Raised for our Justification (Easter, Day 10)

The resurrection happened. It was an event concerning Jesus. I've been exploring this lately by reflecting on the language of the Easter gospel and what it implies about the subject of the Easter event.

But Easter is not a spectator sport. The resurrection of Jesus Christ took place for us! So let's take a moment and reflect on what the resurrection means for us.

When reflecting on Easter's significance, there are two tendencies of which we must beware.

The first tendency is to say that, since our reconciliation was accomplished on the cross, the resurrection has no saving significance. It is perhaps the revelation of Christ's identity, an inevitability on account of his deity, the transition to the Spirit's work of applying salvation to us, etc. But it cannot be a saving event because that was completed on Good Friday.

The second tendency, at least in our time, emerges primarily as a reaction to the first tendency, which has been so dominant in the Western Christian tradition. This second tendency is to divide up the work of salvation so that the cross accomplishes one thing and the resurrection another. In order to emphasize the saving significance of Easter, this approach downplays the finished character of Christ's death.

I have deep sympathy with both of these approaches.

The first rightly emphasizes that in some sense our reconciliation with God was accomplished in the life of the incarnate Son, which was fulfilled in his death on the cross. As we have already discussed, in the first instance the resurrection is not a work performed by the incarnate Son, but a work performed on him by God the Father. So Easter is not just one more miracle, the last in a series of saving works. It is the sequel to his finished life.

The second rightly emphasizes that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a saving event. The New Testament is emphatic about this from beginning to end. To empty the resurrection of its saving significance in order to "protect" the finished work of the cross is a fundamental error, and wreaks havoc on our biblical interpretation. If we can end the story on Good Friday and be perfectly satisfied, then something is terribly wrong. Something must be done to articulate the saving significance of Easter.

I have no quick fix to this dilemma. But I do have a brief thought that may speak to it. And it comes from a striking little verse at the end of Romans 4: "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification" (Rom 4:25).

Here the death and resurrection of Jesus seem to be placed together as one saving event with two sides. And the two sides are not two "halves," so that each does 50% of the work of salvation, accomplishing two different things that together make up a composite work. No! The two together accomplish one thing, i.e., the justification of sinners.

How are the two sides related? It seems to be that there is a "negative" side and a "positive" side to the justification of sinners accomplished in Jesus Christ. The negative side is Christ's death: "He was delivered over to death for our sins..." The positive side is Christ's resurrection: "...and was raised to life for our justification." These are not two different works, but the negative and positive sides of one powerful work of salvation.

The analogy that comes to mind is a battery. A battery has positive and negative poles, both of which are necessary to conduct electricity. It's not that you get half the power if you touch one. You got to have both. They each perform different functions within one act of conducting electricity. The analogy breaks down quickly, but you get the idea.

These 40 days I commend you to rob neither the cross nor the resurrection of their saving significance, but see both as two sides of the one event of God's justification of sinners!

Any thoughts?

Anselm's Cur Deus Homo

I'm going to interrupt my series on N. T. Wright's Surprise By Hope to post a lecture I prepared and delivered this week in an introductory course in Systematic Theology at PTS. I'll return to the fifth and final installment of my series on Wright next week, which will address the pastoral implications of his argument, specifically as it relates to funeral practice. But this week, enjoy a taste of Anselm.

Text: Romans 5.6-11
[6] For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. [7] Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. [8] But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. [9] Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. [10] For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. [11] But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Prayer:
Most merciful and just God, we praise you for being a God of mercy and thank you for showing your mercy to us even while we were still sinners. In your son Jesus Christ you have shown your love for us, saving us from the threat of wrath and reconciling us to you as your dearly loved children. Through his death we have been reconciled and through his life we will be saved. Lord, teach us this hour to boast in you and you alone. Teach us through your son's example to act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with you. Equip us with knowledge and wisdom so that we may speak your word of reconciliation and do your work of reconciliation. We eagerly anticipate what you will teach us as we converse with your servant Anselm, relying on your Spirit to guide us into all truth. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

When I was 11 years old, I drove my mom's Honda Accord through our garage door. A few months earlier my dad had taught me how to start a car, and so my folks would let me start it when I was waiting for them in the morning before school or after church while they talked to their friends. The car needed to warm up, especially during the winter. You'd start it and it would be all revved up for a few minutes and then eventual drop to a normal idle. So I thought I was really helping out by starting it, even though I suspect they were just trying to get me off their backs. One morning I thought I would help my mom out even more by putting the car in gear. Needless to say, I had no idea a car in reverse would just go without pressing the gas, but it did. And unfortunately this particular morning I apparently forgot to open the garage door, and so the neighors saw a 4-door maroon sedan crash through our garage door that morning, eventually coming to a screaching halt in the middle of the road.

Now the crash woke my father, who ran out terrified. That was his first response: fear. But fear quickly turned to a combination of disbelief and anger that I had done such a thing. There was no immediate consequence, other than showing up a little late to school. But eventually my father approached me with a plan: I would work so many hours of new duties and projects around the house to help pay for the new garage door. The amount of hours seemed astronomical to me, an impression I imprudently shared with my parents. They explained to me that my hours of work did not come close to paying for the new door. In fact, they did the math and showed me I was theoretically getting paid $60 per hour. My folks had required a justifiable payment from me which I could not pay in full, and so they found a way for me to learn a lesson about responsibility and restitution even while they foot the bill.

This is my story. But you all have stories like these. Stories of the strange interplay of justice and mercy. And many of you have heard these stories in sermons as a way of illustrating the saving significance of Jesus's death. These stories of justice and mercy highlight a certain line of soteriological thinking, embedded in refrains such as "Jesus died for your sins," "Jesus took my sins away," "Jesus was punished in our place," and "Jesus paid it all."

Our task today is twofold. First, I want to show you where this line of thinking comes from. Out of respect for Anselm, we must acknowledge this deep influence he has had on Western Christian soteriology even today. And out of respect for other streams and movements within Christianity, we must acknowledge that this is not the only way of thinking about salvation in Christ, but rather a particular formulation with its own particular genesis and development.

Second, I want you to see that much of what passes for a representation of this line of thinking today is a distortion of a rich tradition, even as we learn to acknowledge the problems inherent in this tradition. Earlier this week, my brother-in-law saw me reading Anselm on the shuttle. He asked me what my take on Anselm was. I said, "He's not as bad as everyone says he is, but there certainly are some problems." My hope is that those of you who have acquired a prejudice against Anselm and all he represents will begin to respect and even enjoy him, while those of you who consider yourselves champions of Anselmic soteriology will take pause and engage in some self-criticism.

To achieve these ends, let's engage in an analysis of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo, deploying the skills you have been honing in your weekly papers. In order to get a sense of the big picture, I'll organize my analytical commentary today around a narrative analysis of the text. Instead of just walking you through this rather long text, I have asked, "What story is Anselm telling us?" This is a good question to ask, provided one's reconstruction of the narrative is and remains rooted in the text itself and that one's reconstruction does not over-determine the interpretation of the text. With this big picture narrative in front of us, we will be able to engage in a conceptual analysis of selected passages along the way. Also, and especially in our discussion of the later stages of the story, we will seek to open ourselves up to be formed spiritually by the text. We'll do this by means of a rhetorical analysis, asking: "What is Anselm trying to do to us?" So, we begin with a narrative analysis to provide an overall structure within which we will also engage in conceptual and rhetorical modes of analysis. The pay off for employing these modes of analysis in tandem with each other is not only a deeper understanding of the text but also a deeper understanding of the God of whom the text speaks. Specifically, the honor of God, the justice and mercy of God, and the beauty of God will all come to the fore at key intervals within our commentary. So, without further ado, let's get into it.

In order to get a bird's eye view, let's transpose Anselm's argument into a story. Three basic elements of a story are character, setting and plot.
Who are the characters in Anselm's story?
• God.
• Angels, both good and bad (fallen).
• The Devil, chief among the fallen angels.
• Humans.
• Christ, the God-human.

Where does the story take place?
• Heaven, God's created abode where Christ and the Angels come from and where humans are destined to enjoy eternal happiness
• Earth, where both the fall and the incarnation take place.

What is the plot? Here we need to take a little more time. Remember Freytag's five stages of drama from high school English lit? Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Denouement. Let's use those stages to get a skeleton of the story before us, and then walk through each of stage in order to engage in a closer analysis.

1. Exposition: Humans are created for immortal happiness.
2. Rising Action: Humans fail to give honor to God but can’t repay it.
3. Climax: Christ, the God-human, dies to pay humanity's debt.
4. Falling Action: Christ gives his reward to humans, who imitate him in humble obedience.
5. Denouement: Humans enter the heavenly city, restoring order to the cosmos and enjoying divine blessedness forever.

Okay, with that in front of us, let's go through the story step-by-step, stopping along the way to assess the coherence of the narrative, clarify the concepts of the argument, and open ourselves up to the formative influence of the God of whom Anselm speaks.

1. Exposition: Humans are created for immortal happiness.

In the opening scenes of a dramatic narrative, the characters are introduced. God populates heaven and earth with angels and humans in proper proportion and harmony with each other and God. God as creator deserves the honor of his creatures, expressed through absolute obedience to his will. Such honor and obedience is not demanded arbitrarily, but precisely as the means to human happiness (II.1). Humans are destined for immortality, but their immortality is not guaranteed; they are able to die (I.18). They must persist in choosing the good to achieve true immortality, being not able to die, and so enjoy God's blessedness forever. Note the opening note of beauty, order, and harmony. Following the tradition, the beginning and end rhyme for Anselm. The beauty, order and harmony of the cosmos in relation to God and to itself is the goal that drives the narrative. This is easy to lose track off when we get into the ugliness of sin and atonement (note: the ugliness of the latter is only apparent). This is one of the benefits of narrative analysis: it keeps our mind on the big picture in the context of which we should understand the details, many of which are troubling at first glance and even at second glance. Well, on to those juicy details.

2. Rising Action: Humans fail to give honor to God and cannot repay it.

The exposition concludes with the inciting action: the first humans fall from grace by not giving God his due. The bad angels fall as well, but that's not the main line of the narrative. Although under the devil's influence, humans are culpable for dishonoring God. Now Anselm goes out of his way to say that God's honor cannot in fact be besmirched (I.15), as his honor is a se and immutable [review these terms]. But the revelation of God's honor on the world's stage can be besmirched. And this is not just a problem of appearances, because so dishonoring God wreaks havoc on the created order. And as Anselm repeatedly reminds us, God does not let anything go unregulated in his kingdom (I.12). So God must restore his honor on earth.

How does God restore his honor? Per his custom, Anselm lays out a couple options for rational consideration. Either (a) God can annihilate humans, (b) God can punish humans, or (c) humans can repay the debt of honor owed to God. So: (a) annihilation, (b) punishment, or (c) satisfaction. Now it is not hard to see the influence of Anselm's sociopolitical context here. In the context of medieval feudalism, the vassal owes honor to the lord of the realm. A lord cannot simply overlook a snub or insult from a vassal, because the security of the whole hierarchical system would be undermined. And so the lord would either punish the vassal or the vassal would find a way to make it up to the lord through assorted acts of devotion.

But here is where the analogy breaks down. For, contrary to many of his critics, Anselm does not paint God as a demanding thug consumed with his reputation. Rather, God's concern for his honor is good for us. The restoration of God's honor is the means by which human happiness is restored. This can be seen in the way Anselm sets aside option (a) annihilation. Anselm argues that if God annihilated his creatures then they would have been created to no avail. But God created humans with a purpose: namely, to attain blessed happiness in the vision of God (II.1, II.4). This reasoning is important because it reveals that Anselm is not solely concerned with the restoration of God's honor; he is also deeply concerned with the restoration of humanity to its destined happiness in God. So the divine dilemma is not only self-referential but concerns us and our well-being.

Having set aside the annihilation option, the only remaining options are punishment or satisfaction. Punishment versus satisfaction. That's the basic dilemma that drives the first book of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo. [Note: not penal substitution; cf. Hieb] Since this is a crucial conceptual pair, let's take a closer look at a particular passage. Turn with me to book I, chapter 11.
- question: logic of forgiveness
- sin = not giving God his due (i.e., injustice)
- debt = absolute submission to God's will
- sinner's debt: repay honor ... with interest! (restitution)

That's our problem. But now let's view this problem from God's perspective. Turn the page to the next chapter (I.12):
- divine forgiveness is not by mercy alone
- because of divine righteousness, sin is either punished or satisfied.
- the means of forgiveness must befit God's nature, which is just
So God must either punish or be repaid on account of his justice. Unregulated forgiveness is not an option. Now this may seem strange to your ears because you have heard that God loves you unconditionally. But the language of satisfaction as internal to the process of forgiveness would be familiar to Anselm's readers. The term “satisfaction” in fact comes from the practice of penance. The three acts of the penitent: contrition, confession, satisfaction. The act of the priest as God's representative: absolution. So satisfaction was seen as a natural part of the process of absolution or forgiveness.

But this sacramental background to satisfactionary thinking is not the whole story. For the sacramental system of penance itself rests, at least in Anselm's mind, on the doctrine of God. The reason that satisfaction is internal to forgiveness is because God is a just God. Now Anselm could affirm the grain of truth in the statement that God loves us unconditionally, inasmuch as the just requirements of the law are not imposed on God from without. But Anselm would argue that there are restraints that are internal to God's own nature. What is "necessary" for God is only what befits his consistent character (1.12; II.5). The one God is both merciful and just (I.24; II.20). So, unlike human judges, God need not and cannot choose between mercy and justice when God forgives. Divine forgiveness must be both merciful and just, or it is it not divine forgiveness. One of the ironies of the Anselmic tradition is the tendency to pit God's mercy and justice against one another, when Anselm's whole point is that they go together. There is a divine dilemma, but it's not between mercy and justice, but between punishment and satisfaction. Anselm's point is the God seeks a just means of satisfaction so that we might be shown mercy.

Shifting gears back from a conceptual to a narrative mode of analysis, we can see that this divine dilemma supplies the tension or rising action of the second act of the drama of salvation. The tension rises in Anselm's account by showing the impossibility of humans paying God back for their sin of dishonor (I.19-25). Unlike offences on the creaturely plane, a single act of disobedience to God is of cosmic proportion, on account of God's infinite worth. So nothing we can give God is sufficient to pay the debt we owe. Unless some alternative means of recompense presents itself, the only option left is punishment, which in this case means death and therefore the loss of eternal blessedness. The last portion of Book I is designed to let us hang for a little while in this suspense. Anselm is not only setting up for his argument in Book II, but also getting us to take a serious look at the problem that we have got ourselves into. By what means can we be saved? There seems to be no way out. Punishment awaits us. Who can save us? Enter the God-human, whose action constitutes the climax or turning point of the story.

3. Climax / Turning Point: Christ, the God-human dies to pay humanity's debt.

Look at II.6 with me for a moment: "If, therefore, as is agreed, it is necessary that the heavenly city should have its full complement made up from members of the human race, and this cannot be the case if the recompense of which we have spoken is not paid, which no one can pay except God, and no one ought to pay except man: it is necessary that a God-Man should pay it." Salvation comes through recompense, paying humanity's debt to God. Only a human ought to pay. But on account of the enormity of the debt, only God has the infinite worth at his disposal to pay it. And so the only means of recompense is a mediator who is both God and human.

In Anselm's narrative, the cross is the turning point. He talks a lot about the incarnation, and that's because he is trying to prove that the incarnation is the necessary precondition for the cross. But Christ's ontological constitution is not itself saving, as it was for, say, Gregory of Nyssa. Rather, Christ's ontological constitution makes him to be the kind of person who can save us through his death as a distinct act. [This is the crucial difference between D-soteriologies and A-soteriologies, despite the many motifs (restoration, imitation, etc.) they may share.] How does Christ's death save us? By sharing in our humanity, Christ is able to die. By sharing in God's divinity, Christ is unable to sin and so does not strictly have to die. On account of the infinite worth of this one divine-human person, the giving up of himself in death is a sufficient recompense for any and all dishonor shown to God. In other words, Jesus paid it all.

Now we need to stop here to assess what Anselm has accomplished. First of all, he has presented a masterful argument for the coherence of Chalcedonian Christology with the larger body of Christian thought (cf. I.8; II.7). He has shown that the incarnation is not some sort of oddity attached to the Christian faith, but a logically necessary belief for those who believe everything else Christianity teaches. [FQI] Of course, the irony is that he has turned the doctrinal tradition on its head by arguing from his own idiosyncratic soteriology to the dogmatically secured doctrine of the incarnation. He thereby gives the impression that his soteriology is more dogmatically secure than Chalcedonian Christology, when the reality is opposite. Now I say "impression," because in the context of Anselm's procedure of faith seeking understanding no one doctrine forms the foundation for all the others. Rather, this is a coherence argument. But the impression is nevertheless there. I, for one, find the argument to be both powerful and beautiful, so much so that it lends credence to his soteriology. But we must be careful to not grant it dogmatic status too quickly.

In the process of making this masterful argument, he has made two major shifts in the way the story of redemption is told: one regarding the characters and the other regarding the plot. Regarding the characters, he has found a way to sideline the devil's role in the story. The devil is still there, but his role is significantly diminished. This move is not an accident, but a direct though respectful critique of Augustine. Augustine and other patristic theologians would also say that in the death of Christ God rendered a payment. But they understood this payment as a ransom, with the devil as its recipient. Anselm says No to this whole way of thinking, because it gives the devil too much authority and turns redemption into a gladiator game. Instead, the payment is an act of devotion and obedience, with God as its recipient (I.7; II.19). The positive consequence of this shift is that the mythological cosmic battle with the devil is de-centered so that the moral encounter between God and humanity may take center stage. The negative consequence is that dual protagonists in this story (God and humanity) are at the same time the antagonists, God in terms of his wrath and humanity in terms of its sin. This is one of those points where the tradition flowing from Anselm becomes so easily distorted, painting God as a bloodthirsty tyrant who thinks being human is a capital crime. I believe these distortions can be overcome, but it requires considerable care and constructive energy.

Regarding the plot, by making the cross (as a distinct act apart from the incarnation) the climax of the story, Anselm managed to forget the resurrection. Now observing what is missing is always a tricky endeavor. I've encouraged my preceptees to beware of arguments from silence. Why? Because Cur Deus Homo is not the only treatise Anselm wrote, and so he may say much about the resurrection elsewhere (in documents either extant or lost, or in his undocumented preaching and teaching). Furthermore, noting a missing element in a text does not imply that the person does not believe in it, but only that it performs no function in the text at hand. Lastly, an argument from silence places on the one making it a heavy burden of proof to demonstrate that the missing element should be there. With these caveats in place, however, we can justifiably ask: Whatever happened to the resurrection? If atonement is finished on the cross, what is the purpose of the resurrection? Now many answers have been provided to this question throughout the development of second millennium Western Christian theology. But the fact that it even needs to be asked shows that Anselmic soteriology can be fully formulated without reference to the resurrection. I, for one, consider this a problem. [And in the interest of full disclosure, my dissertation research is focused on the doctrine of resurrection in conversation with the modern Anselm, Karl Barth].

Okay, enough assessment. Back to the story.

4. Falling Action: Christ gives his reward to humans, who imitate him in humble obedience.

Although Anselm does not spend much time explicitly addressing the here and now appropriation of salvation, he does directly address the effects of the climactic action of Christ in terms of reward and imitation in book II, chapter 19. Here's a revealing quote: "On whom is it more appropriate to bestow the reward and recompense for his death than on those for whose salvation, as the logic of truth teaches us, he made himself a man, and for whom, as we have said, he set an example, by his death, of dying for the sake of righteousness? For they will be imitators of him in vain, if they are not to be sharers in his reward" (II.19). Since Christ's life is of infinite worth, he not only can give up his life to God the father as a recompense on our behalf but also is in no need of a reward from God the father for this great act of self-sacrifice. And so the reward of eternal blessedness, which Christ deserves but does not need, is shared with his human brothers and sisters. But with which of his many brothers and sisters is this reward shared? Well, obviously those who are like him, those who imitate him in his love for justice.

Cast in the light of this concluding call to imitate Christ, the whole of Cur Deus Homo can be read as a description of divine pedagogy: the life and death of the God-human teaches us how to live. Why did God become human? The answer is not only "to die for our sins," but also "to teach us how to live." In Christ God has taught us to be merciful in our execution of justice and just in our acts of mercy. In Christ God has taught us to obey him in all things whatever the circumstance. In Christ God has taught us to live righteously not for the sake of reward but out of sheer love for God. In Christ God has taught us to give of our own self for others. Now all the proper caveats need to be introduced here: we are not God, and so we cannot punish sinners justly, demand infinite restitution for dishonor, subsist in two natures, die for the sins of the world, or give and receive honor within a communion of three persons in one being. [Note: response to 'divine child abuse' line of criticism]. Anselm introduces such caveats from time to time (e.g., I.12). But the caveats are not the point. The point is that in Christ God has introduced us to his character and calls us to "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Eph 5:1-2). May it be so with us.

5. Denouement: Humans enter the heavenly city, restoring order to the cosmos and enjoying divine blessedness forever.

In the final stage of a comedic drama, we find the protagonist in a situation as good as, if not better than, where they started. Humans are in a sense restored, but not in the sense of a do-over (and so with the potential of falling again) but in the sense of finally reaching the destiny for which God created them. What is this destiny? To be forever happy in the enjoyment of God. It is impossible for a sinner to enter into happiness, both because of the affront to God's honor within the created order and because the debt owed to God would spoil the enjoyment of God. So the recompense paid by the God-human is the means by which this barrier is removed. But salvation is completed not in the removal of the barrier but in arriving at the goal.

Having come to the end of the plot, you can see how the "death of Christ" and "going to heaven" are so closely tied in contemporary preaching and evangelism. But the reduction of salvation to these two foci is a distortion of Anselm's intentions, even if he left the door wide open to it. Anselm understands the salvation of humanity as instrumental to God's restoration of the cosmos. He makes this point by means of his claim that the number of restored humans makes up for the number of the fallen angels. The excursus on angels (I.16-18) is not irrelevant to his soteriology, and the conclusions of that section reappear at crucial moments (e.g., II.6). In sending Christ to atone for our sins, God is restoring order to the universe. So the restoration motif provides the context for Anselm's atonement-driven soteriology. Losing sight of this will inevitably lead to a reductionistic "die and go to heaven" understanding of salvation.

As we come to the end of the story, we see that it rhymes with the beginning. The original beauty, order and harmony of the cosmos are restored. With this goal in mind, everything else takes on a different hue. The work of God in Christ is the rational and just means by which the wise God skillfully orchestrates the masterpiece of his creation. The human works of humble obedience bring us into harmony with Christ as his imitators and into harmony with God's good creation. By our little acts of submission to God we are "maintaining the beauty of the universe" (I.15). And even the work of theology because an aesthetic exercise. As Anselm explains in the opening lines of this treatise, Christians seek to perceive the logical coherence of Christian doctrines, the "utility and beauty of its logic," "in order that they may take delight in the understanding and contemplation of the things which they believe" (I.1). This aesthetic appreciation for Christian doctrine is not only enjoyable in itself but also useful for training us to be "ready always to give satisfaction to all who ask the reason for the hope that is in us [I Pet 3:15]" (I.1). May our time spent wrestling with Anselm today help you to catch a glimpse of the beauty and utility of theology.

Any thoughts?

Bibliography

Aulen, Gustaf. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement. New York: Macmillan, 1969.

Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Theo-Drama. Vol. IV. Ignatius Press, 1994. Cf. ch. 3, esp. pp. 255-261.

Browning, Don S. Atonement and Psychotherapy. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966. Cf. ch. 3.

Charry, Ellen. By the Renewing of Your Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Cf. ch. 7, esp. 168-172.

Eckardt, Burnell F. Anselm and Luther on the Atonement: Was it "Necessary"? San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992.

Fortin, John R., ed., Saint Anselm: His Origins and Influence. Lewiston, N.Y. : E. Mellen Press, 2001. Cf. esp. chs. 1, 4, 6.

Heyer, George S. "St. Anselm on the Harmony Between God's Mercy and God's Justice," in The Heritage of Christian Thought, eds. R. E. Cushman and E. Grislis. New York: Harper & Row. Pp. 31-40.

Murphy, Jeffrie G. and Hampton, Jean. Forgiveness and Mercy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Steindl, Helmut. Genugtuung: Biblisches Versöhnungsdenken, eine Quelle für Anselms Stisfaktionstheorie? Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitätsverlag, 1989. An English-language book review by Colin Gunton can be found in Journal of Theological Studies 43:1 (Apr 1992), pp. 283-286.

Williams, George Huntston. Anselm: Communion and Atonement. Saint Louis, MO: Concordia, 1960.

Druchesis VIII: The Kingdom

Introduction: The Kingdom of God
And now we come to the end. Not the end of our series, since we will next discuss the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments in accordance with the catechetical tradition. And not the end of the story, for the good news of the gospel is that the end is just the beginning. Rather, we come to the end of God: the end for which God created the world. At the conclusion of the creed we speak of the fulfillment of God's purposes, God's "end" in the teleological sense of the word. And so we come to eschatology: the doctrine of last things.

The term "eschatology" can be a bit misleading, for talk of "last things" seems to locate these things as merely the last in series of similar things. But nothing could be further from the truth, for these things are not "things" like other things that just happen to come last. These things are final consummation of God's own purposes, the culmination of creation and redemption. These things are the fullness of all things, a fullness initiated and achieved and revealed by God himself. And so eschatology does not engage in "futurology," wherein we predict facts about the future in order to generate beliefs akin to the beliefs so far expresses in the creed. Rather, eschatology is theology, a form of God-talk. Specifically, it is theological teleology: reflection on God's own purposes revealed in Jesus Christ and promised in the Holy Spirit. So it does not speak last things as much as it speaks of the Last One: God himself from the perspective of his final purposes.

The category around which we can best organize reflection on God's purposes is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is a (if not the) pervasive theme in Scripture. It is the expectation of Israel, the content of Jesus's preaching and activity, and the driving hope of the Christian community. Kingdom-language has a comprehensiveness to it that avoids exclusively futuristic talk of last things. Kingdom-language teaches us to think eschatologically not only about eschatology itself but also about all theological topics -- seeing all things from the perspective of God's coming reign. In fact, we have been thinking this way all along in this series, for we have spoken of faith in terms of the story of God with us. God's story is not a pointless meandering adventure but a purposeful narrative with a beginning, middle and end. The mission of God with us has a purpose. The Father sends his Son in the power of the Spirit in order that all things might be reconciled to him and in him. So missional narrative theology, at least of the sort exemplified in this series, is eschatological theology. It is theological thinking that takes its bearings from God's kingdom purposes.

So, if the kingdom is the key to theology in general and eschatology in particular, what is it? What is the kingdom of God? Well, there are a lot of ways to define the kingdom of God: it is God's realm, God's effective presence, God's people in submission to him, God's own heavenly space, etc. Although strict definitions are seldom helpful in crucial theological matters, a strict definition of God's kingdom is particular difficult to come by. Why? Because God's kingdom is by definition undefinable. As Jesus's kingdom parables attest, God's kingdom is unpredictable. It is full of surprises. This is precisely because it is God's kingdom: the fulfillment of his work of creation and redemption and therefore the surplus beyond what is inherent in the created order. The kingdom is the transcendent purpose of God for his world. And so it exceeds expectations and detailed descriptions. That is why a strict definition is not the way to go.

Does this mean we have nothing to say about the kingdom? Certainly not! We can still point to the kingdom. We can pick it out. How? Well, instead of a strict definition of what the kingdom is, we can begin to understand the kingdom in terms of what it is not. Now I don't mean just saying a bunch of stuff it isn't. Saying the kingdom of God is not a banana, though accurate, doesn't reveal much. Rather, I am suggesting that we gesture at the kingdom by speaking of in terms of its relations. You may recall this is how we speak of the trinitarian persons: they are identified by their opposing relations. An analogous procedure may be helpful here. In the case of the kingdom, we pick it out by its relation to the church and to the world.

On the one hand, the kingdom is not the church. The kingdom cannot be equated with the church. The church seeks to live in light of the kingdom, but it is not itself God's kingdom. The kingdom is more than the church: God has more in store for the world than it merely joining the church. The kingdom cannot be sacralized. We often forget this, thinking that building the church simply is building the kingdom. But it is never that simple. Remember Alfred Loisy's famous quote from last week : "Jesus preached the kingdom, but the church came instead." We already pointed out one of the layers of irony in this quote. Another of those layers is the blunt reminder for the church to preach not itself but the kingdom of God. In other words, the kingdom is not the church.

On the other hand, the kingdom is not the world. The kingdom cannot be equated with the world as it is, or even the best parts of the world. The world is waiting for the in-breaking of God's kingdom, and there are certainly signs of the kingdom popping up in the world outside the walls of the church. But the kingdom is more than the world: God has more in store for the world than simply sustaining its best features. God's kingdom will transform this world, and so transcends this world. The kingdom cannot be secularized. Even as the church becomes more missional by learning to look beyond its own institutional life for the work of God in this world, it must not become so enamored with the world so as to think that the kingdom is the world. God's hope for the world surpasses even the world's own best hopes. The kingdom is not the world.

Having picked out God's kingdom in relation to the church and the world, we can begin to fill out our picture of God's kingdom. We will draw our content from the promises of God confirmed by and revealed in the resurrection of Jesus. We will structure this content around the language of the classic creeds: the kingdom is "the life of the world to come," "the resurrection of the body," and "the life everlasting." In other words, the kingdom of God is (1) New Creation, (2) Resurrection, and (3) Eternal Life.

(1) New Creation
The kingdom of God is the re-creation of the world. It is thus analogous to the creative work of God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. The kingdom of God is the new heavens and the new earth. It is new creation. Now the language of new creation is unfortunately not found in the Apostles' Creed, but it is implied in the last line of the Nicene Creed: "the life of the world to come." The reference to "world" (Greek: cosmos) gives us a sense of the big picture. We begin with this cosmic dimension in order to place our talk of personal destiny in its proper context. Christian hope is not just about individual life-after-death. Although it is included within eschatology, my individual destiny is not the whole story or even the central point. When personal hope is made the central point, eschatology all too easily becomes escapism. Rather, our personal hope fits within the larger story of God. The kingdom of God is the renewal of all things, the marriage of heaven and earth, the fulfillment of God's creative purposes. The kingdom of God does not replace but transforms God's good creation. This promise of transformation is revealed by Jesus, whose creatureliness is affirmed in his resurrection from the dead. And so here at the end we confirm what we have said from the beginning: that creation and redemption are positively related. Redemption is the fulfillment of creation. Redemption is new creation.

By affirming the positive relationship between creation and redemption, we run immediately into a problem. How does this transformation occur? Is it a gradual sort of thing, or does it happen all at once? Or, to put the question in eschatological terms, when does this transformation occur? Has it already begun, or is it still to come? There is certainly Scriptural evidence in favor of both sides. The kingdom comes like a thief in the knight, yet it also works like yeast in the dough. The kingdom is to come, yet is it already advancing violently.

What shall we do with this temporal tension in the New Testament? Some have tried to resolve it one way or the other. On one end of the spectrum, Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer famously spoke of a thoroughgoing eschatology, found especially in the teachings of the historical Jesus. This meant that the kingdom was for Jesus absolutely future, so that any talk of a present kingdom in the New Testament were later developments designed to deal with the disappointment surrounding Jesus's death and/or his delay in returning. Though Schweitzer considered this feature problematic, some theologians (such as Rudolf Bultmann and the early Karl Barth) attempted to make use of this perspective in their theology. The emphasis here is on the discontinuity between creation and redemption: God will redeem creation by his own radically new act. The advantage here is the critical limit set on all idolatrous claims to build the kingdom today. The disadvantage is that this view tends to empty history of its significance.

On the other end of the spectrum, C. H. Dodd famously spoke of a realized eschatology, in which the kingdom has already come. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, all things are fulfilled, including Jesus's own prophetic predictions. All that is left is the proclamation and expansion of this kingdom. Such an approach is often adopted by theologians to support either a high view of the church or a secularized kingdom-building work in the world. The emphasis is on the continuity between creation and redemption: God is redeeming creation in and through his creatures. The advantage here is the seriousness with which it takes the presence of the kingdom in Jesus Christ the King. The disadvantage is the temptation to co-opt the kingdom for our own ends, as well as the deeply problematic fact that the world remains quite rebellious against God's reign.

An attempt at mediation within this old debate was supplied by Oscar Cullmann. He recommended the notion of an inaugurated eschatology. The kingdom has already but not yet come. It has already burst onto the scene in Jesus Christ, the turning point of history. And yet it awaits its final consummation at the end of all things. Although seemingly obvious, this view provides a conceptuality for keeping alive the temporal tension of Scripture.

This tension is expressed profoundly in Jesus' preaching: "The Kingdom of God is at hand." What does "at hand" mean? Does it mean it's here? Or does it mean it is coming? The answer is, "Yes." It's both here and still to come. This tension is held together in the very person of Jesus Christ, who as the incarnate Son of God fully embodies God's kingdom and invites his human brothers and sisters to participate in his kingdom, an incorporation which awaits its final consummation at the resurrection of the dead.

However, it is worth noting that merely saying "both/and" will not do as a theological procedure. One must think carefully about how to relate both aspects, in this case the presence and the future of the coming kingdom of God, and within that temporal dynamic the continuity and discontinuity between creation and redemption. One should keep alive this Scriptural tension, but do so in a way that upholds the values found in the more extreme positions identified above. Extreme positions uncover deep insights that must be taken on board by any worthwhile mediating position. That's good advice in general, and is particularly important when discussing God's kingdom, for the kingdom is radically new and yet precisely as new it is the very fulfillment of God's creation. Nothing holds this tension of discontinuity and continuity together better than the promise of resurrection, to which we now turn.

(2) Resurrection
The kingdom of God is the resurrection of the dead. It is thus analogous to the Father's raising of his son Jesus from the dead. Easter is the inauguration of the kingdom. In the bodily resurrection of Jesus we have a clear instance both of the surpassing of creation's own possibilities and God's re-affirmation of creation. In the resurrection of Jesus, God confirms his promise to not give up on his creation by giving to it something brand new. And so the continuity and discontinuity of creation and redemption are held together in Christ.

However, the risen Christ is more than an instance of our future hope. He is its basis. Only on the basis of the revelation of the crucified Jesus as the risen Lord do we have hope for our own resurrection from the dead. Following Paul's imagery: the risen Christ is the first-fruits, of which the resurrection of the dead is the harvest. Or, to follow another of Paul's image-sets: Jesus Christ is the firstborn from the dead, so many other sons and daughters will be revealed at the coming of God's kingdom. The bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead fills Christian eschatology with a specific content and secure hope, which far exceed any vague wish for life-after-death.

In fact, as N. T. Wright succinctly puts it, Christian hope in resurrection is decidedly not about life after death, but rather about life after life-after-death. We know this is so because Jesus did not simply "die and go to heaven," but was crucified, dead and buried, and on the third day rose again from the dead. He then ascended into heaven and has promised to return from there -- not to take us to heaven, but to bring heaven to earth. The king will bring the fullness of his kingdom here. The New Jerusalem will descend to earth, and we will reign with Christ forever. In order to be in such eternal fellowship with the risen son, human beings will be given new, resurrected bodies. These bodies will be different than the ones we are currently used to (discontinuity), yet these bodies will still be bodies (continuity). God in Christ has not given up on space, time and matter. God is so firmly pro-creation that he will not even leave it to its own "natural" end in decay and death. God puts death to death in the death of Christ, so that in him we might be raised from the dead.

All this talk of a future resurrection from the dead raises the question of an intermediate state. What happens in the meantime, between our death and resurrection? Where do we go when we die? This is the place where the immortality of the soul fits in. The belief that humans have a non-material identifying substance called a "soul" that survives one's natural death is not the same as belief in the resurrection of the dead. You can't turn "resurrection" into a code-word for the immorality of the soul. Immortality of the soul is not the centerpiece of Christian hope; resurrection of the body is.

However, theories about the souls can be helpful for imagining the intermediate state between death and resurrection. Such theories are not required by Christian faith, but neither are they strictly ruled out by it. Some suggest that resurrection faith is incompatible with belief in immortality, often in justifiable opposition to the bad habit in the Christian tradition of overplaying immortality at the expense of resurrection. But abuse does not bar use. Many of the greatest thinkers in the Christian tradition have displayed the compatibility of resurrection and immortality. The key is to relentlessly subordinate all theoretical talk of an immortal soul to the sure faith in the resurrection of the dead. The idea of the immortality of the soul is only a theory to explain the intermediate state, and that's all it is. As such, immortality is a function of resurrection.

Two implications follow from this. First, immortality is not a natural attribute of the soul. Only God is immortal. Humans may have been created for immortality, but they were not created with immortality. Human immortality is a gift from God, and it ultimately comes in the form of a renewed bodily life at the resurrection. Any "immortality" prior to the resurrection is a temporary holding pattern, the preservation of our identity by God.

Second, whatever the soul is, it must not be thought of in abstraction from the body. The "soul" is simply a way of gesturing at the difference between a living body and a corpse. Soul means life. So we must not think of the intermediate state in terms of souls running around and doing things, as if our story just keeps on rolling. No, our life is hid with Christ in God. Whether God preserves our life-history only in his mind or also by means of a temporary form of bodily existence, we don't really know. The point is that an immortal soul awaiting the resurrection of the dead is not a ghost or an angel who might visit earth or meddle in its affairs. The human person, however preserved by God, awaits the breath of new life into a new bodily existence on the day of the Lord's return. And with the mention of the breath of new life, we come to our final point.

(3) Eternal Life
The kingdom of God is the giving of eternal life. It is thus analogous to the pouring out of the Holy Spirit onto the church at Pentecost. Actually, in light of the forward-looking orientation of the Spirit's work, the analogy runs the other way: the outpouring of the Spirit on the disciples is analogous to the outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh. The indwelling of the Spirit is the foretaste and foreshadowing of the Spirit's gift of everlasting life to those risen in Christ. As Paul puts it, the Spirit is the down-payment of things to come. The Spirit fills and guides us now, but he will be the driving principle of our lives in the kingdom. So the resurrection of our bodies will not be just one last miracle to display the omnipotence of God, but is the indispensable means to the end of enjoying eternal fellowship with the risen Christ.

This living fellowship with Christ by the Spirit marks the completion of our sanctification. According to the various Christian traditions, this completion is referred to as glorification, the beatific vision, or deification. Although each term understands eternal life differently, all of them contain the crucial element of seeing. The crucial distinction between now and then is the means by which we are sanctified: it is no longer by faith, but by sight. "We shall be like him because we shall see him as he truly is" (1 Jn 3:2). In the kingdom we will share in God's eternal life because Jesus will be revealed. It is thus no coincidence that the last book of the Bible is called Revelation, for it is by revelation that God achieves the completion of his work in us.

But does completion mean conclusion? Does eternal life mean the story is simply over? Is the coming kingdom a denouement that just goes on and on and on? In other words, will heaven be boring? This is a common question, and one can see why it arises. But it betrays a misunderstanding both of God's future and ours. On the one hand, an eternity spent worshipping God will not be boring because of the inexhaustible riches of God's triune life. Maybe church is boring, but God isn't. God will never run out of aspects of his identity and character to reveal to us in spirit and in truth. On the other hand, worship in the kingdom will be expressed not only in our absolute love of God but also in our relative love of one another. The twofold love command will still apply in the kingdom, the only difference is that it will always be obeyed. So in the kingdom we are not envoloped back into God but rather we have fellowship with God in his outward movement among his people. As the vision of both Ezekiel and John attest, the river in the New Jerusalem flows out of the city. The only difference is that in John's New Jerusalem, the river does not flow out of the temple for there is no temple. "I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple" (Rev 21:22). There is no separate place for worship because in the kingdom we will worship God as we walk outward with him toward our fellow creatures. It is for this kingdom that we pray, "Come, Lord Jesus. Come."

Any thoughts?

• Do you agree that the kingdom of God is the best category around which to organize eschatological reflection? Why or why not?
• Is it a good thing to distinguish the kingdom from the church and from the world? What happens when the kingdom is too closely identified with either?
• When thinking about God's new creation, do you tend to emphasize discontinuity or continuity? Do you have a reason for your tendency? How can these best be held together without making recourse to a simplistic both/and appeal?
• If Jesus is the basis of our future hope, what other implications does his resurection have for eschatological reflection?
• Do Christians tend to conflate resurrection of the body and immortality of the soul? What happens when we do this? Do we have to chose between them? Or are they compatible, perhaps in the way I have sketched or in some other way?
• Have you every asked or been asked to question, "Will heaven be boring?" How have you answered this question? How will you answer this question in the future?

Druchesis V: Crucified and Risen

As we mentioned last week, Christian faith is centered on a person, the person of Jesus. And persons can be identified by two interconnected ways: by their relations and by their narrative. Last week we focused primarily on identifying Jesus within the context of his relations: he is Israel's Christ, God's only Son, and our Lord. We also considered the first episode in Jesus' narrative and the corresponding claim that he is fully God and fully human. This week we turn our attention fully to Jesus' narrative. In so doing, we are both filling out our understanding of his identity begun last week and bringing into focus a new topic: his saving significance. In many traditional discussions of Jesus, these two topics are variously divided under the headings "person" and "work" of Christ or "Christology" and "Soteriology." Such a distinction has a measure of heuristic value, but it is ultimately misleading because it so easily separates the identity and significance of Jesus. But these cannot be separated, for Jesus' significance for us consists precisely in his identification with us in the depths of our suffering and sin. Jesus is Immanuel, God-with-us. Such a statement is an indication of both his identity and his saving significance. So, as we attend to the plot of his story and its significance for us, let's not leave behind reflection on his identity as though it were a finished task.

The story of Jesus can be organized in a number of different ways. Obviously, one could try to reassemble all the details of his narrative. We have already noted that such comprehensiveness is not the goal of the creed. Instead, the creed highlights the key turning point in the story: the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Now if such a selection were merely arbitrary, we would have a problem. But the creed is in fact following the lead of the New Testament: not only do the Acts and the epistles contain brief statements of faith that highlight the death and resurrection of Jesus (cf. I Cor 15:3-4; Acts 4:10), but the Gospels themselves present Jesus' life story as resolutely oriented toward its climax in his death and resurrection (cf. Mark 8:31 & parr; Luke 9:51). So the Creed is in good company when it highlights the death and resurrection of Jesus as the central episode in his story. Following this creedal pattern, we will organize our reflections into four headings, speaking first of his suffering and death, then of his resurrection and ascension. All along the way we will meditate on the saving significance of the one who is identified by this narrative.

Suffering
Suffered under Pontius Pilate

As already noted, the historical antecedents to the Apostles' Creed were decidedly anti-gnostic in orientation. The gnostic movement within the early Christian church downplayed the genuine historical suffering of Christ. Such an approach is a function of a wider docetic Christology in which the Son or Logos only appears to be human (dokeo means "to seem"). With such ideas on the radar, it should be no surprise that the suffering of Christ makes it onto the creed's short list of things to affirm.

However, such an affirmation has never been easy for Christians. Christians have consistently stumbled over the notion of God experiencing suffering in Christ. This probably has to do with the Greek philosophical inheritance and its presumption of divine impassibility (the notion that God transcends suffering). But whatever the source, the discomfort with divine suffering is a long-standing habit of Christian thinking. Reconciling this discomfort with an affirmation of the incarnation has motivated the creation of many careful distinctions that contributed significantly to the development of the doctrine of the Trinity and the two natures of Christ. Many of these theological moves were made to protect either the Father or Christ's divine nature from the suffering Jesus undergoes according to the New Testament. Appropriating these doctrines today does not require that we share all their philosophical motivations or assumptions, but we ought to at least understand them so that we can grasp the complexity of this heritage.

Christian discomfort with suffering is not merely a by-gone habit from another time. It continues today. The belief that true faith guarantees immediate relief from suffering is widespread. Such a belief tends to treat the suffering of Jesus as a temporary ordeal, a bad weekend in Jerusalem that he quickly overcame by the power of his faith. Even Christians who valorize and idealize suffering, often with reference to the suffering of Jesus, have a tendency to undermine its seriousness precisely by valorizing and idealizing it--turning suffering into some kind of instrumental good or pleasure in itself. But the Christian story neither despises nor valorizes suffering. The story of Jesus shows that God in his mercy has compassion on the suffering of his people and yet overcomes it precisely by entering into it. That is the good news of the gospel: God did not stand aloof over our suffering, but participated in it. In Jesus Christ, God suffers with us.

Death
Was Crucified, Dead and Buried
He Descended into Hell

But Jesus not only suffered with us, he also suffered for us. That little prepositional phrase "for us" brings us to our second heading: the death of Christ. As Christian Scripture and Christian piety repeatedly attest: Christ died for us. Jesus' obedience to the will of his Father led not only to his suffering and death in solidarity with us, but also to his suffering and death on our behalf, in our place, for our sakes. His was not just a death like any other. His was not even a death like any other horrible criminal's or political prisoner's. Jesus died as our representative, as our head, as the one true human who stands in for all the rest. Christ died for us.

How can we speak this way? What is it about the death of Jesus as narrated by the Gospels and highlighted by the Creed that indicates his death was for us? The clue in this direction is the manner of Christ's death. Jesus Christ died the death of a criminal. He was crucified. Crucifixion was the Roman punishment for political criminals. But what was his crime? The Gospels consistently present the trial(s) of Jesus as a sham, and the New Testament as a whole witnesses to his innocence and even sinlessness. So if Jesus' death was a punishment for a crime, yet Jesus committed no crime, why did he die?

This is where the notion of exchange or substitution comes in. Jesus the innocent died for us the guilty. Jesus the righteous died for us sinners. Jesus died so that we may live. Now such a substitution or exchange is not usually permitted in the legal world. Of course, one could appeal to God as the supreme judge who can do whatever he wants. But the Christian tradition at this point has usually shifted gears into the language of sacrifice, which already contains the logic of substitution (e.g., scapegoat, passover lamb, etc.). Whether mixing judicial and cultic metaphors is all that helpful can be debated. But the basic model shines through: Christ died instead of us so that we may be reconciled to God. Christ died for us.

Christ died for us. In order to hammer this point home, the Creed rattles off three verbs: "crucified, dead, and buried." Not only was he crucified, but he really died, and they put him in the ground. Then the creed takes it up a notch. The Creed highlights a muted but very real theme in Scripture: Christ "descended into hell." Upon his death, Christ went down (not up), to join the dead who are separated from God on account of their sins. If there was any question that the crucifixion itself functions as a punishment, the fact that Christ suffers the ultimate fate of dead sinners in his descent should seal the deal. Now there is some debate as to whether this descent should be understood as a continuation of his substitutionary suffering or as a victorious invasion of the realm of the dead. I personally am attracted to the former option, but that does not necessarily require a rejection of the latter. What is most important at this juncture is to acknowledge that this obscure episode manages to make it into the creed and to hear this inclusion as an invitation to intentionally reflect on the saving significance of the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Resurrection
On the third day he rose again from the dead

If Jesus' death saves us, if by dying in our place he reconciled us to God, then why is that not the end of the story? Why not just end the story of Jesus with the climactic episode of his death? Unfortunately, too much Christian preaching does in fact end there. So many sermons reduce the story of salvation to the death of Christ. That is not to say that these Christians don't believe in Christ's resurrection. But it does betray that Christ's rising from the dead has no theological function -- no place in the plot -- in Christian faith and practice. What purpose does the resurrection have? What is its place in the plot of the gospel story? Why did Jesus rise again from the dead?

No one can see nor come to the Father except through the Son. If the Son is dead, the Father is inaccessible. What good is our reconciliation with God if we cannot see or hear or taste it? Jesus was dead. The disciples scattered. His death may have saved them, but he was unavailable to them. But that was not the end of the story. In fact, it was only the beginning. Jesus came to them. Jesus appeared in their midst. He showed himself to be risen from the dead. The angels and women bore witness to his now empty tomb. On the third day he rose again from the dead. Jesus who died for us and for our salvation now comes to us as our savior.

There are many theological implications that follow from the resurrection of Christ. I will mention just three. First, God confirmed his work of creation. By raising his son Jesus from the dead, God confirms his intention not to give up on his creation but to redeem it. He will not save us by annihilating us or by tearing us out of his created order. He will save us by transforming his creation from within. This means that the hope of resurrection, far from being pie-in-the-sky escapism, teaches us to value God's good creation and hope for its redemption.

Second, God rendered the incarnation permanent. The eternal Son of God did not just become human for a little while. The incarnation was not a vacation, but the fulfillment of God's master plan. Jesus is and remains human unto eternity. This means that seeing God face to face will always involve the face of Jesus. This is why the name of Jesus is so crucial in the meantime. He is not just a way to God that can be discarded once we reach the goal. By his resurrection, Jesus is now the goal, the end, the purpose of all human life. It is worthy of note that the permanence of the incarnation is the theological reason why resurrection must be bodily resurrection. Perhaps you have heard a preacher harp on the bodily character of Jesus' resurrected body, or perhaps you have heard someone dismiss this claim as being too "literal." The issue at stake here is deeper than questions of Biblical literalism and historical verifiability. The issue cuts to the heart of the identity of Jesus and therefore the very identity of God. Is God truly revealed in Jesus Christ? Is God forever the God who takes up the cause and need of humanity? Is God really for us? Incarnation rendered permanent by resurrection ensures that the answer to all these questions is a resounding "Yes!"

Third, God saves by giving life. By raising his Jesus from the dead, God shows that his ultimate intention for humanity is not death but life. God wants us to live! This means that salvation cannot be reduced solely to forgiveness. Now the power of forgiveness should not be dismissed. Forgiveness releases us from our past and thereby opens up our future. But our future is not merely a timeless state of being forgiven. The future opened by Christ's forgiveness is the eternal dynamism of life. Salvation is a matter of life and death. "I come that you might have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). This eternal life breaks into to our lives in the present. "The Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is in you" (Rom 8:11). The resurrection of Jesus reminds us that salvation includes the life-giving power of the Spirit at work among us.

Ascension
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
from whence he come to judge the living and the dead.

A final word must be added to all the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The crucified and risen Lord ascended into heaven. The second article of the creed concludes with Jesus sitting down at the right hand of the God mentioned in the first article: God the Father Almighty. The Creator and Lord of the universe has at his side his very own Son who is one of us, a human being, our brother. So we need not fear his coming at the end to judge, for he has shown himself to be on our side. This observation does not dismiss the seriousness with which we all must take the final judgment. But shaking knees are not called for. Hope and expectation are the proper attitude of those of who live in the time between the ascension of Jesus and his last descent.

But why ascend? Why not just wrap things up on Easter morning? Why is the resurrection of Jesus only a first-fruits, and not the harvest? Ascension is in fact good news, for it means that Jesus is giving us time to reap, to join along side him in his mission to the world. In the New Testament, the ascension of Jesus is consistently linked with the sending out of the disciples on their mission to the ends of the earth. In Acts 1 the connection is explicit: after forty days with his disciples, Jesus sends them out right before being taken up into a cloud. In Matthew 28 there is no explicit mention of an ascension, but in Jesus' last appearance to the disciples (which is equivalent to ascension) his final word is a word of commission: go and make disciples of all nations. In the gospel of John, resurrection and ascension and pentecost are all scrunched together chronologically in such a way that upon his first appearance to the disciples, Jesus breathes his spirit on them while saying, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you" (John 20:21). In all these cases, the gift of the ascension is that Jesus gives us time to join him in his mission. The ascension means time for us, time for the church, time for the world, time for action, time for teaching, time for the Spirit. Ascension means the gift of time. May we use this time faithfully and joyfully as we join him on his mission.

Any thoughts?

• How do you think of the place of suffering in the life of Christ and God's relationship to it?
• Can Christ's death be thought of as saving? Should this salvation be thought of in substitutionary terms? What problems come with this model? Can they be overcome?
• Why do we so easily forget the soteriological significance of Christ's resurrection? Is the general line I took on the matter (that in his resurrection Christ reveals himself as savior) helpful? What of the implications I noted?
• Do you see the connection between ascension and mission? What other significance can be assigned to the ascension?
  

The Seven Words from the Cross, Part II - Today you will be with me in paradise

Last week we introduced our Lenten series on the Seven Words from the Cross. The second word in the tradition also comes from Luke. Let's look at this word in context:

39One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" 40But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." 42Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[a]" 43Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

Here's a few thoughts that come to mind when I read this passage.

(1) Solidarity

The first thing that stands out to me is that Jesus is found here hanging between two criminals, or "wrongdoers." In Mark and Matthew, they are referred to as "bandits." We are not just talking about "thieves," as it is typically put, which might be romanticized ala Robin Hood. No, these are violent criminals. They had to make enough trouble to get the attention of the Roman officials and their "make-an-example-out-of-you" form of punishment, crucifixion. Remembering this makes it all the more striking that Jesus is found with them. He has submitted himself to association with criminals. Of course, we've seen this trajectory all along in Jesus' life, as he eat with tax collectors and sinners and welcomes prostitutes into other people's homes. At here at the culmination of his mission he is found alongside the worst of the worst. He is in solidarity with sinners. The point for us as we reflect on the cross is to be reminded for whom Christ died. He came to seek and save the lost. Are there those whom we've deemed beyond the pale? Are we willing to see ourselves as truly lost and in need of redemption?

(2) Innocence

The second thing that jumps out at me is that the content of the other criminal's confession. He does not say anything about Jesus' identity as the Son of God. He does not discuss Jesus' Messianic status or his ability to save them from their predicament. He merely indicates Jesus' innocence. They, he admits, deserve their punishment. But he does not. He is innocent. He has does nothing wrong. He is punished unjustly, for he is just. This fits Luke's way of telling the story of Jesus, for upon Jesus' death the Roman centurion does not say "surely this was the son of God" as he does in Matthew and Mark, but rather says "surely this man was righteous." And throughout Luke-Acts emphasis is laid on the uprightness of Jesus and his followers by both Jewish and Gentile standards. Apparently it is important that Jesus is righteous, and the criminal is a witness to Jesus' righteousness. Unlike the sinners with whom he is found, Jesus is innocent.

(3) Solidarity + Innocence = Promise

When you add together the first two observations, you get the good news of the gospel: that he who knew no sin came among sinners for us that we might be called the righteousness of God. The one truly righteous one became the one true sinner, so that sinners might be made righteous. And so Jesus can turn and speak this promise to the criminal, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." The innocent one is with us sinners so that we sinners may be with him in the innocence of paradise. Sinners may come to him because he first came to them. His solidarity with us and his innocence for us are the ground of his promise to us.

Any thoughts?
- Does this line of reflection illuminate this word from the cross?
- What function does Luke's emphasis on the righteousness/innocence of Jesus have?
- What thoughts have you had about the criminals alongside Jesus?
- What are some additional observations that would add to, adjust, or go against this line of reflection?
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Ecclesiology and Soteriology

When thinking about the church in a genuinely theological fashion (a.k.a., doing ecclesiology), one must think of the connections between our understanding of the church and our understanding of other important doctrinal topics (or loci).

One particular connection that has been historically significant is that between soteriology and ecclesiology. This connection is brought into sharp relief by a favorite quote of mine. Some of my friends will have to forgive me this indulgence, for this is a quote to which I often refer but has not yet made its way onto drulogion. I offer it to all readers, whether it is new to you or not, as a point of discussion:

"The Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the Church" (B. B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, pp. 321-22).

There is much that could be said to unpack this quote as a historical thesis. For instance, one would need to address the tensions within Augustine developmentally, i.e., his sacerdotal ecclesiology was an early commitment which was only intensified during the Donatist controversy, whereas his predestinarian soteriology was a later development emerging out of his anti-Pelagian polemics. Or it could also be noted the sense in which the sacramental soteriology of the medieval period could be considered as the triumph of Augustine's doctrine of church over the his doctrine of grace, and not merely the two existing side-by-side. It would also need to be acknowledged that the Reformers were not merely applying Augustine's soteriology critically to other doctrines, but were in fact radicalizing his soteriology along a trajectory which made its critical function possible and necessary. Finally, the reason why such a radical Augustinianism requires a rejection of a sacerdotal ecclesiology must be explained (e.g., if salvation rests in God alone, then the church cannot be the dispenser of grace).

But all these historical points of exposition and discussion, interesting though they are in their own right, lead to the much more important systematic insight: the intimate connection between soteriology and ecclesiology. One's understanding of grace and one's understanding of the church necessarily impinge on one another. This connection took a certain form in the reformation period. But whatever one's commitments, the connection is unavoidable. Perhaps today's ecclesiological discussions (polity, missiology, worship, ordination, membership, etc.) need to attend to our soteriological assumptions. Who knows, this may illumine our differences and in the end light the path forward.

Any thoughts?
What do you think of this quote historically?
What do you think of it theologically?
How do your soteriological and ecclesiological commitments connect?
How should the logic of the connection run: from soteriology to ecclesiology, or vice versa?
What other ecclesiological connections ought to be made?
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Sanctified from what? Sanctified for what?

I have been thinking about sanctification lately. As is my custom, I've been asking "grammatical" questions of our talk of sanctification.

First of all, if sanctification in its most basic sense means "to set apart" or "to separate," then sanctification must necessarily be "from" something. To be sanctified is to be set apart "from" x, y or z.

But once the preposition "from" is introduced, the question of what we are sanctified "for" must also be addressed. We are not only set apart "from" x, y or z, but also set apart "for" a, b or c.

What is of interest to me is how our understanding of that from which we are sanctified necessarily conditions our understanding of that for which we are sanctified.

For instance, if we are sanctified from ordinariness, then we are sanctified for usefulness. I am drawing here on the metaphor of ancient worship, whereby certain objects were "set apart" for use in sacred spaces. Something which is ordinary (e.g., goat), is set apart for a special use in worship (e.g., sacrifice). In a similar way, Christians are sanctified by the Spirit from their ordinariness to be used by God, in his service and for his glory. The risk in this language is to treat sanctification as some kind of priveledged status or sanctified persons as utterly cut off from the secular world. But the basic idea is a right one that has a place in an acccount of sanctification.

But we can and should go further. If we are sanctified from sin, then we are sanctified for righteousness. Of course, here we run into the issue of how to define sin. We can speak of both sin as nature and sin as acts. If we think of sin in terms of our sinful nature, then our sanctification means our being set apart for a righteous nature. Whether this means we are given a brand new nature or that the sinful aspects of our good nature are cleansed will depend on how we understand the effects of sin on our created human nature. If we think of sin in terms of our sinful acts, then our sanctification means our being set apart for righteous acts. Whether this means obedience to law or having right intentions will depend on how we understand what makes an act sinful. Of course, talk of nature and actions cannot be wholly separated. But it can be seen from the above how the understanding of that from which we are sanctified necessarily conditions our understanding of that for which we are sanctified.

Any thoughts?
Do you agree that the "from" of sanctification conditions the "for" of sanctification?
What are some other things from which we are sanctified?
What are some other things for which we are sanctified?
Is there a tendency to separate the "from" and the "for" of sanctification?
Why is this?
What happens when we do this?
Can you think of any "froms" in our talk of sanctification that need to be filled out by a "for"? Any "fors" that need to be connected with a "from"?
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Are the Solas of the Reformation Coherent?

You may have heard it said that the solas of the Reformation (solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide) are incoherent. I know I have. How can we be justified only in Christ, only by grace, and only by faith? Can't there only be one "only" at a time? Don't multiple solas cancel each other out?

There may be some important objections to the Reformation doctrine of justification, but this is not one of them. Why? Because this criticism betrays a fundamental misunderstanding concerning the meaning of the Reformation solas. The mistake is taking the adjective "only" in an absolute sense. But the intent of the solas is to rule out very specific answers to very specific questions.

This misunderstanding may arise from the solas functioning as slogans outside the polemical context from which they emerged. In order to avoid such misunderstanding, it may be necessary to re-embed the solas within this polemical context so one can see the relative sense in which "only" is used in each case. This can be done by adding to each of the solas an absque ("apart from") clause.

Christ alone ... apart from law. The mediator of justification before God is Jesus Christ. By fulfilling the law, the law does not function for us as the mediator of righteousness. Rather, we are justified by the alien righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us. God's law is not set aside, however, but fulfilled by Christ. Nor is the ongoing function of the law in the Christian life necessarily ruled out. But with specific regard to our justification, it is in Christ alone apart from the law that we are justified.

Grace alone ... apart from merit. The means by which justification is given is God's own gracious gift of mercy. Justification is not merited or earned from God. It is not deserved. We have no claim to make on God and what he owes us. This does not mean the language of merit or reward need be expunged entirely from our thinking. For instance, Christ may in some sense be said to merit righteousness for us. And we may find ways of speaking of a "reward in heaven" as the Bible does. But with specific regard to justification, it is by grace alone apart from any merit of our own that we are justified.

Faith alone ... apart from works. The instrument through which justification is received is human faith or trust in God's promises. Justification is not accrued through human working. It is received through faith, which is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit who comes to the justified person. Faith bears the fruit of works of love, so they are not ruled out entirely. Works have their place. But with specific regard to justification, it is through faith alone apart from works that we are justified.

"Christ alone," "grace alone," and "faith alone" do not rule each other out. Rather, each rules out a specific aspect of an alternative soteriology. Understood within their polemical context, the solas can be take in their highly specific and relative sense. Therefore, to hold on to the solas does not entail self-contradiction, as some have claimed. Perhaps there are successful criticisms of the Reformation doctrine of justification, but its supposed incoherence is not one of them.

Any thoughts?
Have you heard this criticism before? How did you respond?
Does this re-embedding of the solas in their context illuminate the matter?
Am I correct in attributing a relative rather than absolute sense to the solas?
What are some more significant criticisms of the Reformation doctrine of justification?
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What's concerns drove ancient christological controversies?

We are reading about classical Christology this week in the course I'm TA'ing for this Fall. In addition to revisitng the views and arguments, I've also been asking what concerns were driving these debates? What fueled them? What made the debate a live issue and not just an academic reflection? There are at least three that come to mind.

(1) A hermeneutical concern propelled the debate. Throughout the extant documents, there is much discussion concerning the figure of Christ in Scripture. Apollinaris repeatedly argues for the unity of Christ on the basis of his singularity as a character in the Bible. Leo the Great distinguishes between the acts of Christ that issue from his divinity and those befitting his humanity. Such hermeneutical concerns make sense, since the identity of Jesus Christ is encountered in texts that require interpretation.

(2) A devotional concern fueld the debate. This is especially evident during the Nestorian controversy. Not only did Marian piety occasion the debate when he was asked the phrase "God-bearer" in reference to Mary, but the theological basis of the worship of Christ played an important role in Cyril's argumentation. If Christ is divided into two persons, one divine and the other human, then we are idolaters when worshipping him in his humanity. Such a devotional concern makes sense, since the identity of Jesus Christ as God incarnate raises questions about whether and in what sense he can be worshipped. So Christian devotion to Christ necessarily requires Christological clarification.

(3) A soteriological concern drove the debate. This was the dominant concern throughout its many stages. Gregory's famous "what is not assumed is not healed" formula reveals this concern, as does Cyril's argument that Christ can only overcome death if the incarnate Logos himself impassibly suffers. Christological reflection is not independent speculation into the ontological constitution of Jesus Christ, but a necessary inquiry into the conditions for the possibility of Christian redemption.

Any thought?
What other concerns drove the debate?
Are these concerns viable?
Can Christological reflection proceed without sharing these concerns?
If so, how does that change the conversation?
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Wesleyan Doctrinal Symposium: "The Church as Sanctified Community of the Triune God"

A little over a week ago, my denomination (the Wesleyan Church) held a doctrinal symposium at its headquarters in Indianapolis. The topic was ecclesiology. Just the existence of such an event is heartening. And it turned out to be a rich and enjoyable experience with presentations, conversations and fellowship.

I happened to be one of the presenters. Below you will find my full paper (sans footnotes), which is also posted in pdf on my writing site. You can also follow this link to the symposium website for all the papers. Enjoy and feel free to make comments or raise questions about my or any of the papers by posting in the discussion board.

"The Church as Sanctified Community of the Triune God"

What is the church? What does it mean to identify a particular community as church? Is “church” merely a moniker for any religious community? Or does “church” have a distinctly Christian meaning? And can the word “church” in its distinctly Christian sense bear theological weight? In this paper I aim to tease out the theological meaning of “church.” If successful, these elucidations may serve as a framework for discussing the concrete ecclesiological issues of our day.

Unfortunately, the road to a properly theological understanding of the church is paved with difficulties. I do not refer merely to the disappointment, boredom, and suspicion concerning the church, both from within and from without. No, the greatest obstacles to theologizing about the church are themselves theological. How do we connect our talk of God with our talk of the church? Systematic theology is the activity whereby Christians make connections between our various beliefs in order to better perceive and present the fullness of the gospel. We are not looking for just any connections, however; we are looking for connections to our beliefs about God. “What’s God got to do with it?” is the theologian’s refrain. Only statements that attempt to answer the question of God are properly theo-logical.

So, why is it so difficult to connect our church-talk to our God-talk? Three particular obstacles come to mind. The first is the problem of theological presumption: we habitually take for granted our most basic beliefs. What we believe about God—who he is and what he does—is assumed to have been settled long ago. But is this really so? Can we really count on all of us to think spontaneously thoughts worthy of our God? A staff pastor I know once asked her senior pastor after an interview with a potential minister of congregational care, “Where is she at theologically?” The senior pastor responded, “I don’t know. Why would I ask theological questions of someone who will be visiting sick people?” Such presumption leads to neglect, confusion and ignorance. We ought not to take our most cherished beliefs for granted; rather, we should ask pointed questions about the identity and activity of the Christian God. Only then will be able to ground our ecclesiology in our theology.

The second problem is that of soteriological abstraction: we consistently separate our talk of salvation from our talk of God. This problem is a consequence of the first: we presume that we all agree about God, so let’s move on to the interesting, debatable stuff about conversion, predestination, sanctification, end times, etc. I recently taught a FLAME class in advanced theology. The focus was the doctrine of the trinity. One of the students objected, saying “This doesn’t sound like theology; theology is about the order of salvation: prevenient grace, justification, initial sanctification, etc.” In due time, she and (some of) the other students came to appreciate inquiry into the doctrine of God which lies behind our doctrine of grace. But her initial objection unmasked the soteriological abstraction of so much Wesleyan theology. For Wesleyan theology to be theology, we must begin again at the beginning and talk not only about sanctification, but about the Sanctifier. Only then will be about to inquire into a “Wesleyan view of the church.”

The third and final problem is that of ecclesiological reduction: our talk of the church has been reduced to sociological pragmatism. Now don’t hear me wrong: the church is an empirical reality and thus has benefited greatly from statistical research and demographic analysis. These tools have helped us stop groping in the dark for practical solutions. Anyone who rejects sociology wholesale denies the humanity of the church. But the church is more than a social system! It cannot be adequately explained or guided by empirical research alone. To reduce the church to observable phenomena is to deny the divine agency that creates, sustains and consummates her. As I’ve heard Harry Wood at a recent Penn-Jersey District event say, “Theology should be in the driver’s seat; sociology should be in the back seat.” We don’t need to kick sociology out of the car; we just need to prevent it from becoming a back seat driver. And the best way to do prevent sociological reductionism is to locate our talk of the church within our talk of God.

Now that I’ve painted myself into a corner, let me indicate how I plan to overcome the obstacles of theological presumption, soteriological abstraction, and ecclesiological reduction. In the remainder of this paper, I will perform trinitarian renditions of three prominent descriptions of the church: the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit. Each of these descriptions will be developed from the perspective of the triune God who sanctifies the church. The intended result is to join together the theological connections that have been torn asunder by our presumption, abstraction and reduction. I am not delusional enough to think that I can single-handedly surmount these obstacles by simply talking my way through these connections. However, inasmuch as these problems are perpetuated by bad habits of speech, the least a theologian can do is display what a good habit of speech looks like.

What follows is thus an exercise in grammatical analysis: identifying the subject, verb and object of each of the three ecclesial descriptions under investigation. The triune God is the subject of these sentences. Sanctification in its many aspects is the verb. The church is the object of God’s sanctifying action. Unfolded in trinitarian terms: the Father sets apart a people for the Son by the Spirit; the Son cleanses his body for the Father by the Spirit; the Spirit fills the temple for the Father and the Son. These are three distinct yet unified ways of saying “God sanctifies the church.” All this talk of grammar might make one wonder whether I am just “making this up.” I assure you that I am genuinely trying to perceive and present the inner logic of our beliefs. But, in case what follows is not self-authenticating, I will add to its appeal by indicating how this language can help reframe a concrete ecclesiological issue: membership commitments. Such practical benefits cannot alone make theological statements true. But the usefulness of theological language in the service of the church’s mission is certainly a point in its favor.

I. The Father sets apart a people for the Son by the Spirit

In God’s history with us, God has revealed that he is in eternity God for us. God in eternity self-differentiates his being as three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father begets the Son. The Son is not another God, but another in God. Even as God is centered on himself, God is also others-centered. These eternal persons in relationship are kept both united and distinct by the power of the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son as their bond of love. These eternal relations are the basis for God’s self-differentiated action in time. God purposes from all eternity to enter into time to bring glory to himself and to share his glory with his creation. God sends himself. The Father sends the Son to become incarnate by the power of the Spirit. The Father and the Son send the Spirit as the outpouring of God’s power onto his creatures.

However, God does not simply “show up.” God sets in motion a history that will be fulfilled by his coming. This history centers on a particular people. God establishes a covenant with a particular people among whom he will dwell. In so choosing a people, God is sanctifying a people: setting them apart for divine service. Not just any service, but service for God’s Son. The Father in his mercy chooses this people from among all others so that his Son may be born among them. Toward this end, God keeps his people by the power of his Spirit. The Spirit leads them through the wilderness. The Spirit is present to them in temple, land, and book as they wait for the coming of the Son. The Spirit empowers prophets to orient the people toward their future. In short, the Father sets apart a people for the Son by the Spirit.

Who is this people? Whom does the Father set apart for the sake of his Son by the power of his Spirit? Well, it should be clear that we are talking about Israel. It is Israel whom God chooses. It is Israel in whom Jesus Christ is born. It is Israel whom God keeps by his Spirit. Israel is the people of God. If we want to understand what it means to be set apart by God for God, we must look to Israel, the people of God. Although this fits well within a broader view of the triune God’s sanctifying work, such a turn to Israel raises an ecclesiological problem: is the church also the people of God? By what right do we call this community of Jews and Gentiles who bear direct witness to Jesus Christ the people of God? Can the language of people be adapted or extended to include the church?

Needless to say, the relationship between Israel and the church raises complex questions that deserve complex answers. Some have called this the ecumenical problem — making intra-Christian divisions appear petty by comparison. I do not seek to answer it completely or conclusively here, but I would like to identify a potential Wesleyan contribution to this question.

Some of the greatest strides in re-conceiving the relationship between Israel and the church in more positive terms have been made by recent trends in Pauline scholarship. According to the “The New Perspective on Paul,” it is becoming increasingly clear that Paul had a much more positive attitude toward the Jewish law than some traditional interpretations have allowed. Judaism at the time of Jesus and Paul can be characterized by its covenantal nomism: by following the law, a Jew does not “get in,” but “stays in.” Even the law is a gift of grace. Paul’s theology was not so much a result of a search for grace after having being pressed under the weight of the law. Rather, Paul’s attitude to the law is shaped by the apocalyptic coming of God announced in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which relativizes the law but does not abolish it. So the fulfillment of the law in Christ brings with it the triumph of God’s covenant with Israel.

The point of bringing all this up is simply to observe that Wesleyans are considerably less threatened by these developments than some of our fellow inheritors of the protestant reformation. We Wesleyans instinctually grasp that Paul has a complex attitude toward the law. We can stomach the notion of greater continuity between Israel and the church. A Pauline ecclesiology of Gentile inclusion in God’s covenantal community characterized by law-keeping fits well with the distinctive spirit of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition. I do not think that this parity alone justifies the claims of either Wesleyan theology or the New Perspective. I only wish to indicate that Wesleyans should feel comfortable assimilating the insights of recent Paul scholarship inasmuch as they are helpful for developing a theology of continuity between Israel and the church.

So what ecclesiological lesson can the church learn from Israel? The triune God bears witness to himself through particularity. In other words, Israel fulfills its task simply by being different. This is also true of the church. God sets apart us so that the world will take notice of him. A holy church is a different church, a people that stands out among the many peoples of the world. We must, of course, beware of setting up arbitrary and inhospitable differences between the church and the world. But the church is not the world! Anyone who seeks to erase all difference between church and world is endangering the mission of the church to the world.

The implications for membership commitments should be evident: concrete identity markers are an aspect of God’s sanctification of the church. We need not apologize for our oddities. Actually, apologizing for them spoils them. We should celebrate our difference, although with an inviting rather than repelling attitude. Only if we are identifiable as a Christian community will the world see our works and praise our Father in heaven. You may recall a tragedy that took place in Pennsylvania a few months ago. A man killed three Amish school children in a fit of rage. You may also remember the amazing acts of reconciliation that followed. The News coverage did not treat these acts as a mere human interest story, but saw them as great acts of faith. Why? Because even the News could see the concrete identity markers that set apart the Amish as a community of faith. They bore witness to the world by their difference from the world. And thus they lived according to the truth that the Father sets apart of a people for the Son by the Spirit. In our own way, may it also be so with us.
II. The Son cleanses his body for the Father by the Spirit

Having set apart a people for himself, God becomes incarnate and dwells among us. God becomes human. As in the establishing of the covenant, so also in the fulfilling of the covenant God’s action is self-differentiated. In fact, it is here that God’s triune identity is definitively revealed, for the Son, in distinction from the Father and the Spirit, becomes incarnate. The Son alone becomes incarnate. Yet the triune God is indivisibly involved in the incarnation. As the Father generates the Son in eternity, so the Father sends the Son in time. And as the Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son in eternity, so the Spirit binds the Son to the Father as he sojourns in time.

God sanctifies human flesh for the sake of his mission. God brings Jesus of Nazareth into strict identity with himself. The Son of God is Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. In the context of this personal identity, the human flesh is utterly obedient to God. As such, the incarnate Son obeys the Father by the Spirit. The Spirit drives; the flesh obeys. The obedience of Jesus Christ runs from his conception through his whole active life and culminates in his passion and death. His entire life of obedience is affirmed when on the third day the Father raised the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. By this history of obedience, sinful humanity is cleansed. In short, the Son cleanses his body for the Father by the Spirit.

It is by this history of obedience that our redemption is won. God has fulfilled the covenant by this history of obedience. God can look upon his creature and call it good, for Christ can look at his cleansed body and celebrate its obedience. But what about us? What does this have to do with the church? Certainly Christ’s body is cleansed, but are we not still dirtied by disobedience? Here is where the biblical language of body is so helpful. For although first and foremost the body of Christ refers to the human flesh named Jesus of Nazareth, in a secondary and dependent yet very real sense, the body of Christ refers to the church. We are united to him as body to head. This is not the hypostatic union of the incarnation, whereby God is identified as Jesus; but it is a union nonetheless. And so the Son’s cleansing of his body includes his cleansing of us! Now this cleansing might sound like some automatic mystical process, but that is not how body language operates in the New Testament. No, body language appears in the context of exhortation: because we are the body of Christ, we ought to do this or that. The cleansing of the body of Christ takes place as the church by the power of the Holy Spirit obeys the will of the Father revealed in Jesus Christ. Thus we are not only witnesses; we are obedient witnesses to the triune God.

What does this mean for the life of the church? An affirmation of Christ’s cleansing of his body inclines one toward a specific way of thinking about the marks of the church. During the ecclesiological revolution that came to be known as the reformation, the various protestant groups were compelled to defend themselves against the charge of schism. The general response was to develop a doctrine of the marks of the church whereby one can identify the true church from the false church. The list of marks varied from group to group. Martin Bucer, the leader of the reformation in the city of Strausbourg, recommended three marks of the church: wherever the pure word of God is preached, the sacraments are rightly administered, and discipline is properly executed. Because of the perceived abuses of the radical reformers in their emphasis and application of church discipline, the magisterial reformers dropped discipline as a mark of the church in favor of the twofold pattern of word and sacrament. The debate concerning two or three marks reemerged a century later during the Puritan controversy in England. The Puritans pushed for the return of discipline as the third mark of the church, and on its basis began to question the authority of the Anglican Church. Through the influence of his Puritan heritage, John Wesley affirmed the third mark and the churches that developed out of the Methodist revival include the third mark in their constitutional documents, many of which are not inconsequentially named “The Discipline.”

The point of this historical excursus is that the process of concrete discipleship is a critical aspect of what it means to be the church. To be the body of Christ is to be obedient to the triune God. Church discipline is not just institutional maintenance. More importantly, it is the process whereby the body of Christ is brought into submission to God. Church discipline is a spiritual exercise. The implication for membership commitments is that whatever “list” we come up with cannot simply be a matter of who’s in and who’s out. All too often membership commitments are too narrowly associated with the act of becoming a member. But these guidelines are not only boundaries, but also goals. We ought to seek after a life of obedience as a community. “Because you said you would” is an unsustainable basis for fulfilling membership commitments. Because they are an expression of our obedience to God is a much better reason. This raises the question of whether our commitments are really pleasing to God. But responsibly and constitutionally developing our commitments is itself part of our communal pursuit of obedience. Even as they undergo development, the process of accountability to our membership commitments is a direct expression of the Son’s cleansing of his body for the Father by the Spirit.

III. The Spirit fills the temple for the Father and the Son

Having enacted a life of obedience as the fulfillment of his covenant with Israel, the triune God reigns in glory as he ushers in his kingdom. The Spirit of God blows toward this final unity of all things. The same Spirit who unites Father and Son in eternal love and empowers the incarnate Son to obey the Father has now been poured out on God’s community of obedient witnesses. He has been given as a promissory down payment of things to come. It is by the Spirit that God raised Jesus from the dead as the first fruits of the resurrection of all flesh. The Spirit is thus fundamentally oriented toward the future. It is only at the end of history when the Spirit will complete his work of binding, recapitulating the eternal bond of love between the Father and the Son in the marriage of Christ and his church that places God and humanity in perfect harmony.

The Spirit of God is drawing all of humanity toward this end. He does this by filling specific human agents with his power that they might live in accordance with their future destiny. Although the church cannot be equated with the kingdom, it is the beachhead of the kingdom by the power of the Spirit dwelling within her. The church is thus rightly called the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit fills this temple for the Father and the Son.

Having empowered the incarnate Son to obey the Father, the Spirit now empowers the church to obey the will of God. We are not given an impossible standard and then left to our own devices. The law of love enacted in Jesus Christ is written on our hearts by his Holy Spirit. We are empowered by the Spirit to live lives pleasing to God. As such we are an example of the future God desires for all people. We are not only obedient witnesses, but also exemplary obedient witnesses. If the world wants to know what the future holds, it should be able to look no further than the church.

What does this entail for our understanding of the church? It should at minimum give us pause before rejecting the language of “end times community.” The holiness movement from its inception has had a utopian impulse that must be acknowledged. Some early Wesleyan Methodists thought they were bringing in the kingdom with their social reforms. Some holiness camp meetings were perceived as a special outpouring of the Spirit in preparation for the return of Christ. Some holiness churches understood themselves as sojourners and pilgrims in a strange land. The very logic of a holiness movement presupposes a view of the church as a foretaste of heaven in some sense. It is this sort of eschatological consciousness that propelled holiness churches toward the future in their opposition not only to slavery, but also to the subordination of women and the sex trade. In these things the holiness movement was ahead of its time. While some Christians sat idly by, tolerating sin as a necessity in a fallen world, holiness movements pushed the church forward toward the future. This need not be an act of hubris, provided the church really is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Now this utopian impulse is not without its problems. No one community can be identified with the fullness of the kingdom. God will finish his work by a sovereign upheaval beyond the forces immanent in this natural world. This radical limit must be set against any society, culture, or church that claims to be working toward the coming kingdom. But within these limits, an awareness of the Spirit’s filling should continue to propel us toward God’s future. We should ask what new thing God is doing and seek to participate in it. We should be ahead of the times. We should seek to become the community for which the world is groaning. In other words, we should be living in the end times.

An implication of this way of thinking is that membership commitments should reflect not only where we have been but also where we are going. Membership commitments should describe the kind of community that God wants the world to be. Membership commitments should thus describe the kind of community the world needs to be. The church ought to be attractive to the world, as an example of the world’s future. This does not mean merely revising our membership commitments in order to avoid offending the world. We can and should be different from the world, but not arbitrarily so. We should be different from the world in precisely the way the world desires to be different from itself. Everybody wants to make the world a better place. The church happens to know what that looks like, for it sees the future of the world in the face of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. This Spirit-filled orientation toward the future means we should ask tough questions about what the future holds. What attitudes will characterize the new heavens and the new earth? What kind of society will take shape at the marriage feast of the Lamb? What are the politics of the New Jerusalem? How can our ecclesial standards reflect this future reality? What must be added? What must be adapted? What must be removed? These sorts of questions will guide us in the development of membership commitments that exemplify the Spirit’s filling of the temple for the Father and the Son.

Conclusion

The church is the sanctified community of the triune God. The Father sets apart a people for the Son by the Spirit. The Son cleanses his body for the Father by the Spirit. The Spirit fills the temple for the Father and the Son. Thus we can say with boldness that the church is the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit. As such we are exemplary, obedient witnesses to the triune God. This pattern of thought does not solve every concrete ecclesial problem, but it does offer a language with which to discuss pressing issues of the day. My hope is that equipped with such good habits of speech we can stop talking past each other and start working together to live as the sanctified community of the triune God.

Any thoughts?
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