How My Relationship to Christian Scripture is Changing

The title of this blog if the last three and a half years has been a good summary of its purpose: faith and scripture.

It is the connection between these two that make each of them so interesting and sustainable as a conduit for the faith community to frame their action and thought.

However, over this period I have traversed a number of physical and psychological changes that have taken me out of the mainstream church action and into a different kind of theological reflection. I only think it is fair to be honest with blog readers on an important shift I can sense occurring within me and despite my efforts to the contrary: these biblical texts that I find so fascinating I no longer approach from the faith perspective primarily. When I read them, I am asking historical questions first and foremost. It just seems to be how my brain has reprogrammed itself to process these texts for various reasons. Let's guess at why:

As I already mentioned, the first of these is probably human suffering. My issue is not the classic one of the existence of suffering, I think that would be far too tedious and unreliable a fallback strategy. But rather it is the way in which Christian scripture itself is interpreted on the painful area of suffering that is creating distance between me and God. It is supposed to be short-lived, God is supposed to alleviate it or be felt closer somehow through it and have a greater purpose at work through it, like maybe my sanctification or something. So I have gotten tired of placing my confidence in inspiring texts like Isaiah 58:8

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Or James 1:2-3

My brothers and sisters, consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

Or Romans 5:3-4

... we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

"No," life experience is saying to me, "not necessarily."

Secondly, I think I got tired a while back as I exposed time after time how impartial apologetic exegesis of texts put a strain on a more reasonable and defensible Christianity. Over time this insatiable drive for truth and intolerance of undisclosed bias I think had a negative impact on my faith experience.

Thirdly, in addition to the experiential deficit, I don't know how to trust the Scriptures as an accessible window to the heart of God, on controversial areas of ethics (contradictions between contexts) and conflicting details between multiple accounts of the same historical event (internal contradictions). Here my defense mechanism is the same as ever: stop worrying too much about what I think about this, and try to unpack how this event was understood and integrated into the early faith community experience of God. On this point I will soon be asking blog readers in particular to honestly engage with this thought process as you, with me, try to understand the New Testament villain of Judas Iscariot according to its contrasting accounts.

A fourth factor takes us back a couple of years - I guess I am going in reverse order - a realisation that I was in a small minority of persons who rejected (and continue to reject) a modalistic view of Christ in which the centre was basically Christ, with the Holy Spirit and the Father really just emanations of Him. By rejecting a first century triune God, I found this new model that seemed to have dumped itself on my lap (the "Triune Hub" Jewish mutation) placed me in an even tinier minority, one so small that I was no longer in close relationship with anyone else who shared this perspective or these concerns.

So how do I go on? I continue to be highly motivated to dig around the texts (and their translations) historically, seek to bless the faith community with the greatest degree of honesty I am capable of offering, and continue to experience a degree of hope and gratitude in the church tradition that I am glad to be a part of. It is interesting to  me that although personal faith has taken a real knock, I still pray, sometimes even spontaneously worship. If someone wanted to pray with me, I'd love that, especially if it brings the deep level connection prayer can give and not intercessory. Praying for healing is trickier and my disillusionments and alienation are readily awakened. I may take the time to reflect on the blog soon about this sensitive issue.

Back soon!
John

Well blow me down, nice one Hillsongs!

This morning I stumbled over a new (for me) Hillsongs worship song that I thought I'd share. A while ago I started a series of posts on ambiguous worship. Worship is a most critical part of the Christian life and the words we use during that vulnerable time of exposure and surrender have great power to shape us theologically, so it is with joy that I share this song which is undeniably and I think consistently directed to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, free from the tangle weeds of modalism.

Enjoy :)

Messy: Louez Adonai

Worship is so often messy, and evangelicalism shares some of its strengths and weaknesses cross-culturally.

I was making an effort this morning in singing this morning heartily qui est semblable, à lion à l'agneau... (Who can compare to the lion and the lamb...)

It's so hard for me because I know full well that the songwriters are not trying to write theological treatises; they humbly want to express ultimate glory to one who is supremely above all and loving. It's a great experience, I can really recommend it. The problem is that the antimodalist in me rarely shuts up for long....

L'agneau sur le trône....Louez ADONAI.
(The lamb upon the throne.... Worship Adonai)

Almighty God, Yahweh, is "Adonai".

The key reference text here I think is quite clearly Psalm 110, to which the New Testament authors refer frequently. Remember that they are most familiar with the LXX (Greek translation of the Old Testament), so they would have read the following:

Eipen Kyrios tō Kyriō mou
SAID THE LORD TO THE LORD OF ME

Nowhere in the LXX is the God of Israel referred to as "Kyriō mou", or "Adoni", as per Psalm 110 in Hebrew. So, once again, and to my dismay, I am distracted from my worship because of extremely well-intentioned but modalist tendencies in the Evangelical tradition.

I wonder what can be done?

Theology in worship continued: 14. “It Is Well”, Bethel (featuring Kristene DiMarco)

Today's next song from worshipleader.com's list ranks 14th. It's another top quality live audio performance, but how does the trinity fare? Are the other two - Father and Spirit - necessary? Is there another centre of focus outside of the Father, Son and Spirit? I think so. Let's listen, read, then comment.

Grand earth has quaked before
Moved by the sound of His voice
Seas that are shaken and stirred
Can be calmed and broken for my regard

Chorus
And through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You
And through it all, through it all
It is well

And through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You
And it is well with me

Verse 2
Far be it from me to not believe
Even when my eyes can't see

And this mountain that's in front of me
Will be thrown into the midst of the sea

Chorus
Through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You
Through it all, through it all
It is well

Bridge x3
So let go my soul and trust in Him
The waves and wind still know His name

It is well with my soul
It is well with my soul
It is well with my soul
It is well with my soul

It is well it is well with my soul x3
ahhhhhhh (softly)

Through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You Lord
Through it all, through it all
It is well with me.

We still have quite a long way to go in the worshipleader top-hits, but I think we can already start to see a trend emerging here with the most successful and engaging worship songs: there is a highly prominent "me" and a highly prominent "you" (sometimes a "him", here the transition to third person is fairly clearly indicated through the transition to the bridge). It is about a salvation through the most perfect relationship imaginable between two persons: ME and ... presumably, Jesus. So nothing much to commend here or to criticise. On this blog we love it when Jesus is lifted high, we cannot worship sufficiently enough or with enough sincerity! But the concern is about a hidden Father or silent Spirit, about whom the Scriptures are highly vocal and excited. Musically lovely. Biblically, very little to say as it is not a focus for this song.

Throwing Thomas some trinitarian credit... [updated]

Today I am providing the next part of my new sub-chapter into explicit references of Jesus being called "God".

John 20:28 – My Lord and my God!

John 20:28 brings us to what is probably the most explicit attribution to Jesus of the title “God” in the whole New Testament. Furthermore, and unlike in John 1:1, the definite article preceding "God" is also significantly present (ho Theos). The context of this famous declaration is that Jesus has now been raised and most of his disciples had seen him and been “breathed on” by him – but not Thomas. Like some other disciples, Thomas has doubts. Jesus subsequently confronts him and commands him to stop doubting and believe. Thomas’ response is “My Lord and my God” (and to worship – it is not clear if he actually takes up Jesus on his invitation to touch his wounds, but presumably not according to this account).

In this immediate context of doubt about God’s resurrection of Jesus and the disciples’ own empowerment through Jesus’ breathing in v22-23, why might Thomas say “My Lord and my God” to Jesus? Of course it is possible that despite the multiple distinctions within John’s gospel between Jesus and his Father God, that Thomas supernaturally glimpsed something of a totally different level to John, which concerned Jesus’ very nature (or natures). Maybe – because of the explicit wording we have to be open to it, or it might also be argued to work nicely in tandem with the prologue (the God-Word became flesh). However, since good Trinitarian theology is about big-picture reality of the life of God, there are some other contextual considerations that should be integrated into the exegetical analysis before developing theology from such a rare and apparently explicit statement.

The first consideration is to properly account for the author’s perspective. Although Thomas is “speaking” here, John is also speaking throughout. It is not likely therefore that Thomas will have a different insight to Jesus’ identity to that which John now holds 60 years later around A.D. 90. Within this very same chapter, Thomas’ statement is framed by two significant facts. Firstly, when the raised Jesus addresses Mary Magdalene, he freely and inclusively talks to her of his (and your) Father being his (and your) God (20:17) – so here John has another explicit and quite different statement about Jesus, that he and Mary share the same Father and God (see 7.3 God is the God of Jesus/Jesus has a God/Jesus is the servant of God). Secondly, the purpose of the book itself is plainly stated (20:31) so that, concerning Jesus’ identity, John earnestly wants to convince his readers of Jesus’ identity claim. This claim, which is demonstrably not in Cappadocian terms, states simply: the Messiah and the Son of God. For John, the Father is always in view and never confused with the Son. So why on earth might both “Lord” and “God” seemingly be attributed to the one Jesus here in John 20:28?

A minor second consideration is a hidden distinction in the Greek, which emphasises the third point I will develop below. It would have been possible for Thomas to simply state: “the Lord and God of me!” Yet, he does not do that. What he actually says in the Greek is: “the Lord of me and the God of me!”

With this in mind, let us move on to the final and most important consideration of John’s purpose here: spurring disciples to know God the Father in Christ. When we zoom in on just this passage for doctrinal purposes, Thomas’ character (and belief) development within John’s gospel are often sadly lost. For in addition to the primary goal of revealing Jesus’ identity as God’s Messiah and Son, John is also desperate for people to respond to the revelation he is chronicling, and truly believe this dual (and to a less emphasised extent, triple) reality. It seems impossible that this dual reality could be an incredible revelation of Christ’s two natures! The dual reality is seeing both Christ and God-the-Father-in-Christ. Believing (and its antithesis, doubting) are key themes for him, so in encouraging late first century disciples in their belief, tracking Thomas’ spiritual journey would have made a lot of sense. Just look at how Jesus immediately responds to Thomas in the following verse: “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”. So to understand Thomas’ “belief development”, we need to go back six chapters to chapter 14, where both Thomas and Philip question Jesus about belief. Belief is to be in God and in his Son (14:1), you cannot short-circuit Jesus to the Father (14:6), and the Father is present in the Son. If you see the Son then your desire to see the Father is satisfied, not because the Father is the Son, but because the Father is in the Son. You cannot have one without the other. This is the journey that John is so keen to show his disciples and readers later on. Zoom forward three chapters to John 17:3, and Jesus prays this: Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Jesus and the Father are to be known, both of them. For Thomas as-yet without the Holy Spirit, that means knowing (and believing in) the still-present Jesus and, through that Jesus, knowing their common Father.

In light of these three considerations, it therefore seems quite possible to me that in 20:28, Thomas finally understands that the Father, who in first century parlance is the one who is properly called “God” in the genitive sense, that this Father is indeed in the Son (John 14:10). Thomas might well then state “the Lord of me (a title in the possessive form that is never attributed to God in the Bible but always to human authorities[6]) and the God of me” (specifically stating belief of the Father’s presence, truly and astoundingly in Jesus).

It is somewhat ironical that the traditional interpretations, which have pushed for simple divinity interpretations, have frequently failed to identify and develop the deeper trinitarian and Johannine themes here of the Father in the Son. 18^th century commentaries such as Matthew Henry (We must believe his deity—that he is God; not a man made God, but God made man, as this evangelist had laid down his thesis at first, ch. 1:1[7]) have provided a normative precedent away from vertical contextualisation in this case. Much later that century, British bishop Brooke F. Westcott, unsurprisingly[8], was more careful with the text, despite his failure to specifically join the dots to the Father’s indwelling presence through his Holy Spirit (my emphasis):

The discipline of self-questioning, followed by the revelation of tender compassion and divine knowledge, enabled St. Thomas to rise to the loftiest view of the Lord given in the Gospels ….

The record of this confession therefore forms the appropriate close to his narrative; and the words which follow show that the Lord accepted the declaration of His divinity as the true expression of faith. He never speaks of Himself directly as God (comp. v. 18), but the aim of His revelation was to lead men to see God in him.[9]

Perhaps Westcott was inspired by Augustine who also is close but strangely un-trinitarian here:

[Thomas] saw and touched the man, and [then] acknowledged the God whom he neither saw nor touched.[10]

Adolf Schlatter, however, was able to make a full connection (my emphasis):

“The Word is God,” 1:1. The knowing of Jesus is then attained when it is seen that “he is in the Father and the Father is in him,” 14:10. Through his single word “my” [Thomas’s] knowledge remains not just knowledge but becomes faith.[11]

In final conclusion on Thomas, while it must obviously be concluded that he does address Jesus as “God”, it is frankly disappointingly and decidedly untrinitarian to isolate this passage from its overarching witness of the Father in his Son, the Christ. Jesus himself states emphatically throughout this same gospel:

But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”

Then they asked him, “Where is your father?”

“You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” [12]

“The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone”.[13]

And finally, when Philip and Thomas ply Jesus with questions on precisely this topic:

Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority.[14]

---

[1] For now I can say this: despite general historical shifts in understanding what is going on with “Word” (logos), “God” (ho theos and theos) and “Become” (egeneto), that Christians having access to this passage or its precursor, have always believed that God’s eternal divine word was incarnated in (or into) Jesus (as a Christian I also have made the choice to believe that). This leaves incarnation Christology still very open as my chapter above on the church fathers demonstrates. It is precisely the interpretative options that I must still articulate and align with John’s overarching themes and goals.

[2] You will recall that there is a penalty system in place for texts where the strength of their suggestiveness or dissuasiveness is weakened according to a number of defined causes (see p. 51). This category is concerned more than any other by the penalty system as we shall now briefly see before we zoom into two of the most crucial of all blue texts in the entire New Testament canon, and which are certainly not to be penalised: John 20:28 and Hebrews 1:8-9.

[3] Of course, we are assuredly not positing a traditional evangelical view of first century Jewish monotheism that excludes other real gods within Yahweh’s divine council (please refer to the Monotheism entry in chapter 2 if needed; also see ).

[4] Titus is harder for me to assume this because I cannot apply the same criterion of consistency to a book that might be the only text we have by its author. If that were true and it were written in a later and more christologically developed situation, then the assumption of distinction is a considerably weaker option. Earliest manuscript is Papyrus 32, dated late 2^nd century.

[5] Fortunately, this variation is footnoted by the NIV, which alerts readers to the shakiness of this evidence

[6] James 3:9 does not really present an exception to the rule given its textual variations, which are not always footnoted in modern translations. Given the biblical evidence, the variant “our God and Father” should be preferred.

[7] M. Henry, Exposition of the Old and New Testament, Vol. 3,  p. 707, London: Joseph Ogle Robinson, 1708.

[8] Unsurprising given his biblical and ground-breaking credentials in New Testament textual criticism.

[9] B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John, p. 297, London: John Murray, 1894.

[10] Augustine, John, 121:5, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 1 7:438, Philip Schaff, T. & T. Clark, 1896-1900. One could legitimately pose the question of compatibility between Augustine’s statement here and the ecumenical and unshakable doctrinal stance of both Catholic and Orthodox theology, that Mary is the Mother of God (431 Council of Ephesus): if Jesus could only be touched and seen according to his human nature, which is presumably true, then how could Mary be considered to have mothered him according to his divine nature? A staunch defender of Augustinian theology might posit that Augustine was simply stating that Thomas had not previously “seen” the Father in Jesus until this revelatory moment, but then why this tense and not “whom he had neither seen nor touched”? Of course the issue of physical contact with the risen Lord is not entirely resolved, with some early ambiguity around the physical contact may have been heightened through a tradition expressed by Ignatius in the early 2^nd century which does categorically affirm this although the source of that tradition is now lost to us. See R. Brown, The Virginal Conception & Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, p. 88 fn.150, Paulist Press, 1973. Brown does not, however, indicate why Matthew 28:9 was not relevant to him.

[11] Adolf Schlatter, Johannes, p. 362, Evangel. Verlag-Anst., 1954, cited by Frederick D. Bruner The Gospel of John: A Commentary, p. 1183, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2012 (Bruner cites page 362, which appears to be from a translation, not the original).

[12] John 8:16-19

[13] John 8:29

[14] John 14:9-10, obviously my own emphasis.

Confronting modalism in contemporary church - terms of engagement

I have interacted with Christian philosopher Dale Tuggy over here regarding a post he made around the Christmas period (scroll down to comments) http://trinities.org/blog/a-present-you-should-return-christmas-confusion/

Tuggy uses a so-called evangelical prayer as a foundation to a post about the incoherency of such a prayer; but I challenge the foundation of the post. One of my personal shifts over the last few months is a deep desire not to fight mainstream church doctrine, such as the two wills of Christ (which is probably a waste of time), but to focus on something I know that in principle the church should agree on, and this is because I love the Bible, I believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as foundational to Christian faith and somehow I want to serve, not just ponder. That "something" is modalism, and as far as I can tell, it is not something that the church views as very problematic. In fact it may not be - a lot of churches do take seriously the distinctions between Father, Son and Spirit and make concerted efforts to maintain those distinctions. Traditional churches are often stronger in that area than more modern ones, especially those that don't place the Word of God at their core. So I confess that I am an "antimodalist". I hate the confusion. I feel saddened and dismay that the entire prayer life of Christ with his Father, its depth, sincerity, profoundness, should be reduced to a mere stage-show. I am perplexed as to how the Father in particular, the one who is most clearly synonymous with G-O-D has slipped out of focus as a person, along with unspeakable pain of sending his son to die, Abraham-style. I am baffled that even learned people I respect can offhand state publicly that "God is a person", when Trinitarian Christian teaching emphasises that there is not one person but three at the heart of Christian faith.

So where is the disagreement between me and Tuggy? Read the comments and you will see, but if we are to seriously confront an issue, re-fabricated prayers won't cut it. He seems to claim that evangelical modalists would understand the Father as dying for them after making sensible initial distinctions about the Father sending his Son. Not only do I think that would feel quite unnatural to an evangelical, even one whose eyes are closed to the distinctions running throughout the New Testament, but from my own experience and also study of modern worship lyrics, it is simply rarely the case to speak of more than one Member of the Trinity, because it does not fit at all well in modalist boxes. So for me, while I see Tuggy's point as of huge importance to the evangelical church, his example was weird and therefore not compelling, so I called him up on it.

Theology in worship continued: How Great Is Our God

I am still not done with the arche thread, but a song I (mostly) sang last week in a collective worship context reminded me of the theology in worship thread, which is a very open thread. Previous posts tracked a number of songs considered by worshipleader.com to be among the best of 2014, grounded on three or four criteria, one of which was apparently biblical faithfulness.

Last week, I turned something of a new page. No, I have not suddenly become a Trinitarian trumpeter, but I do now have a deeper desire to serve God and the church. It's quite exciting. One area where I can see coinciding my own Scripture-minus-creeds reading and the Church's Scripture-plus-creeds reading is on person distinctiveness. Since the fouth century, it has always been heretical to believe that the Father is the Son. Declared orthodoxy is that somehow the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the one true God in a qualitative way (one essence or substance). The big question is: is it still heretical today to be a modalistic Christian?

Today's song I object to because of the new shared-ground foundation. As before, first the song, then the lyrics to give readers time to have a think about where things might be going awry.

The splendor of a king
Clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
All the earth rejoice

He wraps Himself in light,
And darkness tries to hide
And trembles at His voice
Trembles at His voice
How great is our God
Sing with me
How great is our God
And all will see
How great, how great is our God
Age to age He stands
And time is in His hands
Beginning and the end
Beginning and the end

The Godhead Three in One
Father, Spirit, Son
Lion and the Lamb
Lion and the Lamb
Name above all names
Worthy of all praise
My heart will sing
How great is our God
As with many modern worship songs, the Father is mainly absent. I actually would say that He is totally absent from this song, and I want to explain why that is because it must seem like a nonsense following on from the line "Father, Spirit, Son".

This song is pure modalism. It is one thing to sing only a song to Jesus - that's more than fine, provided churches do not do this to the overall detriment of the Father or to the detriment of the precious interplay between them and the Spirit. But this song is all about Jesus, it is describing him as king, correct, clothed in majesty, correct, inspiring awe, correct. Then we have the chorus (How great is our God..."), which could just about be seen as a step back to admire the full Triune God, or even more unlikely, letting our gaze now turn to the Heavenly Father by whom we are now connected through Jesus. But then you get to verse 4, and you realise that we are simply too optimistic in evaluating Chris Tomlin's care. His line about Father Spirit Son, Godhead three in one seems to now cast the song in a deep and rich historic depth. But if you had any doubt at all about what I am saying, look at the very next line: the lion and the lamb. BOTH OF THESE DESCRIBE GOD'S SON JESUS.

It's pure modalism, friends; albeit with a slightly different twist to the traditional Sabellian controversy. More on that another time.

We should all consider pushing the eject button on this song!