A Lutheran Beggar

I'm. . .

2009-01-25T14:16:00.003-05:00

. . .sorry for the infrequency of my posts lately. . .

Obama: Abortions Will Reduce Infant Motality Rates. . .

2009-01-24T12:14:00.004-05:00

President Barack Obama announced on Friday afternoon his intentions of rescinding, what has become known as, the Mexcio City Policy. Instated by Ronald Regean, the policy prevented funds to be provided for any international organizations, specifically in developing countries, that provided options for abortions. The policy was overturned by Bill Clinton and was consequently reinstated under George Bush. Read part of Obama's statement from the White House Blog:

"I have directed my staff to reach out to those on all sides of this issue to achieve the goal of reducing unintended pregnancies. They will also work to promote safe motherhood, reduce maternal and infant mortality rates and increase educational and economic opportunities for women and girls."

Abortions will reduce infant mortality rates? Yes, let's kill babies so that they don't get the chance to die of natural causes; that would just be a trajedy. This just shows you how completely, and often willfully, blind so many people are to the realities of what abortion is.

And how about the terminology used: "international family planning assistance." I can GUARANTEE that there is NO family planning that is going on at these places. The so called family planning agencies in America don't provide real information and options for things other than abortions, why would they be doing that in developing countries? For some reason, I don't suspect little 13 year old Maria from Guatemala, whose barely subsisting, will be informed about how wonderful of an option placing her child up for adoption would be. NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

This is a sad reflection of our nation's moral fortitude.

"Even so, come, Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22:20)!

The Austen Files of an Austenphile 01-22-09

2009-01-22T19:35:00.005-05:00

"I have sometimes thought," said Catherine, doubtingly, "whether ladies do write so much better letters than gentelmen! That is--I should not think the superiority was always on our side."

-----"As far as I have had opportunity of judging, it appears to me that the usual style of letter-writing among women is faultless, except in three particulars."

-----"And what are they?"

-----"A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance of grammar."

-Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey, 1818

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Bayer on the Performative Nature of God's Word

2009-01-21T14:24:00.005-05:00

"Luther also discovers this kind of performative word in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as well as in the Christmas story ("To you is born this day a Savior!"), the Easter story, and many other biblical passages. As we have said before, he regards these sentences as promises (promissiones). They are the concrete way in which Christ is present, and his presence with us is clear and certain: it clearly liberates us and makes us certain. I cannot remind myself of this freedom and certainty in isolation; I cannot have a monologue with myself. These gifts are given and received only by means of the promise spoken by another person (and not only by the official priest or preacher), who addresses it to me in the name of Jesus. I cannot speak the promise to myself. It must be spoken to me. For only in this way is it true. Only in this way does it give freedom and certainty.

"What this certainty is all about is clear from a short passage in the Lectures on Genesis that Luther virtually offers as a theological legacy: "I have been baptized. I have been absolved. In this faith I will die. No matter what trials and problems confront me, I will not waver in the least. For he who said: 'The one who believes and is baptized will be saved' (Mark 16:16), and 'whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven' (Matt. 16:19), and 'this is my body; this is my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins' (cf. Matt. 26:26,28), cannot lie or deceive. This is certainly true." In the Lectures on Galatians (1535) Luther writes, "And this is the reason why our theology is certain: it snatches us away from ourselves and places us outside ourselves (nos extra nos), so that we depend not on our own strength, conscience, mind, person, or works but on what is outside ourselves (extra nos), that is, on the promise and truth of God, which cannot deceive.""

-Oswald Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way, trans. Jeffrey Silcock and Mark Mattes (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007), 130.

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Bayer on Faith and the Promises of God

2009-01-19T17:07:00.004-05:00

I thought this bit from Oswald Bayer's, Theology the Lutheran Way, went well with my previous post, Faith and the Promises of God. In it Bayer affirms the basic structure of a proper relationship before God, that is, in God's self-giving through the Word of promise and our receiving through the open hands of faith. This is what Bayer calls the vita passiva, the receptive life.

"Everything depends on God's performative word for the enactment of the promise of the forgiveness of sins and the healing of our ingratitude towards our creator. Since this word precedes our faith, our response of faith and prayer can never lead us to understand the divine service as a "self-realization of the church." Even as the response of the church faith remains God's work.

"The standard arguments from ecclesiology and sacramental theology resort to the category of "representation," and speak of the "self-realization of the church" and of the church as the "original sacrament." It is clear from this that the criterion of the particular divine service, which Luther vigorously promoted from the beginning of his Reformation theology, is not at all self-evident. For him, worship has to do with the enactment of the word and faith, of promissio and fides. This is classically formulated in the treatise, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520): "For God does not deal, nor has he ever dealt, with us except through the word of promise. We, in turn, cannot deal with God except through faith in the word of his promise." This asymmetrical correlation between word and faith, where the word always comes first and faith follows the word, is for Luther the criterion of the true divine service. At the end of his life he preached a sermon at the consecration of the castle church in Torgau in 1544. There he gave his famous definition of the divine service that beautifully exemplifies this criterion. He calls on the people to join him in the consecration "in order that the purpose of this new house may be this: that nothing else may happen in it except that our dear Lord himself may speak to us through his holy word and that we respond to him through prayer and praise.""

-Oswald Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way, trans. Jeffrey Silcock and Mark Mattes (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007), 88-89.

Faith and the Promises of God

2009-01-18T12:57:00.016-05:00

From what we read below, in my post Faith, Healing, Prayer, and Miracles in the Gospels, we see a few things that stick out:

Jesus in a couple of places gives a dual structure: in the first point "as you have believed (πιστεύω)," in the second, "so let it be to you" (cf. Matt. 8:13; 9:29).

Many other times, Jesus says, "ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε," that is, "The (ἡ) faith (πίστις) of you (σου) has healed (σέσωκέ) you (σε)" (Matt. 9:22; Mark 5:34; 10:52; Luke 8:48; 17:19; 18:42).

Other examples we hear: "great is your faith; let it be to you as you desire" (Matt. 15:28); "If you are able to believe, all things are possible to the ones believing" (Mark 9:23); "Do not fear; only believe and she will be healed" (Luke 8:50).

On the reverse side of this we hear from Matthew and Mark, of the same account, what happened when people did not believe Jesus' witness: "He did not do many works of power there because of their unbelief" (Matt. 13:58); "He could do no work of power there, except He performed healing on a few infirm ones, laying on His hands" (Mark 6:5).

We also see examples where we are led to believe that if one has faith, that one can do great things:

We read the account of Peter who, when asked to step out on the water, loses faith and starts sinking; Jesus says, "Little-faith, why did you doubt?" (Matt. 14:31).

We hear of the account of the disciples not being able to exorcize a demon; they ask, "Then coming up to Jesus privately, the disciples said, Why were we not able to cast him out? And Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief" (Matt. 17:19-20).

Jesus says that if we had faith of a mustard seed we would be able to move mountains and throw them into the sea, curse fig trees and have them dry up, uproot sycamore trees and plant them in the sea (cf. Matt. 17:20; 21:21; Mark 11:23; Luke 17:6).

Jesus also tells us, "All things, whatever you ask, praying, believe that you will receive, and it will be to you" (Mark 11:24; cf. Matt. 21:22). As James (and James 8^j) reminds us, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways" (1:5-8).

I'm not concerned with the "miraculousness" of these examples, this is beside the point. What I want to get at is whether or not this portrayal of faith is the same as the Pauline portrayal and the Lutheran understanding of faith?

As for the second part of the question, whether this is consistent with the Lutheran understanding of faith, I think the answer is, unfortunately, no. As Lutherans, we often have a knee jerk reaction to anything that might make faith out to be a work. This is good, as far as it goes, but it often 1) doesn't get the full picture, and 2) leaves us scratching our heads when confronted with such verses from the Gospels. Lutherans say that faith is purely passive, and it is, but when we look at these examples things seem to get a little muddled. We can only be healed if we have faith? If, and only if, we have enough faith we can 1) walk on water, 2) exorcize demons, 3) throw mountains into the sea, 4) get what we pray for? Lutherans usually don't like talking about faith in a qualitative way; we talk about faith as that which receives God's grace of forgivness and salvation, and it would seem, nothing more. Indeed, this is certainly St. Paul's emphasis on his teachings on faith. But is it the whole story?

As far as a qualitative understanding of faith, we as Lutherans ask: How can it all remain a gift from God (i.e. healing, water-walking, mountain-throwing, etc.) if it becomes dependent on something qualitative in me, that is, faith? For this reason we simply say: faith is faith is faith, it is purely a gift from God. The problem is when we read in the Gospels, and it is brought into question: is it enough faith for healing? enough faith for walking on water? enough faith for exorcizing demons? enough faith for my prayer to be answered? We say in response: "If God wants to ______ he will do it, it is not dependent on me, he is certainly powerful enough. If he WANTS to do it, who am I to change his mind?"

In younger days when faced with this question I settled it in my mind, saying simply that: sometimes God makes the choice only to heal/answer prayer/etc. when there is an expression of faith. That is, sometimes he just heals to heal, while at other times he chooses to heal those who have a strong faith. So what Jesus would essentially be saying is: "I decided, this time, to heal you because of your faith." Just as he might have said at another time: "I decided to heal you because of your love/hope/(insert virtue here)."

This answer, though, simply does not fly. First off, why does Jesus repeat, "your faith has healed you," over, and over, and over? Secondly, why faith? Why does Jesus continually say "faith," not love, not hope, not ____? This second question is the kicker for me. It becomes clear that faith is not an arbitrary choice by Jesus, easily replacable by any other virtue. So the first major question, which we will get back to, is, why faith?

A second problem is: Yes, okay, faith. But certainly God heals/answers prayers/etc. in certain situations even without strong faith, right? He is not bound by our faith, right? And the more disturbing question: "God's not holding back on me, not answering my prayer/healing me/etc., because of a lack of faith, is he?" These can be very disastrous questions for people. They are questions, also, that don't have a ready answer in any given situation because, simply, we don't know the mind of God. My own general answers to these questions would be as follows: 1) Yes, God can and does do these things even without strong faith. 2) No, God is not bound by our faith. 3) We don't know the mind of God; it may not be his will to answer your prayer, etc., in the first place.

All of these questions, though, miss the point. They also miss the point of, why faith? They are questions that are focussed on me, not on God and his promises.

Paul Althaus once wrote (I'm not sure where), "I do not know whether I believe, but I know in whom I believe, and only thus do I know that I believe." The answer is God and his promises through his Word and Sacraments. What needs to be understood is that the basic and originally intended structure of our relationship before God was in God's self-giving through his Word and our receiving through the open hands of faith. This is a pretty basic understanding for Lutherans and is fundamental to understanding Paul: "We have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand" (Rom. 5:2). Therefore, whenever God gives through the open hands of our faith, this is a restoration of God's original will for creation. We see then, when Jesus says, "your faith has healed you," he is affirming the structure which God originally intended.

But the fact that God desires to give through faith does not mean that we should internalize everything and begin to wonder if we have enough faith; undoubtedly the answer we will find is, no, we don't. The point of faith is the promise, not ourselves. We repeat with Althaus: "I know in whom I believe, and only thus do I know that I believe." Left to ourselves we will never have a satisfactory answer. For this reason we look to the promises of God, including faith itself. We therefore pray with the apostles, "Give us more faith" (Luke 17:5); and elsewhere, "Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24). Or, as Luther put it, "Pray God that he may work faith in you. Otherwise you will surely remain forever without faith, regardless of what you may think or do." (LW 35:371)

A proper understanding of all the examples cited at the beginning is to understand not faith, but promise. If it was a failed faith, Jesus says: "what about my promise?" (e.g. Peter walking on the water, or the disciples' inability to cast out a demon); or, if it was strong faith, we clearly see displayed the faith these people had in Jesus' witness and promise (e.g. "Your faith has healed you).

It is only when we realize that we can accomplish nothing of ourselves, that all the fear and torment of self-reflection and internalization ceases. Faith itself is a product of God's promise through the Word, not of ourselves. As Werner Elert characterized it, faith is an "infinite resignation." We need to realize that we are just like the sick coming to Jesus. They had absolutely no power over their situations--they were infirm, poor, and had no hope that anything would better their lot-- all they had was a promise of a man who was healing the sick.

May we all become more like Abraham, the father of faith, who "did not stagger by unbelief at the promise of God, but was empowered by faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what [God] has promised, He is also able to do" (Rom. 4:20-21).

Faith, Healing, Prayer, and Miracles in the Gospels

2009-01-15T16:41:00.009-05:00

I want to address the understanding of "faith" in the Gospels, as portrayed by Jesus. It is something I have pondered before and I thought it would be a good thing to address, especially within the Lutheran tradition. This is somewhat stimulated by some discussions on the Wittenberg Trail, one on prayer and the other on faith-healing. At first glance it would seem that the understanding of faith in the Gospels is not consistent with a Pauline understanding, and by extension, a Lutheran understanding. There is such an overwhelming pattern in the Gospel use of the term that it cannot be ignored and must be incorporated and explained within a Lutheran context. What one finds is that faith is almost always used in connection with healing, miracles, casting out demons, and prayer. This post will just give all the examples of this playing out. I will leave my analysis for another post.

The vast majority of the time in the Gospels, faith is presented as a reason for someone being healed or not being healed, whether or not one is able to cast out a demon, whether or not one's prayer is answered, whether or not one can cast a mountain into the sea or not. Besides a couple of times where Jesus tells someone that they are saved or forgiven because of their faith, it would seem that Jesus' portrayal of faith is not what we have come to understand it as, within the Pauline and Lutheran context. I have my own thoughts on this matter but would love to hear from my readers. How do you guys gel these things within your understanding? Do you know of any other Lutherans who have addressed this issue? If so, what were their conclusions?

Mat 8:10 And hearing, Jesus marveled, and said to those following, Truly I say to you, Not even in Israel did I find such faith.
Mat 8:11 But I say to you that many will come from east and west, and will recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven,
Mat 8:12 but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of the teeth.
Mat 8:13 And Jesus said to the centurion, Go, and as you have believed, so let it be to you. And his child was healed in that hour.

Mat 9:2 And, behold! They were bringing a paralytic lying on a cot to Him. And seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed one, Be comforted, child. Your sins have been remitted.

Mat 9:3 And, behold, some of the scribes said within themselves, This One blasphemes.
Mat 9:4 And seeing their thoughts, Jesus said, Why do you think evil in your hearts?
Mat 9:5 For what is easier, to say, Your sins are remitted, or to say, Rise up and walk?
Mat 9:6 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to remit sins, then He said to the paralytic, Rising up, lift up your cot and go to your house.

Mat 9:22 But turning and seeing her, Jesus said, Be comforted, daughter; your faith has healed you. And the woman was healed from that hour.

Mat 9:28 And coming into the house, the blind ones came near to Him. And Jesus says to them, Do you believe that I am able to do this? And they said to Him, Yes, Lord.

Mat 9:29 Then He touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith let it be to you.

Mat 13:55 Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
Mat 13:56 And are not His sisters all with us? From where then did this One get all these things? Mat 13:57 And they were offended in Him. But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his own fatherland, and in his own house.
Mat 13:58 And He did not do many works of power there because of their unbelief.

Mat 14:29 And He said, Come! And going down from the boat, Peter walked on the waters to go to Jesus.
Mat 14:30 But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me!
Mat 14:31 And immediately stretching out the hand, Jesus took hold of him, and said to him, Little-faith, why did you doubt?

Mat 15:28 Then answering, Jesus said to her, O woman, great is your faith; let it be to you as you desire. And her daughter was healed from that hour.

Mat 17:18 And Jesus rebuked it, and the demon came out from him; and the boy was healed from that hour.
Mat 17:19 Then coming up to Jesus privately, the disciples said, Why were we not able to cast him out?
Mat 17:20 And Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief. For truly I say to you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard, you will say to this mountain, Move from here to there! And it will move. And nothing shall be impossible to you.

Mat 21:21 And answering, Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, If you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do the miracle of the fig tree, but even if you should say to this mountain, Be taken up and thrown into the sea, it will be so.
Mat 21:22 And all things, whatever you may ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.

Mar 2:5 And seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, Child, your sins are forgiven to you.

Mar 5:34 And He said to her, Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be whole from your plague.

Mar 6:5 And He could do no work of power there, except He performed healing on a few infirm ones, laying on His hands.
Mar 6:6 And He marveled because of their unbelief. And He went around the villages in a circuit, teaching.

Mar 9:23 And Jesus said to him, If you are able to believe, all things are possible to the ones believing.
Mar 9:24 And immediately crying out, the father of the child said with tears, Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!
Mar 9:25 And seeing that a crowd is running together, Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, Dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, Come out from him, and you may no more go into him!

Mar 10:52 And Jesus said to him, Go, your faith has healed you. And instantly he saw again, and followed Jesus in the highway.

Mar 11:22 And answering, Jesus said to them, Have faith of God.
Mar 11:23 For truly I say to you, Whoever says to this mountain, Be taken up and be thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be to him, whatever he says.
Mar 11:24 Therefore I say to you, All things, whatever you ask, praying, believe that you will receive, and it will be to you.

Mar 16:17 And miraculous signs will follow to those believing these things: they will cast out demons in My name; they will speak new languages;
Mar 16:18 they will take up snakes; and if they drink anything deadly, it will in no way hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will be well.

Luk 5:20 And seeing their faith, He said to him, Man, your sins have been forgiven you.
Luk 5:21 And the scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who is able to forgive sins except God alone?
Luk 5:22 But knowing their thoughts, answering Jesus said to them, Why do you reason in your hearts?
Luk 5:23 Which is easier, to say, Your sins have been forgiven you, or to say, Rise up and walk?

Luk 7:9 And hearing these things, Jesus marveled at him. And turning to the crowd following Him, He said, I say to you, I did not find such faith in Israel.
Luk 7:10 And those sent, returning to the house, found the sick slave well.

Luk 8:48 And He said to her, Daughter, be comforted. Your faith has healed you. Go in peace.
Luk 8:49 As He was yet speaking, someone came from the synagogue ruler, saying to him, Your daughter has died. Do not trouble the Teacher.
Luk 8:50 But hearing, Jesus answered him, saying, Do not fear; only believe and she will be healed.

Luk 17:5 And the apostles said to the Lord, Give us more faith.
Luk 17:6 But the Lord said, If you had faith as a grain of mustard, you may say to this sycamine tree, Be rooted up and be planted in the sea! And it would obey you.

Luk 17:19 And He said to him, Rising up, go! Your faith has cured you.

Luk 18:42 And Jesus said to him, See again! Your faith has healed you.

The Austen Files of an Austenphile 01-13-09

2009-01-13T20:25:00.006-05:00

An amusing narrative interjection by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey (1818), with equally amusing evidence, validating this observation, from the pages of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina:

"They called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when they walked, pinned up each other's train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding -- joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers."

I found the following from Anna Karenina quite amusing, in light of what we just read above:

"[Anna] read and understood; but it was distasteful to her to read, that is, to follow the reflection of other people's lives. She had too great a desire to live herself. . .She forced herself to read. . .[and not long after]. . .She laid down the book and sank against the back of the chair."

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Luther on Making Something Out of Nothing

2009-01-12T12:00:00.005-05:00

This was posted by Pastor Kurt Hering on the Wittenberg Trail. I thought it was just wonderful, and I wanted to share it with you guys. I think it fits in well with what I said in my previous post, that we are all πτωχοι τω πνεύματι, beggars in spirit.

Psalm 38:21 "Do not forsake me, O Lord! O my God, be not far from me!"

Luther comments: "'I am lonely, forsaken by all and despised. Do Thou receive me, and do not forsake me.' It is God's nature to make something out of nothing; hence one who is not yet nothing, out of him God cannot make anything. Man,however, makes something else out of that which exists; but this has no value whatever. Therefore God accepts only the forsaken, cures only the sick, gives sight only to the blind, restores life only to the dead, sanctifies only the sinners, gives wisdom only to the unwise. In short, he has mercy only on those who are wretched, and gives grace only to those who are not in grace. Therefore no proud saint, no wise or righteousperson, can become God's material, and God's purpose cannot be fulfilled in him. He remains in his own work and makes fictitious, pretended, false, painted saint of himself, that is, a hypocrite."

-Martin Luther, LW 14:163

Sights and Sounds from Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror

2009-01-10T11:45:00.006-05:00

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (Russian: Андре́й Арсе́ньевич Тарко́вский) (April 4, 1932 - December 29, 1986) was a Soviet filmmaker, writer and opera director.

Tarkovksy is listed among the 100 most critically acclaimed film directors; director Ingmar Bergman was quoted as saying "Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream".

Tarkovsky worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, film theorist and theater director. He directed most of his films in the Soviet Union, with the exception of his last two films, which were produced in Italy and Sweden. His films are characterized by Christian spirituality and metaphysical themes, extremely long takes, lack of conventional dramatic structure and plot, and memorable cinematography.

Tarkovsky's film, The Mirror, is a semi-autobiographical account of Alexei, a middle aged man who has taken ill and is dying. The film is a blended collage of both present day and past memories/dreams that circle around the themes of childhood, motherhood, the war, his father's abandonment, his own son, and his estranged wife. The film is a reflection of many of Tarkovsky's own experiences growing up, including: His fathers own abandonment and enlistement to the war effort; Living with his mother and moving to Moscow during the war; Both Alexi and Tarkovsky's mothers worked as proofreaders at a printing press; Tarkovsky includes many of his own father's poems into the The Mirror.

These are a series of looks at this BEAUTIFUL and POETIC film, incorporating some great music to top it off.

Scenes from The Mirror set to minamalist composer, Arvo Pärt's "Mirror in the Mirror."

More scenes from The Mirror, set to Iron and Wine's "Naked as We Came."

The last two scenes from The Mirror with an absolutely breathtaking performance of Bach's "St. John Passion" in the background. In the last scene, right after Alexi's death, we see a pre-war Maria, his mother, talking of his expected birth. It then pans to a dream-like sequence where we see a young Alexi and his sister taking a walk with an elderly Maria. Then we see a beautiful fade out between the trees with the three walking off in the distance. Perfect!

The Indicative and Imperative Nature of Faith and New Life

2009-01-09T11:28:00.005-05:00

This is a section out of my senior thesis on sanctification. What it addresses is the seemingly conflicting scriptural portrayal of rebirth and renewal as being, at one time, solely the work of God, and at another, an imperative placed on man to conform to God's will. It is a matter of resolving indicative and imperative. Various Lutherans have addressed this issue, namely, Paul Althaus, Helmut Thielicke, Adolf Köberle, and to a certain extent, David Scaer. Helmut Thielicke, though, is the one who really hits the nail on the head in the first volume of his Theological Ethics. I have previously written on this topic in my post The Word, Communication, and Sanctification.

We heard a little on this topic from Paul Althaus in the post Althaus on Faith and Command. There are a couple of things in his portrayal that are not quite correct. 1) Althaus talks of: "Insofar as it is God's gift." When talking of indicative and imperative, we cannot say: insofar as it is indicative/ insofar as it is imperative. We have to affirm that it is, at the same time, fully indicative and fully imperative. 2) Another problem with Althaus' portrayal is that he talks of rebirth and renewal (faith and new life) as being, from the standpoint of God, indicative, and from the standpoint of man, imperative. Indicative and imperative is not a matter of perspective, as if man simply acts and thinks as if it were all his work, while in reality it being solely the work and fruit of God. Paul makes it clear that when man acts in autonomy from acknowledgment of his total reliance on God's grace, he acts in rebellion to God. We hear from Paul:

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13).

"So, then, it is not of the one willing, nor of the one running, but of the One showing mercy, of God" (Rom. 9:16).

God tells us: "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9).

When God says "weakness," he does not mean, those who are especially deficient in themselves, rather those who recognize that without Christ, the Vine, they can do nothing (John 15:5). But we, at the same time affirm, "[We] can do all things through him who strengthens [us]" (Phil. 4:13). When we look at the subject of Christ's beatitudes compared to, say, the Pharisees, the difference is not that the Pharisees are stronger, etc., rather, it is the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek who recognize their total dependence on God's grace, this is why they are called blessed; we are all πτωχοι, literally, beggars in spirit, and yet, in this, we are blessed!

The Lutheran understanding of faith is a perfect example of the indissoluble connection of indicative and imperative. Emil Brunner writes: "The Word of God and the word of faith are inseparable. It is not God who believes but I myself who believe; yet I do not believe of myself, but because of God's speech." (Man in Revolt: A Christian Anthropology, trans. Olive Wyon (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2002), 67.) Faith is at one and the same time completely the work and fruit of the Spirit of God, working through the Word, and yet, it is also my response to God's Word, God's claim on me. Faith is never, whether at the outset, in the midst, or at the end, a fruit of anything that is in me, and yet it is I who believe, it is I who say "yes." The Formula of Concord can even say that we "accept the offered grace." (SD Art. II, Par. 83) This is not inappropriate language if, and only if, the relation of indicative and imperative are understood correctly.

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The Indicative and Imperative Nature of Sanctification

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Lutheran Quote of the Day: Forell on Unbelief and Sin

2009-01-07T13:03:00.007-05:00

"Man's predicament is that he who was created by the love of God to trust in God lives in unbelief and distrust. Pride in relationship to God is unbelief: we do not even believe that he is God. We live as if there were no God. And yet somehow we know that we are not really alone, that we are not merely whistling in the dark. Somehow we know that we are not really the Atlas that carries the universe. Somehow we know that we are not the masters of our fate or the captains of our soul. God is all about us. In him we live and move and have our being--and yet we do not believe. Theologically speaking, unbelief is the basic sin, the ultimate sin: unbelief in the love of God in the very face of this love; unbelief in death in the very face of death; and unbelief in the judgment of God in the very face of his judgment.

"Man looked at from the point of view of revelation looks far different from the man we discussed philosophically and religiously so far. In the light of revelation, man is incurably ill. His disease is sin, the "sickness unto death." It is a disease which he has contracted voluntarily but which he cannot get rid of voluntarily. It is a disease that affects and corrupts everything he does but above all a disease that separates him from his Creator and condemns him to meaninglessness and hopelessness. The disease creates many outward signs. We could mention the tradition capital vices as examples--pride, envy, anger, covetousness, sloth, gluttony, and lust. But theologically speaking, we must say all these characteristics of the disease are expressions of one basic trouble--the chief sin from which all others descend is unbelief. It is because man does not believe in God that he cannot live a meaningful life. As long as unbelief rule men's hearts the Christian life is impossible. It is unbelief which separates man from God, unbelief which brings him into judgment, unbelief that dooms him for all eternity. Man created in God's image becomes through unbelief a caricature. Created to reveal God's love, he chooses to reveal God's wrath and judgment."

-George W. Forell, Ethics of Decision (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955), 78-79.

Epiphany

2009-01-06T14:41:00.003-05:00

Hans Memling, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1470

"The Journey of the Magi" by T.S. Eliot

(A poem about Eliot's own journey from agnosticism to faith; he wrote it around the time of his baptism and acceptance into the Anglican Church, in 1927.)

The Austen Files of an Austenphile 01-05-09

2009-01-05T20:33:00.010-05:00

They said he was sensible, well-informed, and agreeable; we did not pretend to judge of such trifles, but as we were convinced he had no soul, that he had never read [Goethe's] The Sorrows of Werther, and that his hair bore not the least resemblance to auburn, we were certain that Janetta could feel no affection for him, or at least that she ought to feel none. The very circumstance of his being her father's choice too, was so much in his disfavour, that that of itself ought to have been sufficient reason in the eyes of Janetta for rejecting him.

-Love and Friendship, 1790

Faith, Fellowship, and Command

2009-01-04T13:20:00.001-05:00

The basis of Adam and Eve's fellowship with God and the role of the command not to eat from the tree raises interesting questions for us as believers. Just what, exactly, establishes our fellowship with God? To observe the command not to eat from the tree, and to observe the result that occurred from the eating from that tree, one might come to believe that the status of man's relationship with God has an ethical basis.

The result of such musings has corrupted a true understanding of what it means to receive life from God. We begin to talk about Adam and Eve's moral capabilities; we say: "posse non peccare et posse peccare," that is, they had the ability not to sin and the ability to sin. We begin to talk of their powers. We begin to talk of a donum superadditum, a superadded grace that gave Adam and Eve certain moral capabilities. All of this points, even if it is denied, to an understanding that life in pristine communion with God is established on an ethical basis. It is to talk of what Adam and Eve could or could not do to remain in their relationship with God, thus making man, not God, the source of the communion between them.

Many problems arise from this understanding. First of all, it makes moral capability into a substance and power that man has in himself. This raises a troubling question: If Adam and Eve's ability to remain in a proper relationship with God was determined by their nature, something they had in themselves, why didn't God make their natures stronger so that they could resist the temptations of Satan? And, if God had done this, what implications does this have for free will? I first puzzled over this, oddly enough, when reading Milton's Paradise Lost.

One of two conclusions become clear, 1) this is an inadequate understanding of fellowship with God and another must be looked for, or 2) we chalk it up to a divine mystery.

The answer, I believe, is sitting right under our noses, and that is, God's grace through faith. Specifically, the Lutheran understanding of faith. Faith is the only way we can uphold that 1) Fellowship with God is completely a gift from God, 2) uphold that Adam and Eve had free will, and 3) It was not Adam and Eve's nature that determined if they continued to have fellowship with God.

If this were otherwise, a few Lutheran teachings would be compromised. One thing this would mean is that sanctification would have to be, whether we like it or not, to whatever extent, a matter of a gratia infusa, an infused grace. It would be a grace that would be instilled in us that would correct and heal our natures and make them strong enough at a certain point so that we could return to the pristine fellowship with God that Adam and Eve enjoyed. It would be a grace that we, as we grew in moral capacities, would be weaned off of so that we could stand on our own two feet before the face of God. This would also mean that, as man's nature is healed, he would begin to be able to believe in God by his own power; faith would, at a certain point, no longer remain monergistic. These things would not only be true of the consummation of our restoration with God, it would also be true of the sanctification process this side of the grave.

Paul Althaus writes:

"Human ethics can never play the role of securing or preserving man's position before God. This position is something given to him by God's love; it is not earned, nor can it be earned. And this is true not only at the outset, but always; God's saving grace is always prevenient grace. Ethical righteousness as a pathway to salvation is not only an impassible, but also a forbidden, pathway. For to follow this pathway would be to surrender the relationship of childlike trust."

Althaus tells us that to make our thinking and action the determining factor of our status before God is to fall into the same sin of Adam and Eve; he writes: "It is an expression of his sin, indeed of the basal sin by which he fell and continually falls away from trusting faith in God's love."

If fellowship with God is a gift, then, according to a Lutheran understanding, it can only be received with the open hands of faith; it cannot be enacted and/or preserved through our action. If fellowship with God was enacted and/or preserved through our action, it would cease to be a gift from God. Therefore, fellowship with God is a matter of faith, not of ethics.

Written into this gift of fellowship with God is the shape of the divine life before God, man, and the rest of creation. This is not a condition placed on top of fellowship with God (e.g. Yes, you have fellowship with God, but you must also do. . . if you desire to remain in this fellowship), rather, it is an expression of what it means to live in meaningful and self-giving relationships, reflective of God's own self-giving. It is not even a give and take situation; the life of self-giving is an outflowing of God's own love towards us. There is no disjunction here; God's love toward us is the same love that is expressed through us back towards God, neighbor, and in faithful stewardship of God's creation. In the pristine state of fellowship with God, there is no distinction between indicative and imperative. The gebot (command), as Althaus states, "is present as the reverse side of the offer [Augebot] with which the eternal love of God originally encounters man. Love's offer says: God wants to be for me; he wants to be my God. He has created me as man, and this means, for personal fellowship with him--for participation in his life in the partnership of love. Just as he, my God, freely gives himself to me, so he calls me also, in his offer, to free self-giving. Thereby he calls me to be his image. Such is his love."

In man's pristine state, there is no distinction between what God wills and accomplishes towards us (indicative), and what he wills and desires from us (imperative); all is wrapped up in the single and undivided will of God towards us, that is, the gift of divine fellowship with him and the rest of creation. As David Scaer writes:

"The law in its earliest expression is a positive statement of God's relationship to the world and the world's relationship to God. In this form the law is more indicative than imperative. It is more description than it is requirement. To say it better, in this form the law's imperative nature and the indicative of God's and man's relationship to each other are perfectly harmonized. . . The distinction between indicative and imperative is theologically unjustifiable for saints as saints." (“Sanctification in Lutheran Theology,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 49, no.
2-3 (1985), 186.)

In his pristine state, man's recognition of God's love towards him in creation, his promise to sustain and provide for his life, and the promise of fellowship with himself and with fellow man is no different than man's recognition that God, in his commands for us, desires only our blessing and benefit. Althaus writes: "Thus the command promises life; it is a commandment eis zoen (Rom. 7:10). It calls me into life with God; that is, into freedom. . . and into love, which is true life." Therefore, to question and reject God's commandment not to eat from the tree is to question and reject the life God offered them. David Scaer writes:

"He was prohibited from stepping out of this positive relationship with God. But this prohibition is not arbitrarily superimposed on man to test him, but was simply the explanation or description of what would happen to man if he stepped outside of the relationship with God in which he was created. The indicative was its own imperative. . . By stepping outside of the created order, man brought calamity upon himself. The act provided its own consequences. In attempting to become like God he placed himself outside a positive relationship with God, so that now God was seen as the enemy placing unjust demands upon him." ("The Law and the Gospel in Lutheran Theology," Logia 3, no. 1 (1994), 30.)

Consequently, to reject God's command is to reject God himself, to question whether God has the best intentions for us. It is fundamentally an expression of a lack of faith, a lack of trust in God's love and care for us. The fall of man is not a reflection of a default in the nature of man, and thus in God's ability to create, but rather affirms the fact that as beings that are created free, we have a question that is ever before of us: whether we will have faith in God's gracious favor and will towards us (both indicative and imperative), or whether we will reject God's favor and will.

Piotr Malysz writes:

"Humans are created to love God, their fellow man, and God’s gift of creation. By definition, they are social and vocational beings, relating to others in such a way as to further their good through God appointed means. In so doing, they surrender their being in all its individualism only to gain it back, in, with and through the being of another. Only by receiving and giving can they realize their humanity. Only thus can they be human beings.

"It has already been indicated that love consists in self-giving. Naturally there can be no love under coercion. Thus with its origin in the divine love, human existence is one of freedom. God did not create automatons but beings that were beautiful, interesting and worthwhile for their own sake—individuals with the capacity, of their own free will, to reflect the love received. A loving relationship by nature implies an option for un-love. Love as self-giving implies the possibility of rejection. It is in this context of what love is that the presence in the garden of the tree of knowledge of good and evil finds its purpose. To Adam and Eve was entrusted all that God had created with the exception of one tree, of which they were expressly forbidden to eat. In negative terms, the tree presents itself as an alternative to God's love; it makes the possibility of choosing un-love, or self-love, a real one. In positive terms, it underscores the free and self-giving character of the divine-human relationship, pointing to the centrality of love in the constitution of man. From man's perspective, it makes love possible. Finally, it points to the fundamental significance of trust as an inseparable aspect of love. Adam and Eve knew their creator intimately in his self-sharing. All they were and all that they had came from him. It would seem there surely was a significant basis for trust. And yet, incomprehensibly but in how familiar a way, they gave credence to the serpent's deceitful promise." ("Third Use of the Law in Light of Creation and the Fall," Logia 11, no. 3 (2002), 13.)

He writes: "There can be no love under coercion." As beings that are created free, there must always be the possibility to reject God's offer of the divine life. This is not ethically determined but rather reflects the necessity of freedom to mark relationships of self-giving love. For this reason the imperative must always remain. Althaus writes:

"The command is grounded wholly in the offer; it is wholly borne by God's gift to us. It is this gift that stands at the beginning: God's wanting to be for us. The offer, not the command, is primary. But precisely because this is an offer made in love--love that seeks me as a person--this offer, this gift, necessarily (with the necessity of God's love) becomes also a summons. God cannot be my God in a saving way unless I let him be my God. Otherwise the nature of the personal relationship, as God himself intends it, would be contradicted. He calls me to trust him above all things."

The option for un-love must always remain a real one; we cannot be and remain truly human, living in a meaningful relationship with God if, for whatever reason, we are not able to reject God and his love. This is what separates us from the rest of God's creation, it is what makes our expressions of love toward God and neighbor meaningful.

It might be objected, here, that this means nothing else than that fellowship with God is ultimately determined by man's decision to accept God in faith or reject him, thus making fellowship ethically determined. This objection, though, is a misunderstanding of faith, and how it is created and sustained.

If Adam and Eve's power and ability to remain in fellowship with God is something that was written into man himself, into his nature (posse non peccare), the posse peccare would be either a deficiency of that nature or would be its own (negative) power and ability. To say such is to misunderstand what nature is. It is true that man has a heart, mind, and will whose intentionality determines whether we are slaves to sin or are sons of God, the question is where does the quality of heart, mind, and will come from? Was the quality of Adam and Eve's heart, mind, and will, something that they had located in themselves, written into their very natures at creation? If so, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that the fall was a product of a qualitative deficiency in Adam and Eve's nature, and thus a deficiency in creation itself.

All of this is to misunderstand the character of the life Adam and Eve received from God. If fellowship with God is determined by a qualitative nature inherent in Adam and Eve, it can only be continually realized by Adam and Eve's autonomous moral exertion. Creation and fellowship with God can no longer be a gift that is received. Even if fellowship was originally a gift, through creation, its continued realization would be determined by man alone.

Roman Catholic theology has avoided an implication that there was something deficient in the nature of man by making a distinction between the image of God and the likeness of God. The image of God is seen as the faculties identified with man's rational capacities. The likeness of God was a donum superadditum, a super added gift given to man up and above his nature that made him capable of remaining in his pristine relationship with God. Saint Augustine writes: "Man was, therefore, made upright, and in such a fashion that he could either continue in that uprightness—though not without divine aid—or become perverted by his own choice." Even this, though, implies that something was lacking in man's creation. It paints a type of synergistic understanding of fellowship with God--partly man's naturally given abilities, partly God's divine gift. On the other hand, what this avoids is an understanding that man was not given enough "stuff" to remain in pristine bliss; what this upholds is that man alone is at fault for the fall of mankind.

It is this author's opinion that pristine fellowship with God never devolves from being pure gift into being continually realized only through autonomous moral action. And as gift, as with all of God's divine giving, it can only be received with the open hands of faith. Emil Brunner writes:

"Human existence was originally disposed for the reception of this gift, not for meeting an obligation by means of our own efforts. It is thus that we come to understand ourselves once more--our being according to the Imago Dei-- in the light of the New Testament, since we are renewed unto this image, through the Word that gives, through the self-sacrificing love of God, through a purely receptive faith." (Emil Brunner, Man in Revolt: A Christian Anthropology, trans. Olive Wyon (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2002), 104.)

What we call man's "nature" in pristine bliss is not something that is self-realized as something he has in himself, rather, it is only realized through relation to God's continual self-giving love. Brunner writes:

"Man ought not to understand himself in the light of his own nature, nor should he regard himself as due to 'something,' but that he must understand himself in light of the Eternal Word, which precedes man's existence, and yet imparts Himself to him. Man possesses--and this is his nature-- One who stands 'over-against' him, One whose will and thought are directed to him, One who loves him, One who calls him, in and from and for: love. And this One who confronts man, and imparts Himself to him, is the ground of man's being and nature." (77)

We mentioned earlier man's heart, mind and will. It is true that in paradise our parents' heart, mind, and wills were directed toward and were in complete harmony with God's will. It is also true that man's heart, mind, and will, in his fallen state, is directed toward sin and is in complete contradiction to God's will. We agree, therefore, that both man in pristine bliss and man in his fallen state has a heart, mind and will. What is the distinction between these things? Is it a matter of moral energies? Was it a matter of Adam and Eve's heart, mind, and will being more powerful than a fallen heart, mind, and will? It is a matter of determining if these "moral energies" were something that man had in himself, in his nature, or if they were the continual gift of God's grace working through the Word, accepted through faith.

The Reformed theologian, G. C. Berkouwer, writes against this understanding of a self-enclosed nature, without relation to God's work:

"Every view of man which sees him as an isolated unity is incorrect. There have frequently been attempts to draw a picture of man through an elaborate and detailed analysis of man an sich, in himself, whereby man's relation to God was necessarily thought of as something added to man's self-enclosed nature, a donum superadditum, a "plus factor." But the light of revelation, when dealing with man's nature, is not concerned with information about such a self-enclosed nature; it is concerned with a nature which is not self-enclosed, and which can never be understood outside of its relation to God, since such a self-enclosed nature, an isolated nature, is nothing but an abstraction. The relation of man's nature to God is not something which is added to an already complete, self-enclosed, isolated nature; it is essential and constitutive for man's nature, and man cannot be understood apart from this relation." (G.C. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, trans. Dirk Jellema (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1984), 22-23.)

As such, God grace does not add to nature, nor does it discredit nature (two things a donum superadditum admits), rather, God's grace constitutes true nature as it was intended. The correct understanding of man's heart, mind, and will in pristine bliss tells us that their qualitative nature was not found as existing in man himself, but as coming through God's gracious will towards us, received through faith.

This is no less true of faith itself. The gift of faith does not add to nature, nor does it discredit nature, rather, true nature can only be received through this same gift of faith:

"Faith is not a gift in the sense of a donum superadditum added to human nature as a new organ. This would mean that an unbeliever is less of a human than a believer. Such a notion is the result of cutting off faith from total concreteness of human life. It may seem to honor the miracle of this gift the more, but actually it does injustice to the gift itself. Faith is neither a newly created human organ nor a new substance which is infused into the level of human existence. If it were, it would be scarcely distinguishable from the Roman donum superadditum. We cannot get at grace by compiling a studied list of anthropological data. The whole man beginning at his heart. . .is embraced by this immutable and miraculous divine grace. This is the miracle of the Spirit that remains indescribable although the attempts to describe and define it are legion. Istead of calling faith a new organ or a donum superadditum, the work of the Holy Spirit has been described as the great change of course from the way of apostacy to the way of the true God." (G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Justification, trans. Lewis Smedes (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979), 191.)

This is what distinguishes fellowship with God that is based on ethics and fellowship which is based on grace received through faith. Far from being a matter of ethical powers inherent in man, the issue becomes a matter of whether man is directed toward, and thus receives his life from, God in faith, or whether he turns away from God due to mistrust and lack of faith. The former is the gift and fruit of God's grace alone, the latter is the fruit of man's mistrust and misunderstanding of God's nature as love.

The latter is not a fault in nature, rather, it is the rejection of nature, the life Adam and Eve received right from the mouth of God. Emil Brunner writes:

"Man's being as man is both in one, nature and grace. The fact that man is determined by God is the original real nature of man; and what we now know in man as his 'nature' is de-natured nature, it is only a meagre relic of his original human nature. Through sin man has lost not a 'super-nature' but his God-given nature, and has become unnatural, inhuman. To begin the understanding of man with a neutral natural concept--animal rationale-- means a hopeless misunderstanding of the being of man from the very outset. Man is not a 'two-storey' creature, but--even if now corrupted-- a unity. His relation to God is not something which is added to his human nature; it is the core and ground of his humanitas. That was Luther's revolutionary discovery." (94)

Growth in sanctification that will be consumated in heaven is a growth in grace; it is not a growth of human nature so that, eventually, man no longer needs God's grace. The closer we grow towards God, the more we forsake "our own" powers and rely more and more on God's grace. Brunner writes: "The maximum of [man's] dependence on God is at the same time the maximum of his freedom, and his freedom decreases with his degree of distance from the place of his origin, from God." (263) We hear from William Lazareth: "Our growth is by way of God’s grace and not by our works; we grow theonomously more and more (and not autonomously less and less) in our total dependence on God’s unmerited favor." And again: "The more we grow, the more dependent we become on the gifts granted by the ethical governance of the indwelling Holy Spirit, who always accompanies the church’s holy Word and blessed sacraments." (Christians in Society: Luther, the Bible, and Social Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 201; 211.)

This is the only way that fellowship with God can remain gratia purum, pure gift. Once fellowship with God is turned into something that is determined by something man has in himself, with his own action and thinking, fellowship no longer remains gift. Just like Adam and Eve, it would be a matter of saying: Now that you are saved (created, for Adam and Eve) by grace, now retain this restored fellowship with God by works. On the other hand, as a gift, the option for its rejection remains a real one. To reject the gift is to turn away from God's will--whether indicative or imperative. To reject and break God's commandment was to reject God himself and his will for Adam and Eve's lives in fellowship with him. In breaking the commandment, Adam and Eve express their lack of trust that God's will for them has their best interests in mind. It is a turning away from childlike trust in God's promises, and a placing of their faith in the "serpent's deceitful promise." This is the only way to understand God's will for mankind; it is either accepted in childlike faith that it seeks only my life, or it is treated with suspicion and must be explained away through theological schemes and formulas.

Circumcision and Name of Jesus

2009-01-01T13:27:00.003-05:00

"And when eight days were fulfilled to circumcise the child His name was called Jesus, the name called by the angel before He was conceived in the womb" (Luke 2:21).

Hans Memling, Presentation in the Temple, 1463

Commemoration of David

2008-12-29T19:52:00.004-05:00

Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your loving-kindness, according to the multitude of Your tender mercies; blot out my transgressions.
Wash me completely from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me.
Against You, You only, I have sinned, and done evil in Your eyes; that You might be justified in Your speaking and be clear when You judge.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.
Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden parts You teach me wisdom.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Cause me to hear joy and gladness; the bones You have crushed will rejoice.
Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me out from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways; and sinners will turn back to You.
Deliver me from the guilt of shedding blood, O God, O God of my salvation; my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall declare Your praise.
For you do not desire sacrifice, or I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem.
Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole offering; then they shall offer bulls on Your altar.

-Psalm 51

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Althaus on Faith and Command

2008-12-28T15:09:00.006-05:00

Here are some more statements from Paul Althaus. I will respond to them in my final post on the law. The focus is on the relation of faith and the law.

"In the beginning, in the primal state from which we all derive, is the divine command [Gebot]. It is present as the reverse side of the offer [Augebot] with which the eternal love of God originally encounters man. Love's offer says: God wants to be for me; he wants to be my God. He has created me as man, and this means, for personal fellowship with him--for participation in his life in the partnership of love. Just as he, my God, freely gives himself to me, so he calls me also, in his offer, to free self-giving. Thereby he calls me to be his image. Such is his love.

"God's offer, therefore, is at the same time a summons, an appeal, and a command: namely, that I should let him be what he, in his love, wants to be--my God. The command is grounded wholly in the offer; it is wholly borne by God's gift to us. It is this gift that stands at the beginning: God's wanting to be for us. The offer, not the command, is primary. But precisely because this is an offer made in love--love that seeks me as a person--this offer, this gift, necessarily (with the necessity of God's love) becomes also a summons. God cannot be my God in a saving way unless I let him be my God. Otherwise the nature of the personal relationship, as God himself intends it, would be contradicted. He calls me to trust him above all things. This is offer (promissio) and at the same time summons, commands, and call.

"It might well be asked whether it is advisable, from a theological point of view, to designate this appeal of God which accompanies his gracious offer to man by the word "command"--whether the connotations of this term are sufficiently distinct from those of "law." Emil Brunner speaks in this connection of God's "claim on man," or his "summons": "Man cannot receive the love of God save through being commanded to accept it, and in being claimed by God." Our use of the term "command" corresponds to the usage in I John 3:23, where in faith in the name of Jesus Christ is indicated as the content of "God's commandment." According to John, the gospel of Jesus Christ is at one and the same time a gospel and a commandment. This is to say that faith, although it is won from man by God's love, is nevertheless also man's personal act, in and through which he gives, and must give, God the glory (Rom. 4:20). It is in this respect that faith is obedience (Rom. 1:5, 10:3). The notion of "command," then, corresponds to a basic element in the gospel; and if the term is appropriate here, then it surely appropriate also to describe God's original relationship to man. However, we shall find it useful to substitute the word "appeal" or "summons" for "command" from time to time, in order to indicate all the more clearly the contrast with law, and to remind ourselves of the original meaning of divine command as the reverse side of God's offer.

"Thus the command promises life; it is a commandment eis zoen (Rom. 7:10). It calls me into life with God; that is, into freedom from the world, and into love, which is true life. So the command itself is a memorial of God's love for me.

""Command": this implies that another will confronts me, which puts my own will under claim. There is not as yet any opposition between the two, but there clearly is a duality. Unity between God's will and my own is something that has to be realized, over and again; it is not presupposed. The command is a word that stands over me, a word spoken to me. My situation, therefore, is that of one who has to ask, who has to listen, for a word which I myself cannot speak. The fact that God's will confronts us as command is not a condition that arises through sin, or on account of sin; it is an ordinance of the Creator. For God is my Lord. What exists "in the beginning," in the primal state [Urstand], is not a mystical oneness with God, nor an identity of will, but rather a duality: a duality, however, that in every moment is in the process of becoming a unity. But this "becoming a unity" takes place only in obedience. The command does not originate after the fall; it exists already before the fall." (The Divine Command: A New Perspective on Law and Gospel, trans. Franklin Sherman (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 8-10.)

"Man, however--and this is another feature of life under the law--fails to understand this situation. He conceals from himself that character of law as a strange word of God--its negativity, its secondary and prohibitive character, its meaning as a sign and shadow of our own past and continuing sin. He thinks that he can use the law in a positive way. The very law which in its form is an expression of the rejection and loss of salvation, and hence of man's state of hopelessness, is treated by man as if it were a means of salvation. He vainly imagines that through fulfilling the law he can repair his shattered relationship to God, that he can become righteous before God. He treats the law, in Luther's word, as justificatrix, as justifying.

"But this is not only a complete misinterpretation of the situation, as illusion (for no one, given the covetousness of the human heart, has been able, since man's fall from fellowship with God, to fulfill God's law), this very effort is itself further sin against God. Indeed, it is the repetition of the primal sin by which man fell away from God, namely, the effort to live before God by something other than God's own love, the love that precedes all our acting. This constitutes a misinterpretation not only of man's situation as sinner, but also of God's godhood and of man's creaturehood. God is God, and wills to be God--that is, to be solely and absolutely the Creator; the Creator not only of our existence but also of the worth and value that we have before him. Because God is God, the only possibility of man's living before him and having some significance in his sight derives from God's own free, unearned, unmerited favor. It is not only the sinner who is wholly dependent upon grace; the same is true of the righteous man--if there is or could be such. To deny this was and is the sin of the pharisee.

"The effort to recommend oneself to God and put oneself right before him by one's own achievements is blasphemy, as Luther put it plainly. It is an attack on the divine majesty of him who is and wills to be always the Creator, not only of our natural life, but also of our place as children in his house. Human ethics can never play the role of securing or preserving man's position before God. This position is something given to him by God's love; it is not earned, nor can it be earned. And this is true not only at the outset, but always; God's saving grace is always prevenient grace. Ethical righteousness as a pathway to salvation is not only an impassible, but also a forbidden, pathway. For to follow this pathway would be to surrender the relationship of childlike trust. This way can only serve inevitably to confirm again and again man's inevitable sinfulness. From beginning to end, it is an expression of his sin, indeed of the basal sin by which he fell and continually falls away from trusting faith in God's love." (The Divine Command, 16-17)

"Basically, to be sure, the Christian, in faith, is at one with God's loving will and rejoices in it. There is nothing he desires more ardently than that God's good and gracious will should be done in us and through us. But this basic oneness of my will with what God wills must become a matter of concrete experience in an ever new enacting of this oneness. The basic surrender must be expressed in ever new concrete acts of surrender. For the duality remains, the otherness and newness of the concrete will of God in contrast to my human expectations and desires. Again, this becomes plain to us in the figure of Jesus Christ. Even for him who as the Son lived in an unbroken fellowship of love with the Father, "my will" and "thy will" were two different things, as the prayer in Gethsemane reveals. Even though throughout his life he was of one will with the Father, nevertheless in every concrete instance he had to become one with the particular will of the Father, moving to such unity from the duality of "my will" and "thine." The fact that this was so even in Jesus' case demonstrates that this basic duality, this distinction between what we ought to do and what we ought to do and what we wish to do, is not as such to be attributed to, or regarded as an expression of, the sinfulness of our will. Rather it is given in and with the very fact that Creator and creature, Father and son, Lord and servant stand over against one another. Although Jesus "knew no sin," God's will still confronted him as an other--not implying that he was a sinner, but only that he too stood under God as his Lord. God's will is an "other" not only vis-a-vis our sinful desires, but also vis-a-vis our natural desires as creatures. . .This becomes especially clear when God's will calls on us to suffer. It is not the Creator's will that anyone should deliberately wish for suffering and death, weakness and failure. Nevertheless, God may sometime ask this of us, as he did of Jesus. (The Divine Command, 36-37)

In our opinion, this juxtaposition [between indicative and imperative] is an expression of the peculiar character of all human existence before God, and hence also of Christian existence. Paul's words in Philippians reflect this same duality: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in you, both to will and work for his good pleasure" (2:12f.). This means (1) we know that faith, and with it, the new life, remains always God's gift; and yet (2) we know always that we are called and are responsible to have such faith and to walk in this newness of life. Our being Christians is at every moment a gift of God, and likewise in every moment, from our standpoint and with respect to us, a task. Insofar as it is God's gift, we may and must describe our state as Christians as a state of being, which now simply operates and out of the power of God brings forth "fruit." This is a matter of the indicative. But faith and the new life--which from God's standpoint constitutes a state of being--are from the human standpoint only realized in that we are called day by day to act in accordance with the new manner of life i.e., to live in faith and love. Here the imperative element appears. It is not the case that we simply live and act as new creatures; rather, we are constantly called anew into this newness [N.B. This is where I feel Forde's understanding is lacking. Forde seems to see sanctification merely as an indicative process almost distinct from human experience. The duality of wills--God's and my own--, being confronted with God's Word, and the imperative nature of our fellowship with God is what is missing in Forde's understanding. On the other hand, I don't quite think Althaus resolves indicative and imperative satisfactorily either.] What we have the privilege of knowing as a state of being, insofar as t is God's gift, is realized over and again (in accordance with the way God has made us as persons) only as an act required in this moment.

"We may speak of fruits, whose appearing may be taken for granted if we are thinking of the faithfulness of God (I Thess. 5:23 f.; I Cor. 1:8 f.). He has begun a good work in us and will bring it to completion (Phil. 1:6). It is he who makes me fruitful. But this trust in God does not abolish our own responsible character as persons, nor does it negate God's challenge to us, which calls for a response in continually new acts of decision.

"Thus our Christian life stands at all times under the double aspect of being and act, gift and assignment. The "being" is really only in terms of personal "act." But the very act demanded of us, we beg and receive from the faithfulness of God. It is this faithfulness on which the continuity of the new life is based.

"All this is true of faith as well, as we have already indicated. It too bears this double character. God effects faith in me; and yet the New Testament presents also the imperative: "Only believe!" (Mark 5:36; Luke 8:50). "Have faith in God!" (John 14:1). Faith itself is the object of an appeal, an imperative.

"We conclude, therefore, that the relationship between faith and works is not a causal one. Faith in not, from the human perspective, a state of affairs that simply works itself out in such a way as to lead with causal inevitability to the new life as its "fruit." This could not be the case, since I am continually called to have faith, and not to persist in unbelief. Faith itself stands under the same imperative as does action. It exists only in ever-repeated enactment. This enactment, however, takes place in terms of concrete deeds, of works. [Althaus is simply wrong here. Works do not enact faith or make it "concrete." Works may flow from faith and may be the natural outcome of faith, they do not, however, enact faith.] So it is not a relationship of causality that prevails between faith and the new life, but rather a relationship of immanence. As we have already stated, works do not follow from faith; but, rather, faith lives in works, in attitude and action.

"Therefore, if the new life of the Christian is pictured as "fruit," this must not be taken to imply an ethical automatism in the believer. Faith does not lead to action by virtue of a psychic compulsion. Such an interpretation would be a misuse of the image of fruit. This image can only serve to indicate the inherent necessity with which the gospel, as grasped by faith, presses to deeds of love." (The Divine Command, 40-42)

"In his Small Catechism, Luther describes faith as the source of life in obedience to God's commands by beginning the explanation of the first commandment: "We should fear and love God, and as a result. . ." In his Treatise on Good Works and in the Large Catechism he describes how faith does what the commandments say we ought to do and thereby fulfills. He demonstrates that the actions forbidden by individual commandments flow from mistrust of God and unfaith in Christ; similarly, he shows that it is faith that produces the righteous works which they command." (The Ethics of Martin Luther, trans. Robert C. Schultz (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 15.)

The Austen Files of an Austenphile 12-27-08

2008-12-27T14:13:00.006-05:00

Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

-Northanger Abbey, 1818

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Malysz on the Incarnation

2008-12-26T22:29:00.006-05:00

"God's continued self-giving reached its apex and most perfect manifestation in his offering of himself to man in the most intimate of ways--by becoming man and sharing in the humanity of his children (Heb2:14).

"The incarnation is fundamentally consistent with God's preservation of the whole creation and thus with his very being. It is an extension of his loving presence. What is of significance is that God the Son was "made like his brothers in every way. . .yet was without sin" (Heb 2:17; 4:15). He became a man perfect in his humanity, with the fullness of its God-given relational potential, only to take upon himself our isolation and enslavement. He thus conquered sin by trustingly offering himself both to God and fellow men, even to the point of death. In the midst of life's ambivalence, he exposed with utmost clarity the deceptive nature of sin, based as it is on a fundamental denial of God's nature as love. Thus in Christ, the despairing sinner again perceives the astounding faithfulness and the life-bestowing love of God--not merely for himself but for all of creation."

-Piotr Malysz, “Third Use of the Law in Light of Creation and the Fall,” Logia 11, no. 3 (2002), 17.

“Knowing the Mind of God”

2008-12-26T14:35:00.004-05:00

Todd Peperkorn over at Lutheran Logomaniac has posted his wonderful Christmas day sermon, “Knowing the Mind of God”. It expresses well some of the points I made in my Christmas day post. It is a shorty but a goody. You should check it out.

The Gospel of John and the Sent One

2008-12-25T10:04:00.014-05:00

This is a little focused word study devotional on Christ being sent into the world.

Though it may not have an infancy narrative, the Gospel of John is about as "down to earth" as you can get. One way Saint John does this is through emphasizing that Christ was sent (the Gospel of John uses both these terms: ἀποστέλλω and πέμπω) into this world. The other Gospels only have a couple of instances where Christ is said to be sent into the world (Matt. 10:40; Mark 9:37; Luke 9:48; Luke 10:16). The Gospel of John, on the other hand, has dozens and dozens of instances where Christ emphasizes this.

One of the most important reasons for this emphasis is that Christ's incarnation reveals the will of the Father towards mankind; you cannot know the Father unless through his Son. As Oswald Bayer writes: "The office of Christ is to make us certain of God." Jesus says:

"If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I went forth and have come from God. For I have not come from Myself, but that One SENT Me. Why do you not know My speech? It is because you are not able to hear My Word. You are of the Devil as father, and the lusts of your father you desire to do. That one was a murderer from the beginning, and he has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. Who of you reproves Me concerning sin? But if I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? The one who is of God hears the Words of God; for this reason you do not hear, because you are not of God" (John 8:42-47)

And elsewhere:

"But I have the greater witness than John's, for the works which the Father has given Me, that I should finish them, the works which I do, themselves, witness concerning Me, that the Father has SENT Me. And the Father, the One SENDING Me, has Himself borne witness concerning Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor have you seen His form. And you do not have His Word abiding in you, for the One whom that One SENT, this One you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for you think in them you have everlasting life. And they are the ones witnessing concerning Me. And you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men; but I have known you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in the name of My Father, and you do not receive Me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive that one. How are you able to believe, you who receive glory from one another, and the glory which is from the only God you do not seek? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father; there is one accusing you, Moses, in whom you have hoped. For if you were believing Moses, you would then believe Me; for that one wrote concerning Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My Words?" (John 5:36-47)

It is only through Christ that we truly see the will of the Father:

"For God so loved the world that HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, that everyone believing into Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not SEND His Son into the world that He might judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. The one believing into Him is not condemned; but the one not believing has already been condemned, for he has not believed into the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:16-18).

"Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe into Him whom that One SENT" (John 6:29).

"All that the Father gives to Me shall come to Me, and the one coming to Me I will in no way cast out. For I HAVE COME DOWN OUT OF HEAVEN, not that I should do My will, but the will of Him who SENT Me. And this is the will of the Father SENDING Me, that of all that He has given Me, I shall not lose any of it, but shall raise it up in the last day. And this is the will of the One SENDING Me, that everyone seeing the Son and believing into Him should have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:37-40).

"But Jesus cried out and said, The one believing into Me does not believe into Me, but into the One SENDING Me. And the one seeing Me sees the One who SENT Me. I have come as a Light to the world, that everyone who believes into Me may not remain in the darkness. And if anyone hears My Words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come that I might judge the world, but that I might save the world. The one who rejects Me and does not receive My Words has that judging him: the Word which I spoke, that will judge him in the last Day. For I did not speak from Myself, but He who SENT Me, the Father, He has given Me command, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Then what things I speak, as the Father has said to Me, so I speak" (John 12:44-50).

And John writes in his first epistle:

"By this the love of God was revealed in us, because His Son, the Only begotten, God has SENT into the world that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and SENT His Son to be a propitiation relating to our sins" (1 John 4:9-10).

It is through Christ's incarnation that we truly see that God is love; that he has not forsaken mankind to death; that he is faithful to his promises; that he has sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins; that everyone believing into him will have everlasting life. God sends his Son so "that the world might be saved through him." This is the will of the Father in sending his Son.

Christ's incarnation also sets the correct directional perspective for the church. We see in the Gospel of John that everyone is pointing to Christ, the Son of God who comes to us.

John the Baptist is sent to bear witness and point forward to Christ:

"John answered and said, A man is able to receive nothing unless it has been given to him from Heaven. You yourselves witness to me that I said, I am not the Christ, but that having been SENT [see John 1:6], I am going before that One. The one having the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, standing and hearing him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom's voice. Then this my joy has been fulfilled. That One must increase, but I must decrease. The One having COME FROM ABOVE is above all. The one being of the earth is earthy, and speaks of the earth. The One COMING OUT OF HEAVEN is above all. And what He has seen and heard, this He testifies, and no one receives His testimony. The one receiving His testimony has sealed that God is true. For the One whom God SENT speaks the Words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. The one believing into the Son has everlasting life; but the one disobeying the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him" (John 3:27-36).

Christ, the Word made flesh, is a witness to himself:

"I am the One witnessing concerning Myself, and He who SENT Me, the Father, witnesses concerning Me" (John 8:18).

"But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has SENT me. And the Father who SENT me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his Word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has SENT" (John 5:36-37).

And as we see, Jesus sends his disciples, his apostles (ἀπόστολοι), out to point back to him:

"As You have SENT Me into the world, I also have SENT them into the world" (John 17:18).

"Then Jesus said to them again, Peace to you. As the Father has SENT Me, I also SEND you. And saying this, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:21-22).

This is what we understand as the beginning of and vocation of the church, the bride of Christ, that is, to point to and bring Christ himself to his people through Word and Scrament. Our's is an incarnational ministry. The words that Christ, the Logos, was given, he gives to his church:

"I have given them Your Word, and the world hated them because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world. . .As You have SENT Me into the world, I also have SENT them into the world, and I sanctify Myself for them, that they also may be sanctified in Truth. And I do not pray concerning these only, but also concerning those who will believe in Me through their Word; that all may be one, as You are in Me, Father, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You SENT Me" (John 17:14-21).

In the same way, Christ also gives us himself, God incarnate, in his Holy Supper:

"Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe into Him whom that One SENT. Then they said to Him, Then what miraculous sign do You do that we may see and may believe You? What do You work? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written "He gave them bread out of Heaven to eat." Then Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses has not given you the bread out of Heaven, but My Father gives you THE TRUE BREAD OUT OF HEAVEN. For the bread of God is HE COMING DOWN OUT OF HEAVEN and giving life to the world. Then they said to Him, Lord, always give us this bread. Jesus said to them, I am the Bread of life; the one coming to Me will not at all hunger, and the one believing into Me will not thirst, never! But I said to you that you also have seen Me and did not believe. All that the Father gives to Me shall come to Me, and the one coming to Me I will in no way cast out. For I HAVE COME DOWN OUT OF HEAVEN, not that I should do My will, but the will of Him who SENT Me. And this is the will of the Father SENDING Me, that of all that He has given Me, I shall not lose any of it, but shall raise it up in the last day. And this is the will of the One SENDING Me, that everyone seeing the Son and believing into Him should have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day. Then the Jews murmured about Him, because He said, I am the Bread coming down out of Heaven. And they said, Is this not Jesus the son of Joseph, of whom we know the father and the mother? How does this One now say, I have come down out of Heaven? Then Jesus answered and said to them, Do not murmur with one another. No one is able to come to Me unless the Father who SENT Me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day. It has been written in the Prophets, They "shall" all "be taught of God." So then everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to Me; not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One BEING FROM GOD, He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, The one believing into Me has everlasting life. I am the Bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and died. This is the Bread COMING DOWN OUT OF HEAVEN, that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the Living Bread that CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN. If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever. And indeed the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Then the Jews argued with one another, saying, How can this One give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves. The one partaking of My flesh and drinking of My blood has everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is truly food, and My blood is truly drink. The one partaking of My flesh and drinking of My blood abides in Me, and I in him. Even as the living Father SENT Me, and I live through the Father; also the one partaking Me, even that one will live through Me. This is the Bread which CAME DOWN OUT OF HEAVEN, not as your fathers ate the manna and died; the one partaking of this Bread will live forever" (John 6:29-58).

Just as Jesus is born of the Virgin Mary into this world through the power of the Holy Spirit, so too is he born out of Word and Sacrament in our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit, as we are likewise reborn through him.

"He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God, to the ones believing into His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, glory as of an only begotten from the Father, full of grace and of truth" (John 1:10-14).

St. John Altarpiece, c. 1474-1479

The Austen Files of an Austenphile 12-24-08

2008-12-24T04:04:00.002-05:00

[Mrs. Ferrars] was not a woman of many words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the number of her ideas.

-Sense and Sensibility, 1811

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Althaus on Law and Command in the New Testament

2008-12-22T15:39:00.005-05:00

This is a very interesting look into New Testament terminological usage. I think there is something to be said for Althaus' conclusion, here, that the writers of the New Testament are making theological distinctions by making terminological distinctions. What do you guys think?

"A distinction between command and law such as the one proposed cannot be derived from the inspection of the terms as such; this we freely admit. The distinction has a synthetic, not an analytic, character. According to customary religious language (based on the Bible), the law of God consists in a given number of commandments. A commandment is a part of the law. Thus, so far as their contents are concerned, "law" and "command" or "commandments" are synonymous. This is Paul's usage, for example, in Romans 7:7 ff. Likewise the Lutheran confessional writings use the term lex and praecepra interchangeably.

"But we can see already in the New Testament the beginnings of a terminological distinction. It is true that there seem to be no signs of this in Paul. "The law" is for him "holy," and "the commandment is holy and just and good" (Rom. 7:12), no doubt for the reason that its content is the eternal, permanently valid will of God for man. Thus the apostle can summarize the very purpose of God's saving deed in Jesus Christ in such terms as these: "that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." The Christian life involves fulfillment of the law, through love; love is "the fulfillment of the law" (Rom. 13:10; Gal. 5:14). Indeed, since love to neighbor is the real meaning of the law, in all its various commandments, the same Paul who finds in Christ the end of the law (Rom. 10:4) can speak, paradoxically, of the "law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2). He speaks of himself as ennomos Christon, "under [literally 'in'] the law of Christ" (1 Cor. 9:21). Here the term "law" is retained, to be sure, but only in order to express all the more sharply the contrast with the Jewish and Judaistic notion of law. Insofar as the term law is used at all, an element of continuity is implied (Jesus does not, according to Paul, bring any new law); but at the same time, the phrase "the law of Christ" implies a basic transformation. If anyone is in Christ, the new has come (II Cor. 5:17); as the law of Christ, therefore, the law is something new. Paul no longer lives "under the law," but neither does he live "without the law"; rather, he lives "in the law," namely, the law of Christ. He lives in the law because he lives in Christ. And what is true of him is true of all Christians (Gal. 5:18; Rom. 6:14, 8:2).

"Paul gives further evidence of the great transformation that has taken place in that when he deals with the question of norms for the life of the Christian and of the church, he very seldom refers to the law, and then only in a secondary way (I Cor. 9:8f., 14:21, 34). In the ethical chapters of the letter to the Romans (chaps. 12 ff.), the term law does not occur, except at the one place already mentioned (13:8 ff.), and there Paul, in effect, substitutes for it the command to love as its equivalent. Neither is there any mention of the law in the letters to the Thessalonians or in II Corinthians. Instead, Paul speaks in his admonitions to the believers of "the will of God," just as Jesus had spoken of "the will of my Father" (Matt. 7:21, 12:50, cf. 6:10). Not that this formula is original with Christianity; the phrases "to do the will of God" or "to do the will of the Father in heaven" were familiar to the Palestinian synagogue. Nevertheless it is significant that Paul in these passages seems to make it a point to avoid using the term "law." Thus in Romans 12:2, he sums up the whole body of Christian ethical insight as a matter of "proving what is the will of God" (cf. Col. 1:9). In I Thessalonians 4:3, he writes that the sanctification of Christians is "the will of God," as is the rejoicing always, praying constantly, and giving thanks in all circumstances (5:18). Closely related to this, or even synonymous with it, is the notion of what is "acceptable to God" or "pleasing to God" (e.g., Rom. 12:1f.; Col. 3:20).

"The use of terms in the deuteropauline literature is similar. In Ephesians, the law appears only as "the law of commandments and ordinances" which Christ has abolished (2:15). Elsewhere in the epistle we find, as in Paul, references not to the law but to the "will of God" (5:17, 6:6), or "what is pleasing to the Lord" (5:10). The situation is no different in I Peter: the term "law" is completely lacking; the writer refers instead to "the will of God" (2:15, cf. 3:17, 4:19). As to the book of James, one sign of its special position in the New Testament is that it does speak of a fulfilling or keeping of the "law" (2:8 f.). Surely it is not by chance that Paul, in his remarks on the relations of Jewish and Gentile Christians in I Corinthians 7:19, speaks not of "the law," but of "the commandments": "Neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God." In the Book of Hebrews, similarly, the term "law" is used only to refer to the Old Testament law; as for Christians, they are to "do the will of God" (10:36, 13:21).

"We have seen thus far that in practically all the passages which deal with the question of norms or the Christian life, the term "law" is avoided. The implication of this is clear: a distinction is being made between God's eternal will, on the one hand, and "the law" on the other.

"The Johannine usage is still more consistent and terminologically explicit. In the Gospel of John, "law" always signifies the law of Moses. God's will (or Christ's will) for the believers, like God's will for Christ himself, is invariably designated by the term "commandment," never by "law" (see especially John 10:18, 13:34, and repeatedly in chaps. 14 and 15). Likewise in the Johannine epistles, the term nomos is entirely lacking; the mark of true Christian faith is rather "keeping the commandments" of God or of Christ. John does speak, just once, of "keeping the law," but here he is referring to the Jews: "Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law" (John 7:19). The phrase "keeping the law" is never used with reference to Jesus' disciples. The same is true in the Book of Revelation: the term nomos does not occur at all. Christians are designated as "those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus" (Rev. 12:17), or "those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" (14:12). We see, then, that John makes a strict terminological and theological distinction between law and commandment. The law was given by Moses (John 7:19), or by God through Moses (1:17), and it was given only to the Jews; but now God gives--both to his Son and through him-- the commandments.

"Thus we do have some basis in New Testament usage for our proposal that a theological distinction be drawn between "law" and "command." What impels us to make this proposal is the same factor that seems to underlie the consistent Johannine usage, namely, the fact that the "law," as Paul delineates it in contrast to the gospel, is not precisely the same as the eternal, unalterable will of God for man. Rather, the law must be seen as one limited and temporary form of this eternal will--a form that in Jesus Christ has been superseded and abolished. It does not matter what term is used to refer to this permanent will of God, as distinguished from the law. What is important is whether this needful distinction is in fact made, and is clearly expressed in the terminology employed. Some other word than "command" could very well be used to designate the will of God as distinguished from the law. But there is much to be said for following the Johannine usage. We shall accordingly refer to God's will for man, insofar as this is not identical with its form as law, as the divine "command.""

-Paul Althaus, The Divine Command: A New Perspective on Law and Gospel, trans. Franklin Sherman (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 3-7.

Hans Memling: Triptych of Saint Christopher

2008-12-20T21:09:00.009-05:00

If you were wondering who painted the picture in my heading, or who the two people portrayed are, here is a little context:

The painting is by Hans Memling (or Memlinc), c. 1430-1494. Though far (far) from knowing anything about art, I have fallen in love with Memling's work. I was first exposed to his painting The Last Judgment by my Doctrine II professor, Rev. Charles Schulz, mentor, academic advisor, senior thesis advisor. You have seen some of his other work, like Christ Giving his Blessing and Christ with Musician Angels at the bottom of my blog.

The portraits are of Willem Moreel and his wife, Barbara van Vlaenderberch. Willem Moreel was a spice trader, was Lord of Oostcleyhem, and was one of the richest men in Bruges. He was also a banker for the Bruges branch of the Banco di Roma. He had five sons and thirteen daughters from Barbara van Vlaenderberch. The portraits were most likely originally part of a triptych with the Virgin and Child in the central panel.

The two also commissioned another painting for the church of Saint James in Bruges. They are again depicted along with their children.

Triptych of Saint Christopher:

Central panel: Saints Christopher, Maurus and Giles

Left wing: Willem Moreel with his sons and Saint Willam of Maleval

Right wing: Barbara van Vlaendrberch with her daughters and Saint Barbara

(Click here for full size)

I mean't to have a post done on Paul Althaus on Friday, but was unable to see this through. I therefore won't be able to post it until Tuesday.