Against This, I Cannot Fight

I love classical music. It calms me, it always has. So, when my little Q man was born and all he did was SCREAM (okay, unfair...maybe 2% of the time he 'tried' to sleep), I quickly developed a habit of turning on the classical music...for me, really. So, more often then not, if you stop by our house in the middle of the day you will typically hear classical music (and, maybe, me yelling over the top of it...).

However, when I work out, it's a whole different story in music genre. Out goes Bach and in goes Rage Against the Machine; out with Mozart, in with Tool. Out with calm and in with energy. Now, since I've gotten married, my music purchases have reduced to nothing, so I highly depend on others to introduce me to new "work-out-worthy" songs. My brother-in-law left some cd's he had burned in our van, and I took to listening to them. And came across a few songs that I deemed worthy. One in particular caught my ear, so to speak: Jem's "Come on Closer".

This song, simply put, is alluring. It draws you
in. The effervescent high pitched notes play like candy on your musical tongue. You can't help but think that the introductory notes are the same notes that follow fairies around. They are sweet and enticing, "Come closer" they beckon..."come a little bit closer..." And you do. Add in the soft voice of Jem, assuring you that this is fine, this is good, this is what you want, this will make you happy. You are completely drawn in by the siren call.

But if you listen just a bit longer, the song unveils it's more primal undertones...the bass kicks in and, as the listener, you feel the lurking beast. And it's you that is its target. The song is not evidential sweet pixie dust of tinkling fairies looking only out for your benefit and amusement, but the alluring candy path leading Hansel and Gretel to the witch's oven. But you are already in and now the face of the beast has been revealed; however, you are powerless to fight it. It has won. And it doesn't back off, victorious; it remains and waits, lurking about you:
[CONTINUE READING]

Watch Your Language, The Children Are Listening!

This post isn't about what you think it might be ... ;)

My husband shared with me the following excerpt from a post from a blog we like to read, "Free-Range Kids" authored by Lenore Skenazy,

Dear Free-Range Kids: My kids have a children’s bible which says “and Jesus went away.” Kind of destroys one of the central tenets of Christianity.
Yikes! For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son a long vacation? “Judas! What is this ticket to Bermuda for?” The possibilities are pretty endless. — L.

I find Lenore's response to be funny and accurate. More importantly, the one sending the comment to Lenore makes an important point: we destroy one of the primary tenets of the Gospel if we rephrase it. Jesus didn't just 'go away', He died.

But, obviously, someone had some concern about how we should talk about the event of the cross with our children; otherwise, the particular author and publishing company that authored and published such a version of a Children's bible wouldn't have used different language then what we are typically familiar with about the event of the cross.

Still, the post made me wonder: how should we talk about the Cross with our children? Do we need to watch our language and rephrase parts? Or, should we just go ahead and tell them the story? Now, I have no idea how to accurately answer that question; my boys are 4 and 2, and we are just breaking the ice into the deeper things of God, Jesus, and humanity. We have yet to talk about Jesus' death on the cross and what that means. I am not a child psychologist, I couldn't come up with an answer, thus, I turned to the one source I knew would tell me what language I should use about the event of the Cross: "The Jesus Storybook Bible" (the best Children's Bible out there, by far. For another post about this bible, check out Justin Holcomb's post here). Anyway, I'll share here how the "Jesus Storybook Bible" tells the story of Jesus' death (taken from the chapter titled, "The sun stops shining"):

Even though it was midday, a dreadful darkness covered the face of the world. The sun could not shine. The earth trembled and quaked. The great mountains shook. Rocks split in two. Until it seemed that the whole world would break. That creation itself would tear apart.

The full force of the storm of God's fierce anger at sin was coming down. On his own Son. Instead of his people. It was the only way God could destroy sin, and not destroy his children whose hearts were filled with sin.

Then Jesus shouted out in a loud voice, "It is finished!"

And it was. He had done it. Jesus had rescued the whole world.

"Father!" Jesus cried. "I give you my life." And with a great sign he let himself die.

Strange clouds and shadows filled the sky. Purple, orange, black. Like a bruise.

While I believe that there are plenty of words and sights that I should do my best to keep away from my children; the truth of and in the Gospel is not one of them. The author of the Jesus Storybook Bible (Sally Lloyd-Jones) writes in her acknowledgments, "To my parents who first told me The Story, as a four year old..." I want to be that type of parent; the one who tells The Story.

I think it is fine to stop watching my language when I tell the Gospel Story to my children, precisely because they ARE listening.

What's In Your Moral Compass...

Truly could not resist putting up this beauty I saw this morning...



Perfect.

“Wake me up inside…” (part 6): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58) **final**

(iv.1.58.4 cont.) In a final turn, Barth deals with the dependence of the individual on community and the community on individuals; of the Christian on the Church and the Church on the Christian. For, “there cannot be one without the other”. The Holy Spirit assembles and sustains the Church, Christianity, not as a heap of individuals functioning autonomously, but as a collective of confessing persons proclaiming the same truths each cognizant of their individual calls; this is the delicate tension between the “objective ascription” and the “subjective appropriation” of salvation. “Salvation is ascribed to the individual in the existence of the community, and it is appropriated by the community in the existence of the individuals of which is it composed”.*

The work of the Holy Spirit as the basis for community of individuals mirrors the three parts of the doctrine of reconciliation. 1. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the awakening power of the Word (about the atoning work of Jesus Christ as the divine verdict) is the “historical reality of the community”. When the divine verdict is heard by persons, “in their inner fellowship and there arises in their outward assembly a new humanity within the old”. Each person, each Christian is brought into the awareness and acceptance of the divine verdict and they are brought into faith and understanding; however, it is not this that makes up a community. Rather, a community is created by the divine verdict of God, “it is not that they know God, but that they are known by God” and that these persons know and understand God in this way. In its humanity the church is like any other human institution: feeble and weak; yet under the divine verdict and sustained by the power of the Holy Spirit it will never cease to be. 2. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the life-giving power of the Word of God (about the atoning work of Jesus Christ as the divine direction) is the “inner upbuilding of the community”. “When that direction is heard by men, these men are united in a common action, in a common action oriented by a commonly imposed obedience, and, we can and must also say, by a commonly given freedom”. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the church is lifted up, maintained, sustained, grows, and quickened; in light of the divine direction, the members live into this direction (Jesus and the Holy Spirit) and thus to be truly active and alive. 3. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the summoning power of the promise (about the atoning work of Jesus Christ as the divine promise and guarantor) is the power by which individuals are brought into community and sent out as witnesses to the world. “The Holy Spirit is the enlightening, and as the enlightening the summoning power of the divine promise, which points the community beyond itself, which calls it to transcend itself and in that way to be in the truth the community of God” as witnesses to that truth of God. The members can hope in the divine promise and the end in Jesus. By the power of the Holy Spirit, by means of this hope, the Church community is the light unto the world and its members become witnesses of this light.
[CONTINUE READING]

“Wake me up inside…” (part 5c): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

(iv.1.58.4 cont.) *There are three forms to Sin. 1. Sin negates the first form of grace of God: that “God gives Himself to us, He makes Himself responsible for our cause, He takes it into His own hand”. Sin transgresses the great first commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your soul, mind, body, and strength. Sin negates that Jesus, very God, humbled Himself to become human in order to take humanity to Himself; thus, it negates Jesus’ High-priestly office; this is the sin of pride. 2. Sin negates the second form of the grace of God: that “He wills and seeks us as we are, in our creatureliness, as men, that we may be raised to the status of [His] children”. In this second form, sin negates the divine direction and the divine ordering, and elevates humanity in the place of God as true King. Thus, sin negates Jesus’ kingly office; this is the sin of sloth. 3. Sin negates the third form of the grace of God: that “God does not act above our heads, he does not ignore us, but He addresses us and calls us”. In this third form, sin negates the divine promise and lies to humanity that “they know better”. Thus, sin negates Jesus’ prophetic office (as the Guarantor); this is the sin of falsehood.

The reality of sin is true not in the sense of its own autonomous right, but as it is compared (or contrasted) or rather illuminated by the event of the divine “Yes” and “No” that is the event of the Cross. “The reality of sin cannot be known or described except in relation to the One who has vanquished it”. [In plainer words: we do not know we are really sinners until we see what has occurred in the event of the Cross.] Sin confirms Jesus as victor, because Jesus has the final word against it. “…the sinful No of man has been matched and opposed and destroyed by the divine Yes spoken by Jesus Christ even in the sphere of man and the world”. Jesus’ work of atonement is the victory of Jesus over sin. It is the “divine Yes” which has contradicted the “sinful no” of humanity, which is “maintained and fulfilled in the sphere of sinful humanity and sinful world”, and which vindicates “as the first and final word”. This tripartite understanding of reconciliation by Jesus Christ’s atonement lines up with the threefold grace of God (divine verdict, divine direction, and divine promise), the threefold nature of Christ (Jesus as God, Jesus as Man, and Jesus as God-Man), and the threefold being of humanity in Christ (faith/justification, love/sanctification, and hope/calling and teleological goal). In all three there is one common source, one common overlap, one common emphasis: Jesus Christ.

[Jesus] is the One who justifies, sanctifies, and calls. He is the High-Priest, King, and Prophet. In the whole event of atonement, justification, sanctification and calling, as grounded in the divine verdict, direction and promise, have as it were a central function. In them, in the understanding of grace under these concepts, it is still a matter of expounding the being and work of Jesus Christ as the Reconciler of the sinful world and therefore of sinful man with God.

In this tripartite (x³) understanding of reconciliation, humanity is dealing with not only what has occurred objectively in and by Jesus’ atoning work; but also with the subjective appropriation of the grace of God. In this subjective appropriation lie the gift, work, reception, and accomplishment of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s work is grounded in the teleologic orientation of the calling and work of Jesus Christ: as the Guarantor of truth. It is by the work of the Spirit that Christians are differentiated from non-Christians. While all maybe justified, sanctified, and called, not all have this distinguishing mark: that they can hear and see and understand all that and how God is for them, and what their true being is. By the power of the Spirit, sin is made known, need for something outside of the self is made known, hope is made known. “In this special sense Christians and only Christians are converted to him. This is without any merit or cooperation on their part, just as the reconciliation of the whole world in Jesus Christ is without its merit or co-operation”. By the power of the Holy Spirit and the work of Christ in the atonement the objective reality of humanity acquires a subjective reality. “[T]he same One and All is now in the eyes and ears and hearts, in the existence of these men, Christians, who are specially taken and determined by His Holy Spirit”. The Holy Spirit is by whom the whole of Christianity and all Christians exist.

*This is the second to last entry...and there was great rejoicing! :D

“Wake me up inside…” (part 5b): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

(iv.1.58.4 cont.) In the doctrine of reconciliation humanity is not only confronted with the positive side of the truths in Jesus Christ, but also the negative side of the truth of sin in the world initiated by humanity and its victim. By Jesus’ atoning work, God reconciles covenant breaking humanity to Himself by Himself. Consequently, the doctrine of sin is dealt with simultaneously and in conjunction to the doctrine of reconciliation. It is not of its own ontological identity as something that “exist[s] in and for itself” as a part of God’s creation; rather it is alien to the world (Rom. 5:12) and “exists and is in opposition to the will of God and therefore in opposition to the being and destiny of His creature”. Where God creates, sin destroys; where God says “yes”, sin says “no”; where God judges, sin serves. “In all its forms it exists and is only as that which negates and therefore as that which is itself negated, on the left hand of God, where God is saying Yes has already said No, where in electing He has rejected, where in willing He has not willed”. Sin is evil but it is also breaking the covenant and contradicting God, the rejection of the grace of God and therein the command to cling and the direction given; thus, sin is the denial of humanity’s true humanity.


Neither natural law nor a general idea of humanity can expose that humanity sins and transgresses and breaks the covenant with God. This fact and state can only be exposed by the Cross. The cross is the divine “Yes” to humanity in which lies the divine “No” to sin. The cross is the penultimate event that reveals humanity’s sinfulness. The Law fails to bring one to their complete understanding of their sinfulness, it is only by the Cross that one can be made perfectly aware of their transgressions against God and His covenant. Thus, the cross is The Law fulfilled, fully functioning in the way that the law was intended to do; the Cross is Law and Gospel. “It is in the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the revelation of the grace of God that we shall necessarily perceive step by step both the fact that man is a transgressor and the nature of the transgression in which the contradicts the grace of God and for the sake of which he is decisively contradicted by that grace”. Barth’s understanding of the cross as Law does not fully contradict Luther. While, yes, in Luther there is a stronger dichotomy between Law and Gospel, it is impossible to say that one can cleanly go through the bible and mark off “law” and “gospel” (cf. JDK’s Post here). There is room for an understanding that to some the Cross can be law: for it rejects the transgressor and causes condemnation but it also accepts the person. The Cross does illuminate our need and emphasizes our terrible state apart from it. Where Barth will differ from Luther in this regard is that Barth identifies the law with the earthly Jesus who is the paradigm of God’s holiness, rather than, as Luther does, identify the law with the Old Testament Law.*

*This was part of a critique offered to me by my professor for the class I wrote the paper for. Also, as a side note, my contention with Barth over Law/Gospel is that he doesn’t maintain the dichotomy between the two well enough; thus, the one could be confused for the other.

White as Snow...

The following is a piece I did for my school's Advent Devotional. It is based off of the readings for this past Monday (according to the 1979 BCP), specifically Isaiah 1:10-20.

Isaiah’s words are a fitting opening for this season of Advent. In the first nine verses of chapter 1, Isaiah describes the rebellion and iniquity of God’s chosen people; they have not only strayed, they have rejected their God the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and His commandments (v.4). Isaiah (vv. 10-15) describes the disgust God has over their many sacrifices, vain offerings, feasts. As a result, God turns from His people: “when you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood” (v.15). God, as Judge, has delivered the divine verdict to the people: guilty.

But this is not the final word. Isaiah does not stop there at that word of death. “…though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” (v18 b). Among great transgressions, God assures His people through Isaiah: it’s not over, this isn’t the final word; there’s one more word to be spoken: the divine promise, the word of life. This word of life, this divine promise is Jesus Christ: the Incarnate God—the promised Suffering Servant (Is. 53)—Redeemer of the world. Jesus is the Word made Flesh (John 1:1-14) who will (by His life, death, resurrection, and ascension) be the perfect propitiation for the sins of the world, and evoke the very repentance commanded by God (vs. 16-17, 19-20; cf. also 1:27-28); through Him sins are atoned for, “though they are like scarlet, they shall be made white as snow” (v.18b).

Let us, during Advent, wait with Isaiah’s audience, knowing our guilt yet brimming with expectant hope at the fulfillment of the divine promise; let us watch with eager eyes for the birth of Jesus, the Word of Life.

Lord, as we enter into this season of Advent, press upon our hearts the gravity of our transgressions And drive us, Lord, to Your unfaltering promise with full and expectant hearts. Prepare our hearts to rejoice in the Word of Life: Your Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The Unconditional Love... of Rats

Pastis gets it...well, sort of. Rat decides that he needs to get unconditional love from others. However, as Goat rightly points out, Rat cannot simply command others to unconditionally love him; that is very true. To say that one will offer unconditional love hinged on some sort of condition prior to giving that unconditional love, is, boldly, conditional love. And, as Goat states, "...no right thinking person is going to offer unconditional love to someone whose love is conditional". To have someone unconditionally love you, there can be absolutely no conditions. Goat is simply wise to point this out to Rat.

But here is the 'sort of' (if you will): the error is that true unconditional love expects nothing in return; this is what Paul Zahl calls: one-way love. One. Way. Not two ways. One-way love is freely given; it is offered apart from any hinging request or desire. There is no 'or else' or 'and' to one-way love. It is simply one-way, and it is relentless. One-way love stands firm because it expects nothing back. One-way love is not turning a blind eye to faults and failures, but the overarching and over-reaching statement that cuts through those faults and failures and declares us to be lovable when we, frankly, are not. This love declares yes, when everything else declares no. One way love is Gospel love, the love of God, the love demonstrated by the Cross.

And yes, we do love because we have first been loved (1 John 4:19). Yet, it is because that love, which loves us, is one-way, no-strings-attached, carrying with it no expectations; that is the love that causes us to love back (and to love others).

“Wake me up inside…” (part 5a): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

iv.1.58.4 Barth works out the threefold form of the Christological aspect of the doctrine of the reconciliation*. In and by Jesus, humanity is confronted with God. In Jesus, God—by becoming man—actively intervenes and takes up His cause—the covenant—“with and against and for man”. Jesus “is the authentic revealer of God as Himself God”. By Jesus one understands the Godhead because Jesus defines it and it does not define Jesus. “[Jesus] is God as he takes part in the event which constitutes the divine being” and He does this by becoming man. In this becoming man, God freely wills to condescend and bind and humiliate Himself in becoming like His creatures who are bound and takes them to Himself and takes upon Himself their penalty and judgment. “That is the nature and essence of the true God as He has intervened actively and manifestly in Jesus Christ”.

In the second form of the Christology of Jesus, humanity is confronted with God as Man, as human man. As a man, Jesus as God is subjected to the limitations as all humans are limited. He suffers as humans suffer. Just as He is fully God he is also fully Man (not part and part to create a whole). He is truly God as He is truly human and thus the triune God’s glory is in His humiliation. Yet, Jesus is a different human than we are, in that in His humanity He is the glory of God, and, thus, can be our mediator; but this must not be taken to consider Jesus as not fully human as we are: He is in complete equity with us. “To say man is to say creature and sin, and this means limitation and suffering. Both these have to be said of Jesus Christ…in correspondence with His true manhood”. His manhood is defined by Him, and Him alone. It is by His manhood that one knows true manhood: marked by suffering and limitation, yet exalted as the Godhead is humiliated. Jesus is fully God and fully man—two natures not two states—in His entire existence and the humiliation removes nothing and the exaltation adds nothing to Jesus Christ.

In Him it took place that while maintaining His true deity God became man, in Him to make His own the cause of man. In Him God Himself humiliated Himself—not in any disloyalty but in a supreme loyalty to His divine being (revealing it in a way which marks it off from all other gods). That is the secret of Christmas and Good Friday and the way which leads from the one to the other.

[CONTINUE READING]

“Wake me up inside…” (part 4): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

iv.1.58.3 In the short (!!) third section of section 58, Barth continues by discussing the “middle” point—“which both differentiates and comprehends [reconciliation]”—between looking up toward the reconciling grace (part 1) and down to the being of man in reconciliation (part 2): the atonement made in and by Jesus Christ. The atonement is “…the middle point the one thing from which neither the God who turns to man nor man converted to God can be abstracted, in which and by which both are what they are, in which and to which they stand in that mutual relationship”. That middle point is Jesus Christ; in Him and by His atoning work, God is turned toward humanity and humanity is converted to God: without Christ, there is no reconciliation, for both turning and converting are dependent on Him and His work. “[Jesus Christ] exists as the mediator between God and man in the sense that in Him God’s reconciling of man and man’s reconciliation with God are event”. Jesus functions in this role as the middle point, as the Mediator in a “comprehensive whole” neither his divinity nor his humanity out weighing the other . In reconciliation by Jesus, humanity is confronted with Jesus as Man, as God, and as the God-Man. With this Jesus, in this proposed three-foldness of Jesus, Barth will demonstrate how reconciliation has a threefold office and how all three offices must be held together to form the whole of who Jesus is as the middle point of reconciliation as the mediator (in part 4).

“Wake me up inside…” (part 3c): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

(iv.1.58.2 cont.) * Thirdly, Hope: The tertiary form of the being of humanity in Jesus Christ is “the positing and equipping of man as the bearer of the divine promise”, which constitutes Christian hope. And it is Christian hope which is the teleological** determination for humanity and the Christian in Christ. Christian hope is more than Christian vocation (the traditional protestant/Lutheran understanding of the result of justification and sanctification), it is the moment that the person is given the promise of God in Jesus Christ. The person is called along side their justification and sanctification, and thus given true hope, “…this being as such is a being under the promise, that the reality of the salvation given to man is as such the gift of this promise, that the Christian affirmation and appropriation of the divine gift is as such hope based upon and directed to this promise”.

However, this third form is not an end in itself, but only a beginning. In conjunction with faith and love, Christian hope signifies the teleological direction of the person in Christ: it is a looking forward to the activity of God (the promise). Justification (looking back to God’s activity in the divine verdict, faith) and sanctification (seeing God’s activity as present, love) have a teleological determination that is oriented toward the promise, hope (though hope is not an end in itself). “…it is in fact the case that the being of man in Jesus Christ is a being not merely in possession and action but also in expectation”, it is not only that God has made something of the person in Jesus Christ nor that He has caused them to walk before Him, but that He also “wills to make something of him, He has for him a purpose, an end”. [This purpose does not need to be found; it is realized in Christ, because Christ is our teleological ordering.] And it is this purpose and this end that is the promise of God. In to this promise of God, the Christian is “called”. Thus “calling” is part of Christian hope and part of the reconciliation of humanity to God.

But what is the “end” to which Christian hope/calling directs the person? It is toward the “actualization and preservation of the fellowship between God and himself established in the fulfillment of the covenant”. In other words, it is directed toward “eternal life”, to their “actual future with God”. But “with God” does not mean merged into or becoming like God; rather it is being fully human with God. The teleological end must coincide with the activity of God. Since God is the active ruler and humanity are those who were created to worship Him, to serve Him, to adore Him, the teleological end encompasses this as its foundation of the relationship, “To live under Him in His kingdom and to serve Him: it is here that all rest and joy and contemplation and adoration in the eternal life promised to man have their meaning and basis. It is the calling to this which is the telos of justification and sanctification”. The teleological end of humanity in Christ will not obliterate humanity’s creatureliness, but rather perfect it. The promise points to the end which will be the fulfilled relationship between humanity and God, where humanity will be an active subject in that relationship and fellowship with God (as a faithful worshiper (etc.)) of God, “a being in man’s own free responsibility with God for the cause of God”. Christians under the promise of the teleological end in Christ with God are the bearers of true hope: hope not only for their own futures, but the future of the whole world. The fulfillment of this teleological end will always be God’s activity toward us and not of our own. While we move toward this teleological end in the present, it is not by our ability or what we offer to God, but by the direction of the promise and the power of the Holy Spirit. The event of this promise and direction toward the teleological end is a permanent event (as are the divine verdict and direction).
[CONTINUE READING]

“Wake me up inside…” (part 3b): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

(iv.1.58.2 cont.) Secondly, Love: In love, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian is placed under and accepts the divine direction. The divine direction is the directing of humanity into freedom: by eliminating the old humanity and bringing to life the new humanity, humanity has peace with God, and, thus, is directed toward the kingdom of God. In the atoning work of Jesus in the act of reconciliation, humanity is told first, who they are and are not, and, second, “where we belong, where we have to be and live”. This being under and accepting of the divine direction is not synonymous to “obedience to the law”, because this term and its ilk “so easily give the impression of something which has not been already done, which has still to be done by the decisions and act which are demanded of man himself”. While there is “activity” required of the person in Christ as a new being and with a new direction, that person already exists in the kingdom of peace with God; thus, the person follows and confirms what has already been accomplished by God, accepts that they begin and end in this place, they “choose what has already been chosen and actualized”. This kingdom is the true kingdom of ends, ends not in themselves but in another, Jesus Christ (Contra Kant). In this kingdom we are directed outward (passionately, out of gratitude) toward another in whom (only) we have life and direction. Maybe Kant was not completely wrong, had he shifted his subject from us to Jesus he may have been right, for it is only Jesus who is the means and the ends in himself; to assign to humanity this trait is to deify (negatively) humanity and negate God. “…because it is in him that we are really free, He is Himself our direction, our guiding into freedom, our awakening to life in that freedom, our guidance to make use of it, our lord and King, and therefore in this sense too our reconciliation with God, the One who fulfills our conversion to Him”.

This process of being placed under the divine direction is typically understood as Sanctification. “Sanctification is the claiming of all human life and being and activity by the will of God for the active fulfillment of that will”. Sanctification cannot be separated from justification as if one could self-sanctify in order to fulfill one’s justification. Thus, sanctification and justification are found in the same source: Jesus Christ. It is only in Jesus Christ and being placed under the divine verdict and accepting the divine direction that one can take steps, do good works, even having a Christian ethic, all of it must bare witness to the atonement by Jesus Christ (not by man); none of it is sourced within us but within He who has already accomplished and chosen it. And just as faith is the proper response to God’s justifying action in Jesus Christ’s atoning work, love is the proper response to being put under and accepting the divine direction. Following justification and seeing and hearing and believing the negative and positive meaning and content of the divine verdict, the Christian, in the process of sanctification, is directed toward the one who does this reconciliation on their behalf, toward the one who passionately first sought after them, and is moved to great gratitude and love for the one who has done this.

"In general terms Christian love is the active human recognition of this proof of the love of God. It recognizes it by following it, imitating it, modeling itself upon it. It is the attitude in which man gives himself to reflect the divine attitude. That he can do this, that he can love, is his sanctification, his breathing and living in the place and atmosphere of freedom, his keeping of the covenant as a faithful partner. That he can love is the work of the Holy Spirit which makes man a Christian.”

[CONTINUE READING]

When Disbelief Yields....

This song isn't a hard one to figure out. When it's your heart that is broken, when you are the one who receives the loss, you bear the bulk of the burden of sorrow. While the other persons seems to be just fine, you are in pieces, 'still alive...but...barely breathing'. In this sorrow, in this 'barely breathing' you are pushed to desperation; the pain and heartache is too much...you will do anything because you are desperate: you may just pray to a god you have never believed in.

"I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing
Just prayed to a god that I don't believe in
Coz I got time while she got freedom
Coz when a heart breaks no it don't break even"

And this is why I love this song: because it perfectly captures that very desperate spot we are all in apart from Christ and His Cross. We come broken, weary, worn-out, starving, thirsty...desperate to His Cross. Our hands are empty and are hearts are broken, we offer nothing but our pain and failures. We are barely alive and barely breathing. We come not of our own volition, but because we have no where else to go, no where else to turn. We are pushed to the very edge of ourselves. On that edge, in that moment, the only thing we can do is pray. On that edge, in that moment disbelief yields to something much more substantial: hope.

“Wake me up inside…” (part 3): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

(iv.1.58.2) Barth continues by discussing ‘The Being of [Humanity] in Jesus Christ”. If being is found only in reconciliation through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, then Christians represent being in humanity. Therefore, to speak of Christians we can only speak of them in Jesus Christ because they only exist in Him. In this their “peculiar being”—being beings in Jesus Christ—Christians reflect the reconciliation between God and humanity and stand as the representatives of this reconciliation and being therein. Others, though they may be inheritors of the work of Christ, are not representatives in their existence because they lack obedience to the Holy Spirit, open ears and eyes, experience and knowledge of reconciliation by atonement and the new directional change, and their confession of Jesus Christ.

[This is a rather complicated way to say: everyone exists and is in and outside of Christ; but, true humanity is only found in reconciliation through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, therefore Christians represent true humanity. Barth’s if-then logic here is simple. The complication lies in the insinuation that outside of Christ, others do not exist, which is what he is not saying. Rather, using Eberhard Jüngel, those outside of Christ live a sham or false existence.] Thus, to discuss what it means to be a being of [true] humanity we can only truly speak of the Christian.

The being of humanity in Jesus Christ has three aspects: faith, love, and hope. Firstly, Faith: In faith the Christian, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, subjects themselves* to the verdict proclaimed by God: they affirm, acknowledge, and accept the verdict. This verdict has both a negative and positive meaning and content. In the negative, the verdict “disowns and renounces”. The old being is the thing that is renounced and disowned by the verdict of God. This old man has ceased to be. God “could not, and would not, tolerate and have him any longer. He could and would only do away with him”. By this divine word, the existence of the being as a sinner and transgressor are put behind them, the person will not be this transgressor ever again. [Meaning, this person will not be known/defined as this transgressor.] This divine word is “forgiveness”, which designates not God’s change in disposition toward humanity, but rather the radical acknowledgement of the judgment of humanity’s rejection by God in its transgressions. The old being is fully and completely rejected and has no future. By being a Christian, one subjects themselves and affirms this negative meaning and content of the divine verdict.

The positive meaning and content of the divine verdict is the verdict “which recognizes and accepts”, “it declares that God receives man, and that man in accordance with his election and institution as a covenant-partner—can confess himself a faithful servant of God, His recognized friend and well-loved child”. And this, like the negative content and meaning of the verdict, is executed once and for all, neither to be reversed nor repeated. In reconciliation by the atoning work of Jesus Christ the new being has a future only as the righteous one of God in Jesus Christ. Humanity, in Jesus Christ, is affirmed and accepted in their possibility (righteousness) over their actuality (transgressions); and in Jesus Christ and by his atoning work in reconciliation, the possibility of humanity takes on actuality: this event actually happens [it is true] and it is for real and is forever.
 

*It is important to note that this ‘subjection’ is not to be seen as cooperation with the Spirit (which we will investigate later in the series); rather, it’s the necessary response when your eyes see and your ears hear the truth of the Gospel message.

Last two photos taken by a good friend Josiah Miller (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jomiller613/).

Nachofication

Since we love all things "justification" ...



I'm a firm believer in "justnachofication" (HT Tina Locket).

“Wake me up inside…” (part 2c): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

(iv.1.58.1 cont.) In this movement and declaration of reconciliation through the atonement through Jesus Christ, God does not merely “proffer” a possibility, but actually seizes us and turns us back to Him. In this movement and declaration of reconciliation through the atonement through Jesus Christ, we deal with the fulfilled covenant. In Him, the breach is healed, humanity’s being against God is altered, and the offense and misery of humanity is removed. In Him, humanity is the faithful covenant partner and the one brought to glory by God to demonstrate His glory. In reconciliation, humanity is brought out of nothingness (being apart from the Grace of God) by the fact that God is everything, and brought into everything-ness “in his own place, on his own level and within his own limits”. In the atonement of Jesus Christ, humanity is newly created into a subject confronted by God who freely makes Himself the divine object.

“In Him a new human subject was introduced, the true man beside and outside whom God does not know any other, beside and outside whom there is no other, beside and outside whom the other being of man, that old being which still continues to break the covenant, can only be a lie, an absurd self-deception, a shadow moving on the wall—the being of that man who has been long since superseded and replaced and who can only imagine that he is man, while in reality he is absolutely nothing. Yes, the atonement is the filling of this abyss of nothing, of human perdition. And it is by the abyss of divine mercy that that other abyss is filled. It is this pure divine mercy which fills the abyss, the mercy which we have to recognize and adore in this act of God, the mercy which we have to seek a fresh every morning, the mercy for which we can only ask and reach out as beggars, the mercy in relation to which we can only be recipients. By the grace of God, therefore, man is not nothing. He is God’s man.”

[CONTINUE READING]

“Wake me up inside…” (part 2b): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

(iv.1.58.1 cont.) Reconciliation is truly God’s activity alone. There is no cooperation between humanity and God; God is the one who crosses the “abyss” distancing them. God “gives himself to him* as his God, as the One who did not and will not cease to be his God, the God of sinful and carnal man”. Reconciliation is the fact that the distance has been crossed once and for all; and in this initiation by God humanity “finds himself accused… humbled … judged by his God, but also and primarily received by Him and reclaimed as His possession and hidden in Him and sustained by Him and addressed and treated as His friend and indeed His child”. By the grace of God and His activity and declaration toward us—“grounded in itself and [being] known only by itself”—and the atonement which has taken place, and the covenant that has been re-established by God, humanity can have peace with God.

The whole of reconciliation is completely dependent on God’s activity and not on what humanity did, do, or will do; it comes to humanity from above independent of what occurs below. “When man is asked concerning his righteousness or holiness of truth, he can only point to this utter lack of all these things and then at once point away from himself…to Jesus Christ”. In God’s movement toward humanity and humanity’s recognition of their pitiful state and need for reconciliation by something outside of themselves (revealed to them and encouraged to confess by the Holy Spirit), lie the roots of faith, love, and hope.


“Christian obedience consists in this, and its joy and certainty rest and renew themselves on this: that by the grace of God this is the relationship of God with man” (emphasis mine). And this grace is the one grace of God, the one, complete—subjectively and “divine objectivity”—Grace of God that is given to needy, receiving humanity as a free gift of God’s free will and choice to initiate through reconciliation by the atonement made through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “…[Humanity] is and remains always a recipient, a state in which he not only does not cease but can never do more than begin (and he will always be a beginner) to beg and to reach out for it in his poverty , in order that in that poverty he may be rich”. Humanity cannot cling to grace and say “mine” using it as an objective stepping stone to move off from; rather, humanity clings to God in desperate need and receives His complete Grace as the basis and source for its entire existence.

* Barth uses the male pronouns to talk about "humanity". When I am summarizing Barth in my own words, I will use "humanity". However, when I quoted Barth, I chose to keep the male pronouns to prevent the quotes from becoming unruly with brackets and, thus, impeding reading.

“Wake me up inside…” (part 2a): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

(iv.1.58.1)*: Barth begins by discussing the “Grace of God in Jesus Christ.” Barth explains that reconciliation offered to us by Jesus Christ is the “fulfillment of the covenant of grace, as in the covenant of grace itself, we have to do with a free act of the grace of God”. God is not bound to what has gone before, thus, in reconciliation He makes a “new start” because He is the “free subject” of the reconciliation. In the act of reconciliation “[God] acts to maintain and defend His own glory”. God is not forced by any external factor to maintain and defend His glory in this specific way; he is unconstrained to act in this fashion. While God could—in all senses of right—have left humanity in their sinful filth and regarded the covenant as broken and invalidated, He does not. It is purely His will to reconcile humanity through Jesus, it is His undetermined choice to continue the covenant with humanity. It is in this free, unbound choice of God that humanity has the assurance of its permanence, “They will see the connexions and in them they will find the constancy of God, the divine will which is preconceived and unalterable and which is therefore necessary and triumphant in this happening”. Through this free choice and God’s free will, by its eternal and inflexible nature, God’s grace is made manifest and God’s glory defended, which is His mercy. By the atonement and, thus the reconciliation of humanity to Himself, God demonstrates that He is a God of grace and mercy. Essentially, atonement by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is God’s pure speech-act, a declaration that He is not any other god, but the One God, this very God who is of this kind.

The atonement is the starting point for knowledge about God, humanity, and what sin is, “[it] is the place and the only place from which as Christians we can think forwards and backwards…It is here that Christian preaching and instruction and pastoral care and dogmatics and ethics can begin with their own Yes and No, their pro and contra” (italics Barth). As an event that has happened, that is eternal and inflexible it never becomes incapable of being our starting point, “our knowledge can never get beyond it”. In the atonement we are faced with the eternal and inflexible (and gracious) command: “to realize fearlessly and indefatigably in all its aspects the possibility of life and knowledge given us with the atonement made in Jesus Christ”. All of our knowledge grows forth from this event and we are encouraged and directed in this way in all our knowing. There is no other starting point or fount of knowledge. We cannot change our axiom from the atonement to something else; thus, Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” is a blind and audacious attempt to escape the reality of the atonement as the essential starting point. Essentially, Descartes is wrong; one cannot know themselves from within them but only from the eternal, inflexible, sovereign event outside of oneself on one’s behalf. So, we should say, “Jesus is the perfect propitiation for my sins, therefore I am” or “He acts and declares sovereignly, therefore He is, therefore I am.” In God’s sovereign action and declaration of the atonement, He is the one who crosses the distance between humanity and Him. By the atonement, God’s being is made manifest by His activity.

…the one who constantly surpasses himself in His constancy and faithfulness, and does everything in order, who could not be more powerfully holy and righteous than when by His Word and in His Son He calls us who are His enemies His children, when He causes us to be His children because in His freedom to do that He is truly the Lord. Reconciliation is God’s crossing the frontier to man: supremely legitimate and yet supremely inconceivable—or conceivable only in the fact of His act of power and love.

In Decartes’ formula—having our starting point as ourselves “I” and our activity “Think” directed back toward ourselves “therefore I am”—causes humanity to be stuck in an isolated and vicious cycle within ourselves, reducing our being to a temporal and flexible event alienated from God’s grace and mercy. Our thinking does not make anything concrete, but God’s sovereign declaration and activity is truly creative and permanent (“God said, let there be light and there was light” (Gen 1: 3)). In reconciliation, in the atonement, we come face to face with God and hear the declarative word and see His self-determined action of grace and mercy; and we are drawn out of ourselves to Him and we become: justified, lovable, His forever.


*The reference iv.1.58.1 is the standard way when referring to Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. It is short hand for: volume four, part one, section 58, part one (!!!). The fourth volume of Church Dogmatics is The Doctrine of Reconciliation, and this series is based on a section within the first part of that volume. Also, I've removed page numbers for ease of reading, if you would like to see where I've pulled quotes or how I've used my words to explain what Barth is saying, please do not hesitate in asking me for them.

“Wake me up inside…” (part 1): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation is the crescendo of the symphony that is his Church Dogmatics. Specifically, in this small (!) section (iv.1.58), one can begin to see how Barth is going to pull his entire theology together through the one moment, the one solitary and essential event of the atonement. He has woven together the previous three doctrines into this one doctrine of Reconciliation. IV.1.58 presents Barth at his absolute Christological best (and at his most un-universalistic). Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation not only emphasizes the triunity of God, but demonstrates how that triunity is expressed in God’s Grace toward humanity, in the being of humanity in Christ, in Jesus, in sin, and in individuality and community. Everything outside of the divine verdict, divine direction, divine promise, outside of faith, love, and hope, outside of Jesus as God, as Man, as God-Man, according to Barth, ceases and is negated; outside of Christ, humanity ceases to be humanity and becomes nothing (we’ll tease this out later). Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation puts fire into the desperate and needy sinner’s heart that burns so passionately, that they (I) can’t help but cry out,

“Save me from the nothing I’ve become!” This series is a mere attempt at summarizing what Barth said in this one section (iv.1.58), while communicating the same passion Barth communicates to his reader. This series will be an interaction with Barth’s train of thought and attempting to see the ways he links together the different parts as he does. In this series, I will simultaneously summarize and interact with Barth’s material and only Barth’s material (as in, I’m not incorporating those who have written on Barth); this is just Barth.

The Gospel According to Pixar: Cars

The following post is another preview of the recent Mockingbird publication: The Gospel According to Pixar. To purchase your copy go here.

General Plot: Lightening McQueen is the new rookie race car on the block that is stealing headlines with every race. He’s super fast and he knows it. He’s a one man show and vocalizes it. When his pit crew ditches him, he doesn’t care…He’s headed to California to race the final race (between the King--the current Dinoco Spokescar--and Chick) to decide who will win the treasured Piston Cup and become Dinoco’s new spokescar. But on his way to California and a following a string of unfortunate events, Lightening McQueen finds himself on a barren stretch of road in a little town, Radiator Springs. In the midst of this misfit community, of eccentric cars--who do not know or care who Lightening McQueen is--Lightening McQueen will come to experience community and, thus, love, like he never could before being an island of one. The local Judge, Doctor, and former hot-shot race-car, Doc Hudson (aka The Hudson Hornet) will be swept up in McQueen’s experience; McQueen will force Doc to face his past, which remains desperately hidden, and encourages him out of hiding into community. This community and this love will significantly alter the way McQueen (and Doc) see life…to the point of sacrifice.

Gospel Plot:

“Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored.
There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don’t.
Because, sometimes they won’t.
I’m afraid that some times
you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win
‘cause you’ll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you’ll be quite a lot”
Dr. Seuss, Oh The Places You’ll Go.

Dr. Seuss is right, alone is something we are quite a lot. We have all been alone. Like Lightening McQueen, we’ve either isolated ourselves intentionally by alienating others on our way to the top; or, unintentionally, like Doc Hudson, by keeping others at a distance, safeguarding our past failures and our present brokenness. Our plans succeed and we are abandoned, left alone, isolated by those who were once close to us; until…

Until something else happens, something meets us from outside of ourselves; even when we are trying like to heck to avoid this very thing.

Eventually we “break down” (McQueen) or we become “found out” (Doc). Being alone is not the final word. At that very intersection of success and brokenness, stands the message of one-way love. At that intersection stands the Cross. McQueen is not left alone, lonely at the top. Doc is not left isolated by his past failures. Something outside of both McQueen and Doc draws them out of themselves; and, thus, into community. Someone loves them by no merit of their own. Mater loves lightening McQueen for absolutely no reason but “just because”. This is one-way love. As Mater’s one-way love flows into McQueen, McQueen can finally love someone else beside himself (Sally, for example). When love is poured in, love pours out. McQueen renovates the town for Sally as a gift, but only after Mater loves him and calls McQueen his “best friend”. The entire band of misfits in Radiator Springs embraces McQueen, and McQueen in turn—against everything that McQueen had stood for—embraces them. And, in light of this one-way love, Doc is affected. Doc is confronted by McQueen and is drawn out of reclusion and back into community (and the spotlight!). McQueen and Doc have true friends and a true family that love them for no reason; and it’s a love that is neither merited by achievements nor conditioned by failures. Mater, Ramon, Flo, Sally, Guido, Luigi, Big Red (etc) love them “just because”, no strings attached.

The Cross: As with many Pixar movies it is not only about giving the audience a warm and fuzzy feeling at the end of the movie and some sort of implausible mandate: Now Go Love! Pixar never leaves us with a feel-good un-substantial ending. Nearly always, there’s one more scene to be played. One more message to communicate: one-way love leads to sacrifice. In the final scene McQueen is racing the best race of his life. He’s implemented the tricks he learned from Hudson, he’s got his best crew: his new family. McQueen is, literally, back on top and rather invincible. He is posed to defeat the annoying and conceited Chick. Everyone is rooting for him. As he is rounding the last turn toward winning his first Piston Cup, something terrible happens. The King has a devastating crash that renders him unable to cross the finish line of his last lap, of his last race, in his last Piston Cup.

(play video from 0.00-8.10) McQueen slams on his breaks, inches prior to crossing the finish line. A moment later Chick goes whizzing by and celebrates his win. Meanwhile, McQueen, still not crossing the finish line, backs-up and goes to King’s side. But it’s not to see if King’s okay; it’s to help King cross the finish line, to allow him the dignity of finishing his last race. McQueen sacrifices his career (he will even sacrifice the Dinoco spokes-car slot for his family of misfits) and comes in not second place but last…dead last. Pixar understands the power of love; and that the power of that love has an appropriate end: sacrifice. This is the Gospel message; this is the message of true, divine, one-way love; this is the message of the Cross. Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross, we, by faith, are no longer alienated from God, no longer alone, but are in communion with God himself (Col 1:19-22). The one-way love of Christ pours into us and, subsequently, out of us toward others. The church, the body of believers, ideally becomes the created community (out of/comprised of the broken, out of/comprised of the misfits) drawn together by this one-way love—from God for each-other. By one-way love, our possibility is given priority over our actuality (contra Aristotle). Our achievements and our failures no longer rule over us with condemnation—we are not defined by them but by God’s word: beloved; and this ‘word’ makes room for true and real transformation, it causes us to love others as we are loved.