I was recently asked about whether I considered myself "blameless," and I thought perhaps this would be a good time to review some of my opinions on the concepts of justification and righteousness. I'm still trying to incorporate what I'm learning in 1 Thessalonians into my view of these subjects, so I suppose that my opinions may change with time.
I think the concept of justification and righteousness has changed throughout the history of the church, or we may at the very least say that there are considerable differences between the Protestant perspective and the Roman one; Sproul has some good comments about these differences.
In sum, the Reformers looked at justification in the light of a legal transaction; sin incurs a debt, and justification occurs because the debt has been satisfied. I think it is fair to say that the RCC and EOC have a somewhat more malleable definition of righteousness.
I say this because the Protestant doctrine of imputation states that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to sinners, who cannot be righteous apart from it. Christ's righteousness is permanent and static; he is not more righteous sometimes or less righteous others. The RCC and EOC, by contrast, view righteousness as personal rather than imputed. This implies that one's righteousness is mingled with sin.1
In this instance, I certainly agree with the Reformers. God's righteousness is an absolute standard (and evidently a means of obligation) against which sinners are measured. Since we are all found wanting (Rm 3.23), there is no measure of righteousness outside of Christ's (Rm 3.24). So God in Christ makes us righteous and then declares us to be so.
I maintain a distinction further between the regenerate spirit and the depraved flesh. We see in Romans 7 and Galatians 5 that the flesh sins—that's all it can do. But the regenerate spirit, it seems, cannot (cf 1Jo 3). Moreover, in 1Co 15, we are told that we will receive a glorified body in heaven, but nothing is said about the spirit.
So to be clear, I believe that the regenerate spirit is righteous and that its righteousness is Christ's, imputed by his faithfulness in performing the will of God. It is in this sense that I consider myself righteous. Not in the sense that I have somehow achieved a Christ-like ability to do the Right Thing all the time.
This is a fairly deep and complex topic, and I'm skimming over quite a bit. As time permits, perhaps I'll expound on it further.
[1] There are some examples of support for this taken from Job and Noah, for example, and also from Pr 24.16. The last may be discounted by context, I think. The first two are usually explained from the perspective of NT justification, i.e., that OT saints are righteous for same reason that we are.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Sleeping
I am still reading in 1 Thessalonians, and I thought I would share a few thoughts that I had while looking at chapter five. I haven't got my Bible in front of me, and this is being written during a lull at work, so I hope this will be (perhaps uncharacteristically) short.
There are two words for "sleep" in Greek, and both are used in 1 Thessalonians. One is used in contrast to being watchful (i.e., wakeful, or awake and paying attention), and the other is used in contrast to being alive.
In chapter four, the apostles assure the church that the resurrection is not already past, and that those who have "fallen asleep" in the Lord will be raised again. This is the word KOIMAW, from which is derived our word cemetery. (It was Christians who first referred to the graveyard as a bedroom.)
The other word used is KAQUEDW, and we see it later in chapter five, in the phrase "whether we wake or sleep, we shall live together with him."
I wonder if perhaps there is a subtle distinction made here. The context of chapter five isn't death, but rather watching for the Lord's return. It seems to me in keeping with that context to look at the aforementioned verse as really speaking to our unfaithfulness, not to our death.
It's something I will spend some time pondering, and perhaps I'll add on to this post later.
Incidentally, there is some discussion of the words used on the B-Greek mailing list (information at link).
There are two words for "sleep" in Greek, and both are used in 1 Thessalonians. One is used in contrast to being watchful (i.e., wakeful, or awake and paying attention), and the other is used in contrast to being alive.
In chapter four, the apostles assure the church that the resurrection is not already past, and that those who have "fallen asleep" in the Lord will be raised again. This is the word KOIMAW, from which is derived our word cemetery. (It was Christians who first referred to the graveyard as a bedroom.)
The other word used is KAQUEDW, and we see it later in chapter five, in the phrase "whether we wake or sleep, we shall live together with him."
I wonder if perhaps there is a subtle distinction made here. The context of chapter five isn't death, but rather watching for the Lord's return. It seems to me in keeping with that context to look at the aforementioned verse as really speaking to our unfaithfulness, not to our death.
It's something I will spend some time pondering, and perhaps I'll add on to this post later.
Incidentally, there is some discussion of the words used on the B-Greek mailing list (information at link).
Friday, June 15, 2007
Morality
Jason recently posted some comments on Proverbs 13, in which he said something I found fairly interesting:
The reason I find this interesting is mainly because of some real-life conversations I've had with friends regarding this self-same issue.
In general, though, it's less about spiritual identity and more about moral identity. For example, "I have this nagging feeling that such-and-such is wrong, but the only reason I think I feel that way is because Mom and Dad said so."
There is, I think, a modern stigma to this line of reasoning. I suppose we all go through periods of time where our parents really don't know anything, but it's hard for me to understand precisely why so many of us think that simply because Mom and Dad said something is wrong that it is actually right. There seems to be some kind of an illogical conclusion that if we haven't a justification for a line of thinking, that line of thinking is invalid.
Perhaps at the root of it is the willingness to accept some kind of moral relativism. Relativism implies that we determine morality for ourselves, so moral authority comes from within rather than without.
There's a lot of people who try to write conscience off as a sort of collective consciousness of right and wrong that's imposed culturally. The reason that sociologists still use the term mores, however, is precisely because morals are perceived to exist separately from culture—they are not a cultural unit. I suppose some sociologists no longer make this distinction, and perhaps practically speaking, neither does anyone else.
But at least one of the questions we have to answer for ourselves at some point is whence comes our principles of right and wrong. Cultural mores are one thing, of course, but what about the "greater" sins? The kind of clothes women wear today would be culturally unacceptable in bygone eras, but few communities have ever condoned murder.1
In a very real way, this is connected tightly to some of the thoughts I've explored regarding authority in general in previous writings. In fact, it's connected to nearly every hotbutton issue today regarding family, religion, evolutionary philosophy, God's role as Creator, and so on.
Ultimately, I think we find that when we set ourselves up as a moral authority, we immediately deny its reality. Ironically enough, the same set of people who deny the reality of morals simultaneously expect God to act as though they are objective. This, to me, is the tacit admission that the Golden Rule, at least, impossible to deny as an objective moral, and therefore the Old Testament version: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
[1] I suppose that in the six "horizontal" commandments, the only one that has ever been specifically condoned in some cultures is adultery. The Scythians were noted for having their women in common, for example, and there's a reason prostitution is the world's oldest profession. My cultural education is fairly limited, but I don't know of any in which lying was considered acceptable in principle, or where it was appropriate to dishonor one's parents, murder someone, et c.
My age is an especially tough time because I am trying to find my own spiritual identity, yet I also still must rely on the spiritual nurturing my parents provided me.
The reason I find this interesting is mainly because of some real-life conversations I've had with friends regarding this self-same issue.
In general, though, it's less about spiritual identity and more about moral identity. For example, "I have this nagging feeling that such-and-such is wrong, but the only reason I think I feel that way is because Mom and Dad said so."
There is, I think, a modern stigma to this line of reasoning. I suppose we all go through periods of time where our parents really don't know anything, but it's hard for me to understand precisely why so many of us think that simply because Mom and Dad said something is wrong that it is actually right. There seems to be some kind of an illogical conclusion that if we haven't a justification for a line of thinking, that line of thinking is invalid.
Perhaps at the root of it is the willingness to accept some kind of moral relativism. Relativism implies that we determine morality for ourselves, so moral authority comes from within rather than without.
There's a lot of people who try to write conscience off as a sort of collective consciousness of right and wrong that's imposed culturally. The reason that sociologists still use the term mores, however, is precisely because morals are perceived to exist separately from culture—they are not a cultural unit. I suppose some sociologists no longer make this distinction, and perhaps practically speaking, neither does anyone else.
But at least one of the questions we have to answer for ourselves at some point is whence comes our principles of right and wrong. Cultural mores are one thing, of course, but what about the "greater" sins? The kind of clothes women wear today would be culturally unacceptable in bygone eras, but few communities have ever condoned murder.1
In a very real way, this is connected tightly to some of the thoughts I've explored regarding authority in general in previous writings. In fact, it's connected to nearly every hotbutton issue today regarding family, religion, evolutionary philosophy, God's role as Creator, and so on.
Ultimately, I think we find that when we set ourselves up as a moral authority, we immediately deny its reality. Ironically enough, the same set of people who deny the reality of morals simultaneously expect God to act as though they are objective. This, to me, is the tacit admission that the Golden Rule, at least, impossible to deny as an objective moral, and therefore the Old Testament version: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
[1] I suppose that in the six "horizontal" commandments, the only one that has ever been specifically condoned in some cultures is adultery. The Scythians were noted for having their women in common, for example, and there's a reason prostitution is the world's oldest profession. My cultural education is fairly limited, but I don't know of any in which lying was considered acceptable in principle, or where it was appropriate to dishonor one's parents, murder someone, et c.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Progressive Sanctification
The term "progressive sanctification" is one that I'm really not all that fond of at all. I believe quite strongly in the finished work of Christ, and a part of this is certainly sanctification; see, for example, Hebrews 10.10 ("by the which will we have been sanctified forever"). I find the idea that God did as much as he could do, and now the rest is up to you, frankly quite ridiculous.
I don't want to give the impression in writing those words that I don't have strong opinions about human responsibility. But I have equally strong opinions about how that should be emphasized. The gospel is a gospel of reality, not of possibility. All too often, those who tout progressive sanctification preach the (false) gospel of possibility, not the gospel of reality, and so they teach that God didn't actually make us holy. (I'm not quite sure what they do with Hebrews 10.)
So the verses I've read in 1 Thessalonians 4 recently produced some consternation:
The reason this bothers me a little bit is because I fail at this all the time. Grammatically speaking, I don't see how we can escape the pretty straightforward meaning of these verses: God's will is my sanctification, and that includes me doing and not doing certain things.
We're aided not a little bit here in the realization that (like every other passage regarding sanctification) we're being exhorted to live like who we are:
Don't miss the different prepositions here; the first is EPI and the second EN. While building theology on prepositions is a shaky prospect at best,1 I think it's important to realize that EPI is a preposition of motion,2 and EN a preposition of state. So I think what we're seeing here is that God did not call us to live lives of impurity, but he called us after he sanctified us.
So to an extent, this kind of answers my initial discomfort about whether or not this is a good text for progressive sanctification. It isn't telling us to become more holy as much as it's telling us to live out externally what has already happened internally.
This also happens to answer the other problem I have had with this passage. There is no impediment to God's will: what he wills and what happens, as far as I can tell, are one and the same. I guess I have a hard time reaching the conclusion that God's will may be my sanctification, but it might not happen because of what a terrible sinner I am.
I think verse eight sheds some light on this:
I do not believe it's an accident that God's Spirit is "holy" and that we are "holy". The "progressive" part of our sanctification is the outworking of the Holy Spirit. And so God's will is accomplished in our lives through his Spirit.
Though I generally try to avoid studying the New Testament on my own time, this has been pretty fruitful. (The reason I avoid it is because I know a lot more Greek than Hebrew—I don't know much Greek at all, incidentally—and so the going is slow and I get bogged down in the details.)
[1] Some support immersion-only baptism on the premise that Jesus came out of the water, neglecting historical data that while immersion is the preferred mode of baptism, it has been done in many ways since the early church; Eusebius comments on this.
[2] This is actually a bit of an oversimplification; there is a good discussion of Greek prepositions from the Companion Bible available online.
I don't want to give the impression in writing those words that I don't have strong opinions about human responsibility. But I have equally strong opinions about how that should be emphasized. The gospel is a gospel of reality, not of possibility. All too often, those who tout progressive sanctification preach the (false) gospel of possibility, not the gospel of reality, and so they teach that God didn't actually make us holy. (I'm not quite sure what they do with Hebrews 10.)
So the verses I've read in 1 Thessalonians 4 recently produced some consternation:
This is God's will, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor...
The reason this bothers me a little bit is because I fail at this all the time. Grammatically speaking, I don't see how we can escape the pretty straightforward meaning of these verses: God's will is my sanctification, and that includes me doing and not doing certain things.
We're aided not a little bit here in the realization that (like every other passage regarding sanctification) we're being exhorted to live like who we are:
For God has not called us to impurity, but in sanctification.
Don't miss the different prepositions here; the first is EPI and the second EN. While building theology on prepositions is a shaky prospect at best,1 I think it's important to realize that EPI is a preposition of motion,2 and EN a preposition of state. So I think what we're seeing here is that God did not call us to live lives of impurity, but he called us after he sanctified us.
So to an extent, this kind of answers my initial discomfort about whether or not this is a good text for progressive sanctification. It isn't telling us to become more holy as much as it's telling us to live out externally what has already happened internally.
This also happens to answer the other problem I have had with this passage. There is no impediment to God's will: what he wills and what happens, as far as I can tell, are one and the same. I guess I have a hard time reaching the conclusion that God's will may be my sanctification, but it might not happen because of what a terrible sinner I am.
I think verse eight sheds some light on this:
So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
I do not believe it's an accident that God's Spirit is "holy" and that we are "holy". The "progressive" part of our sanctification is the outworking of the Holy Spirit. And so God's will is accomplished in our lives through his Spirit.
Though I generally try to avoid studying the New Testament on my own time, this has been pretty fruitful. (The reason I avoid it is because I know a lot more Greek than Hebrew—I don't know much Greek at all, incidentally—and so the going is slow and I get bogged down in the details.)
[1] Some support immersion-only baptism on the premise that Jesus came out of the water, neglecting historical data that while immersion is the preferred mode of baptism, it has been done in many ways since the early church; Eusebius comments on this.
[2] This is actually a bit of an oversimplification; there is a good discussion of Greek prepositions from the Companion Bible available online.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Followup
As a quick followup to the previous post, I want to explicate the point a little more clearly, keying on the idea that symbols have meaning because they're backed by reality.
At the end of the day, the reason that our concepts of goodness and justice have bite is because they are rooted in the ultimate reality of God's existence and his attributes. We will never be sovereign in the way that God is, but we are given to understand by virtue of God's existence that we do not define sovereignty. Its definition is not invention; it is extrinsic to us.
It does not surprise me to find as we drift further away from the concept of an objective reality that people reject authority (cf Jude 8 and others). Their concept of authority is rooted in self-determination, a definition that the Scriptures and the church have never supported. Freedom is always found in submission in the Bible, never in the concept of choice.1
Accepting the idea that sovereignty is something we live up to, rather than something we have, should completely change our world view. It's one of the things I hope I can impress upon our upcoming second-degree black belts, anyway.
[1] It's interesting to me that the favorite verses in the Arminian handbook, He 10.26-29, refer to the human will in a negative way. The first time in this chapter that the human will is mentioned is not in our sanctification, but in our condemnation. We are not sanctified forever by our own will, but by God's. The only time the human will is mentioned in the chapter is all is when it's busy munging up perfection.
At the end of the day, the reason that our concepts of goodness and justice have bite is because they are rooted in the ultimate reality of God's existence and his attributes. We will never be sovereign in the way that God is, but we are given to understand by virtue of God's existence that we do not define sovereignty. Its definition is not invention; it is extrinsic to us.
It does not surprise me to find as we drift further away from the concept of an objective reality that people reject authority (cf Jude 8 and others). Their concept of authority is rooted in self-determination, a definition that the Scriptures and the church have never supported. Freedom is always found in submission in the Bible, never in the concept of choice.1
Accepting the idea that sovereignty is something we live up to, rather than something we have, should completely change our world view. It's one of the things I hope I can impress upon our upcoming second-degree black belts, anyway.
[1] It's interesting to me that the favorite verses in the Arminian handbook, He 10.26-29, refer to the human will in a negative way. The first time in this chapter that the human will is mentioned is not in our sanctification, but in our condemnation. We are not sanctified forever by our own will, but by God's. The only time the human will is mentioned in the chapter is all is when it's busy munging up perfection.
Friday, June 8, 2007
The Root of Authority
Black belt testing is approaching again. Last time this happened, I wrote a brief post about rank, in which I tried to expose some of my thoughts about the morals associated with it.
Now that I've shifted focus on this blog somewhat, it seems appropriate to revisit the concept offered in a few earlier posts.
I'm in charge of providing one of the essay questions for the 2nd degree black belt candidates this year, and my offering is:
A consistent theme for me since making my first degree has been this saying, one that is pretty short but, I think, fraught with meaning. In fact, this has been one of the defining lessons for me in the past ten years I've been training.
We understand implicitly, I think, that symbols have no meaning unless they are based in some way on reality. You can buy a black belt from a store online for about ten dollars, but putting it on doesn't really mean much. The belt itself is not a symbol of the dollar value, but instead of the time and effort expended on its acquisition.
To the outsider, it's a symbol that you're dangerous1. The belt hierarchy on the inside, though, has as much to do with responsibility as it does with skill. The demands on a black belt are different than the ones for a green belt.
In other words, associated with the concept of rank is responsibility. The belt couples authority with responsibility.
Perhaps I am multiplying words without knowledge; this certainly has been a lengthy introduction. The real question that arises from all of this discussion, though, is what justifies this connection? Why is authority imbued with responsibility?
Theologically speaking, we understand that God is not merely sovereign, he is also sovereignty. This means that own authority is granted to us from him, and it means that our idea of what it means to have authority is rooted in God's existence.
The corruption of authority naturally begins with self-determination. (Total depravity and all that.) Instead of recognizing the ideal of sovereignty, we invent one; in so doing, we bend authority to our own corrupt desires. In other words, we make rank to serve us, rather than serving rank.
As soon as we treat sovereignty as something invented rather than something that is Real, we lose our ability to properly govern. There is no longer an external standard or ideal of authority to which we aspire.
This is the ultimate fall-out of the anti-realist position, I think. As soon as we swallow a purely nominal definition of God's attributes, we deny the basis for any ideals we have.
I have been composing this at work, and it has taken me several hours to get these thoughts out. I hope they're mostly cogent. I expect to return to them sometime in the future, Lord-willing.
[1] In reality, the more skilled you are at the arts, the less dangerous you become.
Now that I've shifted focus on this blog somewhat, it seems appropriate to revisit the concept offered in a few earlier posts.
I'm in charge of providing one of the essay questions for the 2nd degree black belt candidates this year, and my offering is:
Explain the meaning of the phrase, Rank is meant to be served, not to serve.
A consistent theme for me since making my first degree has been this saying, one that is pretty short but, I think, fraught with meaning. In fact, this has been one of the defining lessons for me in the past ten years I've been training.
We understand implicitly, I think, that symbols have no meaning unless they are based in some way on reality. You can buy a black belt from a store online for about ten dollars, but putting it on doesn't really mean much. The belt itself is not a symbol of the dollar value, but instead of the time and effort expended on its acquisition.
To the outsider, it's a symbol that you're dangerous1. The belt hierarchy on the inside, though, has as much to do with responsibility as it does with skill. The demands on a black belt are different than the ones for a green belt.
In other words, associated with the concept of rank is responsibility. The belt couples authority with responsibility.
Perhaps I am multiplying words without knowledge; this certainly has been a lengthy introduction. The real question that arises from all of this discussion, though, is what justifies this connection? Why is authority imbued with responsibility?
Theologically speaking, we understand that God is not merely sovereign, he is also sovereignty. This means that own authority is granted to us from him, and it means that our idea of what it means to have authority is rooted in God's existence.
The corruption of authority naturally begins with self-determination. (Total depravity and all that.) Instead of recognizing the ideal of sovereignty, we invent one; in so doing, we bend authority to our own corrupt desires. In other words, we make rank to serve us, rather than serving rank.
As soon as we treat sovereignty as something invented rather than something that is Real, we lose our ability to properly govern. There is no longer an external standard or ideal of authority to which we aspire.
This is the ultimate fall-out of the anti-realist position, I think. As soon as we swallow a purely nominal definition of God's attributes, we deny the basis for any ideals we have.
I have been composing this at work, and it has taken me several hours to get these thoughts out. I hope they're mostly cogent. I expect to return to them sometime in the future, Lord-willing.
[1] In reality, the more skilled you are at the arts, the less dangerous you become.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Psalm 34
In a recent posting on a newsgroup I lurk on, a long-time poster linked to a paper about praise. Though some may find some of the discussion a little dry and boring, there are some really good points raised here. For example:
The discussion following regarding the different theologies of praise is truly noteworthy. The criticism of the pentecostal style of worship is somewhat muted, and I think to the author's credit. What's more, he effectively links our praise to the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
The subject of the paper that inspired this post is the section titled "Jesus the Praise Singer." He points to Psalm 22.22:
It is clearly Jesus Christ speaking these words, and it is here that we get our first explicit look at Jesus Christ in his rôle as worship leader. But when we gather the themes of this Messianic Psalm, we'll see that this rôle is reprised in several other Psalms.
One of particular interest in Psalm 34:
A consistent theme in the Psalms is God's deliverance, and it is most fully realized in Hebrews 5.7:
It is this, I think, that is spoken of in Psalm 34. Why do we praise God? Because he heard Jesus' prayer for deliverance. He did not despise the affliction of the afflicted.
We are not called to a nebulous praise1; we are rather led in worship by Christ for his resurrection.
[1] In John 4.24, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth. The "must" here is the must of necessity; it is the same sort of must that is used in John 3 when he tells Nicodemus that he must be born again to enter heaven. We are given to understand in John 4, I think, that if we do not worship in truth, we are not actually worshipping. The substitution of "spirit" with feeling is precisely what invalidates so much modern worship. Not to mention the rotted theology present in most of it.
The praise singing movement ... introduces a new liturgy based on a new theology of praise.
The discussion following regarding the different theologies of praise is truly noteworthy. The criticism of the pentecostal style of worship is somewhat muted, and I think to the author's credit. What's more, he effectively links our praise to the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
The subject of the paper that inspired this post is the section titled "Jesus the Praise Singer." He points to Psalm 22.22:
I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
It is clearly Jesus Christ speaking these words, and it is here that we get our first explicit look at Jesus Christ in his rôle as worship leader. But when we gather the themes of this Messianic Psalm, we'll see that this rôle is reprised in several other Psalms.
One of particular interest in Psalm 34:
3 Oh, magnify the LORD with me,
and let us exalt his name together!
4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
A consistent theme in the Psalms is God's deliverance, and it is most fully realized in Hebrews 5.7:
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.
It is this, I think, that is spoken of in Psalm 34. Why do we praise God? Because he heard Jesus' prayer for deliverance. He did not despise the affliction of the afflicted.
We are not called to a nebulous praise1; we are rather led in worship by Christ for his resurrection.
[1] In John 4.24, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth. The "must" here is the must of necessity; it is the same sort of must that is used in John 3 when he tells Nicodemus that he must be born again to enter heaven. We are given to understand in John 4, I think, that if we do not worship in truth, we are not actually worshipping. The substitution of "spirit" with feeling is precisely what invalidates so much modern worship. Not to mention the rotted theology present in most of it.
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