Monthly Archives: November 2011

Be In The 1% Who Get God’s Grace

Posted on by
Reply

Morgan Guyton and familyMorgan Guyton writes at Red Letter Christians I Want To Be In The 1% Who Get God’s Grace.

What does he mean? Is he making some Calvinist point, that only 1% of people benefit from God’s prevenient and irresistible saving grace, and that the 99% are predestined to eternal torment? There are plenty of preachers around who would agree with that, at least if pushed. But I don’t think Morgan Guyton is one of them – he is a United Methodist pastor, and so unlikely to be a Calvinist.

No, by “get God’s grace” Guyton doesn’t mean “receive and benefit from God’s grace”. He is using “get” in a different colloquial sense and means “understand God’s grace”. And on that point I can agree with him. From my experience, barely 1% even of professing Christians come near to understanding this grace. But, I am glad to say, God is gracious enough that he gives his grace even to those who don’t understand it.

And his grace is not just that we can be saved from our past sins but must now work hard at being godly. Louie Giglio, in his DVD series Grace: The One & Only, has called this “half the gospel”, but it is all of what is preached in many churches – a gospel focused on the death of Jesus but forgetting his resurrection, a gospel framed by justification but ignoring justice, a gospel of individual salvation with no mention of the Kingdom. No, God’s grace is far more than that: it is the offer of his resurrection power enabling us to live lives which please him, starting now and continuing into eternity.

We are the 99%Morgan Guyton is of course alluding in his post to the “We are the 99%” slogan of the Occupy protesters. But he notes that both these protesters and their “anti-99%” opponents are trying to justify themselves:

One side justifies themselves by talking about how hard they work (which means that other people who aren’t as hard-working should stop whining). The other side justifies themselves by talking about how hard their lives has been or how well they sympathize with people who have hard lives (which means that people who lack sympathy should recognize their moral inferiority). Both forms of self-justification cause us to be presumptuous, judgmental people who either call all rich people greedy or all poor people lazy … Self-justification is the basis for most hatred in our society …

But, Guyton argues, instead of being in this 99% of self-justifiers, we need to be among “The 1% of people who understand God’s grace to be the foundation of their being”. Then,

let’s be grateful for all that God has given us and use it as responsibly as we can, so that we can be extravagantly generous in how we share it with other people. Then maybe we’ll get to be part of the 1% who actually experience the joy of living under God’s grace, which is a joy I hope to experience one day when I’m finally free of my poisonous self-justification.

To this I would only add that, by God’s grace and to the extent that we live in Christ, Guyton and all of us are already “free of [our] poisonous self-justification” and indeed of all our sinful attitudes. We just need to live in that freedom and joy in the power of the risen Jesus.

Did God kill Jesus? Olson and Caiaphas vs. Piper

Posted on by
Reply

One of my first major posts on this blog, in June 2006, tackled the controversial question Did God kill Jesus? See also the post which led up to this, “The Father killed the Son”: the offence of the Gospel?, and the follow-up Did God kill Jesus: should I post like this?

Today Roger Olson is asking exactly the same question, Did God kill Jesus? He writes that

Recently a leading evangelical pastor and author has declared publicly that “God killed Jesus”–meaning, I suppose, the Father killed Jesus.  That’s his way (I assume) of emphasizing the penal substitution theory of the atonement.

Personally, I think some “friends of penal substitution” are its worst enemies.

John PiperA little Google research reveals that the pastor and author that Olson refers to is none other than John Piper, who in a sermon this Sunday said, with reference to John 11:50,

In the mind of Caiaphas, the substitution was this: We kill Jesus so the Romans won’t kill us. We substitute Jesus for ourselves. In the mind of God, the substitution was this: I will kill my Son so I don’t have to kill you. God substitutes Jesus for his enemies.

God Killed Jesus?

I know it sounds harsh to speak of God killing Jesus. Killing so easily connotes sinning and callous cruelty. God never sins. And he is never callous. The reason I say that God killed his own Son is because Isaiah 53 uses this kind of language. Verse 4: “We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God.” God smote him. Verse 6: “The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Verse 10: “It was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief.” God smote him. God crushed him.

My first response to this is an exegetical one. If we look at Isaiah 53:4-5, in Piper’s preferred English Standard Version, we read three propositions about the Suffering Servant separated by other material, which we can summarise as follows: “Surely A; yet we esteemed B. But C”. In other words, A is certainly true, and B is our own human estimation of the situation, which should be rejected in favour of C. That is to say, B is a false proposition, or at least inadequate one, according to the text of Isaiah itself. And what is proposition B? That the Servant was “stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted”. Thus the verse Piper quotes to prove that God smote Jesus in fact says the opposite. It is redundant to note that the Hebrew verb translated “smitten”, although sometimes used in the context of homicide, does not actually mean “killed”, but only “hit” or “beaten”.

Meanwhile, when the apostle John (11:51) writes that these words of the High Priest were a prophecy, Piper dares to declare that Caiaphas was speaking his own mind, not the mind of God, which Piper claims to know better the prophet does!

Olson, eirenic as always, declines to name Piper. But he makes a strong case for a proper understanding of penal substitutionary atonement. He agrees with the prophetic words of Caiaphas rather than with Piper’s speculation:

Men [gender inclusive, surely?] committed the violence against Jesus, not God the Father, and the actual suffering of the atonement was the rejection Jesus suffered by the Father.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was the moment of atonement.  God did not kill Jesus (at least in my version of penal substitution); people did.  The Father did not inflict punishment on the unwilling, innocent Son as his victim; the Son volunteered to suffer the Father’s wrath.  The Father’s wrath was not physical violence; it was the rupture within the Godhead suffered by both the Son and the Father (in different ways).  The atonement was that he (Jesus), who knew no sin, became sin for us…., with the result that the Father had to turn away and forsake him.  The penalty for sin is spiritual death; separation from God, not physical death.

This presentation of penal substitutionary atonement, with the Son suffering as a volunteer, avoids any suggestion of the split in the Trinity which is implied by Piper’s version. It refutes Steve Chalke’s accusation of “cosmic child abuse”. The focus is no longer on the Father’s wrath but on his love. This seems similar to J.I. Packer’s view of the atonement as “planned by the holy Three in their eternal solidarity of mutual love”. It is also compatible with the Christus Victor model of the atonement, differing from it in perspective more than in content. Most importantly, it is far more biblical than Piper’s caricature.

The only major negative point I would make about Olson’s critique of Piper’s position is that Olson follows Piper in focusing too much on personal sin and justification, on what Scot McKnight calls the “soterian gospel”. Thus Olson’s gospel seems a little unbalanced in the way that I described in my post this morning Which Gospel? Justice or Justification? Olson doesn’t seem to have commented on McKnight’s book The King Jesus Gospel . I would be interested to see his response.

Which Gospel? Justice or Justification?

Posted on by
Reply

Scot McKnightScot McKnight posts today on The Three “J’s” in the Gospel Debate, and by doing so opens up in interesting ways this debate about what the gospel is and how we should understand it. This debate is fundamental to the Christian faith, because, in McKnight’s words,

The gospel is at the heart today of every major theological debate, and it spills over into one ecclesiastical debate after another.

For McKnight the key to the debate is how to frame the gospel. He notes that “some people frame the gospel through the category of justice“, and others “through the category of justification“. The latter group, especially those who call themselves “Reformed”, tend to reject as “liberals” the former, who tend towards political activism. The latter often reject the former as “fundamentalists”. McKnight responds to both groups:

The gospel, I contend, is not properly framed as injustice becoming justice (though clearly this happens) or as the unjust becoming just/justified (though clearly this happens too). And the debate between these two folks proves an inability to convince one leads to the other compellingly. There’s a better way.  Instead…

This is where McKnight brings in his third J. He writes that “some people frame the gospel through the category of Jesus“, and for his discussion of this framing he links to his own recent book The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited . He concludes:

There are three J’s in the gospel debate. The right J is Jesus.

If you preach Jesus as the gospel you will get both justification and justice.
If you preach justification you may get Jesus (but I see only some of Jesus and not the whole of Jesus) and you may get some justice (I’m skeptical on this one).
If you preach justice you may get some justification (but I’m skeptical on enough justice gospelers ever getting to justification) and you get Jesus, but again only some of Jesus (often only his teachings, his life, and his life as an example).

If you preach the Jesus of Paul’s gospel (1 Cor 15) or the apostolic sermons in Acts or the gospel of the Gospels, you get all of Jesus and all of Jesus creates both justice and justification.

As for me and my house, we take the third J.

And so will I. Jesus comes first. Following him leads to personal justification and also to action for justice. But both have to spring from a relationship with him and follow the path on which he leads.

Blackpool earthquakes: Fracking carelessness!

Posted on by
Reply

On 1st April this year I reported a minor earthquake in Blackpool, north west England, that was probably not the fulfilment of Mark Stibbe’s prophecy. But it is now all the more clear that this was a result not of God’s judgment but of human folly.

Anti-fracking protest near BlackpoolOn 31st May I posted a follow-up suggesting that the Blackpool earthquake, and a second tremor in the same place, might have been caused by tests of “fracking”, underground explosions set off deliberately to release natural gas from rock. The suggestion was not that the earthquakes were artificial, but that small artificial explosions in unstable rock had triggered the much larger release of energy of the earthquake. The drilling company suspended its tests and commissioned a study by The British Geological Survey.

According to the BBC today, this study has now been completed and reports that the fracking tests were the “likely cause” of the earthquakes. It also suggests that an “unusual combination of geology at the well site”, unlikely to recur, made the tremors possible. But anti-fracking protesters who have climbed a drill rig at a nearby test site are not convinced:

A spokesman for Frack Off said: “This report does not inspire confidence, they should have done their research before drilling began.”

He added: “Can we believe anything else the industry says when it talks about the safety of fracking?”

Indeed. This looks like a case of carelessness. Nowadays companies are not usually allowed to do anything without a formal risk analysis, even where the possible consequences are trivial. But it seems as if this company went ahead, without a proper study of the risks, with a venture which could have caused serious damage and loss of life. It was by the grace of God, not by human foresight, that the resulting earthquake was so minor and caused almost no damage.

I wonder, can the company be prosecuted for health and safety violations? These would be genuine ones, rather than the spurious ones recently used as an excuse for closing St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Fracking has the potential of releasing large quantities of the valuable natural gas which all the world needs for heating and other power needs, and which our country needs to avoid being dependent on imports as the North Sea reserves run out. But it is also a technology with its dangers. Therefore it needs to be regulated carefully, and the companies involved in it must be held responsible for any undesirable consequences of their actions.

Did the Church of England stop colluding with Babylon?

Posted on by
Reply

George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian last night, accused the Church of England of “colluding with Babylon”. But in the latest developments this afternoon St Paul’s Cathedral has suspended its legal action to evict the Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters, and has announced an initiative “reconnecting the financial with the ethical”. Ken CostaThe initiative is to be headed by former banker Ken Costa, who left his top job as chairman of Lazard International earlier this year, but is apparently still Chairman of Alpha International and a churchwarden of Holy Trinity Brompton. Giles Fraser, who resigned as the cathedral’s Canon Chancellor because of his sympathy with the protests, will also be involved in the initiative.

So did the alleged collusion just come to an end?

Monbiot’s article The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest is a shocking exposé of how the Corporation of the City of London, the city’s official local government, is controlled by banks and other financial companies, and is almost without any democratic accountability. Yes, the 9,000 residents of the Square Mile can vote, but only in four of the 25 wards (voting districts), and the representatives of the others are chosen by companies.

Perhaps even more shocking is the way that the City is out of the control of Parliament and exempt from effective regulation. As a result, Monbiot writes,

the absence of proper regulation in London allowed American banks to evade the rules set by their own government. AIG’s wild trading might have taken place in the US, but the unit responsible was regulated in the City. Lehman Brothers couldn’t get legal approval for its off-balance sheet transactions in Wall Street, so it used a London law firm instead. No wonder priests are resigning over the plans to evict the campers. The Church of England is not just working with Mammon; it’s colluding with Babylon.

Protesters at St Paul's CathedralYes, it is this same City of London Corporation which is taking legal action to evict the Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters, or at least their tents, from in front of St Paul’s Cathedral. The camp is apparently partly on corporation land and partly on cathedral land. Last Friday the cathedral authorities announced that they would take similar legal action. And it was very likely this prospect that prompted Monbiot’s accusation “colluding with Babylon” – although it would have been more fair to direct the accusation at St Paul’s rather than at the Church of England in general.

Was it this prospect of legal action that also prompted the resignations first of Giles Fraser and then yesterday of the cathedral’s Dean, Graeme Knowles? I guess we will only know if they choose to tell us. One thing we can be sure of, though, is that this occupation, although not originally directed at the cathedral, has exposed massive divisions within it between those who, if not actually colluding with Babylon, want to uphold the status quo, and those who are sympathetic to the protesters’ campaign against the strongholds of Mammon.

I had wondered, indeed even publicly in a comment this morning on a post by Scot McKnight, if the Bishop of London’s intervention today might lead to a harder line against the protesters. After all, Bishop Chartres is very much an establishment figure (it was he who disciplined Bishop Pete Broadbent last autumn for criticising the royal wedding) and might be expected to support the status quo. So I am pleasantly surprised that after meeting with him the cathedral authorities are taking the steps that they have announced. They no doubt hope that this will prompt the protesters to leave their camp, but I don’t think it will.

The events of the last few days have been yet another public relations disaster for the Church of England – or perhaps not, if one subscribes to the view that the only bad publicity is no publicity. But in fact the last major alleged disaster turned into something of a triumph. Can the same happen on this issue? If the church can present itself as agreeing with the strong popular sentiment against excessive corporate greed, but without identifying itself too closely with any specific political positions, then this could greatly enhance the Church of England’s public image. And if this has to be done over the resignations of some church people who would prefer to collude with Babylon, then that can only be for the good.

PS (after about an hour): Although they are on the same site that I linked to above, I have to thank David Keen on Twitter for linking to two recent articles by Ken Costa about the St Paul’s situation: Reconnecting the financial and the ethical (PDF) and Why the City should heed the discordant voices of St Paul’s. These are significant not only for their content but for who is writing this and where he is presenting it: the recently resigned chairman of a major international bank, respectively speaking in the palace of the ruler of Babylon, i.e. the Lord Mayor’s Mansion House, and writing in Mammon’s own daily newspaper, the Financial Times.