Simon Chan on the Narrative of Scripture

Fascinating words from Simon Chan on the basic narrative found in Scripture…

“A better way to conceptualize the Bible’s narrative coherence is to see creation as forming the backdrop for God’s elective grace and covenant relationship rather than vice versa. God created the world in order that he might enter into a covenant relationship with humankind. And he accomplishes this with the call of Abraham and culminates his elective purpose in Jesus Christ and the church. This covenantal relationship always involves the election of a people from among humankind. The purpose is not to consign the rest to reprobation (as taught in scholastic Calvinism) but that through the elect the rest of humankind might be blessed (Gen.12:3). Creation, then, does not express God’s highest intention for the world but should be seen as the means by which God’s grace of election could be realized. God has always intended his relationship with the world to be a graced relationship, not just a “natural” relationship. Human creatures are meant to be more than creatures: they are to be God’s people, living in full knowledge of and relationship with God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Sin, however, disrupted this relationship and must be overcome. The revelation of God in Christ addresses this problem. But Christ’s coming is not primarily focused on the sin problem. Even if humans had not sinned, Jesus Christ would still have needed to come in the fullness of time, because only through that revelation is covenantal relationship realized in the fullest measure—as communion with the triune God. This newer “storyline” has found support in what is called nonsupersessionism, which sees the church of the New Testament as standing in continuity with Israel as the one people of God rather than displacing Israel.
Implied in this newer canonical narrative is another way of looking at the relationship between the church broadly conceived and creation, and that is to see it not as another entity within the larger creation but as prior to creation. The church precedes creation in that it is what God has in view from all eternity and creation is the means by which God fulfills his eternal purpose in time. The church does not exist in order to fix a broken creation; rather, creation exists to realize the church. To be sure, the church’s coming into being does require the overcoming of sin, but that is quite different from saying that the problem of sin is the reason for the church’s being. God made the world in order to make the church, not vice versa. Scripture itself testifies to the logical priority of the church over creation by referring to the church as chosen in Christ before the creation of the world (Eph.1:14), or to Christ who was slain before the foundation of the world (Rev.13:8). The world, as Robert Jensen puts it, is the “raw material” from which God will bring the church to perfection in Christ. The church is not an entity within the larger culture but is a culture” (Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology [Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2006], 22-23.)

The Theological Method of Arius

Why does the theological method of Arius sound eerily similar to the method that many evangelical theologians adopt today?

From Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy (London: Harvill Press, 1963).

“Arius was mistaken in his view, for he approached the solution to the theological problem of the Trinity solely as a philosopher and weighted the whole problem by logic. He interpreted two basic and particularly vital truths of Christianity, that of the One God and that of the salvation of the world by the Son of God, as abstract principles. He was a convinced monotheist, not in the OT sense, but in the spirit of the philosophical monotheism which predominated at that period in the Hellenistic world. This meant recognition of some abstract One or Entity which lay at the based of all that existed, as its source and as the unifying principle of all multiplicity. God was One, and there could not be any multiplicity in him; if He had a Son, the Son was already distinct from him. The Son was not he and not God. The Son was born, and birth is the appearance of something which has not been before. The Son was born for creation, for salvation, but He was not God in that unique and absolute sense which we use when we call the Father God. Arianism was a rationalization of Christianity. …here faith was dried out by logical analysis and distorted into an abstract construction. Arianism was in tune with the times in its strict monotheism and desire to prune out everything irrational and incomprehensible. It was more accessible to the average mind seeking a ‘rational’ faith than were the biblical images and expressions of Church tradition. … The Arian heresy seemed to [the intellectual class eager for rational explanations of the faith] completely suitable as a ‘modern’ interpretation of it, one which would be acceptable to broad circles of educated people” (74-76).

Faithful Theology is Ecumencial Theology

Should Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians pursue reconciliation with one another? Here’s a “hard-to-argue-with” blurb from T.F. Torrance on the matter…

“Any theology which is faithful to the Church of Jesus Christ within which it takes place cannot but be a theology of reconciliation, for reconciliation belongs to the essential nature and mission of the Church in the world. But taking its rise from God’s mighty acts in reconciling the world to himself in Christ, the Church is constituted ‘a community of the reconciled,’ and in being sent by Christ into the world to proclaim what God had done in him, the Church is constituted a reconciling as well as a reconciled community. The task of theology is made more difficult, however, by the fact that although the Church has been sent into the divided world in the service of reconciliation it has allowed the divisions of the world to penetrate back into itself so that its own unity in mind and body has been damaged, and its mission of reconciliation in the world has been seriously impaired. … Ecumenism refers to the dynamic concern for the unity and renewal of the Church and of all things in Jesus Christ… In it there struggles to become manifest an immense reality deriving from the foundation of the Church in the Incarnation of the Son of God, understood as the coming of God himself into the structures of worldly and human being in order to restore the whole of creation to its unity and harmony in himself” (Thomas F. Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation: Essays towards Evangelical and Catholic Unity in East and West (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1996), 7, 15).

The Goal of Theology

What should be the goal of theology? I think the Orthodox get it right…

“In the Eastern Christian tradition, the ancient creed and the decrees are not seen as instruction leading to further such elaboration of doctrine, but as ruling out error. Beyond that, they confess the truth but do not attempt to explain it, according to Orthodoxy. The emphasis for Eastern Christianity is not on explanation but on mystery—on adoration of truth rather than its clarification” (Payton, Light from the Christian East, 67).

“The goal is not explanation of the Christian faith, but faithful adherence to its mysteries” (67).

“Orthodoxy expects not clarification but adoration, not teaching but praising” (68).

What Makes a Theologian?

Some food for thought on what it means to do theology and be a theologian…

From James R. Payton Jr., Light from the Christian East: An Introduction to the Orthodox Tradition (Downers Grove: IVP, 2007).

“Orthodoxy, faithful to its own cultural background, has little confidence in human reason when it begins to speak about God” (59).

“This has not led EC to a lack of interest in knowledge of God. To the contrary, Orthodoxy manifests a deep desire to know God, but in the biblical sense of what it means to know someone. …knowing God means having and intimate relationship with him, not just a wealth of data about him. For Orthodoxy, to know God in this way is necessary for all theology and theologizing. Knowing God requires much more—and yet paradoxically much less—than mastering a wealth of reveled information about God. Knowing God in this sense means communion with him, living in openness toward and wonder before him. Knowledge of God in this way entails fellowship between the Creator and the creature—a fellowship that does not bridge the chasm between them but yet draws them together in intimacy. Such knowledge is not achieved by mastering data but by submitting to the God to whom the data point. Knowing God in this sense means loving God without reservation. Such knowledge of God reaches far beyond the processes of the mind, to the innermost depths of the one who would know God” (60).

“In EC practice, from antiquity to the present, meditation and contemplation are the paths to knowledge of God. Divine revelation offers a foundation for all such meditation and contemplation, of course, but the Orthodox emphasis falls not on speech about but on silence before God and his revelation. The person who would know God must drink deeply of, and not just analyze, what God has made known about himself and his ways toward humankind; one must be saturated with it through wonder rather than seek to connect its elements in curiosity” (60).

“Evagrius Ponticus…: ‘If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.’ … For the Orthodox, a life lived open to God is the prerequisite and authentication of a theologian” (61).

“Unless a theologian’s teaching has been so imbibed as to shape that theologian’s life and give evidence of appropriately offering proper glory to God, Eastern Christians would be unwilling to offer it a hearing” (61).

Musings on True Spirituality by Francis Schaeffer

francis schaeffer opens True Spirituality with a recounting of a time of stuggle in his life…he says that within that time, a problem came to him: the problem of reality. “This had two parts: first, it seemed to me that among many of those who held the orthodox position, one saw little reality in the things that the Bible so clearly says should be the result of Christianity. Second, it gradually grew on me that my own reality was less than it had been in the early days after I had become a Christian. I realized that in honesty I had to go back and rethink my whole position.” …I think that Schaeffer dug down to the problem that we spend most of our time dealing with…”God, are you really real? Is this a sick joke, is this too good to be true?”…

he spends most of the first half of the book thinking through the historical reality of Christianity as well as the personal nature of it…he opens the book with a discussion of gratitude for all things…he says that a lack of gratitude for all things is the beginning of men’s rebellion against God, for it denies the the infinite, personal God is actively working all things together for the good of his people…by responding to the day-in, day-out events of life with ingratitude, or even a-gratitude, we forget both that God is God and that He is our God…

he goes on later to talk about if we want to bring forth fruit in the Christian life, then “there must be a constant act of faith, of thinking: Upon the basis of Your promises I am looking for You to fulfill them, O my Jesus Christ; bring forth Your fruit through me into this poor world”…this is what He refers to as “active-passivity”…we are attentively and implicitly trusting explicit promises of God as we seek to be faithful to Him…but more than anything our lives are oriented around His reality…this is conscious and not just assumed…it seems that the more we consciously live before God, actively waiting on Him (i.e. doing what He says, trusting that He will meet our weak faithfulness with His own), the more we will come to know Him…see Jn 14:21 and also this quote from James Houston, “…the ultimate truth about creation is not discovered by the exercise of the intellect, but by the submission of the will to God. The Christian faith in the Word is, therefore, not a philosophy but a personal relationship with God in Christ”…

schaeffer was seeking something far beyond sporadic miracles or emotional highs…he was seeking the true reality of an interactive, personal relationship with the Triune God…that, to me is the call of Christian discipleship as well as evangelism: to live in this relationship and call others to do the same…this is about LIFE, not isolated ideas, acts or experiences…life with the living God…

Preaching Christ

What does it mean to preach Christ? This from James Stewart…

“The man (Paul) knew himself to be charged to bear Christ, to herald Christ, not to rationalize Christ. Indeed, nothing else was possible, for the fundamental fact about the Christ of Paul’s experience was that He was alive. Historical data and reminiscences you can rationalize: a living Lord you can only proclaim” (James S. Stewart, A Man in Christ [New York and London: Harper and Brothers], 8).

The Root of Godly Questioning

According to J. McLeod Campbell, “The very freedom and strength to question is often traceable to the firm hold of something true. … The faith that God is love is often the root of questionings which have not yet issued in the apprehension of the divine love present in that concerning which the question arise…” (J. McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1856, 1996], 17).

Pretty intense!

Forgiveness Prior To Repentance?

Is forgiveness prior to repentance? Here’s a quote from James B. Torrance to help you ponder…

“What did Calvin and the Marrowmen mean by saying that ‘forgiveness is logically prior to repentance? … Suppose I had the misfortune to have a quarrel with someone, and the result was that we became estranged from one another. Then suppose after some time I came to my friend sincerely seeking reconciliation and said to him, I forgive you!’, it would be clear that this would be not only a word of love, it would also be a word of condemnation for I would be clearly implying that he was the guilty party! How would he react? His immediate reaction would probably be one of indignation, for, sensing the element of judgment in my words, he might reject my word of forgiveness, by refusing to submit to the verdict of guilt implied in it. He would be impenitent—there would be no ‘change of heart’ toward me. But suppose on subsequent reflection, he comes back and says ‘I am sorry. I was quite wrong.’ That would mean, in accepting my approach of love and forgiveness, he would in the very act be submitting to the verdict of guilty There would be a change of mind—act of penitence on his part.
The good news of the Gospel is that there is forgiveness with God our Father and he has spoken his word of forgiveness in Christ on the Cross—a word of love to humanity, and yet also a word of judgment. But that word summons from us a response of faith and penitence. In accepting the forgiveness of the Cross, we not only accept the gift of love, but in the very act know we are submitting to the verdict of guilty—acknowledging that it was our sins which put Christ on the Cross. Before the Cross, we know we are unconditionally summoned to renounce the sins for which Christ died. That is, God’s forgiveness is logically prior to our repentance. It is the goodness of God which leads us to repentance.”

The “Centre” of Christianity

There are lots of debates out there about what the core of Christianity is. Seems to me if we’d listen more to guys like the late James S. Stewart the debates would quiet down a bit.

This from Stewart:

“What then is our basic need? If it is not a reinterpretation of Christianity intellectually and socially) though both of these, as we have seen, are included), what is it? It is a rediscovery of Christianity as a vital relationship to a living Christ. There is nothing so fundamental as this. The longer one lives and the more deeply one ponders the human dilemma, the clearer does this become. … The indispensable centre of Christianity is Christ; and we ruin our religion if we centre it anywhere else. … For the fact is that the burning focus of our faith is not the question, ‘What think ye of this or that or any other ideology?’ but ‘What think ye of Christ?’ This is the centre. … There is nothing in the Gospels more significant than the way in which Jesus deliberately places Himself at the very centre of His message. He does not say with other teachers, ‘The truth is everything, I am nothing’; He declares ‘I am the truth.’ He does not claim, with the founders of certain ethnic religions, to suggest answers to the world’s enigmas; He claims to be the answer—‘Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.’ He does not offer the guidance of a code or a philosophy to keep men right through the uncertainties of an unknown future; He says, ‘Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’ As Kierkegaard expressed it: ‘All other religions are oblique; the founder stands aside and introduces another speaker; they themselves therefore come under ‘religion’—Christianity alone is direct speech’ (Journals, 52). There is no question that if Christianity is to be true to the intention of Jesus, it must be a relationship between two real persons. It is either this or nothing. …the real secret of Paul’s terrific impact on history was…the fact there here was a man pervaded and possessed by Jesus. ‘To me…to live is Christ!’ … ‘I live, yet not I, Christ liveth in me.’ That is Christianity: a decisive relationship to a living Person. …this is the indispensible centre of the faith, this is what Christianity fundamentally is: a decisive relationship to a living Person. … He is risen! He is not nineteen hundred years away. And when you say your prayers to-day, He is really there at your side” (A Faith to Proclaim, 143-153).