's day and needed correction.
7. Who did the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews think Jesus was?
Carefully examine Chapter 1, noting especially vv. 2, 3, 6, 8, 10-12.
8. Names and Titles of the Savior
a. Jesus and Emmanuel -- These two names occur in Matthew 1:21-23. The angel tells Joseph to name the child "Jesus". Matthew says this fulfills Isaiah's prophecy that the child will be called "Emmanuel". It looks like a contradiction, but in fact there is no contradiction at all. Emmanuel, or Immanuel, means "God with us": (Im = with nu = us el = God). Jesus, or Ye(ho)shua, means "God is salvation": (Yeho is the Name of God; shua = salvation).
b. Christ -- "Christ" was not Jesus' surname. His surname was "ben Yousef" (= son of Joseph). Christos is a Greek word that means "anointed"; it translates the Hebrew mashiah, or messiah, which also means "anointed". It is his title of office as the one whom God has "ordained".
c. Son of Man -- See para 6 above.
9. After the Apostles
With the destruction of Jerusalem under the Roman Emperor Titus in AD 70 and again under the Roman Emperor Hadrian in AD 135, Christianity was largely severed from its Jewish roots to make its way among the Gentiles of the Greco-Roman world. The philosophical minds of that world raised speculative questions, mainly about Jesus and the Trinity, but there were no apostles left to answer them. The official and, I think, correct answer about the person of Jesus was that the Incarnation resulted in one person with two natures, truly divine and truly human. Just as an oyster creates a pearl when it is irritated by an intruding grain of sand, so the Church created some of its choicest intellectual gems in response to the challenge of heresy. The process, however, was often very political and very nasty. At this point, however, it should be noted that we are no longer dealing with Biblical theology, but rather with systematic theology, which is the attempt to understand how all the things that we believe fit logically together. But systematic theology sometimes asks questions that the Bible does not directly answer. The outcome might therefore sometimes better be called speculative theology.
10. Two (of many) ancient Christological heresies
a. Arianism -- Arius of Alexandria was exiled to Illyria in AD 325, after the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea, for teaching that God the Father is too pure and infinite to appear on earth, but produced Christ out of nothing as his first and greatest creation. The Son then created the universe. According to Arius, the Son was not of the same "substance" or nature as the Father. He was, therefore, a Son by adoption rather than by nature. Nevertheless, because of his great position and authority, he was to be worshipped and even looked upon as God. Some Arians also held that the Holy Spirit was, in turn, the first and greatest creation of the Son. At Jesus' incarnation, the Arians said, the divine quality of the Son, the Logos, took the place of the human and spiritual aspect of the man Jesus. Try, if you will, to imagine a "soul transplant". Because the Arians denied the orthodox view that Jesus is wholly man and wholly God, but were willing to worship him as a created being, it could be argued that they were actually advocating idolatry.
b. Docetism -- From the Greek word dokein (= "to seem"), docetism was actually a variety of views that had in common the notion that the Christ, being a divine spirit, only seemed to have human attributes, and only seemed to suffer. This notion was popular among the Gnostics, who believed that spirit was good, matter was bad, and salvation consisted in escaping from the prison of our body and from this material world. If such a view were correct, God could hardly be expected to participate in an incarnation, nor even in the creation of the material world. This heresy was already at work during New Testament times, as can be seen from 1 John 4:2 and 2 John 7. In the second century, Cerinthus held that the Christ descended on Jesus of Nazareth at his baptism, but "dumped" him before the crucifixion. Mohammed, in the fifth century, must have been influenced by such a view, for the Qur'an says, "They did not kill him and they did not crucify him, but it was made to seem so to them."(4:157). This illustrates how error can pervade entire peoples and nations from one misguided church.
11. Jesus, as defined by the Ecumenical Councils
The ecumenical councils of the early centuries sought to define orthodox doctrines and to exclude heretical opinions from the Church. They asked, 'What have the majority of Christians everywhere always believed from the beginning?' That is, 'What is the "catholic" (or universal) and "orthodox" (or correct) view of any given theological issue?'
AD 325 -- The Council of Nicea rejected Arius' view (Arianism) that Jesus was not divine,
but a subordinate or even a created being. The hero of the orthodox view was the Deacon (later Bishop) Athanasius. The creed bearing his name was not actually written by him but dates from about AD 500. The Council said Jesus was "consubstantial (of one substance or being) with the father" (homo-ousios = of the same substance, not homoi-ousios = of a similar substance). Modern Arians include Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and Latter Day Saints. This Council devised the Nicene Symbol, forerunner of the Nicene Creed, which affirmed:
"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of the same substance [homo-ousion] with the Father, through whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth, who for us men and our salvation descended, was incarnate, and was made man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven and cometh to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. Those who say: There was a time when He was not, and He was not before He was begotten, and that He was made out of nothing, or who maintain that He is of another hypostasis or another substance [than the Father], or that the Son of God is created, or mutable, or subject to change, [them] the Catholic Church anathematizes."
AD 381 -- The First Council of Constantinople defined the deity of the Holy Spirit, and added the words "who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and Son together are worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets...."
AD 431 -- The Council of Ephesus defined Christ as being only one person, but both human and divine. A riot was averted in Ephesus when this COuncil defined Mary as theotokos, the "God-bearer" or "Mother of God". Nestorius was banished to a monastery for objecting that theotokos compromised Jesus' two natures. Note Acts 19:21-41, where a riot previously occurred in Ephesus over another "divine mother", and reflect on the adage that old habits die hard.
AD 451 -- The Council of Chalcedon defined the "hypostatic union", the union of the two hypostases or "substances", i.e., the two natures. Although Christ is only one person (hypostasis), there are united in him a divine nature and a human nature. Because the "monophysite" heresy (monos = one, physis = nature) was rejected, we must be careful in interpreting the kenosis (= emptying) mentioned in Philippians 2:7. The line in Wesley's hymn that says Jesus "emptied himself of all but love" may not be correct.
AD 680-1 -- The Third Council of Constantinople condemned monothelism, also called monothelitism (monos = one, thelema = will). This council affirmed that the hypostatic union (the union of divine and human "substances") includes both a divine will and a human will, which are distinct but not in conflict.
The question of how many wills Jesus had is an example of where I think systematic theology turns into speculative theology. We know or we think we know that we make choices, but do we really know what a "will" is? Do we know whether the will actually exists as a distinct "thing" that is different from other "things", such as the emotions or the memory? Until we can define our mental and psychological functions in ways that are not metaphoric, we need to maintain a respectful tentativeness towards such questions as how many "wills" Jesus has or had.
UNIT 5
Jesus' Self-Knowledge and his View of Scripture
1. The historic creeds of the Church all affirm that Jesus was and is truly God and truly man. In our day, many are willing to acknowledge that Jesus actually existed as an historic figure but are skeptical about his deity. His deity, they say, must have been invented later under the influence of pagan mythology. In Unit 4, therefore, we examined passages that show both Jesus and Paul clearly affirming Jesus' divine nature in terms that could not avoid scandalizing their Jewish contemporaries. The astonishing thing is that Jesus, and Paul, and the earliest Christians all being Jews themselves would have risked their lives for such an idea, which, if it were not true, would be outrageously heretical.
2. On the other hand, in defending Jesus' deity, we who are orthodox too easily lose sight of his humanity. In Greek mythology, the goddess Athena was born fully formed from the head of Zeus. Jesus, however, "grew up before [the LORD] like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground" (Isaiah 53:2). He had an actual family life, with parents and siblings (Matt 13:54-56), and an extended family (Luke 2:45) that included, among others, Aunt Elizabeth, Uncle Zechariah, and cousin John. His formative years were as authentic a human experience as any precocious, gifted, Jewish child could have, including involvement in the life of the Temple and his local synagogue (Luke 1:22, Luke 2:41,42, Matt 4:16). Undoubtedly he did a lot of deep thinking, even at an early age (Luke 2:46-48), and his parents and siblings did not understand what went on in his head (Luke 2:49-51, Mark 3:20,21,32-24).
3. If we believe that Jesus' humanity was real, we have to assume that his intellectual and spiritual formation took place in much the same way that ours does, though without sin (Hebrews 4:15). His formation included a good knowledge of the Bible, for the synagogues used a weekly lectionary (Where did you think we got the idea?) and their weekly Sabbath services included a discussion of the day's reading (Luke 4:17-29).
4. The first time you see Jesus displaying any self-knowledge -- and his family failing to understand him -- is at age 12, when the family had come to Jerusalem for Passover, circa 5 AD. Luke records this incident at 2:41-52.
41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. 43 And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, 44 but supposing him to be in the group they went a days journey. But then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, 45 and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress." 49 And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Fathers house?" 50 And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. 51 And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
On the reasonable assumption that Mary and Joseph were responsible parents, it seems clear that Jesus must have had a substantial extended family and moved freely among them. Otherwise there would be no accounting for Mary and Joseph's belated discovery of his absence. In his youth he would likely have had conversations with Uncle Zechariah about the Scriptures, and he would have heard the stories recorded in our "infancy narratives" (Matt 1,2 Luke 1,2) from Zechariah and Elizabeth, as well as from Mary and Joseph. These infancy narratives, as we have received them, contain very explicit statements about Jesus' messianic calling. So at 12 years old he was already primed for this discussion with the scholars in the Temple, who had never met a young student quite like him! Considering the things that his family had told him, he was genuinely astonished that it never occurred to them that he would be "in his Father's house" -- or to render the Greek more literally, "in the [things] of my Father" (en tais tou patros mou - Luke 2:49).
It is tempting to speculate on the content of Jesus' discussion with the scholars in the Temple. His comment about "my Father's things" makes it clear that he was starting to get a sense of who he was and what he was about. He might very well have asked the same question that teased some scholars with 20 years later:
"What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." 43 He said to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 44"'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'? 45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?" (Luke 20, Psalm 110)
5. Eighteen years pass between that incident in the Temple and our next story about Jesus, which we piece together from Luke and Matthew:
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar...the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight....6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'" (Luke 3)
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 But John [who knew his cousin well] would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" 15 But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. 17 And behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3)
John understands, and we understand, that Jesus has come for a baptism that he does not need. We know the tradition that Jesus was without sin, and John, who knew Jesus as a close relative, knew there was nothing in Jesus' life that warranted a baptism of repentance. But Jesus explains and John concurs that baptizing Jesus "is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." One wonders how their discussions as young men might have informed this exchange. From the fact that John quotes Isaiah, we understand that "to fulfill all righteousness" means that they are consciously fulfilling some mutually understood requirement of the prophetic Scriptures.
6. In typical prophetic fashion, the word of God came to John in the wilderness (Luke 3:1). That was how the prophets got their commission and their message. So must it be for Jesus. But how did Jesus occupy his mind during those 40 days of fasting and prayer? I submit that he spent the time "searching the scriptures" not poring over a collection of scrolls, but recalling scriptures that he knew so well by memory. Why? Because in them the Holy Spirit would lead him to discern his ministry what he must do and how he must do it. And also how not to do it which is why we find him trading Scripture verses with the devil. This account is reported by Matthew:
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." 4 But he answered, "It is written, "'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, "'He will command his angels concerning you,' and "'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" 7 Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'" 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." 10 Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written, "'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'" 11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. (Matthew 4)
7. The next scene is typical of synagogue worship to the present day: a respected member or a visiting scholar is invited to read the parsha, the daily lection, and to give the d'var Torah, a homily or commentary on the lection. So the well-known, well-liked hometown boy reads the parsha, which happens to be a messianic passage from Isaiah. Then he says an outrageous thing: he tells them, in effect, 'In this passage, Isaiah was writing about me!' Then he adds, 'And by the way, the Bible records an historical pattern of Gentiles receiving the prophets better than you Jews did.' Well, ok, here's how he really said it:
16 [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lords favor." 20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 22 All spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, "Is not this Josephs son?" 23 And he said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Physician, heal yourself.' What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well." 24 And he said, "Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." 28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. 29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away. (Luke 4)
8. Jesus must surely have been influenced by the stories that his family told him about his early years, and therefore searched the Scriptures, which were illuminated to him by the Holy Spirit, to get a clear sense of who he was and what he had to do. What do the following three passages tell us about Jesus' view of of the Bible that heand his contemporaries knew, which we call the Old Testament?
37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (John 5)
13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, "What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?" And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" 19 And he said to them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is no the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see." 25 And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" 27And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.... (Luke 24)
44 Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24)
9. An Anglican professor of theology once told me in class (at UBC, not at Wycliffe) that he did not think there were any Messianic prophecies in the Psalms. That professor was later elected Bishop of Huron. But from Jesus' reference to "all the Scriptures" (Luke 24:27) and to "everything that is written about me" (Luke 24:44) we see that Jesus found many references throughout the Scriptures to his role as a dying and rising Messiah. John 5:37-40 tells us that Jesus thought this is what the Bible (i.e., the Old Testament) is mainly about. Examine the following passages and consider how Jesus would have seen them as pointing to himself:
a. The Melchizedek tradition:
17 After [Abraham's] return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him...18.. Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!" And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. (Gen 14)
1 The LORD says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." 4 The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." (Psalm 110)
Note how the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews comments on this tradition:
1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2 and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. 3 He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever. 4 See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils! 7 It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. 9 One might even say that Levi himself, who (being the ancestor of the tribe of priests) receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, 10for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him. (Hebrews 7)
b. God's character and motives as understood from the sacrifice of Isaac:
7 Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here am I, my son." He said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 8 Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together. (Genesis 22)
c. from Moses' final instructions after the Exodus, before his death, before entering Canaan:
17 And the LORD said unto me.... 18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. 19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. (Deuteronomy 18)
d. what God said via Nathan when David wanted to build Him a house of worship in Jerusalem:
...the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. 12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.'" (2 Samuel 7)
11 The LORD swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: "One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. 12 If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne." (Psalm 132)
e. the words of King David, on receiving news of the execution of Absalom, who had betrayed him:
And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Samuel 18)
f. Job's confidence in vindication, despite his overwhelming and inexplicable suffering:
23 "Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! 24 Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! 25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh (some translators: without my flesh) I shall see God, 27 whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. (Job 19)
g. the Suffering Servant:
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned - every one - to his own way and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.... 10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him he has put him to grief when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring he shall prolong his days the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53)
h. The Sonship Psalm (Psalm 2):
1 Why do the nations rage / and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, / and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD / and against his Anointed (=Messiah), saying,
3 "Let us burst their bonds apart / and cast away their cords from us."
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs / the Lord holds them in derision.
5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, / and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6 "As for me, I have set my King / on Zion, my holy hill."
7 I will tell of the decree: / The LORD said to me,
"You are my Son / today I have begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, / and the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron / and dash them in pieces like a potters vessel."
10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise / be warned, O rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear, / and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, / for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (Psalm 2)
The RSV translates 2:11b and 12a "Serve the LORD with fear / with trembling kiss his feet". A
footnote explains that this is a "conjecture" because, it sdays, "the Hebrew of 11b and 12a is uncertain. But more likely, what the RSV translators mean by "uncertain" is that they can't believe that the Old Testament really says "son"!
j. the fourth word from the Cross (Psalm 22):
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? /
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
3 Yet you are holy, / enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 In you our fathers trusted / they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried and were rescued / in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
7 All who see me mock me / they make mouths at me / they wag their heads
8 "He trusts in the LORD let him deliver him / let him rescue him, for he delights in him!"
16 a company of evildoers encircles me / they have pierced my hands and feet
18 they divide my garments among them, / and for my clothing they cast lots.
22 I will tell of your name to my brothers / in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who fear the LORD, praise him! /
24 For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, /
and he has not hidden his face from him, / but has heard, when he cried to him.
26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied / those who seek him shall praise the LORD.
29 before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, / even he who could not keep himself alive.
31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, / that he has done it.
k. the Sign of Jonah:
2 "I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me
out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.
6 I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever
yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God. (Jonah 2, Matt 12:38-40)
10. Here are two "bottom line" questions about the Bible that Jesus knew, i.e, the Old Testament:
Q. Apart from any discussion about science or archaeology or history, why should we believe the Bible?
A. Because Jesus did.
Q. What is that Bible mainly about?
A. Jesus seems to have thought that it is mainly about -- or at least pointing towards -- himself.
Here's a supplementary question:
Q. What would it take to make someone else's opinion of the Bible more compelling than Jesus' opinion?
A. That "someone else" might try living a flawless life, getting himself executed on a matter of principle, and then rising from the dead. If you don't find this answer compelling, have a look at Unit 8, or check out the following references:
Anderson, J. N. D. The Evidence for the Resurrection. Chicago: IVP, 1959. I credit the argument in this small pamphlet with keeping me in the faith during my university years.
Lyon, Robert. The Sign of Jonah: An Empirical Approach to Christian Apologetics. Guelph:
Graphikos, 2005. This book argues that the two factual bases of Christianity are the reliability of the NT (Gerhardsson) and the historicity of the Resurrection (Anderson). It also discusses the deity of Jesus, the Trinity, the Atonement, and the problem of faith versus knowledge.
Morison, Frank. Who Moved the Stone? London: Faber, 1975. An unbelieving journalist,
recognizing that Christianity is finished if he can discredit the Resurrection, tries to do so and gets converted in the process. Very readable.
Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.
The foremost Anglican theologian of our day exhaustively examines the evidence for and the importance of the Resurrection.
UNIT 6
The Trinity
1. What do you think?
The following statements are from Tom Harpur's For Christ's Sake Oxford, 1986, pp.5-8. Indicate whether you think these statements are TRUE or FALSE.
a. ...very few preachers can give a reasonable account of either
the doctrine of the Trinity or the doctrine of the Incarnation............TRUE___FALSE___
b. They repeat formulae that were worked out, with much quarreling
and bitterness, in the fourth and fifth centuries.................................TRUE___FALSE___
c. by men whose needs, outlook, and understanding of the universe
were vastly different from our own..................................................TRUE___FALSE___
d. These formulae are no longer useful............................................TRUE___FALSE___
e. You simply cannot find the doctrine of the Trinity set out anywhere
in the Bible......................................................................................TRUE___FALSE___
f. These traditional formulae are incomprehensible to a generation
that has seen men walking on the moon..........................................TRUE___FALSE___
2. Of course, Mr Harpur is right, or at least partially right: there is no articulated doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament. Not even the word "Trinity" is used there, for, the word "Trinity" had not yet been invented. But the concept of God as a triune being pervades the New Testament; and its writers, who were mostly Jews, show no sense of conflict between the notion of God as Three and their solid Jewish tradition that God is One. In respect of both this and many ideas, both religious and secular, it is important to recognize that thought moves naturally through a sequence from (a) a general concept, to (b) a technical label that identifies that concept, to (c) a developed doctrine, articulated in detail.
3. The Trinity in the New Testament
a. The clearest statement of the Trinity -- but still without the technical label -- occurs at 1 John 5:7 in the King James Version: "..there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." But this verse does not exist in the most reliable Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. It must, therefore, be a copyist's interpolation -- i.e., a "helpful" insertion. Because these words were not penned by the author of 1 John, they are not part of Scripture and are omitted from the best modern translations. However, because this interpolation was probably made before the word "Trinity" was in common use, it affords evidence that Christians held such a concept from the very earliest times.
b. If you're conducting a Bible study on the Trinity, you should examine each of the following passages. Note how in each case the writer understands the three Persons to be distinct but cooperating in a common purpose. These passages certainly evidence a concept of the Trinity, but not yet the label or an articulated doctrine. Moreover, that concept must have been important, for in each instance it occurs as an introduction from which the rest follows.
Mark 1:9-1l -- Romans 1:1-4 -- Ephesians 1:3-14 -- Colossians 1:3-8 -- 1 Thessalonians 1:2-7 -- 1 Peter 1:2
c. Paul concludes his second letter to the church at Corinth with a trinitarian blessing: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (2 Corinthians 13:14). Neither the names nor their sequence fits our familiar pattern of Father, Son, and Spirit, yet this sentence is clearly trinitarian and appears to be a liturgical formula. Did Paul invent this blessing as he was writing the letter, or was he quoting a blessing that was already in use in the churches? Whatever inferences you may draw on these questions, two things are clear: the combining of the three persons shows that such an idea was already familiar in the churches when this letter was written, around 55 to 57 AD; and the naming of Jesus before God (i.e., the Father) shows that Paul did not think of Jesus as subordinate or inferior to the Father.
d. Compare the baptismal formula at Matthew 28:19,20 with the actual practice of baptism in the early church, as seen in Acts 8:14-17. The baptismal formula in Matthew says: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in [or into] the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." On the other hand, the actual practice among at least some early Christians was, as Luke describes it in Acts 8:16, to baptize "in the name of the Lord Jesus." So what shall we think of the trinitarian formula at the end of Matthew? Did Jesus actually say it? Perhaps not. Otherwise, we should not find the believers at Acts 5 baptizing "in the name of the Lord Jesus". Does that mean that there is something wrong with Matthew's tradition of trinitarian baptism? No. Why not? Because the rabbinic method of delivering a tradition included the possibility of adding a commentary, called a midrash. And considering Jesus' promise that the Holy Spirit would guide his disciples into all the truth (John 16:13), we should accept this Christian midrash as part of the New Testament revelation. Unlike the trinitarian statement at 1 John 5:7, which John did not write, this midrash really is a part of the original text of Matthew. However, to distinguish Jesus' actual words from Matthew's midrash, Matthew 28:19,20 could be printed thus:
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations [baptizing them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit], teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." Let me emphasize that Matthew's trinitarian tradition is not invalidated by the possibility that Jesus did not actually say it. Quite the opposite: it shows us that between the events of Acts 8 (circa AD 35) and the writing of Matthew's gospel (circa AD 70), the early church was developing, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, liturgical forms that matched its growing understanding of the revelation that God had committed to it.
e. In Acts 5:3f, Luke tells us about Peter's confrontation with a chap who was involved in a shady real estate deal. Peter tells him that, "...Satan [has] filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit....You have not lied to men but to God." From this we see that Peter, and no doubt Luke and the others, understood the Holy Spirit to be God, and to be a person, for one cannot "lie" to a dog or to a lamppost.
4. Understanding the Concept, Forming the Doctrine
a. The starting point for all Jewish and Christian theology is the Sh'ma, which says: Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonoi elohenu, Adonoi ekhod. "Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD is One." The one-ness of God is fundamental. We must inevitably hold other doctrines in addition to this, but they may not be in conflict with it.
The complete passage, at Deuteronomy 6:4-9, was first spoken when Moses rehearsed the commandments with his people. As well as teaching the unity of God and obedience to his word, it also teaches us our duty to catechize our children. "Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
b. The doctrine of the Trinity is not without its problems. A particular problem is the fact that the names of the persons are all metaphoric. The first two, Father and Son, are anthropomorphisms, drawn from our experience of the human family. The third, Spirit, is a nature metaphor, for the Hebrew ruakh, the Greek pneuma, and the Latin spiritus all mean "wind" or "breath". To compound the problem, the Holy Spirit is often portrayed as a dove. So we can empathize with the seeker in a distant land who, in a story that is no doubt apocryphal, said to the missionary, "Honorable Father, very good. Honorable Son, also very good. But honorable Sacred Bird I not understand."
The man in that story may be fictitious, but he has lots of real company. From the earliest centuries of the church, the notion of God as a Trinity inspired a number of errors -- "heresies" they were called -- such as Arianism, modalism, monophysitism, and Macedonianism. These errors were addressed in the Nicene Creed (AD 325) and the Athanasian Creed (ca. AD 500). If you have a Canadian Anglican Book of Common Prayer, you can find the Nicene Creed at p.71 and the Athanasian Creed at p.695.
c. One effective way to understand a doctrine like the Trinity is to examine the various errors that accompany it, so let's look at the four errors mentioned above:
i. Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria, 318 AD, asserted that the Son is of a "similar substance" to the Father (homoiousios), but he is not of the "same substance" as the Father (homoousios). He held that the Son was in some sense created, that "there was a time when the Son was not". This view of Jesus as a subordinate being who is less than God is called Arianism.
ii. Sabellius, a Roman presbyter, ca. 215 AD, taught that the God, like an actor in a one-man show, merely performed in three different modes. This idea that God manifested himself in three modes or persons in order to achieve our salvation, but that he is not, in himself, triune, is called modalism or Sabellianism.
iii. Monophysitism, from monos (one) and physis (nature), refers to the idea that Jesus had effectively only one nature, not two. Monophysites taught that in one way or another Jesus' human nature was taken over by the divine nature. That would make him more like a Superman than an actual incarnation. He would not then be truly one of us, and could not be truly our representative as either sacrifice or priest.
iv. Macedonius, a semi-Arian Bishop of Constantinople, AD 342 (semi-Arian = the Son was eternal but not of the same essense as the Father) taught that the Holy Spirit was not eternal, and not consubstantial with the Father and the Son; the Spirit, he taught, was a creation of the Father and an action of the Son. The Macedonians therefore effectively denied that the Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity.
d. The orthodox doctrine distinguishes between the ontological Trinity (= God as he is in his being) and the economical relationships (= as he acts on our behalf). The ONE God really IS a TRINITY; he's not just playing three different characters. But it is also true that the three Persons also cooperate in relationships where, for the functional purpose of achieving our salvation, there is subordination. Therefore in one place John's gospel reports Jesus as saying, "I and the father are one" (John 10:30), and four chapters later he says, "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). If this is difficult to imagine, picture three brothers who join the army. The first becomes an officer, the second a sergeant, and the third a corporal. At home they are equally brothers; at work they have different roles and status, though they continue to display similarities and cooperate in a common cause.
e. The Jehovah's Witnesses are today's Arians. In their booklet "The Word, Who is He According to John", they argue that Jesus and the Holy Spirit cannot be God, because that would make three gods. As "proof", they cite the equation: 1+1+1=3. Christians reply that God is infinite, and therefore if the three Persons are all God, each person must be infinite. So the Jehovah's Witnesses' equation, insofar as it pertains to God, is incorrect; the correct equation is: ∞ + ∞ + ∞ = ∞ (where ∞ is the symbol for infinity).
f. One of God's attributes is his aseity (pronounced "a-say-i-ty"), that is, his self-sufficiency. Psalm 50:10,12 express it thus: "..every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills....If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine." God is not "needy", emotionally or otherwise; he did not create the universe out of boredom or loneliness. But if God is self-sufficient, his self-sufficiency must include self-sufficiency in respect of communication; unlike us, he must not need anyone to 'speak' to or about. Now, our grammar tells us that the complete range of communication requires at least three persons: an "I" who speaks, a "you" who is spoken to, and a "he" who is spoken about. The triune God, in his aseity or self-sufficiency, experiences all these possibilities within himself. If you're wondering about the validity of this grammar analogy, remember that we're made "in the image of God"; many aspects of our human nature, including our communication and our family structure, must necessarily emulate the divine three-ness.
g. Tom Harpur (For Christ's Sake Oxford, 1986, p.34) objects that "The concept of God praying let alone praying to Himself is incomprehensible.... (unless) ....his prayer-dependence on God was nothing more than a sham for our edification...." But now you can understand why there is no sham in Jesus' praying: first, because the self-sufficient God is not only his own best audience but also his own most interesting subject matter; and second, because it is entirely appropriate, even inevitable, that the self-sufficient God should communicate with himself about himself. This is what God does.
5. It must, however, be acknowledged that some aspects of the traditional doctrine of the Trinity are not very useful.
a. The first of these is the "eternal generation of the Son". The logic behind this doctrine seems to be that, if sons are born of fathers, if the divine Son is to be seen as eternal and not ontologically subordinate to the divine Father, then Jesus must eternally be being born of the Father. Scripture does, after all, refer to Jesus as God's "only-begotten" (John 3:16). But the Greek word monogene, traditionally translated "only-begotten", might better be translated simply as "only" or "unique" -- emphasizing the superior status of the "firstborn" rather than the actual birthing. For although "eternal generation" tries to clarify the eternal relationship between Father and Son, to my mind it does not clarify anything. Rather, I think it tries to get more meaning out of the "birthing" metaphor than the metaphor is able to give.
b. The second such notion is the "eternal procession of the Spirit". Again, this tries to clarify the eternal relationship between the Spirit and the Father -- or between the Spirit and the Father and the Son. But again I do not think that the language clarifies anything. Those passages that refer to the sending of the Spirit can almost all be understood as referring to the Spirit's activities at Pentecost and beyond.
c. The Filioque Controversy. Early forms of the Nicene Creed said that the Holy Spirit proceeds "from the Father". In the 6th century, some Latin-rite churches added the words "and the Son" (Latin filioque, pronounced "fee-lee-oh-kway"). By the 9th century this was generating debate, and in the 1054 it helped cause the split between the Eastern Orthodox, who never included it, and Western Catholics, who did include it. Many modern liturgies omit the words "and the Son" not because they are wrong, but because they were never approved by a general council of the undivided church. See John 15:26,27.
6. After all that, it may still seem that God's being a Trinity is, at best, an interesting but not very useful idea. In fact, it is very useful, for it tells us that at the heart of this universe there is a perfect relationship, in whose image we are made -- not only as individuals but also as families -- and who reaches out to restore our broken relationships, with himself, with one another, and with the world in which we live. You can't get more useful than that.
UNIT 7
The Atonement
1. Jesus came to die. Death was not the end of his ministry; death was his ministry. He said so himself:
"For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." Mark 10:45
2. That Jesus lived is an historical fact. That he died is an historical fact. That he rose again is also an historical fact (as will be shown in the next unit). But that he died for our sins is NOT historically demonstrable. None of the people at the foot of the cross would have attributed such a purpose to the event as they watched it occurring. But Christians attribute that purpose to Jesus' death (a) because he said we should, and (b) because he rose again, validating everything that he said. Because this doctrine is not objectively demonstrable, and because of all Christian doctrines this one hits closest to home, i.e., to our conscience, it becomes the defining focus for our salvation.
3. What was Jesus' most enduring teaching about the meaning of his death? See Mark 14:22-26
When did Jesus' disciples understand the meaning of his death? See Luke 24:6-8, 25-27, 44-47
4. The Language of Atonement
a. In Mark 10:45 Jesus says that he came "to give his life a ransom for many". This statement contains two motifs that pertain to his atoning death: "give his life" and "ransom".
To "give his life" implies a sacrifice, which to Mark's audience would recall the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament.
"Ransom" suggests purchasing freedom for a slave.
b. The New Testament writers also use such words as "redemption" and "redeemer", "atone" and "atonement", "reconciled" and "reconciliation", and "propitiation".
"Redemption" and "redeemer" refer to the freeing of a debtor or a slave.
To "atone" means to take an action that makes formerly hostile parties "at one"; therefore, "atonement" is "at-one-ment". ("At-one-ment" really is the actual etymology of the English word "atonement".)
Reconciliation is the state of restored peace that exists after restitution has been
made.
My God is reconciled / his pard'ning voice I hear.
He owns me for his child: / I can no longer fear.
With confidence I now draw nigh and Father! Abba! Father! cry,
and Father! Abba! Father cry.
Charles Wesley - "Arise, my soul, arise"
Note that, according to Charles Wesley's hymn, when peace is restored between an offended party and an offender, it is the offended party -- God -- who is said to be reconciled.
"Propitiation" is any act or thing offered to appease an offended party, or to make an offended party favorably disposed towards his offender. "...he is the propitiation for our sins...." 1 John 2:2
5. The Nature of the Atonement
Officially, the Evangelical, Reformed, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches all believe that the Atonement was (a) penal, (b) substitutionary, and (c) objective. "Liberal" churches have difficulty with all three.
Penal. This means that his death was a penalty or punishment. The ultimate penalty is to be forsaken by God, as in Mark 15:34, Psalm 22:1)
Substitutionary. This means that the punishment was endured for us. "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God....1 Peter 3:18
Objective. This means that Jesus death was not just an illustration of God's forgiveness, but a necessary transactional event without which there could be no forgiveness. "Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." Hebrews 9:22
6. Misconceptions about the Atonement
a. Why must there be an act of Atonement? Why can't God just forgive and forget?
Take public justice as an example. Courts operate on common law, also called case law, whereby they try to treat each case the same way as similar cases have been treated previously. To do otherwise would be unfair, which would impugn the justice of the courts. And if courts are unjust, or fail to treat the unlawful as they deserve, then the collapse of conscience and social order cannot be far behind. Similarly, the forgiveness of sin without due consequence would impugn God's justice, which would really impugn God's character. God cannot say "Thou shalt not..." and then fail to take himself seriously. Therefore, God's problem is how to be both just and a justifier; how to forgive without compromising his justice. His solution is Jesus' sacrifice.
"God hath set forth [Jesus] to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare God's righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God [so that] he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." Romans 3:25,26
b. It's a cruel Father who would make an innocent Son pay for the sins of others.
Beneath this objection lies a false assumption the assumption that Jesus is a third party, distinct from us, but also distinct from God. If this assumption were true, the objection would be valid. But in fact Jesus is not a third party, for the man Jesus is also God. (The problem derives from failing to understand that the words "Father" and "Son" are metaphors, and that metaphors must not be pushed to yield meanings beyond what they were intended to convey.) At the crucifixion, it was God himself, as representative Man, who was taking upon himself the penalty that he must otherwise exact of us. God's action in Jesus is the ultimate example of what in the army we called leadership by example: not expecting someone else to do what you're not willing to do yourself.
c. It is immoral even impossible to think of transferring guilt to someone else.
If one person voluntarily pays another's financial debt, the debtor will be free and clear. But where is the justice in one person's going to gaol for another? It is easy enough to transfer money. But how can you transfer guilt? How can our dirty deeds ever become anyone else's? Normally they cannot, but the fact of God's participation makes the circumstances entirely exceptional. We must begin with the assumption that, morally, we are hopelessly bankrupt debtors. We can never discharge our debt by ourselves. "Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life..." (Psalm 49:7-9). A generous but honest banker who wants to maintain the integrity of his bank must either hail the bankrupt before a judge, or pay off the bank out of his own resources. If you were the banker, and the debtor happened to be your child, you know which you would do. When you had done so, your child would have no debt and be subject to no punishment. But he would be indebted to you "big time", as we are to God. "So then, brothers, we are debtors..." (Romans 8:12). Since God in Jesus has himself satisfied his own justice, he can now treat us as if we had no guilt. It is our judicial guilt our guilt before the Law - that is taken away when our felt guilt creates faith and repentance. By that faith we are "justified", which is explained as meaning "just-as-if-I'd never sinned". That's not good philology, but it is good theology. "..being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1).
7. Jesus and the Old Testament Sacrifices
Reference: Hebrews 9:1-3, 6-15, 23-28; 10:1-4, 11-18
The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews seems to be a Hellenized Jew who is at home not only in the ideas of the Old Testament but also in the ideas of Greek philosophy, especially those of Plato, perhaps via Philo of Alexandria. He is familiar with Plato's allegory of the cave, found in Book VII of The Republic. In this work, Plato portrays the condition of human knowledge by an allegory that casts us in the role of people bound in a cave. As we sit facing the cave's inner wall, there is a big fire behind us, and all manner of persons and things are moving about between our backs and the fire. We never see their real forms, for they are out of view, but the fire projects shadows of those forms on the wall of our cave. Using this image, Plato wants us to understand that everything we see around us all that we mistake for reality whether animal, vegetable, or mineral are but imperfect shadows, or projections, of the true forms that exist as eternal ideas. To give an example in theistic terms, every horse you see is but a shadow, an approximation, of the ideal form of horsiness that exists in the mind of God.
Alluding to Plato's analysis of reality, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that even "...the Torah has but a shadow of the good things to come, and not the true form of the realities..." (Hebrews 10:1). Therefore, the writer argues, the sacrifices that the Torah prescribes must be imperfect shadows of something that is infinitely greater, with the result that the Torah "can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near [to worship].... For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins..." Hebrews 10:1,4.
A shadow necessarily implies the existence of the form that casts it. In this case, the True Form the death of the Messiah is an eternal transaction that took place "in a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this world)" (Hebrews 9:11f). In God's eternal purpose the Messiah was "slain from before the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8), "thereby securing an eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12).
But the True Form had been casting shadows down through history long before that event on a hill called Calvary. Those shadows include not only the rituals of sacrifice that you find in the Old Testament but also, though more imperfectly, a variety of sacrificial acts and instincts that have persisted throughout the ancient and modern world. Not only do most of us feel guilty after a misdeed, and acknowledge a "felt need" to make amends for it or failing that, a need to make an excuse but we also suspect something is wrong with anyone who does not feel this need. Fortunately, such a view is not confined to those who profess religion, which may be why societies are able to maintain civil order despite a diversity of beliefs. Indeed, the compulsion for recompense or excuse is so universally recognized that it would not be astonishing to come across a theory that we are "hard wired" for such a compulsion. I think it is this compulsion that the Holy Spirit uses bringing us to repentance and faith.
I once heard a marvelous example of this from a missionary to the third world. He told of a woman who, coming to his mission, heard the gospel for the first time. As she learned about Jesus dying for her sins, she exclaimed, "I always knew there must be a God like that!"
UNIT 8
The Resurrection
1. The Importance of the Resurrection
"If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God...." (1 Corinthians 15:14f)
"If we have hope in Christ for this life only, then of all people we are most to be pitied." (1 Corinthians 15:19)
"If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" (Menander,Thais, cited by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:32).
2. What is Faith?
I use the nouns "faith" and "belief" (verb: "believe") interchangeably.
Faith is not an alternative way of knowing. It is not in competition with -- nor a substitute for -- science.
Faith does not validate the thing believed in. That is to say, believing something doesn't make it true.
Faith is not a donum superadditum, some kind of special gift that lets you believe what others cannot. Jesus said that if you have faith as small "as a grain of mustard seed", that's more than enough (Matthew 17:20; Luke 17:6). So don't be begging God for more faith; you already have your mustard seed. What matters is where you plant it and what you feed it.
Faith -- like hope and love and fear -- is an attitude.
Faith is an attitude of trust in, or reliance on, and commitment to, a person, a thing, a process, or an idea. This attitude is based on what you think you know is true about that person, thing, process, or idea.
Just as we do not or, at least, should not commit ourselves in marriage to a spouse without evidence that he/she is the quality person that he/she presents himself/herself to be... Just as we would not jump off the high board without first checking to see that there is sufficient water in the pool... so we put our faith in Jesus because we think he has given us sufficient evidence that he is who he says he is and can do what he promises. Christianity does not promote "blind faith" or a "leap in the dark".
3. "The Sign of Jonah"
We cannot "prove" anything about God by the normal empirical means of drawing inferences from observations or controlled experiment, because God is "outside" this time-space universe (whatever "outside" may mean) and our human way of knowing things works only for things inside it. So when some of Jesus' countrymen asked him for a "sign" to prove who he was, Jesus told them that "there shall no sign be given...but the sign of the prophet Jonah" (Matthew 16:1-4 and Matthew 12:38-40). Jesus said this because, in Jesus, God had entered into this time-space universe, and in the Resurrection he would act inside it in a way that would be not only knowable but would uniquely command our attention. If, as the New Testament writers claim, the Resurrection of Jesus is an objective, historical event -- that is, if it really did happen -- then we are, so to speak, "stuck with" empirical evidence for the existence of God and for an afterlife, and also "stuck with" validation of what Jesus taught and who he claimed to be. If such evidence can be presented, we would be damned fools (perhaps literally so) to disregard it.
4. "Destroy this Temple"
a. Jesus spoke of his Resurrection obliquely, using Jewish allusions that his disciples would puzzle over at the time, but which would ensure that they would remember them until after the event, at which time they would understand them. The first of these was the reference to the Sign of Jonah. The second was a prediction of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which occurred in AD 70. Once when his disciples remarked about the excellent stone masonry of the Temple, Jesus replied that "there shall not be left one stone upon another" (Mark 13:1-3). This must have been a recurring topic, for on another occasion in a curious shift of thought Jesus said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again." His audience were astonished, but John explains that "he was referring to the temple of his body" (John 2:18-22). See also Mark 14:55-59 and Mark 15:29-32.
b. But Jesus' reference to "this Temple" has more layers of meaning than one might infer from John's explanation. In Judaism, the Temple was understood to be the place of God's presence among his people, as had been Solomon's Temple before it, and the portable Tabernacle in the Wilderness (a big tent) before that. But how are we to understand the curious connexion that Jesus makes between the Temple in Jerusalem and his own body -- promising that he would somehow "raise it up again"? Is he implying that he in his body is a substitute for the Temple? Indeed, he is. How can that be so? Because Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. To explain it in Platonic terms, the Temple in Jerusalem is the "shadow", of which Jesus as God incarnate is the "true form". John saw this in his vision of the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem: "I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the LORD God the Almighty and the Lamb" (Revelation 21:22) and "I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people'" (Revelation 21:3).
5. Why you can't argue a person into faith.
a. Jesus told a story about a poor man named Lazarus and a nameless rich man who both died. (Some Bibles call the rich man "Dives". But that's not his name; it's just the Latin word for "rich man".) Anyway, the rich man, who was conspicuously uncharitable to Lazarus during his life, finds himself in a different part of the afterlife from Lazarus. He calls out to Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth to warn his five brothers about "this place of torment". But Abraham refuses his request, explaining that "If they do not heed Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead" (Luke 16:19-31). Why, you ask, did Abraham -- actually Jesus -- think anyone could remain unconvinced after seeing someone raised from the dead? Because Jesus recognized that a lot of what passes for intellectual issues are really moral issues. If you try to "squat" on my property without acknowledging my ownership and my right to charge rent, that's not an intellectual issue; it's a moral issue. So it is with living in God's universe and denying his design and ownership. It's not that we don't know any better, but that we don't want to know any better. To state the problem in psychological terms: objective evidence doesn't work with people who are in denial. But to take it a step further, Jesus implies that the denial is willful and deliberate, and therefore sinful. For that reason, what the unbeliever needs is not more evidence but repentance.
b. If you can't argue a person into faith, of what use is it to present the evidence for the Resurrection? Indeed, of what use is any sort of Christian apologetics? Let me offer two answers to this question. First, there are, I think, folk who really would like to believe but need first to have some intellectual difficulties resolved. For these folk, apologetics can strip away the obstacles to where their consciences want to go. It would be easy to view this cynically as encouraging wishful thinking, but remember that unbelief, at its most insidious, is the acting-out of a desire to avoid confronting God. Second, Christians need to know that there are good and sufficient grounds for putting their faith in Jesus. Given the anti-Christian spirit that pervades the academy, the marketplace, and the seats of power, Christians need the answers that apologetics can provide so that they may have confidence in what they believe. Christians need to know that the best minds of Christendom can more than hold their own with the best minds of the unbelieving world. Every Christian needs to "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15).
6. "Many (infallible) proofs"
a. All the primary source documentation that is available for the Resurrection is found in the New Testament. Many who are accustomed to doing scholarly research would dearly like to find some neutral and unbiased first-century report of the event. But such reports do not exist because they are impossible. Skeptical and hostile reports might have been possible, but a report that says the Resurrection was an actual historical event cannot be neutral or unbiased. Why not? Because any writer who could have reported such a thing in good conscience would by definition be a Christian. And his fellow Christians would likely have circulated his report until it was collected along with other such reports and church correspondence and preserved under the title "New Testament". Which, of course, is exactly what happened.
b. Luke was one such reporter. A physician by profession, he travelled with the Apostle Paul and used his literary skills to good effect in writing the two-volume work that we know as the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, both of which he dedicated to a patron named Theophilus. For short, we refer to these as Luke-Acts. Note the claims that Luke makes in his preface to each book:
Luke 1:1-3 -- 1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us - 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us - 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus.
Acts 1:1-3 -- 1 In the first book, dear Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
In the first preface, Luke states that the information he has recorded came from preachers who had been eye-witnesses "from the beginning", i.e., they had travelled about with Jesus. The word that Luke uses for "eye-witnesses" is autoptai, which means literally "those who see for themselves" (autos = self, optai = seers). In the second preface, he states that Jesus presented himself alive by many "proofs", for which his Greek word is tekmeria. Although the King James translators may have been a bit excessive in rendering tekmeria as "infallible proofs", there were good classicists among them who knew that Aristotle had used that word in his Logic to mean "demonstrative proofs". And that's about as close as you get in ancient Greek to what in modern jargon we call "empirical evidence".
7. What are those "proofs"?
a. Strictly speaking, we shouldn't be using the word "proof", for nowadays a "proof" implies the certainty of mathematical precision. What we actually possess is historiographical evidence, which means that we are dealing in probabilities. There are, of course, degrees of probability, as in the case of the young man accused of the terrorist act of throwing a hand grenade into a group of soldiers. No one saw him do it, but as long as he was thought to be the only person present who might have thrown it, the probability of his guilt was high. But as soon as evidence leaked out that there was at least one other such person present, the probability changed significantly. Of course, if some reliable witness had actually seen him throw it, the probability would be so high that we should likely refer to it as proof. When we are speaking of the Resurrection of Jesus, we must weigh the probable reliability of the eye-witnesses against the probability of any other explanation of the events. (That is why in Units 2 and 3 of this series we have already dealt with the Reliability of the New Testament.) Of course, if you are honestly trying to be unbiased in weighing the evidence, in so far as that is humanly possible, you will have to set aside any prejudice you may have about the existence of God and the possibility that he might actually do such a thing.
b. All the sermons reported in the Acts of the Apostles consistently cite Jesus' Resurrection as the objective, historical basis for faith. Read these verses in context: 2:24; 2:32; 3:13; 3:26; 4:10; 5:30; 10:39-41; 13:30f; 17:18,31f; 23:6; 24:15; 26:8,22f.
c. Writing to the church at Corinth about 25 years after the Resurrection, Paul cites a list of eye-witnesses, including a group of "more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive". Given the implication that Paul could, if required, provide names and addresses, we must choose among three possibilities: Paul is telling the truth; Paul is an inveterate liar; Paul is a gullible fool. Here is what he says:
1 Corinthians 15:3-8 -- 3 I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas (i.e., Peter), then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
d. All four gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are agreed that the first witnesses to the Resurrection were a group of women bringing spices to the tomb. Led by Mary of Magdala, the women included Mary the mother of James, another woman named Salome, and someone known variously as Susanna or Joanna. So much could have been added to sensationalize these narratives if the gospel writers, or the oral traditionists before them, had been inventing a fiction, that the very simplicity of these narratives attests to their truthfulness. Consider for example that, in that paternalistic age, four male writers (who presumably agreed with Paul that women should not be allowed to preach and that they should wear head scarves as a sign of submission to their husbands) all credit these women with being Jesus' chosen first eye-witnesses to the evidential basis of their Faith. Then consider moreover that these paternalistic males, Jesus' own apostles, admit that they doubted the women's "idle tale" (Luke 24:11) until they went and saw the empty tomb for themselves -- thereby handing these woman an "I-told-you-so". Finally, note that the James referred to above is the same James who was Jesus' half-brother by Mary and Joseph, and then note the restraint exercised by the writers in not referring to Mary as Jesus' mother. If these chaps had been concocting a fiction, their tale would surely have been less restrained and far more sensational. See Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20 and 21.
e. The James noted above became pastor of the church in Jerusalem and author of the epistle that bears his name. How many of you, my readers, could with a straight face refer to your half-brother as "the Lord of Glory"? (James 2:1)
f. If the Resurrection was a hoax, you have to account not only for the phenomenal growth of the church in the first century but also for the willingness of the first-generation Christians, including almost all the apostles, to endure persecution and martyrdom for a story that at least some of them must have known was not true. You have to account for the motivation that Tertullian recognized when he wrote sanguis martyrorum semen: "the blood of the martyrs is the seed [of the church]".
g. The early Christians taught an ethic of radical integrity that transformed the Western world and still informs much of what passes for modern secular ethics. Can you explain, without being cynical, how such purity could be born out of delusion, deliberate disinformation, or outright fabrication?
h. There is one single thing that Roman and Jewish detractors could have done that would have put an end to the Christian enthusiasm once and for all: produce the corpse. They did not, because they could not. Because it was not.
j. If you would like to read more on this subject, I recommend the following titles:
Anderson, J. N. D. The Evidence for the Resurrection. Chicago: IVP, 1959. I credit this
little pamphlet with providing the intellectual grounding that kept me in the Faith during
my university years. It may be out of print. If you can find a copy, treasure it.
Morrison, Frank. Who Moved the Stone? London: Faber, 1975. An unbelieving journalist, recognizing that Christianity is finished if he can discredit the Resurrection, tries to do so and gets converted in the process. Very readable.
Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. The foremost Anglican theologian of our day exhaustively examines the evidence for and the importance of the Resurrection. It's a big book, and well worth whatever it costs.
8. What was the Resurrection?
John 20:1-9 -- 1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying (keimena), but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying (keimena), 7 and the face cloth (soudarion), which had been on Jesus head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed 9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
a. In the remarkable passage cited above, John tells us that "the other disciple" (which is thought to mean John himself) "saw and believed". But what did he see that made him believe? He saw strips of cloth lying where the body had been. These were the strips of cloth that had been wrapped around the corpse and stuffed with spices to keep the odor down. But what was there about this sight to induce faith? The cloths, he says, were keimena -- not merely lying, but collapsed. Like a balloon with the air let out, or in this case, with the body let out. And the soudarion, the separate wrapping for the head, was not only collapsed but still entetuligmenon, still in the configuration in which it had been lovingly wrapped around his head before burial. When I get out of bed in the morning, sheets and blankets are all over the place, and the bed has to be made up again, sometimes from scratch. Picture, by comparison, a bed from which the occupant has vanished but, astonishingly, the bed remains undisturbed.
b. Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15:35-49 that just as we recognize different kinds of bodies, so there is a difference between an earthly body and a resurrection body. Jesus' body could vanish from the wrappings because it had been transformed into a resurrection body. It's still a body, not a ghost, but it does things that would make a science fiction writer drool with envy. For example:
John 20:26 -- Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."
Similarly, as the Emmaus journey drew to an end:
Luke 24:29-31 -- 29 they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent." So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.
And on another occasion:
Luke 24:36-43 -- 36 As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, "Peace to you!" 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them.
In his Resurrection body Jesus slips out of grave clothes and leaves them undisturbed. He vanishes before the eyes of travelers on the Emmaus Road. He appears in the midst of his friends despite the doors being locked. And before we can cry "Ghost!" he eats a piece of fish. Not all the textbooks on physics have yet been written.
9. The Ascension
Acts 1:6-11 -- 6 So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
Quite some years ago Ben Smillie published a cartoon in the United Church Observer caricaturing the Ascension. In the cartoon you see a pair of feet, apparently belonging to Jesus, dangling out of a cloud. Funny perhaps. But Biblically and theologically incorrect. Not psychologically accurate, either. The cloud was not some sort of sci-fi teleporter, for we have already seen that the resurrected Jesus could appear and disappear at will, without so much as a "poof". The cloud, rather, was for the disciples' benefit: it gave visible closure to Jesus' earthly ministry in anticipation of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and Jesus' return at the end of the age. God accommodates his revelation to what we know.
10. Seated at the Right Hand of the Father
The early Christians described Jesus after his Resurrection and Ascension as seated at the right hand of God. This meant that he was alive, in the presence of the Father, and in his providence looking after his church until the renovation of all things.
Colossians 3:1-4 -- 1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
The image of Jesus being seated at the right hand of God comes from a vision that the prophet Daniel had around 530 BC. In this vision thrones are set out, then the Ancient of Days appears and the court of heaven is assembled for judgment. A Messianic figure -- "one like a son of man" is presented to the Ancient of Days and is given an everlasting kingdom. Note that the word "thrones" is plural; the second throne is for the Son of Man. That is how Jesus understood it, for at his trial he told the High Priest, "You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven" (Matthew 26:64). Here is the passage that he was referring to:
Daniel 7:1,9,10 -- 1In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed. Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter.... 9 "As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames .... 10 ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.... 13 and behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. 14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
11. The Second Coming
I have proposed, as I think Jesus did, that the Resurrection is the ultimate evidence that Jesus is who he said he was. But the Resurrection is more than a heaven-sent magic trick to awe us into believing. It is also if I may use this analogy without being irreverent a salesman's sample of the good things that God has in store for us. The Resurrection is not only about Jesus but also about us a foretaste of what awaits us when Jesus returns at the end of time to renovate all things in the world to come, our ultimate home. That was a common theme among the earliest Christians, as you can see from the letters of Paul and John:
Philippians 3:20,21 -- Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.
1 John 3:2 -- Beloved, we are Gods children now, and what we shall be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
UNIT 9
The Second Coming, the Christian Hope, and the Problem of Evil
1. We often complain that life isn't fair. If the doctrine of Original Sin and our resultant alienation from God is correct, life may, from that perspective, be better than any of us deserves. But from the relative perspective of human justice, it is clear that some people suffer misfortune and injustice beyond any deserving, while scoundrels often prosper. Misfortune includes natural events, like birth defects and recent tsunami devastations, and events of the sort that we call accidents, which may occur by chance or by human error. It also includes the profound loss that we sense in the fact that we're all going to die. Examples of injustice include the genocides of Jews in Germany, Armenians in Turkey, Tutsis in Rwanda, and wrongful convictions for murder in Canada. In the face of such events, we ask, "If a good God really exists, why...?"
2. This is not just a philosophical problem; it is also a pastoral problem. Pastor, why did my baby die? Father, why did the mugger pick on Granny? Rabbi, why was Harry, who has a young family, paralyzed in a traffic accident at the height of his career? For some people, situations like these provide a challenge to faith; for others they provide an excuse for disbelief. I had a friend who got mad at God when his wife died in her prime, and years later when he was dying he still actively avoided every attempt to engage him in God-talk.
3. These are difficult situations for a minister to deal with, and many are troubled by their limited ability to minister effectively in such situations. But we all minister at some level, even if only to ourselves and those of our immediate circle. So as we think about such problems we need to have at least an answer that works for us if possible, an answer that is faithful to Scripture.
4. The Problem of Evil, as this age-old problem is called, has seen many attempts at explanation and solution. Stoics try to "grin and bear it" with a "stiff upper lip", but see little prospect of a solution. Buddhists try to deal with the problem at a psychological or spiritual level by controlling or even eliminating desire. If you don't desire anything, you can't ever be disappointed. Some biologists have attributed human evil to a "selfish gene", and want to improve human behavior through psychological conditioning. The cult called Christian Science (which is neither Christian nor scientific) denies the problem, teaching that sin and death are unreal. But there is also a Biblical approach to the problem that addresses both human evil and natural disaster. One might say that addressing the Problem of Evil is what the Bible is all about.
5. The Problem of Evil, which includes both natural misfortune and human injustice, is really only a problem (philosophically, that is) if you believe in God. If you don't believe in God, you may still prefer both nature and your neighbors to behave benignly, but you can adduce no ultimately compelling reason why they must do so. On the other hand, if you believe in God, you probably believe that God is wise, loving, and powerful, in which case the fact that both nature and your neighbors do not always behave benignly is profoundly disturbing. You reason that God ought to have created a better world than that in which we now live, a world without natural disasters and human evil. If he could have done so but didn't, you may think his wisdom and love to be suspect. Or if he was unable to do so, you may think him incompetent. Either way, such a God would not likely commend himself to you as an object of worship. There is, however, a Biblical view of the Problem of Evil in which God is indeed wise, loving, and competent, and very much a proper object of worship.
6. The Bible's approach to the Problem of Evil begins with the Creation stories of Genesis. Because of the scientific difficulties that these stories raise, it is important to understand that you can believe them to be God's Word without also having to defend them as science. How you do that is a discussion for another time. But for our present purpose, what we need to consider is not the scientific merits or demerits of those stories but what social, psychological, and spiritual meanings Moses intended them to convey.
In the first chapter of Genesis, God declares each stage of his work of creation to be "good", and at the end of the chapter he declares the whole to be "very good". Then the story goes on to tell how God allowed Adam and Eve to eat of every tree in the Garden of Eden except one, which he called The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That's hardly good botanical nomenclature, so we can be reasonably sure that the story is intended to be a moral tale. As the story proceeds, a serpent raises doubts in Eve's mind about the prohibition, whereupon she eats the forbidden fruit, then gives it to Adam, who follows her example. Then...
Genesis 3:14-19 -- ...the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you: in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. You are dust, and to dust you shall return."
The disobedience in Eden is known as The Fall, and according to the story the Fall had many consequences. The snake became a crawling creature to which people felt antipathy. Childbearing became painful. Gender wars began. Physical work became arduous. Weeds were invented. And all the efforts to achieve human survival ended in a dusty grave. The story regards these consequences as The Curse. Life is not as we might like it, perhaps even not as it ought to be.
7. The writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, a philosophical work written hundreds of years after Genesis, also discusses The Fall, but without the narrative. He doesn't say what he thinks about the Genesis story as history, but it is clear that he sees it as a description of the state of all humanity. Here is what he says at Ecclesiastes 7:29.
God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices. -- New American Standard Version
Here are two paraphrases of that verse:
God made people good, but they have found all kinds of ways to be bad. -- New Century Version
We were completely honest when God created us, but now we have twisted minds. -- Contemporary English Version
The writer of Ecclesiastes also cites examples of The Curse, including the injustices
of an upside-down society, the vagaries of chance, the sense that "the time is out of joint" (Hamlet I.v.188), and the feeling of ennui at the dusty end to which all things tend. All of these things he labels as "Vanity" (Hebrew havel, Greek mataiotes -- Ecclesiastes 1:13,14 3:16 4:1 7:15 8:14 10:5-7 and 8:10-13. "Vanity" in this sense does not mean standing in front of a mirror and admiring yourself, but rather the sense of futility of all things in the face of an ultimate grave. The Greek myth of Sisyphus the Greek hero condemned to an eternity of pushing a rock uphill, only to watch it roll back down and have to start all over again captures a similar sense of Vanity.
8. If you read Moses' introduction to history in Genesis 111 (preferably at a single sitting and in a modern translation) you can see how Moses develops the theme that God made people good but we have found all kinds of ways to be bad. In the first chapter, God declares his creation to be "very good" (1:31). The man and woman who are created in the second chapter enjoy a delightful innocence: they are "naked and not ashamed" (2:25). But by the third chapter, their innocence has vanished in the face of disobedience, and paradise is forfeit. From there, life begins to look unpleasantly familiar: one brother kills another over of all things! a dispute about religion. Whereupon the culprit, being confronted by God, replies sarcastically, "Am I my brother's keeper?" (5:8,9) This pattern of brother against brother is, as might be expected, repeated in the next generation (5:23). Moses then inserts some genealogies (with life-spans that you may have difficulty believing) to bring the story up to Noah, who lived at a time when "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and .. every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (6:5). Although "the earth was corrupt in Gods sight, and the earth was filled with violence" (6.11), Noah "was a righteous man, blameless in his generation, [and one who] walked with God" (6:9). Moreover, "Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him" (7:5), including the building of an ark to save a remnant of humanity from destruction.
Undoubtedly, the Flood story reflects some enormous geological event, which seems entirely possible as we reflect on recent tsunamis and the breakup of the Arctic ice cap. It had so impacted the collective memory of the race in ancient times that it figures in the mythology of many cultures, and occupies fully half of Moses' introduction to the history of his people. But to Moses' thinking, this story prefigured God's covenant with his people Israel whose rescue Moses saw as a spiritual and cultural lifeboat. Then after some post-Flood genealogies, Moses concludes his introduction with the story of the Tower of Babel (perhaps a famous ziggurat in Abraham's homeland) in which story, as you might expect, the nations of the Middle East are unable to communicate with each other and therefore constantly at war. Moses' point in relating this story is to show that not even a Flood of universal proportions was able to eliminate the evil that has infected all humanity, so God must undertake a different kind of rescue.
9. Any discussion of the Biblical view of the Problem of Evil must include the book of Job. Understanding Job involves some difficulties. First, there is the problem of whether the story should be taken as history or as parable. I think it's a parable, but that does not make it any less the word of God after all, Jesus also told parables. Second, there is the question whether the book is all-of-a-piece or whether an original story was later expanded by the addition of the speeches of Job's friends. I think the latter; I also think that God can inspire editors just as well as he can inspire original authors. So as long as you do not view the writers of Scripture as mere human dictaphones, these questions do not imperil an orthodox doctrine of Scripture, including Job, as the Word of God.
Job is a good man. God allows bad things to happen to him. The bad things are not Job's fault. Even after he has lost his living, his family, and his health, he rejects as foolish his wife's advice to "curse God and die" (2:9). "Though he slay me," Job says, "yet will I trust him. But I will surely defend my ways to his face" (13:15). Job trusts God, but also claims his right to kvetch. He has no idea that by his trust he is vindicating God's integrity in some moral contest of cosmic proportions represented in the story as a contest between God and the devil. As the story proceeds, we find Job rejecting his friends' insistence that he must have done something quite dire to deserve his present fate. He complains to God that it's not fair, and demands a right verdict. In the end, two things happen: First, Job has an overwhelming experience of God, whereby he realizes that his sense of God's justice (correct as it may have been) was totally inadequate. Second, his life is restored to better than it was before. This story models the devout man's faith in a God who is just, and it promises a happy end to such, but it leaves the speculative philosophical questions unanswered. To catch the gist of the argument of the story of Job, read chapters 1-2, 3-5, 19, 40-42.
10. To address the problem of human and natural imperfection, John Milton, the English poet, wrote the epic Paradise Lost, whose purpose was to "assert the Eternal Providence and justify the ways of God to man". A. E. Housman offers a contrary view in his poem "Terence, This is Stupid Stuff", where, preferring beer over theology, he insists that "malt does more than Milton can / to justify God's ways to man." Milton's view is speculative; Houseman's is one of avoidance. But when Jesus was confronted about such matters, he took neither route, directing his listeners instead to a more critical concern:
"There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Luke 13:1-5
Jesus understands the meaning of Job, so he cautions his questioners not to attribute these disasters to particular failings of the victims. But he does not consider that these disasters exempt the victims from their duty to God nor from their need of salvation. So Jesus deliberately does not address the question of theodicy the attempt to "justify the ways of God to man." Instead, he goes straight to the urgent matter: "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."
When asked to theologize about a blind man, Jesus takes a similar approach: "As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.' " John 9:1-3
This blind man's plight provides an opportunity for Jesus to proclaim that he is the light of the world, and to demonstrate that fact by restoring the man's sight. His healing turns into a discussion of spiritual sight and spiritual blindness, all dependent on our attitude to Jesus.
At a Sabbath service at his home synagogue (Luke 4:18,19), Jesus was invited to preach on the assigned daily reading. That reading, from Isaiah 61:1f, says "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lords favor." Jesus outraged his audience when he explained that he was the fulfillment of that scripture. Jesus considered that passage to mean that his "signs", including the recovering of sight to the blind, should be understood as evidence of the presence of God among them and, like a salesman's samples, advertisements of a heaven to come!
11. So what the gospel offers in the face of the problem of evil is not a philosophical explanation, a "theodicy", but an actual solution. In his letter to the Romans (8:18-25), Paul picks up the theme of "vanity" from Ecclesiastes, explaining that God had, in fact, subjected his entire creation to vanity, or futility, or entropy in anticipation of a time when the physical creation will be set free along with the children of God. This is what Jesus intended his miracles to signify. It is the long-term significance of Jesus' resurrection. It will happen when Jesus returns for judgment at the end of this world's history. For the redeemed it will vindicate and more than compensate for all the afflictions of this present life. This is the hope that enables Christians to cope with what Shakespeare called "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" (Hamlet III.i).
"Beloved, we are Gods children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared but we know that when [Jesus] appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." 1 John 3:2
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.' And he who was seated on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.' Also he said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.' And he said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
Revelation 21:1-7
UNIT 10
The Way of Salvation
1. Any discussion of the Way of Salvation (or via salutis) begins with the assumption that there is a logical sequence in our movement from sinner to saint, from lost to saved, from unbeliever to believer, from non-Christian to Christian. But a logical sequence is not always a chronological sequence. First, while there is a sequence of "events", each person who is "on the Way" may not experience the sequence in exactly the same way. Second, many of the "events" may actually occur at the same time. Third, the Way of Salvation is understood differently by different denominations and different theological traditions.
2. Here is one version of the sequence of the Doc.
a. Creation of man and woman in God's image
Gen 1:27 - "and God saw that it was very good"
b. The Cultural Mandate
Gen 1:28 2:15 - "have dominion", "go forth and multiply"
c. The Fall Original Sin
Gen 3:1-13; 6:5,6; 8:21; Ps 51:1-5; Jer 17:9; Rom 3:10-19,23; 1 Cor 15:22
The universality of evil is a fact, regardless of how you understand the Creation story.
d. Subjection of the creation to "vanity"
Gen 3:14-19; Eccl 1:1; Rom 8:18-23
e. God establishes his people by a Covenant
Gen 9:8-17; 12:1-3; 17:1-27
f. God promises redemption and a new covenant
Gen 3:15; Deut 18:15; Acts 3:22; Isa 52:13-53:12; Jer 31:31-34
g. Atonement, Reconciliation, etc
See notes for Unit 7
.
h. Election and Calling
Rom 8:28-30; Eph 1:3-12; 2 Pet 1:10
Reformed theology would place this "event" at the beginning of the list, indeed before the beginning of the list. But because God does not dwell within our bourne of time and space,
election and some other "events" may from God's perspective be concurrent.
j. Repentance and Faith
Acts 19:4; Mark 1:14,14; Heb 6:1; 1 Pet 3:21; 2 Pet 3:9
Repentance and saving are inseparable. You can't have one without the other.
k. Grace
Eph 2:8,9; Acts 16:29-33
Grace is God's undeserved favour. Scripture identifies it as the opposite of "works"
m. Regeneration
John 3:3-8; 2 Cor 5:16,17; 1 Pet 1:3,23
This is what Jesus called being "born again". The REC's Declaration of Principles states that it is not dependent on baptism.
n. Justification
Rom 5:1,2; Rom 8:1; Rom 8:30
This is a legal term, referring to the status of someone who has been either pardoned or declared not guilty. To be justified, therefore, is to be "just as if I'd" never sinned.
p. Adoption and Sealing
Rom 8:14-17 Gal 4:4-7 2 Cor 1:22 Eph 1:13
Adoption distinguishes believers' sonship before the Father from Jesus' eternal sonship.
Sealing: see Preservation.
q. Sanctification
Rom 6:19-22; Gal 5:16-26; Heb 12:1-11
Most traditions understand sanctification as the work of the Holy Spirit gradually conforming us to the image of Jesus. It may also be the setting apart of believers for God's purposes. The "holiness" churches (Salvation Army, Nazarene, Free Methodist) understand it as a "second work of grace", but their concept of "entire sanctification" is a bit thin on Scriptural support.
r. Preservation (Eternal Security)
John 10:28; 2 Tim 1:12; 1 Pet 1:5; 2 Pet 2:9
The preservation, or perseverance, of the saints is assured. They are, so to speak, sealed.
s. The Parousia or Second Coming
Acts 1:11; Col 3:4; 1 Thess 4:13-18; 2 Pet 3:9-13
We should probably regard the thousand years of Jesus' millennial reign as a symbolic number.
We should also avoid unprofitable disputes about the sequence of events of the Lord's return.
t. Resurrection
1 Cor 15:51-57; 2 Cor 4:14
Jesus' resurrection (Unit 8) is the guarantee of ours.
u. Glorification
Rom 5:2; Rom 8:30; 2 Cor 3:9; Col 3:1-4; 1 John 3:2
"We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is!"
Rom 8:30 speaks as if we were already glorified. Although our actual glorification awaits our Lord's return, we are as good as glorified already, for "he who promised is faithful".
3. At the Lord's Supper we pray for "...remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his Passion...." The foregone list identifies some of those "other benefits".
UNIT 11
Church, Ministry, and Sacraments
1. Although the Anglican church is a church of the Reformation, the Anglican understanding of Church, Ministry, and Sacraments has been in flux from the beginning, and has never been so uniform that agreement among Anglicans can be taken for granted. For example, In the 1500s, Cranmer vacillated on the question of baptismal regeneration. In 1873, the Reformed Episcopal Church separated from the Protestant Episcopal Church USA over the latter's anglo-catholic sacramental practices (PEC USA subsequently dropped the word Protestant, and became EC USA). In 1977 the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada separated from the Anglican Church of Canada over the latter's ordination of women. The ACCC also observe seven sacraments and address devotions to Mary. Currently an on-line list of some 50 disaffected Anglican groups "not in the Communion" reveals a diversity to suit every taste, from inclusive to exclusive, and from Zwingli to Newman. As the LORD asked through the prophet Amos (3:3), "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?"
2. The doctrines of Church, Ministry, and Sacraments need to be considered together as a package, because a shift in position on any one of those doctrines will significantly shift one's position on the other two. The positions that I espouse on these matters are the historic positions of the Reformed Episcopal Church, as seen in the writings of George David Cummins, its founding Bishop.
3. The Interdependence of Church, Ministry, and Sacraments.
a. Romans and most Anglicans teach the necessity of the threefold ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons, in apostolic succession back to the apostles. Without apostolic succession, they say, a minister's ordination is not valid, and therefore the sacraments that he(she) celebrates are not valid. On the other hand, the most moving Lord's Supper I ever attended was celebrated by a Mennonite layman in a Baptist farmhouse. The Holy Spirit validated that eucharist by his conspicuously felt presence.
b. What makes a sacrament valid? If you think that Jesus' presence in the Lord's Supper includes his actual "body, blood, soul, and divinity" and if you think that the Holy Spirit actually regenerates the unwitting infant in the waters of baptism then you could reasonably argue that a person with special priestly powers is needed to perform these acts, and that those powers can be transmitted only through a succession of supervisors traceable back to Jesus. Moreover, if the performance of sacramental acts is the main function of the church, then those churches that lack the apostolic succession are also lacking in the necessary priestly powers to fulfill this main function in which case they may, at best, be described as incomplete churches, or at worst, as no churches at all.
4. Greek Words for Clergy:
diakonos = servant, deacon (diakonia = service)
episkopos = epi, over + skopos, one who oversees or looks after; Latin supervisor
presbyteros, = older/elder, > presbyter, "prester"; etymologically a "pr(i)est" but not a hiereus
hiereus = priest, one who offers sacrifice
archiereus = high priest
5. Parish Organization in the New Testament
In his letter to the parish church at Philippi, Paul astonishes today's Anglican readers by sending greetings to the bishops (in the plural!) and to the deacons, while making no mention of the presbyters. Similarly, in his first letter to Timothy, he provides criteria for selecting bishops and deacons, but again says nothing of presbyters.
However, at Acts 14:23 we read that Paul and Barnabas "appointed elders (presbyters) in every church". And at Acts 15:6, we read that the Jerusalem conference to discuss circumcision consisted of "the apostles and the elders". The absence of deacons from that First Ecumenical Council would hardly be remarkable, but the absence of the bishops is astonishing. However, "elders" may very well be a generic term, carried over as that term was from Judaism, signifying senior leaders of whatever sort: bishops, certainly, and possibly deacons as well.
In writing to Titus, Paul begins with the generic term, elders or presbyters, whom Titus is instructed to appoint in every town. Then after summarizing the detailed criteria previously sent to Timothy, he begins an explanation of the importance of those criteria with the words "for a bishop...must be..." (Titus 1:7). The problem, then, is whether Paul understands "elders" as a generic term for clergy, of which "bishops" and "deacons" are subsets, or whether he understands "elder" and "bishop" to be synonymous.
I think the more likely is that "elder" was originally used as we use the word "clergy", but that its use became more associated with bishops in particular than with clergy in general. Then as the church grew, and major congregations supervised what we now would call "church plants", the terms "bishop" and "elder" became differentiated through use, so that the term "bishop", by virtue of its etymology, came to signify a supervising elder. In Paul's day, however, there were quite clearly only two orders of ministry. .
6. On Priesthood
a. Now examine the following passages and note the office of Priest in early Christianity:
Heb 2:17; 3:1; 4:14-16; 8:1-7
b. In what sense are we priests, and what sacrifices do we offer?
1 Pet 2:5, 9; Hos 6:6; Mt 9:13; Ps 51:17; Rom 12:1; Heb 13:16; Rev 5:9,10
c. The Declaration of Principles emphatically denies that Christian clergy are "priests" in another sense than that in which all believers are a "royal priesthood".
7. Some Curious Questions
a. Acts 6:1-6 is conventionally understood to be the institution of the diaconate. But note that the word "deacon" appears nowhere in the passage. Moreover, (i) what does Paul consider to be the important role of ministry? (ii) What task does he relegate to these new deacons?
b. Rom 6:1 Phoebe is called a diakonos. The masculine form is used for both men and women. Phoebe may indeed be a "deaconess", but in view of Paul's objection to women having authority in the churches, it seems more likely that he is using the word here in its generic sense of "servant". (Whether Paul's prohibition was culture-specific, designed to address a first-century concern that is no longer with us, is a matter that deserves further consideration.)
8. Apostolic Succession the New Testament Way
a. Paul did, in fact, employ a sort of apostolic succession, but it was not a succession for transmitting the power of the Holy Spirit to consecrate the eucharist or to absolve sin. Remembering that the New Testament had not yet been compiled and distributed, examine the following passages and identify what Paul was concerned with the transmission of:
1 Tim 1:3-7; 2 Tim 2:1,2; 1 Tim 5:22
b. The churches in five major cities were established by apostles, and in the early years these churches became the touchstones for deciding whether a tradition was being correctly understood. These five churches were Rome (Peter and Paul), Antioch (Peter), Constantinople (Andrew), Jerusalem (James, the Lord's brother), and Alexandria (Mark).
c. Given this concern for the faithful transmission of the "traditions" of the gospel, we can properly infer that any bishop who teaches or tolerates a teaching contrary to Scripture is in violation of the primary duty of his office.
9. Episcopal Ministry at 100 AD
By the beginning of the second century AD, as the church's cultural base shifts from Jewish to Greco-Roman, changes are afoot: bishops are supervising more than just their own local congregation; baptism is being seen as essential to salvation; and the Lord's Supper is starting to be seen as containing the "real presence". Ignatius, third Bishop of Antioch, martyred in Rome between 98 and 117, was the supervisor of several presbyters and deacons. He taught that ubi episcopus ibi ecclesia = "wherever the bishop is, there is the church." He forbade celebration of the sacraments without episcopal permission, and he called the Lord's Supper "the flesh of our Savior" and the "medicine of immortality". (He is also credited with shifting the Christian day of worship from the Sabbath to the Lord's Day, and with using the word "catholic" to mean universal.) Here we see the groundwork being laid for an anglo-catholic view of church, ministry, and sacraments. "But from the beginning it was not so."
10. The Reformed Episcopal Position on Church and Ministry
The historic position of the Reformed Episcopal Church is that there are two orders of ministry, presbyter and deacon, and that a bishop is a presbyter with supervisory authority. Accordingly, Reformed Episcopal bishops vote in synod with the presbyters, not as a separate "house". The REC Declaration of Principles recognizes episcopacy as "a very ancient and desirable form of Church polity", but also affirms that the church does not exist "only in one order or form of ecclesiastical polity." Historically, therefore, presbyters have been received from other evangelical churches without re-ordination.
UNIT 12
Why the Reformed Episcopal Church?
1. In the mid-1700s, at the same time as the Wesleys were evangelizing England, European scholars were raising doubts about the reliability of the Bible. The French physician Jean Astruc showed evidence that earlier documents had been used in the composition of Genesis, and thereby started a tradition of skeptical scholarship about the Bible, that came eventually to be known as higher criticism. In England, this skepticism had a secularizing effect: Parliament gave less support to the objectives of traditional orthodoxy, and universities no longer required professors and graduates to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles.
2. By the 1800s, religious liberalism had eroded traditional beliefs within the Church so much that the Oxford Movement arose to restore orthodoxy. The Oxford Movement flourished between 1833 and 1844, with leadership from John Henry (later Cardinal) Newman, John Keble, Edward Pusey, Frederick William Faber, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Regrettably, these men were Anglo-Catholics, who reintroduced errors that the Reformation had corrected, including a Roman Catholic view of the sacraments, sacramental liturgies, mass vestments, and apostolic succession. Newman joined the Roman Church in 1845, followed by Faber and Hopkins. Pusey and Keble remained in the Church of England and perpetuated errors that persist to the present.
3. Because of the Oxford Movement, the eucharist became for many Anglicans the central act of worship, as it is in the Roman Church. Thus the Oxford leaders failed to correct the chief defect of the liberalism that they were reacting against, because they emphasized liturgy rather than the exposition, application, and defence of Scripture. To their credit, they also stressed social responsibility and did good work among the poor, but that is no justification for theological error.
4. In response to these Tractarians, as the Oxford divines were also known, the Free Church of England was formed in 1833, proclaiming a Declaration of Principles that was adopted in the USA when the Reformed Episcopal Church formed in 1873. These two churches formed an affiliation in 1927.
5. By the time the Reformed Episcopal Church was formed, both theological liberalism and Anglo-Catholicism had spread to America, leaving no strong Protestant and Biblical witness in the Protestant Episcopal Church USA which subsequently dropped the word "Protestant" from its name. At the same time, RE founders like Bishop George David Cummins realized that even the Thirty-Nine Articles, in their current version, did not adequately reflect the faith of the Reformation and needed to be amended. Bishop Cummins was concerned that the Articles had never corrected the error of Baptismal regeneration.
6. So, Why the Reformed Episcopal Church?
Because...
(a) it believes the Bible and holds the proclamation of God's Word to be the central act of worship;
(b) it preserves Reformation English liturgy, but with flexibility in use and form;
(c) it recognizes only two sacraments, and without superstitious additions;
(d) it retains the historic ministry of bishops, presbyters, and deacons but
- i. it understands bishops to be presbyters with supervisory responsibility rather than a third order of ministry; and
- ii. it recognizes as valid the ministries of evangelical denominations that are differently organized.
7. The Declaration of Principles
The Declaration of Principles, as follows, was adopted on 2 December 1873 at the first General Synod of the Reformed Episcopal Church. These Principles most closely recreate Reformation Anglicanism as it was conceived during the reign of Edward VI.
I. The Reformed Episcopal Church, holding "the faith once delivered unto the saints," declares its belief in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God, as the sole rule of Faith and Practice; in the Creed "commonly called the Apostles' Creed;" in the Divine institution of the Sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper; and in the doctrines of grace substantially as they are set forth in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.
II. This Church recognizes and adheres to Episcopacy, not as of Divine right, but as a very ancient and desirable form of Church polity.
III. This Church, retaining a liturgy which shall not be imperative or repressive of freedom in prayer, accepts The Book of Common Prayer, as it was revised, proposed, and recommended for use by the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, A.D. 1785, reserving full liberty to alter, abridge, enlarge, and amend the same, as may seem most conducive to the edification of the people, "provided that the substance of the faith be kept entire."
IV. This Church condemns and rejects the following erroneous and strange doctrines as contrary to God's Word:
First, that the Church of Christ exists only in one order or form of ecclesiastical polity:
Second, that Christian Ministers are "priests" in another sense than that in which all believers are a "royal priesthood:"
Third, that the Lord's Table is an altar on which the oblation of the Body and Blood of Christ is offered anew to the Father:
Fourth, that the Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper is a presence in the elements of Bread and Wine:
Fifth, that regeneration is inseparably connected with Baptism.