The Connection between Creation and Resurrection in Trinitarian Perspective (Part One)

Here's a partial draft a small section of my dissertation I am working on today. Any thoughts?

II, B, 1, iii. The Connection between Creation and Resurrection

In addition to the exclusivity and newness of God's act of raising Jesus, there is a third reason why Barth appropriates the raising of Jesus to the Father: the connection between creation and resurrection. Just as the work of creation is appropriated to God the Father (cf. CD III/1, p. 49), so the work of resurrection is appropriated to God the Father. There are three aspects to this connection, which correspond to Barth's first three points in VF. The first is the analogy between creation and resurrection as exclusively divine acts. The second is God's justification of himself as Creator in the resurrection. The third is the God's creation of a new time between the times that is oriented toward the coming new creation. In all three aspects, Barth appropriates both creation and resurrection to God the Father.

Creation/Resurrection Analogy

Barth makes explicit reference to the analogy between creation and resurrection under his first point: "Like creation, it [the happening on the third day] takes place as a sovereign act of God, and only in this way" (300). The point of similarity between the two is the absolute sovereignty with which God executes them. There is no creaturely co-agency in either the creation of the world or the raising of Jesus. Creaturely participation enters the picture in the history that commences with these acts. But in their inception they are exclusive acts of God. This exclusivity is witnessed to by the appropriation of these acts to God the Father. Creation and resurrection are both analogous to the Father's generation of the Son, and so it is fitting that we speak of creation and resurrection as acts of God the Father, though, following the logic of Barth's reception of the appropriation doctrine, not to the exclusion of God the Son or God the Spirit (cite III/1, p. 51ishff).

The analogy between creation and resurrection has been noted in Barth before. [cf Tanner article] The usual reason for pointing out the analogy is to highlight the unique sense in which both "historical." Creation and resurrection are both historical in the sense of being temporal events. Yet they are not historical in the sense of being the results of creaturely processes. They are free acts of God without creaturely cooperation. So it fitting that both God's work of creation and God's act of raising Jesus are born witness to by means of the genre of saga, which can set forth the temporality of these unique events without treating them as consequences of historical causality (CD III/1, p. 78).

This aspect of the analogy is certainly important. But this formal similarity in terms of genre is grounded in the material similarity in terms of subject. The point of Barth's generic observation is not merely to solve the problem of faith and history, but more basically to bear witness to the irreducible subjectivity of God. In these crucial moments in the history of God with us, God acts alone. Creation and resurrection are thus both acts of God's free grace. That's Barth's point. And my point is that in both cases Barth analyzes the trinitarian grammar of the event in order to make his point: in the first instance, we must speak of these events as acts of God the Father.

Now as with any analogy, the element of dissimilarity is as important as the element of similarity. The language here is explicitly analogical: "like creation" (300, emphasis added). Creation and resurrection are distinct works of God. For all their interconnection, they are not strictly identical. In CD III/1, Barth warns against collapsing creation and covenant, even though they belong to each other (p. 42-48). In the case of the analogy between creation and resurrection, the crucial element of dissimilarity is that ex nihilo applies to the former but not to the latter. Barth never speaks of the raising of Jesus as an act of creation out of nothing. Although it is an exclusive act of God (the Father) with no component of human action, it nevertheless happens to a creature with a prior history of human action. Jesus' prior history does not produce his resurrection--this delimitation is the point of Barth's emphasis on the Father's act of raising. But God the Father's act of raising does happen to the subject of this human history. So the event of resurrection, unlike the event of creation, is an event with a past [QUESTION: doesn't creation have a "past" in election", and if so, in what sense???]. This element of disimillarity is important to note, especially in the face of current attempts to apply the ex nihilo clause to resurrection.[FN]

Any thoughts?
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Who is the Subject of Resurrection? (Part I)

Since it is one of the central questions of my current research, I am revisiting the question Who is the subject of Christ's resurrection? this week. In other words, who raised Jesus from the dead?

Well, the obvious short answer is "God." But as things go for Christian faith seeking understanding, the short answer "God" inevitably requires further reflection. Because Christians don't talk about God without soon talking about Jesus Christ,which means making recourse to some variation of the doctrine of the trinity.

Here's two main ways of thinking about the question: (1) the Son raised himself, and (2) the Father raised the Son. I'm going to sketch the first way this week. I intend to follow-up soon with a sketch of the second option, followed eventually by an approach that attempts to critical appropriate the best insights of each.

So, on to the first option.

(1) The Son raised himself.

This is the "classical" approach, inasmuch as it can be found in a number of major figures in the history of Christian theology. It is where you would tend to end up taking your cue from traditional trinitarian theology. If God raised Jesus from the dead, and Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully human, then Jesus Christ raised himself from the dead. Actually, to be more precise, we'd need to say that Jesus Christ as God raised himself as human from the dead. But even with these specifications in place, one cannot avoid the reflexive pronouns entirely. The bottom line is the the Son raised himself.

Now this can be expanded in two directions. The first direction expands this through the lens of the incarnation: the divine nature hypostatically united to the human nature empowers (by deification) the human Jesus to overcome death. Death can't hold this man in the grave, because he is not just a man but God incarnate. In this line of thought, the divine nature is like a bomb that goes off in the grave and so frees the human nature from death. You find this sort of line developed by Alexandrian characters such as Athanasius and Cyril -- with more sophistication, of course.

The other direction (which does not contradict but in fact complements the first) expands this through the lens of the trinity: the triune God raised the human Jesus. This line of thinking retains the reflexive sense of the Son's self-raising by following through on the rule that the works of the trinity outside itself are indivisible. Because each triune persons fully indwells the other, no one persons acts without the participation of the other two. But this line of thinking also accounts for the sense in which the resurrection is attributed to God the Father. The triune God acts upon creation indivisibly, yet on the basis of Scriptural warrant we may attribute (or, in the classical lingo, "appropriate") certain acts to certain triune persons. For example, we attribute creation to the Father, while acknowledging that the Son and Spirit also participate in that work; we attribute redemption to the Son, while acknowledging that the Father and Spirit also participate in that work; we attribute sanctification to the Spirit, while acknowledging that the Father and Son also participate in that work; etc. So, concerning Christ's resurrection, in light of Scriptural warrant we may attribute Christ's resurrection to the Father while also acknowledging that the Son himself as well as the Spirit participate in the raising of the dead human Jesus. (Note: you can find this sort of thinking in a number of medieval scholastics, most beautifully and compactly in St. Thomas Aquinas ST III, q. 53, a. 4).

Now despite the conceptual precision of this whole approach and the care with which it upholds seemingly contradictory but necessary affirmations, a big question looms large over the whole enterprise: Do the dead raise themselves? If Jesus Christ raised himself from the dead, then was Jesus Christ really dead? Isn't one of the main elements of the condition of death the loss of agency or subjectivity? Can one who raises himself from the dead really be said to have been dead? The clarifications and specifications outlined above cannot rid this whole approach of the looming suspicion that either Jesus didn't really die or God the Son didn't unite himself to the human Jesus in his death. In either case, we're in a pickle. What can be done about this?

It is in respond to these questions that an alternative view emerges, which I intend to sketch in a subsequent post. But for now:

Any thoughts?
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The Holy Spirit is not a magical third...

“The Holy Spirit is not a magical third between Jesus and us. God himself acts in his own most proper cause when in the Holy Spirit he mediates between the man Jesus and other humans. For God is not the great immovable and immutable one and all ... [but] the living God, and as such, our God, who really turns to us ... because in the first instance distance and confrontation, encounter and partnership, are to be found in himself”
- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/2, p. 343

Who is the Subject of Resurrection? Who is the Subject of Vocation?

Who is the acting subject of Christ's resurrection? Short answer: God. But to be faithful to scripture's witness to the risen Jesus, we must be more precise. Such precision requires recourse to some sort of "trinitarian" logic. We must speak of Jesus being raised by God the Father. We must speak of the rising of the Christ himself, the Son. We must speak of the Spirit by whom Jesus Christ was raised and now lives. And these three are one: the living triune God.

I have said all this before, and have shown how Karl Barth has taught me these moves. And I've tried to show some of the significance of this connection between resurrection and trinity. Let me indicate a further point of significance I just stumbled on this week. In his discussion of the event of vocation (CD IV/3, §71.2), Barth asks, who is the acting subject of vocation? Who calls humans to the service of witness? In the course of his answer, Barth draws on the trinitarian grammar of Easter:

If, in those passages which speak more generally of calling, God as well as Jesus Christ is described as the One who calls, this is not, of course, an indication that the New Testament knows two kinds of vocation, the one effected by God the Father, the other by Jesus Christ, and possibly a third by the Holy Spirit. It rather corresponds to, and is even interconnected with, the fact that in the New Testament there are also two ways of speak of the Easter event: on the one side, it is Christ's raising up by God the Father, and on the other it is his own resurrection, and a third possibility may perhaps be seen in Rom. 1:4 with its reference to the power of the Holy Spirit operative in this event. In both cases the statements are complementary. To the question of the concrete form in which God calls, the only answer is obviously that it is Jesus who does it in all the concreteness of his humanity. And to the question of how he does it, the only answer is obviously that in what this man does God is at work in his eternal mercy and omnipotence. The New Testament does not see two or three things here, but only one thing. (CD IV/3, p. 503, rev.; KD IV/3, p. 579)

So Barth argues for the living activity of Jesus Christ in the calling of humanity by reference to the triunity of God in the Easter event. Just as God in Christ is the subject of resurrection, so God in Christ is the subject of vocation. This point becomes crucial for Barth in securing the content of the doctrine of vocation Christologically: namely, that the the goal of vocation is sonship, fellowship, and union with Christ (§72.3), and that the concrete form of vocation is the service of witness to him for the sake of the world (§72.4).

Any thoughts?
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Resurrection as Sanctification

Last time we addressed the trinitarian grammar of Christ's resurrection under the rubric God's verdict. But this is not the only vantage point from which we may and must consider the trinitarian grammar of Christ's resurrection. For the Father's justification of the Son and us in him by the power the Spirit is only one side of the coin. If we flip the coin over, we also see Christ's resurrection as the revelation of his exaltation, which had been hidden in his life of obedience unto death on a cross. The risen Christ reveals himself as the exalted human being, the one true covenant partner of God. This living Son gives to us direction: in the power of the Spirit he re-orients us and sets us on a new trajectory. The direction of the Son discloses our slothfulness and santfies us for a life of love. So Christ's resurrection is not only the verdict of the Father, but also the direction of the Son. In raising his Son Jesus from the dead, God not only pronounced a verdict for us but also gives a direction to us. [Note: here we continue to follow the train of Barth's thought, but now drawing on CD IV/2]

Just as with God's verdict, God's direction is in the first instance self-referential. This can be seen initially in the dual meaning of the genitive phrase "the direction of the Son." Genitives can either be subjective or objective. A subjective genitive renders the prepositional noun the subject of the main phrase, whereas an objective genitive renders the prepositional noun the object of the main noun. So, in this case, "the direction of the Son" as a subjective genitive means the direction which the Son gives, while the "direction of the Son" as an objective genitive means the direction given to the Son himself. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the Son's direction is given both to himself as the exalted human being and to us as those set apart to live lives that correspond to the exaltation achieved in him. The Son steps forward from among the dead and moves along the path from himself to us. He lives with this orientation and along this trajectory. And so the New Testament says not only that the Father has raised the Son but also that the Son rises, and even at times that he raises himself (cf. John 12). This is the self-referential activity of the Son in the event of the resurrection of Christ.

As is already evident, such self-referential language requires a trinitarian grammar. Just as with the resurrection as justifying verdict, so also the resurrection as sanctifying direction we must speak not only of "God" and "Christ" but also of "Father" and "Son." And the triune grammar of direction is both parrallel to and dialectically juxtaposed with the triune grammar of verdict. Christ's resurrection as divine verdict speaks in terms of humiliation: the Father in his omnipotent grace raised the humiliated Son of God. Christ's resurrection as divine direction speaks in terms of exaltation: the Son in his majesty rises as the exalted Son of Man. This two-fold trinitarian grammar of resurrection is grounded in the very mystery of God's life as triune: just as the "fatherly fellow-suffering of God is the mystery, the basis, of the humiliation of his Son," so also the "majesty of the Son of God is the mystery, the basis, of the exaltation of the Son of Man" (CD IV/2, pp. 357-8).

Now we cannot speak of the self-referential activity of God in abstraction from the action of God toward us, since the point of this self-referential activity is the revelation of our reconciliation and redemption. But we cannot make this turn without reference to a third piece of the divine puzzle: the Holy Spirit. We cannot understand Christ's resurrection as the direction of the Son without reference to the work of the Holy Spirit. But this post is already too long. So we will address this piece of the puzzle next week. For now, let us consider the risen Christ as the one who not only was raised for us and our justification but also rises toward us and our sanctification.

Any thoughts?

Trinity & Subordination, Again

Apparently a new wave of debate over subordination in the trinity and in social relations has irrupted in evangelical circles. Click here to track the debate. I have received some emails from friends in ministry asking how to address the matter. Here's my response to one such email, which asked three questions: What does the Trinity have to do with everyday life? Why should pastors preach on the Trinity? How can we address the rampant subordinationism among church folk?

What does the Trinity have to do with everyday life?

On the one hand, it doesn't. The doctrine of the trinity is the church's attempt to faithfully bear witness to who God is. It is not a ready-made spiritual and/or social program. On the other hand, it has everything to do with daily life. The doctrine of the trinity teaches us that the God we encounter in history corresponds to who God is in eternity. Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are not intermediaries to keep God at a distance. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God and the Holy Spirit is the eternal Spirit of God, and so God is our eternal Father. When we speak of following Jesus or living according to the Spirit, we are talking about encountering God in our everyday lives. The doctrine of the trinity gives depth and clarity to our everyday Christian walk and talk.

Why should pastors preach on the Trinity?

They shouldn't preach the trinity as a stand alone doctrine. Instead, it should be preached along the way as a necessary tool for understanding and proclaiming the gospel. A sermon series that aims to teach trinitarian doctrine would select key biblical texts where recourse to the doctrine of the trinity helps make sense of the gospel and shows how the doctrine of the trinity gives depth and security to Christian claims. E.g., the baptism of Jesus, the resurrection narratives, the death of Jesus (esp. the cry of derliction), the prayer life of Jesus (e.g., who is he praying to in Gesthename?), Pentecost obviously, the farewell discourse in John (lotsa goodies there, esp. on the spirit in ch. 14 and 16, as well as on the eternally shared glory of the Father and the Son in ch. 17), some of the visions in Revelation with the "one on the throne" and the "lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world," etc. I think this would be the best strategy for preaching and teaching the trinity in the church.

How can we address the rampant subordinationism among church folk?

There are reasons why we slip into subordinationist thinking, some good and some bad. The bad reasons are linked to subordinationist assumptions about the way the world works, and the presumption that this is simply the fabric of being itself and so befits our God-talk. Such presumption must be exposed and set aside -- repeatedly if needed.

The good reason is that Scripture places the Father and the Son in an irreversible relationship, wherein the Father sends the Son and the Son is sent by the Father, the Father commands the Son and the Son obeys the Father. So also the Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. Scripture does not permit a reversal of these relationships, even as it also indicates the unity, equality, and unrestricted fellowship of the persons. The mystery of the trinity is the unity, equality and fellowship of these three persons in their ordered relationships, and not just unity and equality as abstract divine principles.

Strictly speaking, this pattern in scripture is not a "problem" for trinity doctrine per se, because the church doctrine of the trinity has always claimed that the Father and the Son are eternally distinguishable from one another, even as they share all things as equally divine persons. The Father and the Son cannot be distinguished if there is no content to their relationship. So the Father begets the Son, and in begetting we see the distinction and order of their relations. This is not a subordination of being ala Arianism, but it is an ordered relationship.

Now one might try to then squeeze out of this the idea that women are equal to men in being but subordinate in function. Some people make such moves. But when we turn to whatever practical implications that may follow from the doctrine of the trinity, we must remember the following:

(1) Human persons do not relate in exactly the same way as divine persons do, because human persons do not share an identical essence. So there should be no 1-to-1 application of divine relations to human relations. Individual humans share a common human essence (however defined), but a community of individual humans are not a singular identity of essence in the way that the triune persons are one God. So sociopolitical debates cannot be swiftly solved by invoking the doctrine of the trinity. In fact, one could coherently advocate a strongly subordinationist doctrine of the trinity and maintain gender equality, while another could coherently advocate strongly the equality of divine persons and maintain complementarian gender roles. Although the trinity is not irrelevant, it is not the key that unlocks all doors.

(2) We are united to God through our union with Jesus Christ the incarnate Son, and so we should not be surprised that we stand alongside him as ones who are sent by God the Father and so submitted to God. We stand in some kind of "subordinate" relationship to God. Hence, subordination is not a dirty word in all contexts. One should embrace rather than reject subordination to God. Such subordination is of course loving and freeing because it is to the author of our existence and our salvation (which cannot be said of our relations with others). But it is still subordination and submission of the one sent to the one who sends, grounded in our union with Christ as the one sent by the Father. So the question is not whether subordination but what kind of subordination and to whom are we subordinated?

(3) Inasmuch as the relations of the trinity provide a model for human-to-human relationships, such direction should always be mediated through the God-human Jesus Christ, as opposed to some principle abstracted from the history of God with us (e.g., subordination, or equality, or relationality, etc.). It is in Jesus and his life that we see submission to God and to others that fulfills rather than destroys human personhood. In him we see obedience that is the crown and exaltation of human life. In him we see the transformation of fallen human relationships into fellowship that images God's eternal life. In him we hear the call to participate in the mission of God in this world by proclaiming the good news and living lives worthy of this gospel.

So we must tread carefully in applying the mystery of the trinity to our daily lives, not simply because it is so mysterious, but because upon reflecting on this mystery we learn of the uniqueness of the God we worship and do not presume to be like him in ways beyond our means. We must not seek to be gods, but to be godly. And it is in Jesus Christ the Son of God that we understand who God the Father is in his uniqueness and the ways in which he opens himself up to us become like his Son by the power of the Spirit.

So the bottom line for teaching the doctrine of the trinity, both for understanding and application, is to treat the trinity as the grammar and ground of christology. The trinity as grammar helps us to make sense of Jesus as not just some special guy but uniquely as the life of the only-begotten Son sent by the Father in the power of the Spirit, who in turn sends us in the Spirit unto all the nations. The trinity as ground reminds us that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are not just a fluke or oddity but a revelation and outworking of who God is in eternity. If the doctrine of the trinity is true, then God is for us and with us from all and to all eternity. And that's good news.

Any thoughts?

Druchesis VI: The Holy Spirit

This week we reach the third section within our series of reflections on the Apostles' Creed. The first three posts concerned the first article of the creed, as we considered our faith in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. The last two weeks were dedicated to the second article of the creed concerning Jesus Christ in his identity and saving significance. The next three posts concern the Holy Spirit, his own special role in God's story with us, and the anticipated completion of that story.

This week we focus on the first phrase of the third article of the creed: "I believe in the Holy Spirit." And so we come to pneumatology, or Spirit-talk. But here we hit a snag, for there is not much Spirit-talk in the creed. "I believe in the Holy Spirit." That's it. That's not a lot to work with. Although we've seen in this series how theologians can squeeze a lot of content out of a few words, we have to admit that talk of the Spirit in the Apostles' Creed is pretty thin. Unlike God the Father, who is praised for his attribute of almightiness and his activity of creation, and unlike Jesus Christ, who is confessed with honorific titles and whose story is told in detail, the Holy Spirit is simply acknowledged before moving on to other things like church, sacraments, forgiveness, etc. The Spirit seems to get short shrift. The Apostles' Creed ought not be singled out here, for such Spirit-forgetfulness is endemic, especially in the Western church. Not that the Spirit never makes an appearance, for outbreaks of exuberant Spirit-talk regularly occur. But such exuberant promotion of the Spirit is in fact a function of our pneumatological deficit, which invites an oscillation between Spirit-forgetfulness and Spirit-enthusiasm.

Now before we get too critical, we should remember that when we move from confession of faith in the Holy Spirit to what we believe about church, sacraments, forgiveness, resurrection and eternal life, we are not in fact "moving on." These are the works of the Spirit, his own identifying narrative, his saving significance for us. That's how the Spirit works -- in and among us. So he can be hard to pick out for direct reflection. The Spirit blows where he wills. But this quite true reminder is no excuse for forgetting to attend to the Holy Spirit in his unique identity. Who is the Holy Spirit? What is the Spirit like? How does the Spirit relate to God the Father and his son Jesus Christ?

In order to answer these sorts of questions, we need to be guided by the thicker talk of the Spirit found in the Nicene Creed. Just as with our reflections on the identity of Jesus we found it helpful draw on the results of that great council, so with our reflections on the identity of the Spirit we return again for guidance from Nicaea. Unfortunately, the original Nicene Creed from 325 does not fare much better than the Apostles' Creed (which shows how easy it is to ignore the Spirit). But this lacuna was filled a generation later at the first Council of Constantinople in 381, which produced what is now commonly called the "Nicene Creed" (a.k.a., the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed). Constantinople both solidified the orthodoxy of the Nicene declarations concerning Son and extended parallel declarations to the Spirit. The first phrase of the third article of the Nicene Creed goes like this:

And [we believe] in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and Giver of Life,
who proceeds from the Father,
who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified,
who spoke through the prophets.

We will organize our reflections around these five lines.

1. "And we believe in the Holy Spirit"

Here we find again that little word "and." Just as the "and" at the head of the second article signaled that faith in God the Father must be paired with faith in Jesus his Son, so this second "and" demands that our faith in God and Christ must be completed by our faith in the Holy Spirit. This is crucial, for we seldom think of the Holy Spirit as an object of faith. It's not that Christians don't believe the Spirit exists (ala the first sense of faith: belief), but rather that the Spirit is not often treated as a person (ala the second sense of faith: trust). Spirit-talk is often more akin to attribute talk: "God, send us your power, give us your grace, pour out your spirit." The Spirit in our everyday language is more of a thing than a person -- a divine thing for sure, but still something less than personal.

This impersonal manner of speaking is not inappropriate. It is in fact a very biblical way of speaking. The Spirit is the power by which God's people say and do things he asks of them. It is by the Spirit that we believe in God the Father and in his Son Jesus Christ. All this stuff we have been confessing in the creed is made possible by the Spirit. As Paul puts it, "Only by the Spirit can one say Jesus is Lord." So the Holy Spirit is in the first instance the means by which we believe.

But we can't stop there, for the Christian church from early on and with little fanfare took another step. Christians began to regard the Holy Spirit as an object of faith. We not only believe by the Spirit, but also in the Spirit. In so doing, the church speaks of the Spirit in personal terms. He is not just a thing about which we believe, but a person in whom we believe. He is not just a thing we may ask for, but a person to whom we may address our requests. He is not just the object of actions (e.g., "God poured out his spirit"), but the subject of actions (e.g., "The Spirit sanctified them"). The Holy Spirit is a person.

Once the Spirit begins to be spoken of in personal terms, we run up against the question of his identity. Who is this Spirit? How do we distinguish this Spirit from all the other spirits we may encounter? Well, we might first identify the Spirit as the spirit of the church. The Holy Spirit is the personified team spirit of the church of Jesus Christ. Now such an answer has a grain of truth, and we will come back to it next week when we speak directly of the church. Yet it is insufficient in itself, for the spirit is not the church, full stop. The church has many other spirits animating it, such as the unholy spirits of its many members and the spirits of the age that so often invade her. No, there must be a more definite way by which the Spirit is identified not only in and with the church but also over against it. The Spirit must be the Holy Spirit.

This more definite way is supplied by asking an alternative question: Whose Spirit is this? The possessive relative pronoun is not meant to revert back to impersonal Spirit-talk. Rather, it is to identify the Spirit by his relations. As we have seen in the case of God the Father and God the Son, there is nothing impersonal about being identified by one's relations. Quite the opposite. At least for the Christian God, persons are always and primarily identified by relations. One could even say persons are their relations. And there are those in the Christian tradition who have said such things, such as Thomas Aquinas, who said it both carefully and thoroughly. So, God the Father is the Father because he is the Father of the Son. And the Son is the Son because he is the Son of the Father. This much we have already stated. So also the Spirit is the Spirit because he is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.

In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is quite clearly both the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. He is both the Spirit of God the Father and the Spirit of the Lord Jesus (Paul). He is both the promise of the Father and the one who Jesus pours out (Acts). He is both sent by the Father and breathed by the Son (John). Or, to tie all these relations together in one complex sentence: "the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is in you" (Rom 8:11). The Holy Spirit is the common Spirit of God the Father and God the Son, whom God shares with us and by whom we are drawn to God.

2. "The Lord and Giver of Life"

Having identified the person of the Holy Spirit by his relationship to the Father and the Son, we return to the question of his divinity. I say "return," because when we initially spoke of the Spirit, we spoke of him as an attribute of God, the mode of God's empowerment, a gift given by God. And so his divinity was not really questioned. Of course the Spirit of God is divine, just as the power of God and the grace of God are divine. But once we begin to speak of the Spirit in personal terms, the question of his divinity immediately arises. Is this third person truly God? Is the Spirit of God also God the Spirit? Is there room enough in God not only for a Father and a Son, but also a Spirit?

Well, once this question was put to the church, she very quickly said Yes. There were certainly objectors. But the argument was won pretty quickly. Perhaps too quickly, given the trouble the church has had since in clarifying its teaching on the Spirit. The proclamation of the Spirit's divinity is expressed nicely by the second line of third article of the Nicene Creed: He is "the Lord and Giver of Life." Those are two terms within theological discourse that may only be predicated of God. God and God alone is the Lord and Life-Giver. Not only is Jesus Lord, but so is his Spirit. Not only is God the Father Almighty the Creator (a.k.a., Giver of Life), but so is his Spirit. The Spirit is the Sovereign Lord and the Life-giving Creator. In other words, the Spirit is God.

Although these appellations are code-names for divinity, they are carefully chosen to be refracted in light of the unique personal activity of the Spirit. To get at this unique lordly and life-giving activity, let's take our cue from Paul in 2 Corinthians 3. In the course of defending his ministry, Paul speaks of the life-giving Spirit of Christ in contrast to the death-dealing letter of the old covenant. After speaking distinctly of the ministry of the Spirit and the unveiling of the Lord Jesus, Paul declares: "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor 3:17). Here the Lord and the Spirit are identified ("is") and distinguished ("of") in such a way that Jesus' Lordship in and as the Spirit does not bind us but frees us. By the Spirit, who is the Lord and is of the Lord, we are freed. What are we freed from? The letter which kills. In other words, from death. To be freed from death is to be given life. The Spirit by whom the Father freed Jesus from the dead is the Spirit who frees us from death. This is the Spirit of the living God, the Spirit of resurrection, the Spirit of new creation. God is Spirit, which means God as Spirit is free -- free from the chains of death, free from arbitrary restraints, free to be our Lord, free to adopt us as children and share his freedom with us. The Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, is the Spirit of freedom. So the titles "Lord" and "Life-giver" indicate both the Spirit's divinity and the Spirit's way of being divine, his unique personal activity of liberation. The Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life.

3. "Who proceeds from the Father"

We must, however, return to the question of the Spirit's divinity a second time in order to sharpen the question. Up to this point, much of what we have said could be said of a quasi-divine intermediary being. The Spirit's role in Scripture is so clearly one of mediation, that it is easy to think of the Spirit as a sort of super-angel, God's primary agent of interaction with his world. If this were so, the Spirit would certainly be God-like and worthy of respect. Yet, if this were so, the Spirit would not be truly God. To be truly God, the Spirit must be God as God is God. For the Spirit to be truly divine, the Spirit must be God himself, God as he relates to himself, God in eternity. Is the Spirit God in eternity?

The Council of Constantinople answered this question in the affirmative. It confessed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. Just as the Son is truly God because he eternally generates from the Father, so the Spirit is truly God because he eternally proceeds from the Father. Now "procession" may sound like a technical term, but it is simply the noun form of the verb "comes forth." In Scripture, Jesus says that the Father will "send" the Spirit, who will "come forth" from the Father to his disciples (cf. John 16). What the fathers of the council wished to say was that this coming forth of the Spirit in time has as its ground a coming forth in eternity, and eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father. This distinction between the eternal procession and the temporal mission of the Spirit parallels the distinction between the eternal generation and the temporal mission of the Son. Each in his own way relates to God the Father eternally, and we know this because each is sent to us by God the Father in time. The divine missions reveal the divine relations. The personal distinctions in God's story with us correspond to and are rooted in personal distinctions within God's own eternal life.

Now let's us conclude with two briefer points, each of which turns in a slightly more practical direction.

4. "Who with the Father and the Son together
is worshiped and glorified"

If the Spirit is an eternal divine person, then he is a proper object of worship. He is not only to be believed in, but also worshiped. It is worthy of note that the worship of the Spirit sparked the controversy that eventually led to the Council of Constantinople. Although the person of the Spirit can sometimes be a bit slippery in the New Testament, his presence in its many doxologies alongside the Father and Son is thoroughly anchored. Paul's blessings often take on a trinitarian structure, and Matthew's baptismal formula is unmistakably triadic. These doxological references to the Spirit flowed naturally into the worship life of the early church. Many of the arguments for the divinity of the Spirit emerged in order to defend this practice against its critics. The fathers argued that the Spirit is not just honored but truly worshiped, not alone but together with the Father and the Son. The phrase "together with" points to the doctrine of perichoresis, the mutual indwelling of the persons of the trinity. The fullness of the Father dwells within the Son and the Spirit. The Father and the Son mutually glorify one another throughout eternity (cf. John 17). The mutual glory of the Father and the Son dwells fully in the Spirit, and so the worship due the Father and the Son may and must also be given to the Spirit.

The practical important of the doctrine of the Spirit's divinity in particular and the doctrine of the Trinity in general is a summons to worship God in his triunity. Orthodoxy means, in the first instance, "right praise." So my advice to those who doubt the doctrine of the trinity is to begin to worship and glorify the Father and the Son together with the Spirit. Try it and see if it seems appropriate to you. My advice to those who are confused by the doctrine of the trinity is to pray to the Father with the Son in the power of the Spirit. Try it and see if the logic of their relations comes into view. My advice to those find the doctrine of the trinity irrelevant is to let the grammar of the trinity guide your proclamation and praise. Try it and see if makes any difference for you, even if its just a word here or there.

5. "Who spoke through the prophets"

Having moved from the mission of the Spirit in time to the procession of the Spirit in eternity, the creed turns its attention back to the Spirit's activity in history with the phrase "who spoke through the prophets," and thereby terminates its direct talk of the Spirit. Such a "coming back down to earth" is appropriate, for all that talk of eternal procession and mutual indwelling is not a speculative end in itself, but rather a necessary means to a very practical end. The eternal procession of the Spirit within God's own triune life assures us that the Spirit's work among us is trustworthy. The Spirit who speaks to us can be trusted to speak the very mind of God, for he is God. The Spirit searches the deep things of God. The Spirit who testifies with our spirit that we are God's children is not just any spirit but the very Spirit of God. The Spirit of adoption is God's own Spirit, by which we cry Abba Father. God's eternal Spirit gives us confidence to speak the word of God, to say that Jesus is God's only Son and our Lord, that we are his brothers and sisters and so therefore sons and daughters of God the Father Almighty. The assurance of faith is the gift of the Holy Spirit--God's gift of himself to us.

How does the Spirit so testify? How does the Spirit assure us that we are children of God? By speaking through the prophets. Here is the right place to speak of the inspiration of Holy Scripture. Although we have been using the Bible all along as the source and norm of our knowledge of God, we chose not to speak of its inspiration earlier in order to avoid the impression that an inspired text provides some kind of foundation on which theology builds its towers. Theology does not build on Scripture, it lives by Scripture. So here, in the third article of the creed wherein we speak of the life-giving power of the Spirit, is the right place to talk about the inspiration of Holy Scripture.

The holiness of scripture is grounded in the holiness of the Spirit who inspires it. God the Father set apart the writings of the Bible to bear witness to his Son Jesus Christ by the power of his Spirit. All scripture is God-breathed, inspirated, equipped for its task so that it will not return void. This extends not only to the prophets of Old Testament but also the apostles of the New. In a different but related way, the Spirit illumines the Christian to believe and understand and apply the Bible today. The import of inspiration is that we must always contend with both the Word and the Spirit. The Spirit never blows without using his concrete inspired Word. Yet the Word never speaks without the empowerment of the Spirit.

Practically speaking, what does this mean for us? On the one hand, we ought to test the spirits against the written word to see if they are of God. In light of the eternal relation between the Spirit and the Son and Father, we should expect the Spirit to reveal today in a way consistent with the way he has revealed in the past. The Spirit is not predictable, but he is faithful. On the other hand, we ought to be filled with the Spirit as we read and hear the written word. We must listen to the written word of God always and only by the power of the Spirit. The Spirit guides all genuine reading of Scripture. As one medieval monk put it, we cannot understand the Word of God if we are not filled by the Spirit who inspired it.

Any thoughts?

• What are some of the causes of our Spirit-forgetfulness?
• What are the limitations of speaking of the Holy Spirit in personal terms? Does understanding triune persons in terms of their relations help or hurt the matter?
• Is it right to think of the Spirit's Lordship and Life-giving power in terms of divine freedom? What are some other ways of refracting these divine code-names in light of the unique personal activity of the Spirit?
• Is the doctrine of the eternal procession of the Spirit a necessary one? What problematic avenues of reflection does it wisely seal off? What problems to it create?
• How do you speak of the person of the Spirit in your own life? Do you address the Spirit in prayer and praise?
• Any thoughts on the place of the inspiration of scripture within the context of the Spirit's unique role in the story of God with us? Was this the right place to bring it up? If not, when should it come up?

When should we bring up the Trinity?

I have been asking myself when we should bring up the doctrine of the trinity. I am asking this question for a number of overlapping contexts: christian education, theology courses, textbooks, systematic theologies, etc. When should it come up? When does it make sense to come up? Where does it best fit? Where does it do its best work?

Here are some options that come to mind:

(1) At the end of the Doctrine of God. This is probably the most "traditional" place for the doctrine of the trinity. After introducing the subject of theology and discussing God's existence, nature and attributes, one turns to the persons in God to round out the doctrine of God. The advantage here is that one has the trinity up an running early without having to deal with it too early. The disadvantage is that it might give the impression that all the stuff before the trinity is just about "god-in-general" and not the specifically Christian God.

(2) Piecemeal. Another option is to address the doctrine of the trinity in pieces: first the Father under the doctrine of God at the beginning, then the Son under the doctrine of salvation in the middle, and finally the Spirit in conjunction with ecclesiology and eschatology. The advantage here is one is that the complex and cumulative character of trinity doctrine is respected and utilized. The disadvantage is that God's triunity may be split up into parts in the process. Plus, the terminology and concepts needed for trinitarian reflection are deeply intertwined and so may need to stay together to make sense.

(3) First. One way to deal with the problems in both of the above approaches is to front-load the doctrine of the trinity so that it controls all our theological language. The advantage here is that the specificity of the Christian God is emphasized and the triune shape of all theological language can be thereafter perceived. The disadvantage is that, if one is not careful, the trinity doctrine appears to just fall out of the sky without reference to the full history of salvation. Additionally, trinitarian ideas are some of the most demanding and do not make for good "introductory" material.

(4) Last. Another way to deal with the problems above is to do the opposite: put the doctrine of the trinity at the end as a triumphant conclusion of sorts. The advantage here is that the complex and cumulative character of trinity doctrine is respected and utilized yet without splitting the doctrine into pieces. Plus, one will be more ready for the demands of trinity doctrine at the end of theological inquiry rather than the beginning. The serious disadvantage is that the trinity could become a forgotten appendix and the trinitarian shape of all theological language would be at best implicit.

Any thoughts?
Are there any other good options I have overlooked?
Which of these options appeal to you? Why?
Should any of these options be ruled out? Why?
_

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?
_

"The Father is Greater than I" (Bible Brain Busters)

"The Father is Greater than I" - Jesus

Is the Son less than the Father? Is the Father greater than the Son? Even as it lifts up Jesus Christ to a high position in relationship to God the Father, the New Testament repeatedly and variously subordinates the Son to the Father. Since the church rejected the subordinationism of Arius at the most crucial moment in the development of the doctrine of the trinity (Nicaea 325), these texts deserve comment.

I would love to discuss each text in context with great detail. I may do so at some time. At this point, I'd simply like to highlight the subordinationist language of the Gospel of John, exemplified by but not limited to John 14:28: "The Father is great than I." How might we go about interpreting such statements?

Let me identify a few interpretive options:

(1) Functional Christology. One option is to say, "These are functional, not ontological statements." These statement ascribe a certain saving function to Jesus Christ and that's it. This may not necessarily imply a denial of Jesus' ontological status (a.k.a., the constitution of his being). One could simply say that such affirmations are post-Biblical and not relevant to interpreting the texts at hand. This approach has the advantage of letting the texts speak without overloading them with doctrinal questions. The disadvantage is that one's doctrinal reflection becomes dislodged from scriptural interpretation. Also, it's kind of a cop-out.

(2) Jesus is not divine. Another option is to say that these texts undermine the doctrines of the trinity and the incarnation. These are later traditions that do not match up with the scriptures. The New Testament tells the story of the man Jesus of Nazareth who is a great teacher, leader, and maybe even savior (in some sense), but he is certainly not God. He is a man under the authority of God. The strength of this position is it has the guts to take the scriptures at face value and see where they lead. (Whether this move is "gutsy" anymore is debatable.) The weakness of this approach is that is not only gives up on the tradition of the church but must now deal with the amazing affirmations the New Testament does makes about Jesus. How can the word-become-flesh have been with the father from the beginning? How can Christ be the firstborn of all creation? Basically, this approach trades one set of Bible brain busters for another. As before, one's "problem texts" reveal one's commitments!

(3) Jesus is divine-ish. A mediating option is to affirm the divinity of the Son, but in the sense of a heavenly being mediating between God the Father and us. He is a sort of a half-man, half-God. So the subordination language makes sense because Jesus is on the rung of the ladder right between God the Father and the rest of creation. This is actually a common Christian way of thinking. The strength of this position is that it is probably the easiest position to understand while still assenting to all the various and seemingly contradictory Christological affirmations in the New Testament. The problem with this approach is that it undermines the two-natures doctrine of the church by "mixing" the natures of Christ. It says Jesus is both divine and human, but so undermines the meaning of divinity and humanity that the affirmation becomes meaningless. Jesus becomes a sort of mythic being between God and humanity, rather than true God and true human.

(4) The Father and the Son are equally divine, but the Son's human flesh is subordinated to the Father. One classic "solution" to these subordination texts is to assign all of them to the human nature of Jesus Christ. The Son is the fully equal and co-eternal second person of the trinity. In the course of time, the Son adds a human nature. As a creature, this human flesh is of course subordinated to the Father as its creator. But this in no way impinges on Jesus' divine status. The advantage of this approach is that it is able to account for all kinds of texts by strategical attributing some to the divine nature and others to the human nature. It is also has a long pedigree in the history of the church, and so should be treated as serious option. The disadvantage of such an approach is one is forced to play hermeneutical games: Who are we to say that Jesus is talking about his human nature in one verse and his divine nature in another? On what basis can we make such decisions? Does it even make sense to divide Christ up this way?

(5) The Father and the Son are equally divine, but divinity permits some kind of subordination. A final option is to permit some kind of subordination within the divine nature. The driving assumption here is that one's God-concept should be based on the concrete revelation of God. Where has God revealed himself? In Jesus Christ, who is God-incarnate. If we start with where and when God shows up, the first thing we learn about God is that God can become human. More specifically, the Son became human. And this Son, who is fully God, willingly subordinates himself to the Father -- not just in time, but from all eternity, as the Father sends the Son and the Son proceeds from the Father. This approach helps make sense of why the same Gospel of John has both strong statements of Jesus' divinity and his subordination to the Father. The advantage of this approach is that the unity of Christ's person is held together even as his divinity and humanity are affirmed. No need to deny either of his natures or split up his natures to account for subordination texts. Rather, subordination is permitted but within God's very life, so that we can still proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God. The disadvantage should be obvious: how do we think coherently about subordination within God? This truly is a "hard saying." It might be worth the trouble, but is it inherently dangerous. Such an approach should not be taken without counting the cost.

Any thoughts?
Which of these options appeals to you? Why?
Any distinct options missing?
What are some additional benefits and costs of each of these approaches?
How do you generally deal with subordination texts?
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Bible Brain Busters: Gethsemane Prayer

I recently had an interesting conversation about Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane, "Not my will but thine be done." What made the conversation so interesting was the lead question: to whom was Jesus' praying in the garden? God the Father? God, a.k.a. the entire trinity? Himself, a.k.a. God the Son? Our conversation marked this as a genuine Bible Brain Buster: a biblical text that becomes puzzling in light of central Christian affirmations. In this case, how do we think through the prayer life of Jesus in light of his divine nature?

Since the question itself is just as interesting as the answer, let me offer a few possible responses before reflecting directly upon the significance of the question:

Option 1: The man Jesus is praying to God.

This first option is not really a solution but a denial of the problem. The story of the Garden of Gethsemane is simply a story of a human being crying out to God. Jesus may have been a perfect human being, but he was a human being nonetheless, and so prays to God like any other human being. Within this option a number of approaches to the divinity of Jesus could be taken: God the Son emptied himself of all divine attributes at the incarnation; Jesus became divine after the resurrection; Jesus' divinity refers to his perfect reliance on God's Spirit; etc. The strength of this option is its emphasis on Jesus' true humanity and its straightforwardness with regard to this particular text. The weakness of this option is the corners it has to cut with regard to a robust affirmation of the divinity of Jesus.

Option 2: God the Son is praying to God the Father.

This second option grounds the historical Gethsemane prayer in the eternal life of the triune God. In the story of the Garden prayer we catch a glimpse into the inner life of the trinity: the Father sends, the Son is sent; the Father wills, the Son submits his will. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity tells us that God is not a single willing person but three persons, each with its own "personality" and therefore "will." So God has these sorts of internal conversations all the time; the Gethsemane prayer is simply a significant instance of this social life of God. The strength of this option is its emphasis on Jesus' true divinity and its decision to locate this problem within the dynamics of the trinity. The weakness of this option is the new problem this solution creates: is a God with three wills really the one God of Israel? To put it bluntly, this multiple-personality theory runs the risk of tritheism.

Option 3: The Incarnate Son as the man Jesus is praying to God the Father.

This third option tries to bring the doctrine of the trinity and the doctrine of incarnation in close connection with one another in order to make sense of the prayer life of Jesus. In the story of Gethsemane we see the temporal fulfillment of God's eternal purpose to become incarnate. The one God with one will chooses to send himself into human history by taking on the human flesh of Jesus. God's eternal constitution as one being in three persons has this incarnational end in view. So the eternal Son (who has no will other than the Father's) wills to take to himself a complete human nature. This complete human nature includes a fully human will. Therefore, God the Son has two wills: the common divine will shared by all three persons of the Godhead and the human will of Jesus. So, in the garden, the fully divine Son incarnate as a human being is praying to God the Father in the power of their Holy Spirit. The incarnate Son submits his human will to the will of God the Father. The strength of this option is the close connection drawn between the trinity and the incarnation as well as its use of the "two wills" doctrine affirmed at the Sixth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople 680-81). The weakness of this option is the possible implication that God must become incarnate in order to be triune. It is also a terribly complicated answer, which may be perceived as a strength depending on one's temperament.

Well, there's some possible responses to the question of "To whom was Jesus praying?" Now I find this question and the debate between these answers fascinating. I would be happy to discuss the particulars of the matter. But even more interesting to me is that one would even ask this question in the first place. The only person who would treat the Garden of Gethsemane story as a puzzle is someone who assumes a high Christology. You can tell a lot about a person's theological commitments by observing which biblical texts create interpretive difficulties for them. In other words, one's admitted Bible Brain Busters reveal one's deepest beliefs. Even if these beliefs are held implicitly or unreflectively, they exert pressure on us at these critical points. So identifying one's own (and others') Bible Brain Busters helps us to explicitly investigate our beliefs and how they relate to specific Scriptural passages. Hence, they are a worthy entry point for theological inquiry.

Any thoughts?
So, what are your Bible Brain Busters?
Which texts throw you for a loop?
Can you identify what basic beliefs make these texts particularly difficult?
Do you have any thoughts on the example of Jesus' Gethsemane Prayer?

NOTE: If I get a good list of Bible Brain Busters going, I may do a series on them at some point.