Sometimes when I hear about repentance, I don’t hear much grace and I don’t see much Jesus. It’s more about examining myself, focusing on and correctly identifying my sins, learning to mourn over them and despise them, and submitting to disciplines that help me mortify them.

On a congregational level, calls for repentance often include exhortations to come back to the fold and submit oneself to the “boundary markers” that set that particular faith community apart. Repentance means stop trying to make it on your own and get back in the system.

Repentance was a primary provoking issue that led to the Protestant Reformation. Before his career as a reformer, nobody repented better than Martin Luther! He was a pro at it. He was so scrupulous about trying to scrub his inner life clean that his mentor had to tell him to go away and come back when he had some real sins to confess.

The freedom of the Gospel may never have been appreciated by anyone more than Luther, the meticulous monk whose religion was repentance. And that is why he became concerned about the abuses that the medieval church had accumulated around matters of repentance and absolution. That’s why when he took his hammer to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church in 1517, the subject of Luther’s 95 Theses was repentance. His first statement set the theme: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said “Repent”, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.”

Martin Luther was not saying that believers should never participate in special acts of penance such as the practice of confession and absolution with a minister, or the keeping of fasts or vigils (such as Advent or Lent). He was, however, saying that, at its root, repentance is a daily matter that is about the direction of our lives. It happens every day when we reenact our baptism: “[Baptism] signifies that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts, and, again, a new man daily come forth and arise; who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever” (Small Catechism).

Daily we die to sin, daily we rise to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4, 11).

By linking repentance with the sacrament of Baptism, Luther was saying something profound about the nature of repentance under the New Covenant in Jesus — repentance is the way forward, not the way back. Repentance leads us to the newness of the Gospel, not to the bondage of legalism, moralism, or self-preoccupied religion.

N.T. Wright has clarified Jesus’ teaching on repentance in Jesus and the Victory of God. He notes that the wider Jewish notion of repentance in Jesus’ day was “what Israel must do if her exile is to come to an end,” and if her fortunes are to be restored at last. The call to “repent” would have had two emphases:

• It was an eschatological call — calling Israel to recognize the great moment in time in which she found herself. Jesus did not come as a moralistic reformer calling Israel to look back to the Law and mend their ways so that they could return to a more perfect legal obedience under the old covenant. Rather, he came as the designated Messiah, calling the people to recognize him as the Promised One inaugurating the reign of God among men. The invitation to “repent” then, means to recognize the turning of the ages and enter the new creation in which “old things have gone, and look — everything has become new!” (2Cor 5:17, Kingdom NT).

• It was also a political call — Jesus invited Israel “to abandon one set of agendas and embrace another.” He not only called individuals to repent, but also keepers of the religious system and the political leaders of Israel. To “repent” meant to recognize Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law, the Temple, and the sacrificial system, and to put trust in him rather than in those old covenant institutions. It meant to acknowledge Jesus as the King who overcomes evil with good and not with violence or rebellion. It meant to recognize him as the new Moses, who delivers his people from slavery and leads them to the Promised Land under a new covenant of love not law, one written on the heart not tablets of stone.

One important Old Testament word signifying repentance is the word shüb (pronounced shoov), which means to “return.” Before the exile the prophets used this word to call Israel back to the observance of the Law. For example, this classic passage in Hosea 14:1-3 –

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
   for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
Take words with you
   and return to the Lord;
say to him,
   ‘Take away all guilt;
accept that which is good,
   and we will offer
   the fruit of our lips.
Assyria shall not save us;
   we will not ride upon horses;
we will say no more, “Our God”,
   to the work of our hands.
In you the orphan finds mercy.’

Hosea was calling Israel to repent. But this message was in Old Testament, pre-exilic terms. He was calling the nation to “return,” to “go back” to the ways set forth by God’s Law. The final verse in this passage affirms: “For the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.” (14:9) The prophet appealed to the nation to abandon the ways of the “transgressor” and take up the path of the “upright” once more. He was exhorting them to forsake their idols and return to obedience to the First Commandment. He rebuked them for putting their trust in Assyria or military might to protect them and challenged them to take refuge in the same Lord who had delivered them from Pharaoh and so many other foes over the course of their history.

Hosea and the other pre-exilic prophets were trying to save Israel from exile and destruction by calling them back to the Law, back to the Sabbath, back to the Temple, back to the sacrifices, holidays, and feasts, back to Moses, back to Mt. Sinai, back to the words inscribed on stone by the finger of God.

With the exile, the message changed direction and began pointing to the future.

Incline your ear, and come to me;
   listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
   my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
   a leader and commander for the peoples.
See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
   and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
   for he has glorified you.
Seek the Lord while he may be found,
   call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
   and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

• Isaiah 55:3-7

Isaiah’s “return” to the Lord is not a call to return to the past — it’s more like “back to the future.” It’s a return to the God who is doing something new. He is making an everlasting covenant. The promises God made to David are being established. A king is coming who will rule over all the peoples, all nations. There will be mercy and pardon for all.

It is this second part of Isaiah that caught John the Baptizer’s imagination when he came on the scene to “prepare the way” (Isa. 40) for Jesus. And so, “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” (Mark 1:4-5).

John’s words and actions were all forward-looking. He called his fellow Israelites to repentance and baptized them in the Jordan River. Why? It is likely his actions were meant to portray a new entrance into the Promised Land. As Joshua led God’s redeemed people through the waters of Jordan from the wilderness of exile, so John invited Israel to leave behind the wilderness of their spiritual exile and wash themselves in Jordan’s waters so that they might enter into the place of God’s blessing. And then he pointed to the One who was coming to bring forgiveness and the renewing of the Holy Spirit — the hallmarks of the promised New Covenant.

• The pre-exilic prophets had called Israel to die to the “new” — idols, trust in military alliances, ways of living and leading that they learned from the nations — and to come back to the “old” — the Law, the Temple, the sacrifices, the feasts.

• Now John (and following him, Jesus), in a climactic message springing from the exilic and post-exilic prophets, called Israel to die to the “old” — the entire Old Covenant way that Israel had failed to follow — and to embrace the “new” — the Messiah who would succeed where Israel failed, the inauguration of God’s reign on earth, the Word of the Gospel, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the formation of God’s new community.

Understanding this throws a brighter light on “repentance” for me.

For a believer in Jesus, repentance is not a matter of “going back.” Instead, when we repent by reliving our baptism each day by dying to sin and rising again in Jesus, we awake to continual newness of life.

New covenant repenting is not about putting ourselves back under rules, obligations, requirements — “old” style ways calling us to “live for God” and be his light to the nations. Repentance in this new era is about turning our back on self-generated religion and spirituality, on the rules and boundary markers we put in place to define ourselves as “in” and others as “out,” on the kinds of moralism and separatism by which we set ourselves apart from “sinners” and fail to live from transformed hearts of love.

Repentance must never be construed in any way that ends up with us reverting to a position that puts us “under a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1)

Repentance in Jesus is well described by the prayer of confession we speak in our weekly service at my church: “For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways. For the glory of your holy name. Amen.”

Forgive us, yes. But then, bring us even further into the newness of life in Christ, Lord. And lead us — lead us forward, lead us onward, lead us to Jesus.

This is one reason I think Advent as a season of repentance can be so powerful.

In our repentance we are looking forward, anticipating the newness, on the lookout for Jesus.

Repentance is an act of preparation for what is to come, not a return to what was before.

Classic iMonk Post

Note from CM: A reader wrote me this week and asked about whether she should be re-baptized. After being baptized as an infant, she grew up in a nominal Catholic home, came “back to God” (her words) as an adult, and now the church she is attending requires her to be baptized to become a member. I gave her my view of baptism, which discourages the practice of re-baptism, since I view baptism as a sacrament through which God works rather than a human work by which we testify to God. At any rate, the exchange reminded me that Michael Spencer, a Southern Baptist, wrote quite a bit on the subject of re-baptism. Today, we present some of his classic thoughts, taken from posts that were published in September of 2008.

• • •

I know there are several angles to this subject, varying according to your own denominational preference. I am going to be writing from my position as an evangelical, a Southern Baptist and a lifelong minister to youth.

I’m going to write about rebaptism, an issue that has deeply affected and weakened my own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, and an issue that touches every Christian communion I am aware of in some way.

Rebaptism is a very emotional issue. One reason we don’t talk about it is how quickly it becomes an occasion for disagreement and division. I have seen many tears and heard many angry words over this subject. Just thinking about it and remembering what I have experienced has brought strong emotions back to me, even as I wrote.

Baptism stands at the entrance to the Christian experience. Christians may differ on exactly where that doorway occurs in relation to faith or forgiveness, and they may quibble about how directly that doorway leads into full communion in the church, but all Christians place baptism at the beginning of the Christian life, and assume that those who walk through it are, in some way, a part of the visible people of God.

In baptism, all Christians believe divine promises are heard. All Christians believe that baptism is, in various and very diverse ways, related to faith. All Christians believe that when the Church baptizes, it speaks a word from God to the one baptized, and a word to all Christians and all other persons who know the one baptized.

Amidst all the diverse and differing beliefs regarding baptism, there is a great common belief: This person is a part of God’s people, and is the recipient of God’s great promises in the Gospel.

I say all of this to make one point: For anyone to reject baptism- either their own or another’s- is a powerful and serious statement. It is powerfully divisive.

To reject one’s own baptism is to say something deeply revealing about what one believes about baptism, but more importantly, it is to say something revealing regarding the Gospel itself.

Rebaptism and the rejection of baptism that precedes it are full of ironies.

For example, my own Southern Baptist tradition does not believe in baptismal regeneration nor in the efficacy of baptism being tied to a particular congregation, yet Southern Baptists reject the baptisms of Roman Catholics- whether as adult believers or as infants- while the Roman Catholic church, which does believe the waters of baptism remove sin and that their church is the one and only true church, accepts the baptisms of Southern Baptists as valid.

It is Roman Catholics and most mainline Protestants who will refuse to rebaptize, while evangelicals often will rebaptize the same person multiple times over a period of a few years. Rebaptism by request for sentimental reasons- “My wife is being baptized and I want to be rebaptized with her”- is now commonplace.

Evangelicals will justify their own rebaptisms glibly, as if nothing were at stake at all in saying “I was baptized when I was 12, but I didn’t know what I was doing.” In fact, such a statement, while obviously meaningful as a description of an individual’s journey, has deep implications for the church and the Gospel.

In my own tradition, churches frequently refuse to accept other evangelicals baptized on their profession of faith, including other Baptists, without rebaptism. Such a posture has enormous implications regarding baptism, the Gospel and the church.

Those being rebaptized are seldom asked about their previous baptism, discipleship or Christian experience. Those who baptized and received them as Christians are left to assume they were wrong.

But most evangelicals seem clueless as to the seriousness of the issue of rebaptism. Submerged in the clamor for church growth, baptism has become a generator of statistics, and in that role rebaptism is seen as a blessing.

Only a few critics have the courage to point out that many “growing, evangelistic” churches are baptizing a percentage of their own members 2 and 3 times, while they are rebaptizing other Christians and acting as if these are conversions when they are not.

What does rebaptism look like among evangelicals today?

It looks like this:

• A growing church requires anyone not immersed in a Southern Baptist Church to be rebaptized.
• An evangelistic crusade at a church-related college results in over 200 decisions. Almost 2/3rds initially indicate that they are not Christians. Many will be rebaptized, even though they came to a Christian school after professing faith in Christ at their home churches for years. A local church will rebaptize many of these students who were baptized in their home churches.
• After a revival, several of the deacons of a Baptist church- and the pastor’s wife and children- are rebaptized. The deacons continue serving as deacons.
• A Baptist woman marries a Pentecostal man. The pastor who marries them says it would be a good idea of the man were rebaptized.
• A woman is saved in a Baptist church. Her husband and children all ask to be rebaptized with her.
• The entire youth group returns from summer camp and the youth minister asks the pastor that all the students be rebaptized. These are all the children of church leaders, and all were baptized in the past. The pastor baptizes them all at the next worship service.
• A young adult woman asks her pastor to rebaptize her because, after a recent Beth Moore conference, she’s much more serious about her faith and wants to say that she’s starting over as a Christian.
• A pastor tells the congregation that he is rebaptizing a man because, the man “just wants to be sure” that he’s a Christian.
• A girl at a Christian school is rebaptized for the 4th time in 2 years. A teacher asks the pastor why, and he says “I don’t want to discourage her in her walk with Christ.”
• A woman tells her pastor that she has not been living as a Christian the past few years, and now she wants to be resaved and rebaptized.
• A man immersed in believer’s baptism in a Presbyterian church is told that in order to join a Baptist church he’s visiting, he must be rebaptized because Presbyterians believe in infant baptism.

Today, rebaptism is most often a witness to the decreasing meaning of baptism among Baptists and evangelicals.

Today’s rebaptism crisis exists because Baptists have largely evacuated their previous convictions on theology and the importance of the local congregation, and have replaced those standards with a complete surrender to personal experience and the wisdom of the church growth movement. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper create major issues for the agenda of today’s evangelical churches, and the inevitable response is going to be 1) a misreading of any doctrinal distinctives regarding baptism and 2) a subordination of the meaning and practice baptism to Christian experience and church growth.

The evacuation of theology and the triumph of the church growth mentality have left Baptists with few resources to understand what is meant by “one baptism” in Ephesians. Baptism has become an extension of denominational identity (“Baptist” baptism) and the servant of whatever religious experience the individual wants to report as re-conversion or appropriate for baptism.

Baptism’s place and purpose in the Christian life are narrow and not subjective. It is not open for reinterpretation as a witness to the distinction between Pentecostals and Baptists. It does not represent denominational distinctives, but the heart of the Gospel. Baptists who insist on rebaptism because a denomination speaks in tongues or believes in the possibility of apostasy are twisting baptism to have a meaning it does not have. It is a local church ordinance, but it witnesses to the oneness of all Christians in being joined to Christ.

Baptism is not available to bear witness to recommitments or other experiences. It witnesses to the inauguration of a person’s entrance into the new creation.

Further problems with rebaptism arise because of a lack of practical theology of the Christian life, in particular the normal experiences of growth and sanctification. Baptists and other evangelicals have become so confused about the Gospel that millions of Christians come for rebaptism when they have simply experienced normal growth, repentance, sanctification or other experiences that are part of the Christian life.

Christian leaders and preachers bear a huge responsibility for failing- or refusing- to discern the proper response to rebaptism situations. It takes a mature leader to lay aside ego and look at what is Biblically appropriate, rather than what will generate more baptisms.

Pastors must find the courage to raise issues related to baptism and to do the right thing. This may mean rebaptism in some instances. As Anglican Peter Mathews said, Baptists are showing integrity in their own principles when they define baptism in a way that excludes infant baptism. Where I might disagree slightly is on the “Piper Proposal” for accommodating those who believe that rebaptism violates their conscience and rejects a legitimate form of baptism. I see no damage to Baptist principles to allow a form of fellowship, an allowance for service and a freedom to come to the Lord’s table for those with different baptisimal convictions who are part of the larger “one church, one faith, one baptism” family.

Read the Original “Re-Baptism” Posts

• Re-Baptism: What Is It?
• Re-Baptism: How Did We Get Here?
• Re-Baptism: Where Do We Go from Here?

The Last Supper, Buoninsegna

By Chaplain Mike

One of our most popular posts this year so far was our discussion of baptism back in May. It’s time for another.

Today, I’d like our iMonk community to weigh in on another primary sacrament (or ordinance) of the Christian Church. Whether we call it Communion, the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Table, today we speak about the meal that Christians share when we gather for worship.

There are obviously many different perspectives among Christians about our sacred meal.

Some partake daily, some weekly, some monthly, some quarterly, some annually. Those who share at the Table more often view this celebration as essential to the very definition of Christian worship. Those who have communion less regularly tend to see it more as an occasion for a special focus on the finished work of Christ.

There are also differences in viewpoints about the elements of bread and wine. Are they symbolic in the sense of merely “representing” or pointing to another reality? Or is Christ actually present in them or with them in some mysterious way?

Who is invited to come to the Table? How should one prepare for this act? What does “taking Communion” do for the participant? Should this ritual be part of a meal? Is it a sacrament or ordinance? Should children partake?

These and many other questions and opinions have been discussed regarding the Lord’s Supper down through the centuries. We are obviously not going to even begin to solve all dilemmas here today. That is not the point. This is a chance for us to discuss our various viewpoints with respect in order to learn and, perhaps, refine our own understandings.

To assist you in getting a handle on a few of the main traditional positions, I will reproduce some statements from official catechisms and teaching sources. I have only included short excerpts; there is obviously much more that each tradition has to say about the Lord’s Supper. For further study, I encourage you to follow the red links and read the full articles.

As with baptism, we especially welcome input from other traditions not represented here.

Finally, I will repeat what I said before the last “Let’s Discuss…” post: I ask that you remain civil and respectful in the discussion. You may be passionate about your viewpoint, and that’s ok. But let’s not be questioning another’s salvation or casting stones of judgment. This is a discussion, and I hope it will be among friends.

Roman Catholic View (Catechism of the Catholic Church)

1373 “Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us,” is present in many ways to his Church: in his word, in his Church’s prayer, “where two or three are gathered in my name,” in the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned, in the sacraments of which he is the author, in the sacrifice of the Mass, and in the person of the minister. But “he is present . . . most especially in the Eucharistic species.”

1374 The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.” In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” “This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”

1375 It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. The Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:

It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God’s. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered.

And St. Ambrose says about this conversion:

Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. The power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed. . . . Could not Christ’s word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: “Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.”

1377 The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.

• • •

Orthodox View (OCA)

The sacrament of the eucharist is also called holy communion since it is the mystical communion of men with God, with each other, and with all men and all things in him through Christ and the Spirit. The eucharistic liturgy is celebrated in the Church every Sunday, the Day of the Lord, as well as on feast days. Except in monasteries, it is rarely celebrated daily. Holy Communion is forbidden to all Orthodox Christians on the week days of Great Lent except in the special communion of the Liturgy of the Pre-sanctified Gifts (see below) because of its joyful and resurrectional character. The eucharist is always given to all members of the Church, including infants who are baptized and confirmed. It is always given in both forms — bread and wine. It is strictly understood as being the real presence of Christ, his true Body and Blood mystically present in the bread and wine which are offered to the Father in his name and consecrated by the divine Spirit of God.

…One of the most unfortunate developments took place when men began to debate the reality of Christ’s Body and Blood in the eucharist. While some said that the eucharistic gifts of bread and wine were the real Body and Blood of Christ, others said that the gifts were not real, but merely the symbolic or mystical presence of the Body and Blood. The tragedy in both of these approaches is that what is real came to be opposed to what is symbolic or mystical.

The Orthodox Church denies the doctrine that the Body and the Blood of the eucharist are merely intellectual or psychological symbols of Christ’s Body and Blood. If this doctrine were true, when the liturgy is celebrated and holy communion is given, the people would be called merely to think about Jesus and to commune with him “in their hearts.” In this way, the eucharist would be reduced to a simple memorial meal of the Lord’s last supper, and the union with God through its reception would come only on the level of thought or psychological recollection.

On the other hand, however, the Orthodox tradition does use the term “symbols” for the eucharistic gifts. It calls, the service a “mystery” and the sacrifice of the liturgy a “spiritual and bloodless sacrifice.” These terms are used by the holy fathers and the liturgy itself.

The Orthodox Church uses such expressions because in Orthodoxy what is real is not opposed to what is symbolical or mystical or spiritual. On the contrary! In the Orthodox view, all of reality — the world and man himself — is real to the extent that it is symbolical and mystical, to the extent that reality itself must reveal and manifest God to us. Thus, the eucharist in the Orthodox Church is understood to be the genuine Body and Blood of Christ precisely because bread and wine are the mysteries and symbols of God’s true and genuine presence and manifestation to us in Christ. Thus, by eating and drinking the bread and wine which are mystically consecrated by the Holy Spirit, we have genuine communion with God through Christ who is himself “the bread of life” (Jn 6:34, 41).

• • •

Lutheran View (Luther’s Large Catechism)

Question: Now, what is the Sacrament of the Altar?

Answer: It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in and under the bread and wine which we Christians are commanded by the Word of Christ to eat and to drink. And as we have said of Baptism that it is not simple water, so here also we say the Sacrament is bread and wine, but not mere bread and wine, such as are ordinarily served at the table, but bread and wine comprehended in, and connected with, the Word of God.

It is the Word (I say) which makes and distinguishes this Sacrament, so that it is not mere bread and wine, but is, and is called, the body and blood of Christ. For it is said: Accedat verbum ad elementum, et fit sacramentum. If the Word be joined to the element, it becomes a Sacrament. This saying of St. Augustine is so properly and so well put that he has scarcely said anything better. The Word must make a Sacrament of the element, else it remains a mere element. Now, it is not the word or ordinance of a prince or emperor, but of the sublime Majesty, at whose feet all creatures should fall, and affirm it is as He says, and accept it with all reverence, fear, and humility.

…Thus we have briefly the first point which relates to the essence of this Sacrament. Now examine further the efficacy and benefits on account of which really the Sacrament was instituted; which is also its most necessary part, that we may know what we should seek and obtain there. Now this is plain and clear from the words just mentioned: This is My body and blood, given and shed for you, for the remission of sins. Briefly that is as much as to say: For this reason we go to the Sacrament because there we receive such a treasure by and in which we obtain forgiveness of sins. Why so? Because the words stand here and give us this; for on this account He bids me eat and drink, that it may be my own and may benefit me, as a sure pledge and token, yea, the very same treasure that is appointed for me against my sins, death, and every calamity.

On this account it is indeed called a food of souls, which nourishes and strengthens the new man. For by Baptism we are first born anew; but (as we said before) there still remains, besides, the old vicious nature of flesh and blood in man, and there are so many hindrances and temptations of the devil and of the world that we often become weary and faint, and sometimes also stumble.

Therefore it is given for a daily pasture and sustenance, that faith may refresh and strengthen itself so as not to fall back in such a battle, but become ever stronger and stronger….

• • •

Reformed View (John Calvin)

Now, if it be asked whether the bread is the body of Christ and the wine his blood, we answer, that the bread and the wine are visible signs, which represent to us the body and blood, but that this name and title of body and blood is given to them because they are as it were instruments by which the Lord distributes them to us. This form and manner of speaking is very appropriate. For as the communion which we have with the body of Christ is a thing incomprehensible, not only to the eye but to our natural sense, it is there visibly demonstrated to us. Of this we have a striking example in an analogous case. Our Lord, wishing to give a visible appearance to his Spirit at the baptism of Christ, presented him under the form of a dove. St. John the Baptist, narrating the fact, says, that he saw the Spirit of God descending. If we look more closely, we shall find that he saw nothing but the dove, in respect that the Holy Spirit is in his essence invisible. Still, knowing that this vision was not an empty phantom, but a sure sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit, he doubts not to say that he saw it, (John i. 32,) because it was represented to him according to his capacity.

Thus it is with the communion which we have in the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. It is a spiritual mystery which can neither be seen by the eye nor comprehended by the human understanding. It is therefore figured to us by visible signs, according as our weakness requires, in such manner, nevertheless, that it is not a bare figure but is combined with the reality and substance. It is with good reason then that the bread is called the body, since it not only represents but also presents it to us. Hence we indeed infer that the name of the body of Jesus Christ is transferred to the bread, inasmuch as it is the sacrament and figure of it. But we likewise add, that the sacraments of the Lord should not and cannot be at all separated from their reality and substance. To distinguish, in order to guard against confounding them, is not only good and reasonable, but altogether necessary; but to divide them, so as to make the one exist without the other, is absurd.

Hence when we see the visible sign we must consider what it represents, and by whom it has been given us. The bread is given us to figure the body of Jesus Christ, with command to eat it, and it is given us of God, who is certain and immutable truth. If God cannot deceive or lie, it follows that it accomplishes all which it signifies. We must then truly receive in the Supper the body and blood of Jesus Christ, since the Lord there represents to us the communion of both. Were it otherwise, what could be meant by saying, that we eat the bread and drink the wine as a sign that his body is our meat and his blood our drink? If he gave us only bread and wine, leaving the spiritual reality behind, would it not be under false colours that this ordinance had been instituted?

• • •

Classic Baptist View (Tom J. Nettles) *

Baptists practice the Lord’s Supper in conformity with the Zwinglian view of its essence. John Gill states very simply that it is “to Shew forth the death of Christ till he come again; to commemorate his sufferings and sacrifice, to represent his body broken, and his blood shed for the sins of his people.” Any who desires to take it should examine himself to discern if he “has true faith in Christ, and is capable of discerning the Lord’s body.”

The emphasis on commemoration and representation reflect Zwingli’s interpretation of Scripture and his understanding of the distinctive idioms of human nature in conformity with the teachings of the Council of Chalcedon concerning the undivided person of the two-natured Christ. In his Exposition of the Faith sent to King Francis of France, Zwingli argued that “in the Lord’s Supper the natural and essential body of Christ in which he suffered and is now seated in heaven at the right hand of God is not eaten naturally and literally but only spiritually.” The Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation he contended was not only “presumptuous and foolish” but, more importantly, “impious and blasphemous.”

Though this view has been described as “bare symbolism,” for Zwingli it was no more bare than powerful spiritual meditation on the truths of the gospel. “To eat the body of Christ spiritually,” he explained, “is equivalent to trusting with heart and soul upon the mercy and goodness of God.” This meditation may become a spiritual feast and a means of renewed assurance and sanctification.

* See also Michael Spencer’s post, “The Baptist Way: The Lord’s Supper”

Portrait of Matthew, Gospel Book of Ebbo

By Chaplain Mike

Today, I would like to present, for your consideration and discussion, a ten-point summary of my perspective on Scripture (at this point in my understanding).

• The Bible is from God. It is one of the means by which God has made himself known to human beings. The various books of the Bible were composed and edited and put together under the mysterious method of “inspiration,” by which God worked mostly through normal human processes to communicate his message.

• The Bible is incarnational. That is, it comes to us in fully human form, taking the words of people written in their own times, from within their own cultures, according to the genres and literary conventions common to their day, and within the confines of their own limited perspectives, to communicate God’s message.

• The Bible involves a complex conversation of faith over time. The Bible contains multiple voices, a diversity of narrative and theological perspectives, and a development of thought over time. For example, Joshua and Judges present two sides of the conquest of Canaan. Ecclesiastes and Job protest the wisdom tradition represented by a book like Proverbs, which even in its own pages presents several points of view. The “history” of Chronicles presents a different scenario of the same events than we see in the books of Kings. This diversity is only a problem if we expect the Bible to be something it is not—a timeless and perfectly consistent, always harmonizable record that is precise in every detail according to modern standards of accuracy.

St. John, Gospel Book of Ebbo, by Sarah Neurath

• The Bible came to us through the community of faith. Recognizing that there were human processes involved in the final editing and canonization of the Bible also highlights how God used people to bring the Bible as a final product to the world. The Hebrew Bible was put together mostly during and after the Babylonian exile. The church took nearly four centuries to complete the canonization process for the New Testament. Our understanding of the nature, authority, and message of Scripture must take these human processes into account as well.

• The Bible is the church’s primary authority (Prima Scriptura). The fact that the church functioned for the first four centuries of its life without a complete Bible means that it cannot have sole authority apart from the church, the Holy Spirit, and the apostolic traditions (the “rule of faith”). For Protestants, at the very least this means we must make a fresh commitment to learning church history, the creeds, and the early Church Fathers for a fuller understanding and practice of the faith.

• The Bible is true. “True” is a better way of describing the Bible than “inerrant” or “infallible” or any such words that grow out of modern categories. After all, what is an “inerrant” poem? An “infallible” story? The Bible is true because it tells the truth about God, the state of the world, human life and death, sin and salvation, wisdom and foolishness. But most of all because it tells the truth about the Truth himself and leads its readers to him.

• The Bible is God’s story. Any individual passage or part of the Bible should be read and interpreted in the light of its big picture, its overall pattern and message. The final form of the Bible tells a “Christotelic” story. From “in the beginning” to “in the end of days” the story constantly develops and moves forward to its culmination in Christ and the new creation. This story must always determine our emphases when interpreting its message.

• The Bible’s central focus is Jesus. The apostles testify that Jesus taught them to see that the purpose of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings is to point to him and his good news, which restores God’s blessing to all creation. The New Testament, of course, tells Jesus’ story and accounts of the apostolic community that experienced and spread his good news. The Bible is not God’s final word, but is rather a primary witness to Jesus, God’s final Word.

• The Bible does not contain every detail of God’s will for his people’s lives. In the Bible, God gives adequate instructions to guide his people to practice lives of love for God and neighbor. On the other hand, God expects that many implications of the Gospel will be worked out only over the course of time, in and through (and despite!) his people, until the consummation of the age. The Bible is not a “handbook” for living, with detailed instructions for every aspect of life. The Bible is not “sufficient” to answer all of life’s questions. It was not designed to do that, and we risk becoming pharisaical if we try to maintain that opinion.

• The Bible doesn’t need me or anyone else to defend it. Christians do not need to prove that the Bible is a perfect book, free from “error” (as we define it today) in every way in order to have a secure faith or to present a case for Christ to the world. We need a credible, reliable witness that is self-attesting in its divine truthfulness, beauty, and power. This we have in the Bible.

photo © 2006 Jenny Bauman | more info (via: Wylio)

In today’s worship, we heard the Gospel parable from Matthew 13 about the wheat and the weeds.

Jesus told them another parable:
The Kingdom of heaven is like this. A man sowed good seed in his field. One night, when everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. When the plants grew and the heads of grain began to form, then the weeds showed up.
The man’s servants came to him and said, “Sir, it was good seed you sowed in your field; where did the weeds come from?”
“It was some enemy who did this,” he answered.
“Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds?” they asked him.
“No,” he answered, “because as you gather the weeds you might pull up some of the wheat along with them. Let the wheat and the weeds both grow together until harvest. Then I will tell the harvest workers to pull up the weeds first, tie them in bundles and burn them, and then to gather in the wheat and put it in my barn.” (13:24-30, GNT)

The text goes on to record other parables as well: about a tiny mustard seed that grows up into a huge plant, and about yeast that is mixed into a bowl of flour and causes it to rise.

What do these parables tell us about the nature of God’s Kingdom that has dawned in Jesus?

photo © 2005 Matthew F | more info (via: Wylio)These stories speak of a process.

These wisdom tales stress waiting.

These parables are about patience.

These talks envision a timetable.

They tell us God’s work is often hidden, that he is acting in ways that are real but may not be evident immediately.

They warn us that our zeal for acting with a view toward results now, may be misguided.

Coming home after worship, I sought some further insight from Tom Wright about these parables, and I was challenged by what I read in his Matthew for Everyone guide:

“Why doesn’t God do something?”

That is perhaps the most frequent question that people ask Christian leaders and teachers—and those of some other faiths, too. Tragedies happen. Horrific accidents devastate lives and families. Tyrants and bullies force their own plans on people and crush opposition, and they seem to get away with it. And sensitive souls ask, again and again, why is God apparently silent? Why doesn’t he step in and stop it?

These parables are not a direct answer to the question, and probably no direct answer can be given in this life. But they show, through the various different stories, that God’s sovereign rule over the world isn’t quite such a straightforward thing as people sometimes imagine.

Would people really like it if God were to rule the world directly and immediately, so that our every thought and action were weighed, and instantly judged and if necessary punished, in the scales of his absolute holiness? If the price of God stepping in and stopping a campaign of genocide were that he would have to rebuke and restrain every other evil impulse, including those we all still know and cherish within ourselves, would we be prepared to pay that price? If we ask God to act on special occasions, do we really suppose that he could do that simply when we want him to, and then back off again for the rest of the time.

Now those are good questions.

Wright suggests that Jesus wanted his own followers first to hear these words. It may be hard for us to grasp how enthusiastic they must have been to be walking with the Lord as he demonstrated daily the Messianic age breaking in to the present. How like the servants in the parable they must have been! Lord, do you want us to run out and finish the job, weed out the bad stuff, call down fire on those who don’t get it?

He also says Jesus may have had a special word for the zealots in mind here, the radical groups who were “longing for God to act, and were prepared to help him by acting themselves” through direct and perhaps violent revolutionary action.

Like the farmer in the parable, however, God sees a bigger picture. He knows there is a time for harvest. A process must come to completion. The crop must come to maturity. Wright remarks that God must not enjoy looking out on his wheat fields and seeing the weeds that have infiltrated it. However, he is also smart enough to know that ripping out the tares at this time in the process would involve destroying good plants as well, thus diminishing the harvest to come.

photo © 2009 Brian Forbes | more info (via: Wylio)On the other hand, as a good teacher, Tom Wright exhorts us to consider another perspective. Taking the long view should not lead us to excuse ourselves from proper activity now on behalf of the Kingdom. There is patience and there is procrastination. We may take the long view but this does not justify laziness. When the crops are growing, there is no “off season.” Successful farmers always find something productive to do.

Just so, there is a proper theological tension between the already and the not yet. In this tension God’s people are called to trust and obey, to participate in God’s mission of extending compassion and standing against evil and injustice today, while we wait for God’s tomorrow.

There is a highly personal side to all of this too, Wright suggests.

Do we really want God to intervene and judge evil?

I fear we do—in a highly selective sort of way. We want him to take care of the evil out there, those aspects of life in a fallen world that cause us distress in mind, body, and spirit.

But do we want him to deal with the evil in here, in our own hearts and lives? We ourselves are fields sown with a mixture of wheat and weeds. Are we ready for him to step in, in the midst of the sanctification process, to rip those weeds out of our lives? Or are we glad that God enlists us in a process of following, gives us time, and works patiently with us? Aren’t we glad that it is about a relationship that grows, develops, and matures? Aren’t we glad that it is about an organic process of life rather than a blunt intervention which crushes the good with the bad?

Farmer knows best.

The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.
But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children—
with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.

The LORD has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.

• Psalm 103: 8-19 (NIV)

Trinity Icon, Rublev

By Chaplain Mike

This Sunday upcoming is Trinity Sunday, the day that bridges the two main divisions of the Church Year. We have been walking through the life of Jesus from Advent to Pentecost since last November. Now, we begin the days of “Ordinary Time,” when we live out the faith daily as Christ’s church, embraced by the Good News of salvation and filled with his Spirit.

About Today’s Art
“Many scholars consider Rublev’s Trinity the most perfect of all Russian icons and perhaps the most perfect of all the icons ever painted. The work was created for the abbot of the Trinity Monastery, Nikon of Radonezh, a disciple of the famous Sergius, one of the leaders of the monastic revival in the 14th-century Russia. Asking Rublev to paint the icon of the Holy Trinity, Nikon wanted to commemorate Sergius as a man whose life and deeds embodied the most progressive processes in the late 14th-century Russia.

“…From the earliest times, the idea of the Trinity was controversial and difficult to understand, especially for the uneducated masses. Even though Christianity replaced the pagan polytheism, it gave the believers a monotheistic religion with a difficult concept of one God in three hypostases — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Not only the uneducated population but many theologians had difficulties with the concept of the triune God; from time to time, a heretical movement, like Arianism, questioned the doctrine, causing long debates, violent persecutions, and even greater general confusion. Trying to portray the Trinity, but always aware of the Biblical prohibition against depicting God, icon painters turned to the story of the hospitality of Abraham who was visited by three wanderers. In their compositions, icon painters included many details — the figures of Abraham and Sarah, a servant killing a calf in preparation for the feast, the rock, the tree of Mamre, and the house (tent) — trying to render as faithfully as possible the events described in the text. (Genesis, 18:1-8)”

• Alexander Boguslawski

The Holy Trinity
The Church’s belief in the triune God—we believe in one God who is three persons in one essence—is foundational for Christian faith. This teaching is fully spelled out in the Athanasian Creed. Of course, this doctrine is a mystery, transcending human mathematical logic. However, it is perhaps the most practically important fundamental teaching of the faith, for it clarifies who the true and living God is, and what he is like. In particular, it reveals that he is a personal, relational God.

This God who acts is not only a God of energies, but a personal God. When humans participate in the divine energies, they are not overwhelmed by some vague and nameless power, but they are brought face to face with a person. Nor is this all: God is not simply a single person confined within His own being, but a Trinity of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each of whom ‘dwells’ in the other two by virtue of a perpetual movement of love. God is not only a unity but a union.

• Timothy Ware (Bishop Kallistos of Dioklesia), The Orthodox Church, p. 209

This mutual indwelling of the Persons of the Trinity has been known as “Perichoresis.” We use a word that comes from this—”choreography”—to describe the art of dance. The image brought out in the term perichoresis is that of dynamic movement and loving interaction, as in joyful dancing. As Peter Leithart describes it:

The unity of the Tri-unity should not be understood as “sitting together,” as if the Persons were merely in close proximity. Nor should perichoresis be understood as a static containment, as if the Son were in the Father in the way that water is in a bucket.

Rather, perichoresis describes the Persons as eternally giving themselves over into one another. It is not that the Father has (at some “moment” in eternity past) poured Himself out into the Son, but that He is continually pouring Himself into the Son, and the Son into the Spirit, and the Spirit into the Father, and so on. To talk about God’s “perichoretic” unity is to talk about a dynamic unity, and to talk about a God who is always at work, always in motion, pure act. It is to say that the life of God is peri-choreographed.

• “The Dance of God, the Dance of Life,” Leithart.com

Furthermore, through this knowledge of God, we come to know who we are as human beings. For we are created in the image of the triune God. As Genesis 1:26-28 (NRSV) affirms:

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’

Our social programme, said the Russian thinker Feodorov, is the dogma of the Trinity. Orthodoxy believes most passionately that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not a piece of ‘high theology’ reserved for the professional scholar, but something that has a living, practical importance for every Christian. The human person, so the Bible teaches, is made in the image of God, and to Christians God means the Trinity: thus it is only the light of the dogma of the Trinity that we can understand who we are and what God intends us to be. Our private lives, our personal relations, and all our plans of forming a Christian society depend upon a right theology of the Trinity.”

• Ware, p. 208

As human beings, we relate to one another in the “dance of life” on this planet. The relationships between the three Persons of the Trinity—dynamic, interactive, loving, serving—form the model for our human dance steps. Unfortunately, through sinfulness we corrupt the dance into a choreography of conflict.

However, now through the Gospel, Christians have been brought into a special relationship with the triune God. Through Christ’s incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension, and by the regenerating action of the Spirit, we prodigals have been brought home and embraced by our Father. Gathered into the household of faith, we now enjoy the feast of the fatted calf, and participate in the dance party that is taking place in the Father’s house. In this way we exemplify the reality and nature of God and bring his Good News to a world that has forgotten how to dance.

The four texts for this Sunday are: Genesis 1:1-2:4a, Psalm 8, 2Corinthians 13:11-13, and Matthew 28:16-20. From these four passages, the following truths emerge.

• The true and living God is a personal, relational God who created us to be like him (Gen. 1)

• The most important aspect of life is holy and healthy relationships (Gen 1, 2Cor 13)

• As humans, we are created to live in relationships that are fruitful, exemplifying the goodness of creation and pointing to the new creation. (Gen 1, Ps 8, 2Cor 13, Matt 28)

• God’s family, the church, is to be the ultimate exemplar of such relationships, living out the grace, love, and fellowship of the Holy Trinity in the world. (Matt 28, 2Cor 13)

I encourage you to take a few moments today and throughout this weekend to meditate on these Scriptures and contemplate the significance of the triune nature of God. Go further into these questions: What does it tell us about who God is and what he is like? What implications does it have for we humans, created in his image? What does it say to the church, God’s ambassadors here in this world?

By Chaplain Mike

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you.

• Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking

I had not planned on re-running this post, but I think our discussion on death before the Fall demands that we review it.

A common Christian viewpoint attributes all the world’s disharmony, chaos, trouble, evil and its consequences to Adam’s sin. I have come to think the Bible does not teach that. True, Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned…” However, this text only says that human death is the consequence of our forefather’s transgression. Furthermore, it is possible that it is speaking only of human death of a certain kind (more on that in posts to come).

You find nothing in this text about earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, accidents, plant and animal death, disease, or any other “natural” forms of “evil” in the world. You won’t find them explicitly in Genesis either. Is it possible that the chaotic and destructive aspects of life in creation, elements that we would have a difficult time defining as “good” (as in Genesis 1) find their source somewhere else?

The article I wrote last year discusses this. It suggests that the world Adam entered was not the “paradise” we imagine. The Garden in which he and Eve lived may have been an enclave protected from a harsher world around them. You can read it after the jump, but I also want to recommend a blog post on the same subject—“Death and Evil existed before the Fall” at Austin’s Blog. Both of us base our material on the teaching of Bruce Waltke, whose Genesis commentary and OT Theology cover this subject.

SURD EVIL, SERPENTS, AND THE COSMIC BATTLE
Originally posted July 3, 2010

A number of commenters to IM this week have struggled with our interpretation that the story of the fall and its consequences does not indicate a radical change in the nature of creation itself as the result of human sin.

If, BEFORE THE FALL—plants and organisms decayed, if carnivorous animals ate other animals, if earthquakes shook the land, if meteors crashed onto the earth’s surface, if entire species died out and became extinct, if bacteria and viruses caused illnesses and suffering, if accidents occurred, causing injury and pain, if ancestors of humanity and perhaps even other human beings on the earth before Adam and Eve lived and experienced the vicissitudes of life and then died, if as Tennyson famously wrote, nature was “red in tooth and claw,” even at the beginning, then doesn’t that undermine the teaching of Scripture—that all these evils are to be attributed to the fall of humankind and the entrance of sin into the world?

I don’t think so.

Chaos at the Beginning
The first indication that all is not right in God’s creation is not in Genesis 3, but in Genesis 1:2—“The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep…”

The story of the six days of “creation” begins with the world already present, covered in darkness and watery chaos. This negative state is hostile to life. The Hebrew words “tôhu wābōhû” (formless and void) indicate a trackless wilderness, an inhospitable environment incapable of sustaining a “good” existence.

In his commentary on Genesis, Bruce Waltke elucidates the theological implications of this. This negative state at the beginning of creation indicates the presence of “surd evil”—evil that is incapable of rational explanation on our part. The origin of this evil has not been revealed to us. It is not dualistic, eternally existing and co-equal with God, for the Bible makes clear that it operates only under his sovereign control. Nevertheless, we see it operating in the world before human sin.

The precreated state of the earth with darkness and chaos suggests that everything hostile to life is not a result of sin. This is Job’s discovery (Job 38-41). Job is mystified by his whole experience of suffering. God’s response is to make clear that everything negative in creation from the human perspective is not a result of human sin. The chaotic forces—sea, darkness, and the like—are a mystery to human beings. Although these forces seem, for the moment, hostile to life, human beings can still trust the benevolence of the Creator because the malevolent forces of creation operate only within his constraints. (p. 68f)

One main point of the creation account in Genesis 1 is to show how God brought order to a chaotic earth and made it habitable for his creatures and humans. He turned tôhu wābōhû into tôb (good). “All is bounded by God’s control” (Waltke, p. 69).

Surd evil was present before human sin, and continues in the world under the providential oversight of God until the day it too will be swallowed up in new creation.

Eve Tempted (Paradise Lost), Blake

A Dark Power in the World
Another indication that there is more to evil in the world than that which results from the fall is found in Genesis 3, before the account of human sin.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (3:1)

Before Adam and Eve take their first bite of forbidden fruit, the author introduces us to the serpent. I don’t think Moses had anything against snakes in particular, although forty years in the desert might have given him an aversion to them. The text suggests that there was a Dark Power behind this serpent. Animals don’t talk in the Bible unless some spiritual personage gets hold of them and makes use of their tongues.

From whence did this Dark Power come? Does not his very presence, his questioning of God’s character and words, his active role in tempting Adam and Eve to disobey God, testify to the fact that all was not right in the world even before human sin?

The Cosmic Battle
Although we commonly go to Genesis 1-2 to study the story of creation, there is more than one text discussing this subject in the Bible. A common theme in these passages is the “cosmic battle” by which God tamed the forces of chaos and established order in the world. This emphasis is also present, though muted, in Genesis 1. As Peter Enns writes:

One of the ways the Old Testament describes creation is through a conflict between Yahweh and the sea (or “waters” or one of the sea monsters, Leviathan or Rahab). Sea is a symbol of chaos, and so Yahweh’s victory in the conflict establishes order. He is the creator, the supreme power. Israel’s proper response is awe and praise.

Some examples:

Psalm 104:5-7
He established the earth upon its foundations,
So that it will not totter forever and ever.
You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
The waters were standing above the mountains.
At Your rebuke they fled,
At the sound of Your thunder they hurried away.

God did not just “separate” the daughters, he rebuked them and they fled to their appointed locations. This pictures God and “the waters” in conflict with one another, and God putting them in their place.

Psalm 89:8-11
O LORD God of hosts, who is like You, O mighty LORD?
Your faithfulness also surrounds You.
You rule the swelling of the sea;
When its waves rise, You still them.
You Yourself crushed Rahab like one who is slain;
You scattered Your enemies with Your mighty arm.
The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours;
The world and all it contains, You have founded them.

Our Creator is the one who rules over the seas, stilling them, and crushing the enemy forces of chaos that exists within them, here called Rahab, the great sea monster.

Psalm 74:12-17
Yet God is my king from of old,
Who works deeds of deliverance in the midst of the earth.
You divided the sea by Your strength;
You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
You broke open springs and torrents;
You dried up ever-flowing streams.
Yours is the day, Yours also is the night;
You have prepared the light and the sun.
You have established all the boundaries of the earth;
You have made summer and winter.

Note how God’s creation acts are described as “deeds of salvation (deliverance)”! It took his “strength” to divide the waters, which involved breaking “the heads of the sea monsters in the waters” and crushing “the heads of Leviathan.” Note also how the emphasis of the text is bring order out of chaos, of “establishing boundaries,” thus organizing his creation so that it is “good” for his creatures.

God answering Job, Blake

Job 38:4-11
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb,
when I made clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed limits for it
and set bars and doors,
and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? 

See also Job 41, where God graphically describes the power of Leviathian: “Who can confront it and be safe? Under the whole heaven, who?” (Job 41:11). God the almighty Creator, that’s who! He and he alone is able to thwart the forces of chaos, command the raging sea into its place, and tame the wild beasts of the sea that foment disarray and destruction.

One evidence of God’s final victory in this cosmic battle is Revelation 21:1—“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.”

Is this “cosmic battle” emphasis seen in Genesis 1, the foundational account of creation? Yes, there are at least a few indications that this “cosmic battle” against the sea and Leviathan inform Genesis 1 in one way or another.

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. (1:2)

And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (1:20-21)

We’ve already discussed how the negative state described in 1:2 suggests a creation in which surd evil is present even before the fall. In verses 20-21, note now God mentions only one specific creature in sky and seas—the great sea creatures. This may be read as a subtle polemic against Babylonian myths representing these sea monsters as great powers that the Babylonian gods had to defeat in order to achieve victory. In contrast, the one living and true God, creator of land, sea, and skies, simply brought forth these creatures and populated the seas with them. They are mere works of his hand.

What does this “cosmic battle” emphasis say to our subject? It says that the Bible portrays the presence of forces and powers opposed to God active in the universe and in the world before the first act of human sin. God had to perform “acts of salvation” (Ps 74:12) even to create the world! In creation, he delivered the world from conditions of chaos and disorder, bringing order and “goodness” to it, so that his creatures could live in his blessing. Those forces are still present, but they are kept within the boundaries that God’s sovereign, providential rule has established.

What about Romans 8?
Paul seems to infer that creation is “groaning” because God subjected it to the curse delineated in Genesis 3. Here is Romans 8:18-25 (NASB)—

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

C. John Collins suggests that the key term in Rom. 8 is “slavery to corruption”. In the LXX of Genesis this term is used, not in Genesis 3, but in Genesis 6:11-13, where it says that the world became corrupt in God’s sight because “all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.” Collins writes,

“Seen this way, the creation is ‘in bondage to decay,’ not because of changes in the way it works but because of the ‘decay’ (or corruption) of mankind, and in response to man’s ‘decay’ God ‘brings decay to’ (or ‘destroys’) the earth to chastise man. The creation is ’subjected to futility’ because it has sinful mankind in it, and thus it is the arena in which mankind expresses its sin and experiences God’s judgments. No wonder it ‘waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God,’ for then the sons of God will be perfect in holiness, and sin will be no more.” (Genesis 1-4, p. 184)

Human sin did not introduce all forms of evil and chaos into the world, but it did intensify them. Human beings, who were called to exercise dominion over the world, have become corrupted, and under their rule the world sinks even deeper into chaos. Acting out in a world where surd evil often rears its ugly head, voluntarily in league with the Evil One who first tempted them to sin, aligning themselves and cooperating with the cosmic forces opposed to God’s rule and righteousness, sinful human beings threaten to turn tôb (good) back into tôhu wābōhû (an uninhabitable wasteland).

This effort shall not prevail. Our hope is in God, who in Jesus is making a new creation. In the new heavens and new earth, all forms of evil and chaos shall be destroyed, and everything in heaven and on earth reconciled to God through Christ.

With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. (Eph 1:8-9, NRSV)

The interpretation of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 and the subsequent stories in Genesis 2-3 forms one of the battlegrounds in the current “creation wars.” However, the arguments go beyond Genesis. In fact, the stickiest issues grow out of the way the Apostle Paul makes use of the story of Adam in such passages as Romans 5 and 1Corinthians 15. And one of the most important involves the reality of death in the world and how we are to understand it in light of the Gospel.

I am working through the NT texts and will be posting on them later this week.

In the meantime, I want to refer you to an article by Daniel Harrell, former minister at Park Street Church in Boston, and now Senior Minister of the Colonial Church in Edina, Minnesota. He also has a PhD in developmental psychology and has show great interest in issues of science and faith. You can read his contributions and watch video conversations with him at BioLogos, and he authored the book, Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith.

On his blog, Harrell wrote a post called, “Evolution, Christianity, and Death.” It provides a good summary of the view that death existed before Adam’s sin and that this is compatible with an orthodox evangelical understanding of the fallen human condition and its remedy in Christ.

Harrell’s general position may be summarized in the following words from his post:

“Death has occurred since the first breath of biological life (and some would say since the first “breath” of cosmological life), long before Adam inhaled. Ironically, therefore, death must be a part of God’s good creation. Moreover, human death due to sin must be something different than the physical death we all die. Theologically speaking, death is alienation from God. It is death as the termination of relationship. It’s what Jesus describes as an ethereal chasm between the rich man and the beggar named Lazarus (Luke 16:19-26).”

In our thinking, we tend to think of one side of death—death as the wages of sin, death as a penalty, death as a separation that causes grief and anguish. But Harrell encourages us to think of “another side” of death. Jesus spoke of death as an ultimate act of love that provides life for others. Pointing to the way the natural world itself works, he said, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24 NIV).

More than stating the horticulturally obvious, Jesus is making a much larger point about the way all things are. Just as the death of an organism will allow for its flourishing reproduction and continued genetic life (not that the Bible would put it this way), so would the death of Jesus and the subsequent deaths of Jesus’ followers lead to a new flourishing and continuation of life in Christ. God redeems death for good.

Sacrificial giving is a part of God’s nature. Why should we be surprised to see it revealed in nature’s nature? If the earth reveals the handiwork of God (Psalm 102:25), we would expect to see the marks of God on the world as science observes it even if science doesn’t acknowledge it. God gives himself in creation and for creation, ultimately dying to redeem it toward new creation.

But isn’t death itself called our “enemy” (1Cor 15:26)? Harrell asserts that it is not the mere cessation of physical life on earth that is our enemy, but eternal alienation from God. Even believers, who have been given eternal life through Jesus, still die physically. However, the “sting” of that physical death has been forever removed, transforming death from an experience that ends in hopeless darkness to a gateway that leads to life and light.

Daniel Harrell concludes with these words about the future:

Granted, the Bible does promise an eventual end to death (Revelation 21:4). If “no death” literally means no death (which it must mean if we’re talking eternity), then we should anticipate a new creation with a new sort of biology and physics—at least one where entropy no longer holds sway and death is no longer required. With no death there would be no evolution, since in heaven, presumably, everything achieves its perfection. And yet just as evolution previews Christ’s death and resurrection, so also do aspects of heaven already exist on earth. As people are made in God’s image, so creation is made in heaven’s image. Humans are not rescued out of the world; the entire created order participates in the redemption of humanity. Christians hold that the created and cursed is the very stuff that gets redeemed and glorified. Though all things die and return to dust, it is out of that same dust that resurrection happens.

“So, is the Adam and Eve question destined to become a groundbreaking science-and-Scripture dispute, a 21st-century equivalent of the once disturbing proof that the Earth orbits the sun? The potential is certainly there: the emerging science could be seen to challenge not only what Genesis records about the creation of humanity but the species’s unique status as bearing the “image of God,” Christian doctrine on original sin and the Fall, the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, and, perhaps most significantly, Paul’s teaching that links the historical Adam with redemption through Christ (Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:20-23, 42-49; and his speech in Acts 17).”

• Richard N. Ostling, Christianity Today, June 3, 2011

Creation through a gradual process is not a hypothesis that emerges from a peripheral scientific sub-discipline. To show it wrong would involve overturning principles that independently lie at the very core of the findings of most of the natural science disciplines. True, they all together cry out in unison with a loud voice—“Created!” However, they also, in a subtle, but persuasive whisper, add the all-important qualifying phrase—“…slowly and not in an instant!”

• BioLogos Blog, May 31, 2011

As we have been saying for some time, the secular world will not and cannot accept even the possibility of a young earth, because then they could not even postulate the idea of evolution. They require an incomprehensible amount of time to propose evolutionary beliefs. That is why the secular world use terms like “anti-science,” “anti-intellectual,” and “anti-academic” for those who reject billions of years and accept a young universe. And sadly, that is why so many Christian academics give in to the secular world—they want to be seen as academically respectable in the eyes of the world. (The research detailed in our book, Already Compromised, documents that the majority of Christian academics in Christian colleges believe in an old earth and universe.)

Note that if the billions of years is not true and the universe is only a few thousands of years old, then this debate about a literal Adam and Eve is over! It is so obvious from Scripture that God created a literal Adam and Eve—this is vital to the Christianity and an understanding of the Fall and why God’s Son became our Savior.

• Ken Ham, “I Agree with the Atheists!”

Creation of Adam, Uccello

As the weather starts to heat up, it seems that the creation wars do too. It happened last year at this time (see last June’s Archives), and it’s bound to happen this year again. In 2010, it was Albert Mohler and John MacArthur vs. BioLogos. Currently, it is Christianity Today running its June 3 cover story, “The Search for the Historical Adam,” and the turmoil that is likely to ensue.

You know we are going to talk about this, right?

As I get my thoughts together over the next few days, here are some of the pertinent articles that have been published in recent days for you to review:

• The Search for the Historical Adam, CT article

• Ted Olson’s Editorial at CT introducing the issue

• BioLogos and the June 2011 CT Cover Story

• The Search for the Historical Adam (RJS at Jesus Creed)

• I Agree with the Atheists! (Ken Ham)

• It Don’t Mean a Thing without that Historical Ring? (IM, Oct. 20, 2010)

As you read these articles (and if you know of others to recommend, please pass them on to us), give us your initial thoughts. Those with more conservative views are surely warning, “There it is—another domino falling!” Some predict that this will be the issue or at least one of the issues that may “produce a huge split right through the heart of conservative, orthodox, historic Christianity” (Michael Cromartie). CT’s article calls for a discussion that goes beyond knee-jerk reactions, and that is what I would like to have here.

Where is your thinking right now with regard to this matter?

Christus Victor, Ravenna

By Chaplain Mike

Two years ago, Scot McKnight did a five-part series called “The Future of Christian Eschatology” on his Jesus Creed blog. We have all had this subject on our mind this week, thanks to the looney predictions of Harold Camping and all the press they received.

Today, I offer a summary from one of Scot’s posts that I think points in a fruitful direction for our continuing consideration of the Bible’s eschatological message.

Take some time to read and meditate on his thoughts. I think you will see the fruits of his own specialty in NT studies—the Gospels—as well as the influence of contemporary Jesus scholarship such as that of N.T. Wright.

I like what Scot says here. It brings the Jewish context and events in the days of Jesus into prominence in the discussion in a way that is not always considered. So many crazy things have been said about the end times that it’s almost as though pastors and teachers are talking about science fiction. Indeed, I think “science fiction” pictures are what many people actually have in their minds when they imagine Christ’s return.

Instead, what if we were to imagine eschatology in terms of Jesus’ own socio-political context? N.T. Wright has helped us do this with regard to the mission of Jesus. Scot here summarizes an approach that does the same with Jesus’ eschatological message.

Let me now try to draw together some threads. The temporal indicators of Mark 13 and parallels suggest that Jesus envisioned everything therein described as occurring within one generation. Roughly speaking, he sees things occurring in about 40 years. History shows that the Romans sacked Jerusalem brutally and banished them from the City, and this event largely confirms what Jesus predicted. …Furthermore, we have seen plausible reasons, some more compelling than others, for seeing the language of Mark 13:24 27/Matt 24:29-31 as metaphorical descriptions of Jesus’ vindication and reception of power in the event of Jerusalem’s destruction. When Jerusalem went down, Jesus went up – down in ignominy and up in vindication.

Jerusalem’s destruction was proof that Jesus was right. In addition, this event marks and shapes the focus of Jesus’ ministry and message: his mission was to call Israel to repentance (and that meant to live a life of love and justice and peace) before the final bell rang. If Israel responds, the destruction can be averted; if it does not, the destruction will establish him as Messiah. What Jesus saw beyond this is, in my mind, a mystery. I think he saw connected to this event the resurrection, the final judgment, and the establishment of the Age to Come. He tied them together, the destruction and these “eternal things” because, as a prophet who relied upon God’s revelation for knowledge of the future, this is how prophets worked all along. The next event on God’s calendar was the End Event – and when it did not occur literally on earth, no one was bothered because prophetic knowledge about the future is like that. It trades in metaphor and metaphor is capable of various interpretations. What Jesus was referring to was Israel’s destruction; it had ultimate significance to him. And he got it right.

…The implication of what I have said about Jesus’ eschatology is this: before Jesus’ message is brought into our world, and he needs to be, Jesus has to be understood in his world. And that means as a Jew, as a Jewish prophet, a prophet who spoke to his people, Israel, who spoke to his people about Israel about the need to repent and live in light of the Kingdom before it is too late, and that ‘too late’ is to be understood temporally for Jesus as before A.D. 70 when God would wreak vengeance on the nation for its waywardness (as God had done with both teh Northern and Southern Kingdoms at the hands of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans). In other words, Jesus’ eschatology was fully immersed in his day and was about his day — he spoke to the political disaster about to fall upon the Land.

This Jewish prophet Jesus, however, is also the Messiah of the Endtime who was destined to come to lead Israel into the ‘fortunes of Israel’. Those fortunes have not yet been completely fulfilled.