Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound

Monday Rewind: God’s Unyielding Grace – Is. 42:18-43:21

This is one highlight from a sermon I preached at Mission Fellowship Church on June 6, 2009, entitled, “You’re the One Not Listening!” The idea of this sermon was formulated by the the dispute from Is 42:18-23. The Israelites believed that God was not hearing them or their cries for help. God responds to his people that they were the ones not listening to him. He was disciplining them for their sins. Yet he had not forgotten them. In fact, he was about to bring relief.

In 43:1-5, God tells the people that, in fact, he was on his way with relief. What brought the relief that God promised? The people haven’t changed. Their sins and attitudes showed little change during their time of captivity. It is not a change in them so much as it was the grace and devotion of God. God had such an unyielding love and commitment to Israel that he repositioned them and their life in the world.

God tells Israel “Do Not Fear”. The basis for this claim is that God has redeemed the nation. Redemption can carry the idea of a family intervention where a stronger member of the family intervenes to assure the well being of the a weaker member. In addition to “do not fear”, God reminds the people that he has “called [them] by name”. This may be an adoption formula. Regardless, Israel is identified with, belongs to, and is cherished by God. John Calvin states, “God refuses to be deprived of his rightful possession”

God invested a great of love into his children. In 43:1-5 he reminds them that he:

• Created them
• Formed them
• Redeemed them
• Called them by name
• He will be with them

God loves deeply his children and though he disciplines them, he does not abandon them. He seeks to woo them back into a blessed relationship with them. It is not based on our merit or our goodness. It is based on God’s unyielding grace poured out upon his children.

Ultimately, what matters most about you is not what you deserve but whose you are. Whatever life throws at you, including God’s tough love, he will go with you into it.

Justification Part One

Today, we continue looking at Justification from Michael Gorman’s book Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology. Picking up on the last post, Gorman notes, “justification is not merely or even primarily juridical or judicial – the image of a divine judge announcing pardon or acquittal. That is part but only part, of the significance of justification. The judicial image must be understood within a wider covenantal, relational, participatory, and transformative framework.” (55)

That a wider covenantal and relational framework is necessary is demonstrated by Romans 5:1-11. In this passage, Paul situates justification and reconciliation in a parallel structure. This happens first in vs. 9-10:

9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (NASB)

In this text, justification means reconciliation to God. This is a divine act, as the three occurrences of the passive voice demonstrate, not a human act. In addition, it is not a “private act of reconciliation but one both intended by God and experienced by people in community, as a people; the subject of the verbs in Romans 5 is ‘we,’ not ‘I.’” (55)

This is also evident in the next verse (Rom 5:11). It uses an active verb with passive semantic weight (”we have now been received”) to indicate the gift of reconciliation. The verse forms an inclusio with the first verse in the passage, which has already used the passive voice in speaking of justification and already indicates its relational character as “peace with God”.

Similarly, 2 Cor 5:14-21 give further evidence of this reconciliation/justification connection. Justification as reconciliation “includes both the forgiveness of sins (plural; ie transgressions: Rom 3:25; 2 Cor 5:19) and liberation from Sin (singular) as a power (Rom 3:24; 5:15-21). Since both sins and Sin affect human relationships with God and with others, forgiveness and liberation are inherently realities that can only be experienced in connection with others, that is in community and in relation to a wider world.” (56)

Furthermore, 2 Cor 5:14-21 indicates that native within the idea of reconciliation/justification are both participation and transformation. Participation is found in phrases such as “in Christ” and “in him”. “These references to participation…should be be understood both individually and corporately. Each believer is in Christ, but Christ himself constitutes a body, a covenant community of Jews and Gentiles. To be in Christ is a corporate reality, but it is experienced by individuals.” (56)

Transformation is inherent to the reconciliation/justification equivalency in 2 Cor 5:14-21 through the references of “new creation,” “become the righteousness of God,” and in the image of death and resurrection resulting in living for Christ rather than self. Therefore, “Paul’s understanding of justification is inseparable from the experience of death and resurrection, which is grounded in Christ’s own death and resurrection (Rom 4:25).”

For Paul, then, in light of Romans 5 and 2 Corinthians 4, justification has:

1. an objective basis, or means, which is Christ’s death as a gift of God’s gracious initiative (Rom 5:1, 6-8, 9-11; 2 Cor 5:18, 21), together (implicitly) with Christ’s resurrection as God’s life-giving power;
2. a required subjective response, or mode, that effects justification/reconciliation, which is usually (though not always) explicitly labeled pistis, normally translated “faith” or (in its verbal form) “believe” (Rom 5:1; 2 Cor 5:20)
3. substantive content, which includes reconciliation, participation, and transformation (Rom 5:1-2, 9-11; 2 Cor 5:14-15, 17, 21)

The essential content of this transformation is fidelity to God and love for neighbor, the very heart of the covenant.

To demonstrate this, Gorman sets out to address three questions arising from these conclusions:

• What is the distinctive meaning of Christ’s death for Paul?
• What is his distinctive understanding of pistis? and
• What is the connection between the meaning of Christ’s death and the meaning of pistis, on the one hand, and the significance and character of the transformation inherent in justification, on the other?

We will address these questions next Thursday.

Remember These?

A Delusion, A Servant, and a New Song

Is. 41:21-42:17

I preached this sermon on May 30, 2009 at Mission Fellowship Church in Middletown, DE. The idea I presented was that Isaiah shows us how stupid our idols are, how worthy God’s alternative is, and how desirable it is to dump our idols and embrace his alternative with all our hearts.

The section I want to highlight from the sermon is the delusion of idols from Is 41:21-29. I first looked at the issue of idols. We often think of idols as “things” that consume our time and energy. But they are more than just images and figures and charms. In the Old Testament, people take idols into their hearts (Ezekiel 14:1-11). Therefore, we can define an idol as any heart-level substitute for God. This means an idol can be an addiction, a person or an activity. It is anything that our hearts put above our heart’s longing and desire for God.

An Idol is a good, God-Created thing, some gift of God that we use as a substitute for God himself. It is also anything other than God that becomes essential to our peace, our self-image, our contentment, our sense of control or our acceptability. Martin Luther said, “A god is that which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have a god is nothing else that to trust and believe him with our whole heart.”

The question we need to answer is what do we place our trust in with our whole heart, where heart indicates our complete self. Anyone or anything other than God where we find ourselves doing that indicates that an idol may be in our midst.

Though we lean on them so much, idols cannot produce anything of value. They have never done anything for us. They cannot make us whole. They cannot heal us. They cannot bring us meaning.

Take some time and consider if there is anything apart from Christ that you are emotionally attached to, that you seek to find meaning or contentment in, or that is essential to your life. If so, you may need to build a fire and burn that idol.

Enjoy this song from Tammy Trent entitled, “I’m Letting Go”.

I’m laying down my burdens
I’m laying down my pain
Every care and worry that is written in this face
I’m letting go
I’m letting go

I’m laying down rebellion
I’m laying down my pride
All the broken promises within this broken life
I’m letting go
I’m letting go

Holding nothing back from You
Ready to do all the things You call me to
Holy hands are reaching up to You
I surrender
I surrender
I’m letting go

I’m pulling down the image
The idols I let stand
I’m holding to the hope that sure they’re resting in Your hands
I’m letting go
I’m letting go

I’m bowing in Your presence
Poured out before Your throne
To be a living sacrifice and follow You alone
I’m letting go
I’m letting go

Holding nothing back from You
Ready to do all the things You call me to
Holy hands are reaching up to You
I surrender, here I stand
I surrender, all I am
I surrender, my heart sings
I surrender

Holding nothing back from You
Ready to do all the things You call me to
Holy hands are reaching up to You
I surrender
I surrender
I’m letting go
I’m letting go

Justification Part One

There is a lot of discussion now about the idea of justification in the scriptures, particularly in the Pauline texts. Recently I’ve read some newer books on the topic and want to share the ideas of these books with you. What I hope is that we can have a honest discussion on the topic over the next few months. I will make a post each Thursday regarding this topic and other topics that relate to it.

I will begin the discussion with Michael J. Gorman’s thoughts, particularly from his latest book, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology. Dr. Gorman is professor of Sacred Scripture and Dean of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland—a United Methodist in a Catholic institution with strong ecumenical commitments.  He received the M.Div. and the Ph.D. cum laude in New Testament from Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, where he was also a teaching fellow in New Testament and an instructor in New Testament Greek. Dr. Gorman is a New Testament scholar who specializes especially in the letters, theology, and spirituality of the apostle Paul.

Dr. Gorman’s particular understanding looks not only at the idea of justification, but also the theological concepts of Theosis, Faith, Kenosis, Cruciformity, and Co-Crucifixion. Gorman begins with an idea and then expands it as he builds his case.

Gorman suggests that for Paul, there is one soteriological model: justification is by crucifixion, specifically co-crucifixion which is understood as the participation in Christ’s act of covenant fulfillment. This is not a new interpretation of justification as a doctrine but rather of justification in Paul. This idea is taken from a close reading of Gal. 2:15-21 and Rom 6:1-7:6 along with several other Pauline texts. A close reading from these texts reveals that the apostle understands faith as co-crucifixion and “justification by faith” as new life/resurrection via crucifixion with the Messiah. It is inherently participatory.

Justification by co-crucifixion, then, means “restoration to right covenant relations with God and others by participation in Christ’s quintessential covenant act of faith and love on the cross: this one act fulfilled both the ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ requirements of the Law, such that those who participate in it experience the same life-giving fulfillment of the Law and therein being the paradoxical, christologically grounded process of resurrection through death.” (45) The person has been initiated into the process of conformity to the crucified Christ who is the image of God, a process of theoformity or theosis (which we will discuss at a later point).

Justification and the Covenant Law

The first aspect of justification that needs to be considered is the Law. The Law requires both vertical and horizontal covenant keeping (love of God and others) for humanity to experience present and/or eschatological life.

For Gorman, the human problem as Paul sees it is multi-faceted. There is the issue of Sin (singular), a power from which people need liberation or redemption as well as sins (plural) for which people need forgiveness.

In Romans 1:18 Paul refers to two basic categories of sin. The first is asebeia and adikia, impiety and injustice, sins against God and sins against fellow humans. These roughly correspond to idolatry and immorality. This is also evident from 1 Corinthians, where he uses the command “flee” two times, once in regard to immorality (1 Cor. 6:18) and once in regard to idolatry (1 Cor 10:14). Additionally, “these terms summarize the concerns of 1 Corinthians 10 where Paul draws upon the golden calf narrative to describe the basic existential issues facing human failure, idolatry and immorality.” (51)

The reality of sins (plural) for Paul requires a sacrifice that effects forgiveness. Paul believes the problem of Sin (singular) and sins (plural) lies with the internalization of the covenant through the circumcision of the heart and the gift of the empowering Spirit (Rom 2:25-29; 8:1-8). Justification then, must include forgiveness, but be more than forgiveness. It must be a reversal of Romans 1, of human asebeia and adikia. There “can be no justification without transformation.” (51) The justified, then “are those who have begun the process of replacing asebeia and adikia with pistis and dikaiosyne/agape by the power of the Spirit, thus fulfilling the two tables of the Law” (51)

What then is justification for Paul? Justification is the establishment or restoration of right covenant relations, both “vertical” or theological (toward God) and inseparably, “horizontal” or social (towards others) “with the certain hope of ultimate vindication and glory, all understood in light of, and experienced through, Christ and the Spirit” (53). This is what Paul most frequently calls “pistis” and “agape“. (53)

The language of justification is drawn from several interlocking realms:

1. theological – referring to the divine character – God is just

2. covenantal – referring tot he moral obligations associated with a communal, covenant relationship with God – God requires justice

3. legal – referring to juridical images of God as judge – God judges and pardons

4. eschatological – referring to future judgment and salvation – God will judge and grant approval and life (or condemnation and death) on the day of the Lord. (54)

For Paul then, “justification is not merely or even primarily juridical or judicial – the image of a divine judge announcing pardon or acquittal. That is part but only part, of the significance of justification. The judicial image must be understood within a wider covenantal, relational, participatory, and transformative framework.” (55)

We will consider that framework in our next post.

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through me.”

This is a beautiful verse. I have used it more times than I can count in the past two years to talk about truth. Jesus is The Truth. There is none greater. To think of truth in any other way is to think of a lesser truth. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was the highest revelation of God. Truth is found in Christ and through Christ. And it is only found through relationship. Truth is not a proposition, but a relationship. How else do you get to know Truth, Christ, except to be in relationship with Him?

While I enjoy the Truth, I had not spend time on the Way until I read Eugene Peterson’s book,The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way, in 2007. The book is a conversation on how people go about following the way of Jesus (1) It peaked my thoughts and pricked my heart. I found myself falling in love with the Way in a new way.

The way Jesus loves and interacts with the world is personal. It is the incarnation. Flesh and blood. Relational. Particular. Local.

The ways of our Western culture are quite the opposite. It focuses on programs, organizations, and detachment. It honors numbers over names, ideologies over ideas, and abstraction over interaction. (2)

Unfortunately, so many who have embraced the Way and wish to follow the Way have given themselves over to the culture’s way of doing things. The way of Jesus is not a supplement; it is the highest expression of life. To live any other way is to live a lesser life. Just as Jesus is the highest expression of the Truth, He is also the highest expression of the Way. Again, the interaction with the way requires relationship. To fill it with anything else is to at best weaken the Way and at worst abandon the Way.

Culturally, we have moved into the realm of consumeristic capitalism where life is about transactions of devoid of personal interaction. According to Benjamin Barber, there was a time when “a productivistict capitalism prospered by meeting the real needs of real people…Today, however, consumerist capitalism profits only when it can address those whose essential needs have already been satisfied but who have the means to assuage ‘new’ and invented needs…” (3) America has become the most consumer-oriented society in the world according to Juliet B. Schor. (4) Is it any wonder, then, that when 9/11 happened, and President Bush was looking for a metaphor to help us gain a sense of normalcy, he focused on shopping? (5)

This move towards consumerism is a move that results from the loss of our identity and the filling of our felt needs with transactions. Even our most intimate moments relationally, have culturally moved from intimate times of oneness to sexual transactions. We are filling our lives with transactions while our real needs, our deepest needs of emotional health and wholeness are hidden behind a credit card payment.

The transition from the Jesus way to the culture’s way has become the “get me stuff to bring me short-term comfort and keep me from addressing the real needs” way. That is the Western way.

Now the great American invention now has turned the church into a similar consumer enterprise. We have embraced culture’s way, not the Jesus Way.

We Americans have developed a culture of acquisition, an economy that is dependent on wanting more and requiring more. It is about getting our needs met. As a result, we have a huge advertising industry designed to stir up appetites and needs we didn’t even know we had. We are insatiable.

It didn’t take long for some of Christian to develop a way to meet those needs. In doing so, they created consumer-oriented congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and more effective way to get them into our congregations is to identify what they want and offer it to them, satisfy their felt needs and recast the gospel in consumer terms: entertainment, satisfaction, excitement, adventure, problem-solving are some examples. This is the language we Americans grew up on. It is the language we understand. We are the world’s champion consumers so why shouldn’t we have state-of-the-art consumer churches? (6) Church now is about getting my needs met and having a non-boring experience.

Alan Hirsch, in Forgotten Ways, The: Reactivating the Missional Church, argues a similar point. He states,

In the modern and postmodern situation, the church is forced into the role of being little more than a vendor of religious goods and services. And the end-users of the church’s services (namely, us) easily slip into the role of discerning individualistic consumers, devouring the religious goods and services offered by the latest and best vendor. Worship, rather than being entertaining through creatively engaging the hearts and minds of the hearers, now becomes mere entertainment that aims at giving the participants transcendent emotional highs, much like the role of the “feelies” in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where people to the movies merely to get a buzz.

Church growth exponents have explicitly taught us how to market and tailor the product to suit target audiences. They told us to mimic the shopping mall, apply it to church, and create a one-stop shopping experience catering to our every need. In this they were sincere and well intentioned, but they must have been also totally ignorant of the ramifications of their counsel – because in the end the medium has so easily overwhelmed the message. (7)

He goes on to say:

Speaking to the insecurity of the human situation, it was Jesus who said “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But first seek his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things well be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:31-33, emphasis mine). Consumerism is thoroughly pagan. Pagans run after these things. (8)

The way of church is as important as who is behind the church.

In the wilderness setting of Matthew 4, we find the enemy trying to divert Jesus not from the end (or goal) but the way. Satan is not concerned with the end, because the end is not important if the way isn’t followed. In fact, the end is different if the way is not followed. Therefore, he attempts to keep Jesus from following God’s way.

His first temptation is to turn stones into bread. Jesus is hungry and Satan attempts to get Jesus to feed his own need. He urges Jesus to turn the creation into a commodity (stones to bread) and do something productive with it. The idea was that once he meet his own needs, he could then meet the needs of others in the same manner.

The temptation he uses for us it to do the same. We can follow Jesus but use Jesus to meet needs; our own first and then the needs of others. The temptation is “to deal with myself and others first and foremost as consumers. It is the temptation to define life in consumer terms and then devise plans and programs to accomplish them ‘in Jesus’ name.”. (9) We think people need to be entertained so they won’t be in a bored worship gathering so we meet that need by creating a production that rivals many rock concerts. We hope that the show will meet their need for entertainment and when that need is met they can hear Gospel. Or there is a program and organization for every member of the family so they get entertaining environments with good productions so that their needs are met and they can then hear the Gospel. Which leads us into the second temptation.

The second temptation was to jump off the roof of the temple. “The devil wants to use Jesus to dazzle the crowds of people on the street below with a miracle, to put a little excitement into their dull lives. ‘Jump, Jesus – these people will never forget it; it will change their lives…The temptation is to embark on a circus career in miracles. And what could be better than a career in God-miracles, religious miracles, entertaining crowds, supplying ecstasy on demand.” (10) Our temptation is to use Jesus as a commodity for weekend diversions. It is not a relational experience. It is a religious diversion that, for most, is in effect a transaction.

The third temptation was ruling the world. “The devil wants to use Jesus to run the world, take charge of the world…But of course it would have to be in the devil’s terms, a rule conditioned by the unholy if – ‘if you fall down and worship me.’ The devil’s way would necessarily be an imposed, impersonal way. The devil’s way would be absolutely perfect in its functions, but with no personal relations.” (11) The devil, according to Peterson, wants us to use Jesus to run our families, our neighborhoods, our schools and governments efficiently. But there is no love or forgiveness. It is the only way to have a just, peaceful, and prosperous government. Letting people have a voice will just cause problems. (12) So we use the words of Jesus to develop a smooth running organization devoid of the personal touch and spiritual investment. It is a way to achieve our goals of a growing (numerically) organization thinking we are doing great things for God.

What does this consumerism do to the church in America? Large churches are growing, medium-size churches are declining, and smaller churches are struggling. The larger a church grows, the smaller the kingdom grows, because in America, those larger churches are pulling from the smaller churches who cannot offer the same goods and services as the larger churches. The religious consumer, wanting the needs of their family met heads off to the big church where they are busy with activity and have entertainment for all ages. The smaller church suffers, to the point of having to shut down because it cannot sustain itself.

The churches who are surviving are trying to put together the right programs and activities that will attract those religious consumers. They are spending time, money and other resources on buildings and productions so that people will enjoy (or be entertained) by the show that is put on in the church.

But is this real success? The Jesus goal cannot be achieved unless the Jesus way is followed. The end does not justify the means. God’s goal is that we become like Him, conformed to His image and the image of His Son Jesus. The goal is not heaven, the goal is Cruciformity, or conformity to the Cross of Jesus. It happens through Faith, which for Paul was a “total response to obedience to the gospel (Rom 1:5;16:26). It is also…a death experience in which one enters into the experience of Jesus’ crucifixion.” (13) The Jesus Way is a process where God seeks to re-shape and re-form that person into his or her original identity, and to re-fill that person with His original purpose of relationship with God. In embracing the gospel of Christ, a person embarks on a journey out of brokenness and into wholeness that will only be complete as God works to restore all of creation. (14) The Jesus Way does not have as its goal the creation of people looking to have their own needs met. Why then perpetuate the climate of the consumer church in an attempt to see people conformed into the image of God?

Success then is not following the consuming way, but the Jesus way. Maybe our measure of success should be an expression of people being conformed to the image of Christ, obeying the Gospel, and living the crucified life that is an expression of Faith.

Notes

1. The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way, 1

2. Ibid.

3. Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, 9

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid, 41.

6. The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way, 6.

7. Forgotten Ways, The: Reactivating the Missional Church, 110.

8. Ibid.

9. The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way, 30-31.

10. Ibid, 31.

11. Ibid, 33.

12. Ibid.

13. Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology, 80.

14. The Doctrine of Humanity (Contours of Christian Theology), 50.