God

Creation by the Numbers

/ davidsschrock

Today many in our church and all over the world began their yearly Bible reading plan.  I did.  And one of the features found in Genesis 1 is the fact that God made plants (v. 12) and animals (v. 21), “according to their own kinds.”  While scientists, Bible scholars, and Christians apologists have argued for the origin of the species, the Bible is clear that God is the originator of all life.  He spoke the world into existence (Gen 1; Psalm 33:6), and no matter how long that process took, it is clear that he is the Creative Genius behind it all.  (Personally, I hold to a Young Earth position due to the disbelief that death existed before sin, which is clearly dated in Genesis 3, about 6,000 years ago).

Yet, in this brief post, my point is not to argue the age of the earth or the meaning of yom (‘day’) in Genesis 1, but rather to marvel at the endless fecundity of God’s creation.  Today I came across Wikipedia’s entry on “Species.”  In it is a list of all the plants and animals in the world.  In a word, it is astonishing!  Consider the sheer numbers of life-forms on the earth, all created by God.

The total number of species (estimated): 7–100 millions (identified and unidentified), including:

Of the identified eukaryote species we have:[14]

It has taken thousands of people over hundreds of years to amass this list, a list of all the creatures God created and their offspring.

In truth, Elihu declare in Job 34:14-15, “If he [that is God] should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to the dust.”   Thus, according to the Bible all the species owe their existence to God, and it is worth meditating on the estimated numbers above.  While these numbers are not exact due to the difficulties of subdividing species, they do represent this singular facet of God: He is unfathomably creative and prolific in the production of his creation.  If it is true that no sparrow falls to the ground a part from his knowledge (Matt 10:29), then it coheres that no life is born apart from God’s germinating spirit and no life ends apart from his sovereign decree.

He is the Supreme Creator, the God of the Nations, and the one who has made man in his image to rule over creation.  Moreover, when man failed to rule over the earth uprightly (cf. Ecc 7:29), God sent his Son to become a man, to perfectly rule over all the species that God created.  I am doubtful that each of these ‘species’ was created in the Genesis account, it seems more likely that the ‘kinds’ in Genesis 1 were higher up in the taxonomic hierarchy (maybe genus or family), but it is certain that God created in the beginning an expanding myriad of plants and animals, represented in the list above.  These life-forms had the capacity for incredible replication and speciation.  While many fight over Genesis 1 for good reason, we shouldn’t miss the forest for the trees: God is the glorious creator of all the earth, who has fashioned a world that is filled with life, fecundity, beauty, symmetry, wisdom, and so much more.  And even though this in a world overrun with sin, disease, and death, his incredible creation is evident.  How much better will the New Creation be when sin will be eradicated and mankind will finally rule over a perfect creation with Christ on the throne.

As we begin the year, may we worship the Triune Creator and look at creation as a hymn book of praise for our infinitely wise Creator.  As Revelation 4:11 sings, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by you will they existed and were created.”  Upwards of 100 million of them!

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

So

Responsibly Submitting to God’s Sovereignty

/ davidsschrock

I was not convinced of God’s “exhaustive, meticulous sovereignty” (to borrow Bruce Ware’s phrase) until September 11, 2001.  I had been wrestling with the matter all summer.  Conversations piled up.  Readings on God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility proliferated.  I had entered the summer as an ignorant open theist, had been confronted by a number of friends who argued from the whole counsel of Scripture for God’s unerring and unswerving sovereignty, and by the fall I was theoretically convinced of God’s perfect control of the world (cf Psalm 115:3; 135:6; Job 42:2; Isaiah 46:9-11; Daniel 4:34-35; Ephesians 1:10; Revelations 4:11).

But to turn theory into embrace took something more.  It took two terrorist planes slamming into New York’s Twin Towers to convince my heart of the matter that “God Reigns,” and that I am not in control of my life, any more than I can control the events in NYC.

Thinking back on that infamous day, I will never forget walking up the stairs into my dorm.  I had spent the morning glued to the television watching the horror unfold in New York.  Ascending the steps, I remember telling a friend, “Unless God is totally sovereign, I do not know how to make sense of that act of terror.”

I don’t know why in that moment, the Holy Spirit impressed upon my heart the conviction of God’s sovereignty, but I can mark it to that day, that God, in his sovereign grace, invaded my heart with a love for his divine control. I submitted to his sovereignty.

Such a reaction to the claims of God’s sovereignty are not uncommon.  Many Christians I have spoken to have articulated a similar journey–from arguing against God’s sovereignty to embracing it as one of their greatest comforts.

Marking his own journey towards sovereign submission, Jonathan Edwards writes:

From my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty…. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me. But I remember the time very well, when I seemed to be convinced, and fully satisfied, as to this sovereignty of God….

But never could I give an account, how, or by what means, I was thus convinced, not in the least imagining at the time, nor a long time after, that there was any extraordinary influence of God’s Spirit in it; but only that now I saw further, and my reason apprehended the justice and reasonableness of it. However, my mind rested in it; and it put an end to all those cavils and objections.

And there has been a wonderful alteration in my mind, in respect to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, from that day to this; so that I scarce ever have found so much as the rising of an objection against it, in the most absolute sense…. I have often since had not only a conviction but a delightful conviction. The doctrine has very often appeared exceeding pleasant, bright, and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my first conviction was not so (Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative,” in Jonathan Edwards: Representative Selections, ed. C. H. Faust and T. H. Johnson [New York: Hill & Wang, 1962], 58–9; quoted in John Piper, Desiring God [Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2003], 38).

I suspect that anyone who arrives at delighting in God’s sovereignty, did not do so naturally.  It was aided by the Spirit of God and prompted his Word, a revelation that is filled with inescapable claims of God’s complete control.

Consider just a few: The Bible speaks of all creation existing under his and being sustained by his powerful word (Job 38-39; Psalm 135:5-7; Acts 17:27-28; Heb 1:1-2), kings and individuals are directed by God’s invisible but omnipotent hand (Prov 16:9; 21:1; Dan 4:34-35), nations, good and evil alike, accomplish his intended,though often unintelligible, purposes (Psalm 33:10-11; Isaiah 10:5ff; Habbakuk 2:1ff), and that every roll of the dice at the river boat bounces as God intends (Prov 16:33).  All things happen according to his will (Eph 1:11).  Even the world’s greatest evil–like September 11–is mysteriously governed by God (Isa 45:7; Lam 3:37-38), in a way preserves God’s absolute innocence and purity (James 1:13) and yet maintains that even the gravest tragedy will be turned for good (Rom 8:28; cf. consider the unlawful murder of Jesus, ordained by God before the foundation of the world, Acts 2:23; 4:27-28; 1 Peter 1:19-20).

Even with the testimony of Scripture mounting, embracing God’s sovereignty grates against our fallen condition.  Ingesting the fruit in the garden put within every human being a penchant from liberty apart from God.  Our innocent freedom was traded for bondage to sin (cf Romans 5, 8).  Consequently, our human nature revolts against the idea that we are not sovereign in our own lives.  We long to be God and to suppress the truth (Gen 3:1-6; Romans 1:18ff).

The irony about embracing God’s absolute sovereignty is that it does not make us robots, it makes us more human.  Men raging for their own sovereignty are less than human because they are denying the position God gave them as ‘created beings’ under his rule (cf Gen 1:26-28).  Why is this so hard to accept?  Because the effects of the fall still poisons our hearts and blinds our eyes.  The Bible renews our minds, mends our hearts, and opens our eyes to see the world not from our fallen human condition, but from God’s omniscient position.

Jonathan Edwards was exactly right: Embracing God’s sovereignty is not natural.  It is an act of submission, a denial of self, a willingness to give God back his crown.  Yet, in so doing, mankind is made most like its creator, submitting to his sovereign plan and purpose, one that is unstoppable in turning independent men and women into slaves of righteousness who find their greatest freedom in servile obedience to the King of Glory, the Lord of grace and truth.

May we humble ourselves and embrace God’s sovereignty.  Why?  Because that’s our human responsibility.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Tapestry of Scripture

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Tomorrow night, our church, Calvary Baptist in Seymour, Indiana, will begin its Wednesday night journey through the Bible.  We will begin by looking at the Bible as a whole.  While preparing for our time, I came across this statement about the unity of the Bible from the ESV Study Bible.  It is a succinct and compelling word about the wisdom of God in Scripture, telling one harmonious story with a plethora of divergent voices. 

Scripture is no ragbag of religious bits and pieces, unrelated to each other; rather, it is a tapestry in which all the complexities of the weave display a single pattern of judgment and mercy, promise and fulfillment. The Bible consists of two separate collections: the OT, written over a period of about 1,000 years, and the NT, written within a generation several centuries after the OT was completed. Within such a composite array one would expect to find some crossed wires or incoherence, but none are found here. While there are parallel narratives, repetitions, and some borrowings from book to book, the Bible as a whole tells a single, straightforward story. God the Creator is at the center throughout; his people, his covenant, his kingdom, and its coming king are the themes unfolded by the historical narratives, while the realities of redemption from sin and of godly living (faith, repentance, obedience, prayer, adoration, hope, joy, and love) become steadily clearer. Jesus Christ, as fulfiller of OT prophecies, hopes, promises, and dreams, links the two Testaments together in an unbreakable bond. Aware that at the deepest level the whole Bible is the product of a single mind, the mind of God, believers reading it theologically always look for the inner links that bind the books together. And they are there to be found.

As you read your Bible, ask God to show you the unity and diversity of this rich tapestry of his redemptive history and revelation.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Theologian’s Task

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

What is the task of a Christian theologian?  Or more generally, what is the task of understanding Christian doctrine?

Herman Bavinck answers that question in the opening chapter of his four-volume Reformed Dogmatics.  He writes,

The imperative task of the dogmatician [or theologian] is to think God’s thoughts after him and to trace their unity.  His work is not finished until he has mentally absorbed this unity and set if forth in a dogmatics.  Accordingly, he does not come to God’s revelation with a ready-made system in order, as best he can, to force its content into it.  On the contrary, even in his system a theologian’s sole responsibility is to think God’s thoughts after him and to reproduce the unity that is objectively present in thoughts of God and has been recorded for the eye of faith in Scripture… (Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], 44).

He continues later to describe the synthesizing and organizing work that theology entails to help understand and assemble God’s word,

dogmatics is not a kind of biblical theology that stops at the words of Scripture.  Rather, according to Scripture itself, dogmatics has the right to rationally absorb its content and, guided by Scripture, to rationally process it and also to acknowledge as truth that which can be deduced from it by lawful inference (45).

Whether you are a theologian or not, may you seek to absorb God’s word and think God’s thoughts after Him.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

The Ways of Our God: God’s Order (1)

/ davidsschrock

In The Ways of Our God: An Approach to Biblical Theology, Charles Scobie subdivides his multithematic approach into main four categories: God’s Order; God’s Servant, God’s People, and God’s Way.  Under each banner, he writes five chapters, and today we will consider his first section in his “sketch of biblical theology.”  For sake of space, let me list the headings and provide a few reflections.

  1. The Living God.  Scobie begins with God and His revelation in creation and history.  According to the Scriptures, Scobie argues that God is King, and taking his cue from the Decalogue and the Shema, he outlines his chapter with three concepts that establish “the very core of the OT understanding of God” (107).  These are the self-revelation of God’s Name(s), the unitive oneness of God, and the personal nature of God.  He examines each of these as they are initially proclaimed in the OT and more fully developed in the latter prophets and in the NT.  One of the highlights from this chapter is the way that each section (i.e. Proclamation, Promise, Fulfillment, and Future Consummation–also the framework of every other chapter) concludes with an explanation and affirmation of the Scripture’s canonical development at each stage of revelation.  In a chapter focusing on Theology Proper, he argues for Scripture’s essential role in revealing the one, true, and living God.  Additionally, Scobie emphasizes God’s relationship to both the created order and the historical order–this is expanded in chapters 2-3.
  2. The Lord of Creation.  Scobie writes this chapter out of a concern that biblical theology and recent biblical studies have devalued God’s relationship to creation, and have focused only on God’s role in the historical order.  He illustrates this by referring to those who begin their BT with Exodus and not Genesis; however, as he points out, this misses the way in which the canon is itself telling the story of God as Creator and Redeemer.  Scobie shows convincingly that God loves creation and has made creation for our enjoyment and his glory (cf. John Piper, “The Pleasure of God in His Creation” in The Pleasures of God).  He shows where creation is emphasized in the OT (Gen. 1-11; Pss. 8, 95, 104, 148; Isaiah; and the wisdom literature–Job 38-39; Proverbs 8), and argues that the NT maintains the same view of creation as the OT, only adding Jesus’ instrumental role in its creation and maintenance (John 1:1-3; Col. 1:15-20; Heb. 1:1-3).  He introduces the distinction between apocalyptic eschatology which is alligned with God’s created order and prophetic eschatology which corresponds with redemptive history.  Just as the Bible begins with creation (Gen. 1-2), it ends with new creation (Rev. 20-22), and thus all the Bible is looking forward to the renewal of this fallen world. 

    His concluding application section would make the editors of the “Green Letter Bible” happy; it shows how the Bible does address many environmental concerns, but in a Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, sort of way, Scobies goes too far concerning the ways in which consumerist evangelicals have neglected the environment and are in need of confessing our “guilt for the ecological crisis” (186-87).  The ‘guilt’ rests not with Western evangelicals, but with the whole Adamic race. In the end, this chapter is a helpful commentary on what the Bible says about creation and its place in biblical theology.

  3. The Lord of History.  Scobie begins with a cursory review of the books of the Bible, and then proceeds to walk through the stages of redemptive history, before highlighting six ways in which God has worked in history.  These six characteristics of salvation history are (1) divine intervention, (2) [appointing] divinely inspired leadership, (3) salvation & judgment, (4) providence, (5) blessing, (6) and suffering love (198-202).  Scobie does not retain God’s work in history to veiled acts of redemption, though, he also posits that God has worked in history through revealing himself by speaking to his people (202-04).  Thus, redemptive acts of God are only recognized and understood when God also inspires a biblical author to interpret the meaning of the event (i.e. the exodus, the Babylonian exile, or the crucifixion).  The chapter is a helpful summary of salvation history, though he is theologically imprecise when speaking of God’s “suffering love,” a term most often associated with Jurgen Moltmann, and more recently Richard Bauckham, that ascribes suffering to the divinity of the Godhead, instead of assigning suffering to Christ’s humanity.  (For more on this see my post, Can God Suffer?).
  4. The Adversary.  Scobie presents a very balanced survey from the biblical text that walks through the Scriptures highlighting the passages of Scripture that concern the enemies of God, reprobate angels, and Satan himself.  He avoids the two extremes of spiritual warfare fanaticism and the modern mindset that makes the devil a cartoonish fable.  He chastens those who like Greg Boyd attempt to say too much about Satan and are required to import ideas from other Ancient Near Eastern contemporaries.  However, he shows the reality of the demonic realm and of the antichrist.  Like all of his chapters I have read thus far, his biblical content presents a helpful catalog of all the applicable texts on the subject.
  5. The Spirit.  Scobie is open to the continuous presence of miraculous gifts today because there is no hermeneutical reason, he says, to deny their continuation (296).  However, in his explication of this subject, Scobie is unfortunately imprecise and inconsistent.  In one place he states that “Christian baptism confers the gift of the Spirit” (283), yet later as he makes his summary he says “all believers receive the gift of the Spirit when they become Christians” (296).  I guess you could ask, “What makes someone a Christian,” but it seems that he inconsistently attributes the giving of the Spirit to baptism, and blurs the transitional period of Acts with what is now normative in the church today.  Like in chapter 2, Scobie emphasizes the Spirit’s role in and with creation, appealing to the Eastern Ortohodox tradition which includes Psalm 104 in its daily liturgy (295).  He spends little time on the revelation of the Spirit and its inclusion in the Trinity, because as he believes, the Bible gives triadic data but not trinitarian doctrine (297).  On the whole, this chapter shows a developing continuity throughout the Bible for the doctrine of the Spirit, but its synthesis leaves a lot of questions unanswered because of such short statements on things like tongues, the gifts, and the relationship of baptism to the Spirit.

More than a quarter of the way through this massive volume, I am pleased to report that the reading has been edifying and that any serious student of the Bible would be rewarded by reading it.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Biblical-Theological Reflections on the Doctrine of God

/ davidsschrock

In the first chapter of his book The Ways of Our God: An Approach to Biblical Theology, Charles H.H. Scobie concludes by highlighting 9 theological reflections that come from an investigation of the doctrine of God worked out in the Scriptures.  Let me share three.

First, he asserts that the canonical understanding of God is consistently monotheistic, and asks what is monotheism’s significance.  Responding to that question, he cites an illuminating quotation from M. Burrows Outline of Biblical Theology (1946), which reads,

It [monotheism] is at bottom the question whether there is any unified, any reliable control of the universe, or whether we are at the mercy of an unpredictable interplay of forces in a welter of worlds that is not a cosmos, a system, a universe at all.  The polytheistic Babylonians and other Gentile peoples were in constant fear and uncertainty; Israel worshipped the one God whose ways had been made known, and whose faithfulness reached the clouds (Burrows 60, quoted by Scobie, 144).

Next, Scobie reflects on the personal nature of God.  Throughout the chapter, he reiterates the significance of God’s name and revealed character, and in this final section, he quotes from P.D. Hanson, who like Burrows emphasizes the way in which a the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus (re)defines all reality.

Impersonal models, such as one finds in some versions of process philosophy, inadequately express the biblical vision of reality.  In the Bible, reality, understood with historical specificity, is guided towards its goal by a divine Purposer who is not limited to the sum total of the physical substance of the universe and who therefore is best described with personal metaphors like Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer (quoting P.D. Hanson, The Diversity of Scripture; Scobie 145).

Scobie also reflects on the ways in which modern theology has been distorted by feminist distortions of God.  Even though, it is correct to denote God with ‘personal metaphors like Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer,’ these should be representative of the entire Godhead and not used to redefine the personal and specific revelation of the triune God.  Urging for Biblical Theology to overrule contemporary interpretations, he writes against extra-biblical labels replacing the Bible’s own revelation.  He asserts,

Proposals have been made to avoid gender-specific terminology, e.g. that “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” be replaced by some such phrase as “Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer” [or worse, Mother, Child, Life-giving womb].  Such formulae, however, do not adequately express the personal nature of God nor the interrelationship among the persons of the Trinity.  Moreover, this approach suggests the biblical terminology is ‘merely’ metaphor that can be changed at will, rather than the way in which God has chose to reveal himself (Scobie 146).

These are just a handful of Scobie’s summarizing reflections on the doctrine of God in biblical-theological perspective.  He shows clearly that Biblical Theology is not just a sub-discipline in theology that outlines what the Bible ‘meant’ in its archaic context; he shows how a thorough-going Biblical Theology informs what the Bible ‘means’ for today.  In this way, he demonstrates how Biblical Theology should guide and direct Systematic Theology so that the final analysis and modern application is true to the text.

As we think ‘theologically,’ may we do so with a similarly robust biblical theology that shapes our understanding, and not vice versa.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

The Trinity in Biblical Theological Perspective (2)

/ davidsschrock

The Trinity in Biblical Theological Reflection: New Testament Appropriations of Old Testament Evidence 

Three NT passages that are often used to support the doctrine of the Trinity are Matthew 28:19; John 1:1-8; and 1 Corinthians 8:1-6.  They show the New Testament revelation of the Trinity–one God, three persons.  However, as will be evidenced below these passages are not merely New Testament irruptions, rather they find dependence on earlier Old Testament passages.  The point being made then is that while the doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly made in the OT, there are incomplete revelations in the Hebrew Bible that prepare the soul for the Christian revelation of the Triune God.  Let us consider these passages together. 

Matthew 28:19.  The Great Commission is the most explicit Trinitarian verse in the Bible.  While there are other triads,[1] no other passage of Scripture so clearly and concisely delineates the three persons of the Godhead.  It reads, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  Here all three members of the Godhead are listed in order and united under a singular name,[2] and as was referenced previously this New Testament postulations depends upon Old Testament revelation, in at least three ways.  In short order, Matthew 28:18-20 has a typological precedent in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23,[3] a literary precursor in the three-fold, baptismal benediction found in the Aaronic blessing (Num. 6:22-26);[4] and a view of the Godhead that corresponds with the eschatological vision in Daniel 7:13-14.[5]  In each of these Old Testament passages there are glimpses of what is fully conceived in Matthew 28:18-20.   More to the point theologically, the significance of God’s name cannot be undervalued.  That the “I am” is now the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, marks a seismic shift in Theology Proper; nonetheless, it is one that was anticipated in the OT (cf. Isa. 7:14; Jer. 23:6; cf. Isa. 43:25 –> Phil. 2:9-11).[6]

John 1:1-18.  John’s prologue is another lucid example of the way OT ideas of Word and Wisdom were taken and applied to Jesus, so that God the Father and God the Son were inseparably united and yet hypostatically distinguished.  Consider John’s use of Genesis 1 as he introduces Jesus as the eternal Word of God—the one in whom “all things were made,” the source of all life, and the light of the world (1:1-5).[7]  That the Word, the Son of God, Jesus Christ is responsible for creation, life, and light is a clear testimony to his uncreated eternality and the fact that he is the unnamed divine agent in the Old Testament.  Köstenberger summarizes, “The prologue’s portrayal of the Word’s creative agency thus establishes an important theme [in John]… While the Word is personally distinct from God, the work he performs is nonetheless nothing but the work of God.”[8]  

Then, using imagery from the revelation on Mt. Sinai, John compares Jesus intimate knowledge of the Father with Moses fiery encounter in Exodus 19-20.  Moses was permitted into God’s presence, but he was disallowed from seeing God’s face, or later entering into his presence (i.e. the promised land).  Alternatively, Jesus Christ, “is in the bosom of the Father” (1:18 NASB).  He is the “one-of-a-kind Son” who alone has seen God and now is explaining him to the world.  In this comparison, Jesus is not a New Moses.  Rather, if the imagery from Sinai holds, he himself is YHWH in the flesh.  So that as Bauckham concludes,

Without contradicting or rejecting any of the existing features of Jewish monotheism, the Fourth Gospel, therefore redefines Jewish monotheism as Christological monotheism….in which the relationship the relationship of Jesus the Son to his Father is integral to the definition of who the one true God is.[9]

1 Corinthians 8:1-6.  Like John, Paul in his letter to the Corinthians expands the static notion of monotheism to include Jesus Christ.  Quoting the shema (Deut. 6:4) in 1 Corinthians 8:4, he argues against idolatry in verse 6 saying, “yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”  It is absolutely fascinating to see Paul reject the existence of other (so-called) gods in one verse and then to turn and insert into the singular deity of God two names—God and the Lord Jesus, the Father and the Son.  Certainly, this Christology interpretation was a result of his Dasmascus Road experience with the risen Lord.  Richard Bauckham’s balanced explanation summarizes Paul’s thought process here,

The only possible way to understand Paul as maintaining monotheism is to understand him to be including Jesus in the unique identity of the one God affirmed in the Shema.  But this is, in any case, clear from the fact that the term ‘Lord’, applied here to Jesus as the ‘one Lord’, is taken from the Shema itself.  Paul is not adding to the one God of the Shema a ‘Lord’ whom the Shema affirms to be one.  In this unprecedented reformulation of the Shema, the unique identity of the one God consists of the one God, the Father, and the one Lord, his Messiah (who is implicitly regarded as the Son of the Father).[10]

While it has been argued by some that the semantic range of the word ehad allows for complexity,[11] this is a shocking statement.  Still, it is this kind of OT-dependent reading that best explains how we are to understand the traces of the Trinity in the Old Testament.  For nowhere in the shema is there a negation of a Triune God.  Rather, there is a firm affirmation of God’s unity, which orthodox Trinitarians also hold.  What Paul does in 1 Corinthians 8:6, however, is to unpack the unity of God in the OT in a way that fits with the greater revelation of Jesus as God (cf. Rom. 9:5; Tit. 2:13).  That the Spirit is not present in this passage does not deny the Trinitarian nature of the verse, it simply indicates that like the OT, aspects of the Godhead can be spoken of in isolation, though never upheld ontologically as independent or separate.

These are not the only passages either.  Other relevant Trinitarian passages in the NT that appeal to the OT  include Acts 2:17-21, where Peter quotes the prophecy in Joel to explain the events of Pentecost and the coming of God’s Spirit; Philippians 2:9-11, where Paul applies Isaiah 45:23, which speaks of YHWH, and applies it to Jesus saying God “bestowed on [Jesus] the name that is above every name;”[12] and 1 Corinthians 1:24, 30 and Colossians 2:3 which call Jesus “the wisdom of God,” the one “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”  Each of these passages develops Old Testament evidences for the Trinity—the coming of the Spirit, the Name of God, and the Wisdom of God. 

And I am sure that there are others.  Can you think of any? 

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

[1] Matt. 3:16-17; 1 Cor. 12:4-6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:4-6; 1 Pet. 1:2; Jude 20-21; Rev. 1:4-5.

 

[2]  For more on the significance of ordered relationships in the Godhead see Bruce Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, & Relevance.  (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005).

 

[3] G.K. Beale makes this often overlooked connection in The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A biblical theology of the dwelling place of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 169-80.  He writes, “This passage [2 Chron. 36:22-23] has three things in common with Matthew 28:18-20: (1) both Cyrus and Jesus assert authority over all the earth; (2) the commission to ‘go’; and (3) the assurance of divine presence to fulfill the commission…the 2 Chronicles passage would be viewed as a historical event to commission a temple that foreshadowed typologically the much greater event of Jesus’ ‘Great Commision’ to build a greater temple” (176-77).  This observation is very informative for understanding the work of the Trinity expounded in Matthew 28, where the Son is building the temple, the Spirit is indwelling the temple, and ultimately the temple is for God the Father (cf. 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19).

 

[4] Viviano cites Luise Abramowski’s research and summarizes her work showing the relationship between the Aaronic blessing, the Nazarite vow, and the rite of baptism.  He writes, “Crucial to her case is the placing or putting of God’s name on the people.  This then links up with baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit” (Viviano, “The Trinity in the Old Testament,” 16). 

 

[5] Craig Blomberg writes, “Jesus’ closing ‘Great Commission’ of his apostles seems to allude to Daniel 7:14.  Jesus whose favorite title for himself throughout the Gospel has been ‘Son of Man,’ is given all authority on heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18), just as the Son of Man in Daniel’s vision received an identical universal authority.  It is even possible that the Trinitarian formula in 28:19 reflects a modification of the triad of Ancient of Days (God the Father), Son of Man (God the Son), and angels as God’s spiritual servants as the implied agents of the Son of Man being led into God’s presence (and thus functioning analogous to the Holy Spirit), also found in Dan. 7:13-14” (“Matthew” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D.A. Carson [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007], 100.

 

[6] For more on the names of God see John Frame, The Doctrine of God, 343-61; cf. John Piper, The Pleasures of God (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2000), 98, 193-94.

 

[7] Andreas Köstenberger, “John” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D.A. Carson [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007], 421; see also Carson’s comments and detailed exegesis in The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1991), 111-39.

 

[8] Andreas Köstenberger, The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: The Trinity and John’s Gospel (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2008), 115.

[9] Richard Bauckham, “Monotheism and Christology in the Gospel of John” in Contours of Christology in the New Testament, ed. Richard Longenecker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 165.

 

[10] Richard Bauckham,  Jesus and the God of Israel, 101.  This quotation comes from an entire section devoted to solving this theological riddle, see pp. 97-105.

 

[11] The task of demonstrating God’s singularity and unity in the OT is more challenging than may first appear.  OT scholars like Michael Heiser are pressing for a reappraisal of traditional OT monotheism, where an OT binitarianism is asserted over against the classic understanding of monotheism. See his dissertation “The divine council in late canonical and non-canonical Second Temple Jewish literature” Ph.D. diss., The University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004 and his weblog devoted to the subject, http://michaelsheiser.com/TwoPowersInHeaven.  In his recent article “Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible” in Bulletin for Biblical Research  18.1 (2008), 1-30, Heiser concludes, “It is my hope that scholars will be encouraged to re-evaluate their assumptions about the reality of divine plurality in Israel’s worldview and how to parse that reality in understanding Israelite religion” (30).

 

[12]

The Trinity in Biblical Theological Perspective: A Mystery without mysterion

/ davidsschrock / 5 Comments

(This is an excerpt from a recent paper I wrote, “The Trinity in the Old Testament: A Present But Elusive Mystery.” It suggests that the development of the Trinity in the Bible follows a mystery-revelation pattern.)

Mystery without mysterion

In his essay entitled “Mystery and Fulfillment” in Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2, D. A. Carson includes a section called “Mystery without mysterion,” where he asserts that the idea of mystery—something hidden now revealed (cf. Matt. 13:10-17, 34-35)—can occur in NT literature in places where the word, mysterion, is not used explicitly.  He suggests this to be the case in fourth gospel where “although John never uses the term mysterion he sometimes provides fresh revelation that has clearly been hidden in time past, but which is some how said to be connected to the very Scriptures in which it has been hidden (e.g. John 2:19-22).”[1]  From this general description, Carson references Philip Kramer’s 2004 dissertation on the subject,[2] and produces four criteria to evaluate mystery-language:  “(1) [the] referent mysterion is the gospel or some part of it; (2) the disclosure of this mystery may be traced, at least in part, to the Christophany Paul experienced on the Damascus Road; (3) the text makes it clear that this mysterion was once hidden but is now revealed; (4) the Old Testament Scriptures constitute the medium in which the mysterion was hidden and by which it is revealed.”[3]  This taxonomy fits very well when applied to the Trinity’s development from the Old Testament into the New Testament. 

First, as John Piper has proclaimed, “God is the Gospel!”[4]  There is no part of the gospel that is not Trinitarian, and each member of the Trinity functions in their unique role to call, atone, and regenerate (cf. Eph. 1:3-14).  Moreover, in the Old Testament, the characteristics ascribed to the Father, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the coming Messiah are consistent with the Incarnation and Pentecost.  In other words, what was foretold through types, shadows, and veiled allusions, is now manifest in Jesus and the Spirit.

Second, the Trinity is defined and explained by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and the arrival of his Spirit.  In fact, without these, the verbal expressions of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are incomplete, at best.  For instance, the union of three persons is most clear in passages like John 14:16-17 where Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another [of the same kind] Helper…the Spirit of Truth” (cf. John 15:26).  Though Kramer’s criterion delimits the disclosure of the mystery to Paul’s Damascus road experience, this restriction is too narrow.  While it fits his specific subject in Galatians, it should be broadened across the New Testament.  It should be remembered, Paul had a Damascus road experience because he was lacking the necessary apostolic ‘credentials’ that all the other disciples received (cf. Mark 3: 13-14; Acts 1:21-22).[5]  Consequently, the corroborating NT evidence is not isolated to one man’s encounter with Jesus, it is the composite person and work of Jesus Christ that makes sense of the Old Testament in general, and the Trinity, in particular.  In this Augustine was right, “[God’s] grace hid itself under a veil in the Old Testament, but it has been revealed in the New Testament according to the most perfectly ordered dispensation of the ages.”[6]  Therefore, recognizing the Trinity in the OT depends upon NT Christology.[7]

Third, the doctrine of the Trinity was hidden in the OT and revealed in the NT.  While the component parts were scattered throughout the OT, the necessary historical events (i.e. Incarnation and Pentecost) were lacking to make sense of the mysterious pluralities, theophanies, and eschatological promises.  Even into the church age, it took over three centuries to sort out the biblical doctrine of the Trinity and its ontological entailments.  Yet, this should not be surprising.  It is the natural state of affairs with biblical mysteries.  Proverbs 25:2 enlightens us, “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.”  Likewise, 1 Corinthians 2:7 says, “We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.”  It is the wisdom and glory of God to hide his Triune nature from those without the Spirit, and to reveal himself to those united to Christ—it should not be forgotten that these are NT realities.[8]

Fourth, New Testament authors consistently appeal to the Old Testament to explain the rise of Trinitarian thought, thus proving the mysterious nature of God’s hiddenness and revelation in the OT.  Moreover, traces of the Trinity in the OT are not scant.  Rather, the most illustrious Trinitarian passages in the NT are often dependent upon or giving explanation to OT passages (cf. Matt. 28:18-20 –> Dan. 7:13-14; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Num. 6:22-26; John 1:1-18 –> Gen. 1:1; Ex. 19-20; 1 Cor. 8:1-6 –> Deut. 6:4).  Thus it seems that in God’s wise providence he has revealed his Triune nature perfectly and progressively, and as we study his Scripture we have the blessed privilege of seeing his mystery and revelation, ultimately revealed in and through Jesus Christ (John 1:18; Heb. 1:1-2).

Tomorrow, I will post a reflection on these intertextual considerations.    Until then, may we take this Lord’s Day to worship the God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

[1] D.A. Carson, “Mystery and Fulfillment” in Justification and Varigated Nominianism: The Paradoxes of Paul, vol. 2, ed. D.A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 424. 

 

[2] Philip Kramer, “Mystery without mystery in Galatians: An examination of the relationship between revelatory language in Galatians 1:11–17 and scriptural references in Galatians 3:6–18, 4:21–31” Ph.D. diss., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2004

 

[3] Carson, “Mystery and Fulfillment,” 425, footnote 91.

 

[4] John Piper, God is the Gospel: Meditations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2005).  

 

[5] The requirements outlined by Peter in Acts 1 make more sense in light of this mysterion discussion, that the mysteries of the OT, which foretold the gospel (Gal. 3:8), could only be understood through a comprehensive knowledge of Jesus Christ (cf. Luke 24:25-27, 44-49).  This is complicit with Paul’s apostolic ministry which faithfully expounded the OT Scriptures (cf. Acts 17:2).

 

[6] Augustine, “A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter” in Anti-Pelagian Writing, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, American ed., vol. 5 (United States: Christian Literature, 1887; reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004),  95.

 

[7] Alec Motyer puts it this way, “It was Jesus who came from the outside as the incarnate Son of God, Jesus who was raised from the dead as the Son of God with power, who chose to validate the Old Testament in retrospect and the New Testament in prospect, and who is himself the grand theme of the ‘story-line’ of both Testaments, the focal-point giving coherence to the total ‘picture’ in all its complexities” (Look to the Rock: An Old Testament Background to Our Understanding of Christ [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996], 22).

 

[8] For more on the condition of the believer in the OT, see Jim Hamilton, God’s Indwelling Presence.

 

Can God Suffer?

/ davidsschrock / 4 Comments

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said that only a suffering God can help.  But is that true?  Is that biblical?  Can God suffer, and if so, how does that help?

The classical position in church history has been that God does not suffer.  This view is the doctrine of divine impassibility.  Yet, in the last century, this doctrine has been upended by the likes of Bonhoeffer and by the works of theologians like Jurgen Moltmann, whose book, The Crucified God, argued for God’s divine passiblity.  In other words, for God to love he must be able to suffer.  As the German theologian put it, “a God who cannot suffer cannot love either.  A God who cannot love is a dead God” (The Trinity and the Kingdom, 38).  On the surface, this argument seems compelling; and certainly, in our man-centered, therapy-crazed culture it stands tall.  The problem is that it does not measure up to biblical evidence.

Consider two lines of argument proffered by Robert Letham (The Holy Trinity, 303).  First, if God suffers and is held captive or overcome by hostile forces–people or spirits whom he created–how is he Lord overall, and how will he actually guarantee victory later, and not more suffering?  The truth is, only a God who cannot suffer is able to help us.  As John Piper argues in the beginning of his book Desiring God, God is an infinitely happy God (cf. Psalm 115:3; 135:6).  No matter what goes on in creation, God is delights in being God, and is not held hostage by the forces of the world.

Second, if God suffers in his deity, how does he know what human suffering is like?  As Robert Letham writes, “For it is through the Incarnation, in which the Son lives as man , that he experiences human suffering as man and deals with the root cause–sin–by his death and resurrection.  It would be of no help to us if God suffered divinely as God” (Letham, The Holy Trinity, 303).  As Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself [the Son of God, cf. 2:9] likewise partook of the same things, that through death [i.e. human suffering] he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”

The Good News is not that the Triune God is just like us, who suffers in his Deity; rather, the Good News is that the Son became man, and suffered in the flesh.  Jesus, the Son of God, suffered not as God, but as a man, and in so doing, defeated death, purchased forgiveness, rose from the grave to initiate a new race of humanity, and now sits at the right hand of God mercifully interceding for all those who suffer (cf. Heb. 4:14-16).

So as we suffer, now or in the days to come, let us not find solace in a distorted view of God, one that repeals God’s sovereignty and strength; but instead, let us take heart in the biblical truth that God reigns in heaven, unscathed by the wars and rumors of war on earth, and at the same time that his own Son, Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, came to earth as a man and suffered hell in our place and has wounds to show for it.  May we look to him as our sympathetic high priest who intercedes for us. 

Perhaps, this doctrinal distinction seems like an insignificant qualification, but in fact, it is the difference between a God who we make after our own image, and one who glorious presides over all creation.  It is the difference between the omnipotent God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus who deserves all reverence and adoration, and all other pretend gods who have no power to save or to comfort. 

Can God suffer?  In his divinity, no; but in his humanity, in the incarnation of the Son, yes.  Hebrews 2:10 says of Jesus, God’s Son, “It was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the dounder of their salvation perfect through suffering.”

May this two-fold truth, of God’s Divine Impassibility and Jesus’ Human Vulnerability, set us to worship the Triune God in Spirit and Truth.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

The Creative Power of the God’s Word

/ davidsschrock

When God’s people hear about God and what he requires, they will respond.

– Mark Dever

Meditate on this quotation with me for a minute, and consider the creative power of God contained in his life-giving, faith-inspiring, soul-saving Word.

“When” – in the fullness of time God sent his son (Gal. 4:4), and at just the right time God sends his Word to us on the lips of faithful saints.

“God’s people” – when the elect of God hear the Word of God, the power of God converts them and they are saved.  “You do not believe because you are not part of my flock,” Jesus says in John 10:26, for if you did believe you would prove to be sheep.  The good news of the gospel is that all that God intended to save, he in fact does save, and he does so as His word comes to them.  This is a missions imperative.  “I have many in this city who are my people,” God says to Paul (Acts 18:10), and the same is true for us (cf. John 10:16).

“hear” – The gospel comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17), and this hearing comes by the general and prolific call of the gospel.

“about God” – This is the good news.  We know God in and through and because and by way of Jesus Christ.  As we proclaim Christ and him crucified, we make known the love and justice of God.

“and what he requires” – This reflects both the law which leads us to cry out for mercy and the instruction necessary for believers to live lives pleasing to God.  Either way, God’s requirements are not left hazy for those who have the Word. 

“they” – The gospel is for the masses.  This plural reflects the countless millions who have not heard the name of Jesus, and the millions who have.  The gospel creates new covenant communities, and it nevers accomplishes salvation apart from drawing people into fellowship with one another (cf. Heb. 10:24-25; 1 John 1:5-8).

“will” – Positively, absolutely, the gospel will accomplish all that was intended to do (Is. 55:8-9).  It is the power of God for salvation (Rom. 1:16) and it effectually calls men and women to faith and effectively converts them from wrath-deserving enemies to reconciled children.  It will save and it will upbuild the church wherever it goes.

“respond” – The gospel requires a response of repentance and faith.  Nothing more, nothing less.  This response is singular event with lasting and life-changing effects.

Perhaps, in writing this sentence, Mark Dever did not pause to consider each word like this, but he could have.  God’s omnipotent Word calls dead souls from the grave to new creation lives filled with good works.  Likewise, God’s word creates and shapes the church.  May we never forget the potency of the Spirit-breathed Scriptures and may lay everything aside to participate in carrying this message across the street and all over the world.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss