Redeemer
It would be difficult to call a single book my best theological purchase ever, because of the different ways that books can come to us at just the right time and can interact with and build upon each other. Lewis was a particular help to me because I was in a season of doubt. If Van Til hadn’t taught me to be a conscious Calvinist, I would never have needed Carson to steer me out of the hyper-Calvinist ditch, nor would I have been willing to work hard enough at Vos to learn more. And Middle-earth and Narnia are clearly in the running. Plus, I just haven’t read enough to be making such lofty pronouncements.
But realizing this, and even though I’m only partway into it, in my own small way I think the James Jordan audio collection will stand as my best theological purchase ever. Jordan has really incredible insights into the Bible. There are many books worth of material here; five months in and I have only made it through his Genesis lectures and partway into Exodus. But I am hooked, and if nothing else, I feel much better prepared and much more excited for family Bible reading. Jordan has the ability to illuminate many of the “weird” parts of the Bible so that they begin to make sense, and I’m having to give up some patronizing attitudes toward parts of history. It’s exciting to see someone wrestling with why God gave us particular details or obscure passages, even if we don’t have yet have enough information to answer that in every case. Jordan is constantly drawing out vast connections throughout Scripture, including rich symbolism and typology. Here’s a small but surprising example: combining Genesis 39:1, 39:20-23, and 41:10, we see that Joseph never left Potiphar’s house in his imprisonment! It is not clear whether the “keeper of the prison” is Potiphar himself or another of Potiphar’s servants. Regardless, Potiphar seems to have recognized that God blessed him through Joseph, and perhaps even recognized Joseph’s innocence (which would heighten the injustice of Joseph’s imprisonment).
This week I am listening to Jordan’s comments on Exodus 21. While drawing connections to related passages elsewhere in the Pentateuch, he observes that Hebrew uses a single word, goel or ga’al, to convey both the idea of the kinsman redeemer and the avenger of blood. So the word conveys a person’s status as next-of-kin as much as it does these distinct responsibilities attached to it. Jordan has several valuable observations to make on the blood avenger; in particular, he distinguishes it from a mere family feud by showing it to be a real civil responsibility to guard against bloodguilt (Numbers 35:30-34). Otherwise the land itself will rise up to serve as avenger instead (as in Genesis 4:10-12, Leviticus 20:22, Leviticus 26:18-20). Considering the cities of refuge, Jordan points out that the death of the high priest’s cleansing the land (Numbers 35:28) is another type of Jesus.
Jordan also makes the fascinating offhand remark that this dual use for goel lends further support for the doctrine of particular redemption (or limited atonement). First, it is not possible to identify Jesus as redeemer in the abstract: he is the redeemer of particular individuals who share a kinship with him. Second, we cannot separate the office of redeemer from that of avenger: as a redeemer there are others estranged from him who will suffer his vengeance. Like so many other things, it comes back to adoption.
I’m not trying to prove the doctrine of particular redemption in offering this, and if I were I would take pains to guard against the hyper-Calvinist idea that there is simply no sense in which Jesus shows kindness to those who perish, or in which he died for the sins of the whole world. But as someone who holds to particular redemption, this is a neat confirmation, as well as a great example of the sort of depth that Jordan routinely offers even in passing comments.
Picture source: Rembrandt.
Faith acquisition
John 3:1-15 reveals that there is an inescapable spiritual component to our children’s growing in faith. But this passage also insists that we can rarely peel back the layers to see what is happening, even in our own lives, much less our children’s. So it should not be surprising to find that the way God brings about spiritual life and growth, in us and our children, actually rides along the very natural and seemingly mundane tracks of hearing, seeing, tasting, doing. Consider:
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. — Deut. 6:6-7
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. — Prov. 22:6
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! — Psalm 34:8
What is striking about these and other passages is that they speak of our children’s acquiring faith in God and learning to live in his household no differently than we would speak of how they acquire language, or how they come to know and love and trust us as their parents. This is because faith is a language: faith understands and speaks of ourselves and the entire world as being related to God in particular ways. Jesus, in whom all things hold together, is more real and immediate a part of his world than anything in it. So while we cannot see him, his constant activity can be seen everywhere to someone who speaks the right language. To anyone else, it is mere gibberish.
Therefore it is not vain repetition to teach our children to say “Jesus is my king and savior,” “God has forgiven my sins,” or “Jesus will always keep me;” any more than it is vain repetition to teach them to say “Daddy,” “this is a chair,” “that is blue,” or “Mr. S. is our mayor.” This is how they learn about both Jesus and the world that he has given to us. And, just as we talk in terms of stages of learning language (“he’s learned his primary and secondary colors,” or “he knows where his pancreas is”) rather than absolutes (“he’s learned English!”), we should speak in terms of stages of learning faith (“she’s really starting to bubble over with gratitude”) rather than absolutes (“she’s converted!”). Faith and language are things to be increasingly exercised rather than inert states of being.
So we teach our children simply to say “Jesus is …” and “Jesus does …” because that is the language of faith. After all, when we speak of Jesus’s world, we simply say “what color is that?” or “what letter is that?;” we do not say “do you believe that color is blue?” or “do you believe that letter is ‘K’?” Because of this, we can confuse our children (and ourselves) if we speak in indirect terms like “do you believe in Jesus as your savior?” rather than simply saying “Who is your savior?” By speaking a more indirect language than faith speaks, we make faith out to be something magical, and make it seem like getting that magic right is just as important as simply knowing and trusting Jesus. And without meaning to do so, this makes Jesus to be something less real than blueness and chairs and letters. But he is far more real than those. The best learning is by doing, and so the best learning to believe in Jesus is actually believing in Jesus — not believing in the supposed power of belief.
Finally, we do not worry that language will become a mindless habit for our children. Neither should we worry that all this Christian talking and living will become a mindless habit. There are some ways in which we expect a mature language and faith to become self-conscious, but it is the essence of language and of childlike faith to be unselfconscious, a simple confidence. The real danger is that this habit and language of faith will be uncultivated and cease to be a habit altogether! We do not want to banish habits — what we want is to cultivate all those delightful habits that a persevering life is simply full of.
See also:
Job
Thinking a little more about Girard, and about Wilson’s provocative Girardian reading of Job, this makes me wonder if Job is a type of Jesus. A quick search reveals that this is not a new idea, but it is definitely new to me — especially as I am often tempted to side with Job’s accusers against Job. Here are a few ways the type seems to fit:
- Job is a righteous king brought low
- Job learned obedience through suffering
- Job is falsely accused
- Job did not revile or threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly
- Job is ultimately vindicated
- Job is clearly a type of the suffering servant
As to the suffering servant, there may even be ways that Job’s suffering is a type of substitutionary suffering. Job ultimately mediates for his own accusers. And while we are not left thinking that he is an explicit substitute for his people, there is always a sense in which a people are “in” their ruler. Finally, if Job is the Jobab of Genesis 10, then he is part of the Shemite / Eberite seed people before the line is narrowed to Abraham — so his preservation through suffering is representative of the preservation of the substitutionary seed.
Continuing the idea of substitution or identification, it is interesting that Job’s vindication in the face of his accusers and God’s vindication in the face of Satan are linked together. God has entrusted his name and reputation to a mere man. Amazingly, we who are declared righteous in Jesus are in the same position as we bear his name before the world.
Finally, it is instructive to see the way that God’s declaration of Job’s uprightness is worked out in time. We are left wondering until the very end of the book whether God’s preliminary verdict over Job will prove to be justified. There is no resting on past experience for Job; he must labor to persevere even through intense suffering.
Picture source: Job.
Vindicated
René Girard has incredible insight into human nature, conflict, and the cross of Jesus. Although his understanding of Jesus’s atonement is incomplete, he has a great deal to teach us about the atonement. I must confess I haven’t read Girard yet, but I’ve gotten a bit of him indirectly through others. For an excellent introduction, you should watch this five-part interview with Girard now.
Given my small exposure to Girard, I have always assumed that a Girardian understanding of Jesus’s transcending human conflict and sacrifice operated primarily at a human level. This is the assessment of Caiaphas in John 11:50, who at this stage almost appears to recognize Jesus’s innocence along with Girard. But now I think the human plane is just a small piece of the Girardian puzzle. I am sure this is an elementary insight, but it was new to me this weekend.
God designated Israel to serve as priests to the nations. They failed to represent God to the nations: both in reaching out to the nations and more generally in upholding God’s law and righteousness before the nations. But however great their failure to represent God, they could not help but represent the nations to God, for good or bad. So just as Adam was the true and best representative we had to stand before God under the covenant of life, Israel was the true and best representative we had to stand before God under the curse.
As our representative, Israel and her leaders were not merely envious of Jesus at a human level, putting him to death to vindicate themselves in some human conflict. Rather, Israel very clearly put God himself on trial, on behalf of the whole world. Jealous of God’s greatness, holiness, truth, righteousness, wisdom and beauty, and seeking to establish their own, they put God on trial, declared him to be guilty, and executed him. Therefore, even in purely Girardian terms, Jesus’s death is not simply a transcendence of human conflict and sacrifice by the death of an innocent man, but it is actually an attempt by all of humanity to render judgment for mankind and against God.
It is a failed attempt: Jesus’s resurrection vindicates God decisively in the conflict between God and man. All mankind is shown to be condemned because of the actions of Israel their representative.
The truly amazing thing is that we who are thus condemned can be vindicated — through Jesus’s death and resurrection! In a sense, simply by agreeing with and rejoicing in Jesus’s vindication, God extends to us the great gift of Jesus’s own vindication and resurrection. This is where our understanding of the atonement as sacrificial and substitutionary comes into play, as John goes on to explain Caiaphas’s unwitting prophecy in verses 51-52. Jesus died for the sins of the world at the very moment the world’s sin and rejection of God had become total and complete. Our mediator is no longer Israel, but Jesus himself, the true Israel. Both Israel and all nations are invited to feast in God through him.
Sweeter than honey
My pastors are preaching through Jesus’s sermon on the mount. It’s refreshing to be reminded of the rightful place of God’s law in the Christian life. Sometimes it is easy for us to dismiss the place of law for the Christian; after all, we are not under law, but under grace. And since the law cannot save us, is there any use for it other than to condemn us and drive our miserable souls to Jesus?
If we were to stop there, the godly sentiments of Psalm 119 are left sounding completely foreign to us. How then are we to understand the law as a source of blessing and delight?
Protestants have historically recognized three uses of the law: to restrain our wickedness, to reveal sin, and to direct and guide the lives of Christians. We might say that this third use, often called the “rule of life,” is to be led in the pleasant “paths of righteousness.” It is in this way that the law brings us life and joy rather than condemnation. And in fact God always intended for his people to relate to his law this way. We can see this in the very giving of the law: he introduces it by emphasizing that “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20). Israel was to obey God as those who were already saved, whom God had already chosen to dwell among — not as those who were trying to earn God’s favor and salvation in the first place. It is true that God is holy, that none of us is without sin, and we cannot approach him without suffering the curse of the law. But God knows our frame; he understood that we would sin. He made temporary provision for sins in the sacrificial system, and made permanent provision for our sins in Jesus, who became a curse for us.
Judicially the law does accuse us, and we must deal judicially with the law through Jesus or else suffer condemnation and wrath. But as Trinitarians we know that there are always complementary facets. Relationally God’s people deal with the law as those who are adopted sons. God is the father who puts a dollar in our grubby little hands to buy him a birthday present, and then delights in our present! Calvin puts it this way:
When God is reconciled to us, there is no reason to fear that he will reject us, because we are not perfect; for though our works be sprinkled with many spots, they will be acceptable to him, and though we labour under many defects, we shall yet be approved by him. How so? Because he will spare us; for a father is indulgent to his children, and though he may see a blemish in the body of his son, he will not yet cast him out of his house; nay, though he may have a son lame, or squint-eyed, or singular for any other defect, he will yet pity him, and will not cease to love him: so also is the case with respect to God, who, when he adopts us as his children, will forgive our sins. And as a father is pleased with every small attention when he sees his son submissive, and does not require from him what he requires from a servant; so God acts; he repudiates not our obedience, however defective it may be.
Because the law comes to us from a wise and loving father, a wise and good king and shepherd, and a life-giving helper, we ought to count it as a delight — and we can be confident that patient trust and persistent obedience will bring us true blessing. And because we are sons, we ought also to be growing in the law, seeking to imitate our father by meditating on his law and obeying it.
The fact that law is instruction from our father means that it helps to make us wise and mature. That should come as no surprise: Solomon, who excelled all the kings of the earth in wisdom, gave us the book of Proverbs, which is itself an extended meditation on the ten commandments. Consider: it comes to us in the context of the fifth commandment (“my son”), and teaches us about the fourth commandment (work), the sixth commandment (anger), the seventh commandment (the forbidden woman), and others. Jesus, the one greater than Solomon, does exactly the same in the sermon on the mount, drawing wisdom from God’s law (“you have heard”) to teach us how we ought to tend the soil of our hearts and to warn us of the ensnaring and hardening effects of sin.
Paul speaks similarly of maturity in Galatians 4. The law is a guardian or tutor, under which we are indistinguishable from slaves. But in Jesus the Son we receive adoption as sons; we are no longer under the tutor but are heirs come into our inheritance. And yet clearly this does not mean we should put our tutor and lessons out of mind. True, there are some parts of our discipline and training (e.g., dietary laws) from which we are now set free, just as a child no longer drinks from a bottle, a runner in a marathon is no longer running sprints, and a pianist on stage is no longer playing scales and etudes. But God intends that even in the freedom of sonship we live out of all of our training; and there is a great deal of the law that we must still obey and build upon with patience and persistence. In fact, God now imprints his law on our minds and hearts (Hebrews 8-10).
Since we now deal with the law relationally, our obedience is not a matter of earning and keeping God’s favor but is a matter of loyalty and allegiance to God. And so the law may sober us but it cannot terrify us. In fact, we must follow the pattern of David, Solomon and Jesus: we should train ourselves to think of God’s expectations for his sons as a delight, as the path of blessing and protection; and we should labor to grow in wisdom and maturity through studying God’s law, meditating on it and disciplining ourselves to obey it.
All that is gold does not glitter
I was trying to articulate recently to a friend why I so deeply love the over-arching savor of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I started to say that it was a world in which God was sovereign, but that doesn’t quite capture it.
Mark Horne has recently been posting on Proverbs and wisdom, and quoted Bilbo’s riddle of Strider:
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
This made me think: Middle-earth is a world in which Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon are all true. It is a creation subjected to futility, unwillingly, but in hope, with an end of maturity and glory. Patience, waiting, longing, work and groaning are all required; and there is a bittersweetness to most joy and victory, because life comes through sacrifice and death. Tolkien does an outstanding job of helping you to feel the passage of time. The length of the book, Bombadil, the scouring of the Shire — it is all necessary in this light.
Tolkien writes of a story’s having a “glimpse of Truth.” Death and life themselves in Middle-earth have the savor of God’s world.
Bed
I built this for Asher over the Christmas holidays:
I used these plans, but because we planned to back it up against a wall I moved the dividers all the way to the back. That left me with a little less trim work, which was nice. I’m no skilled woodworker, so there are certainly lessons learned. But I’m pleased with how it turned out.
And now we can fit a crib in there too.
Examine
And [David] said, “Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?” Ziba said to the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet.” The king said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba said to the king, “He is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar.” Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar. And Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David said, “Mephibosheth!” And he answered, “Behold, I am your servant.” And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.” And he paid homage and said, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?” Then the king called Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, “All that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master’s grandson. And you and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and shall bring in the produce, that your master’s grandson may have bread to eat. But Mephibosheth your master’s grandson shall always eat at my table.” . . . So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table, like one of the king’s sons. — 2 Samuel 9:3-11
Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine David saying to Mephibosheth: “You must eat at my table in a worthy manner.” Does David mean that:
- Mephibosheth should approach David at every meal, confessing “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?” Or that
- Mephibosheth should eat each meal with joy and congenial fellowship befitting the king’s sons.
We know that Mephibosheth never forgot he was undeserving of David’s favor, and continued to approach David with appropriate humility, respect and love (2 Samuel 19:24-30). But this is not incompatible with Mephibosheth’s living in the good of David’s favor. This is a meal, after all: my answer is #2. David made Mephibosheth his son and would have expected him to behave as a son.
We are as undeserving of God’s favor as Mephibosheth and the prodigal son. And yet in Jesus we do receive God’s favor; we been made not merely servants, but beloved sons and fellow heirs. Both David and the prodigal father are types of our Father in heaven, who by his grace now names us not sinners but saints. This shapes even our fear of the Lord: we fear the Lord not as impostors hanging by a thread, but as sons who have a responsibility to be loyal. He has made it fitting for us to approach his table as sons: he has given us the proper attire (Matthew 22:1-13) and has made his feasts a time of joy and not sorrow (Nehemiah 8:9-12).
Obviously I have 1 Corinthians 11 in mind in this thought experiment. There, Paul commands us (1) not to eat of the Lord’s supper unworthily, (2) to examine ourselves, and (3) to discern the body. It is common to read Paul as saying that (1) our sin — whether in general or only unconfessed — is what makes us unworthy for the supper; (2) therefore we examine ourselves and confess sin, (3) discerning that Jesus’s own body and blood offered on the cross are our only hope. Is this what Paul is saying? This is roughly the interpretation that Calvin, the Westminster catechisms, and others take. But it is to say the opposite of what I concluded in my thought experiment above, and to make the Lord’s supper into something different from a family meal.
Certainly we should not approach the table with unconfessed sin, or lacking appreciation for God’s great mercy to us. But there is a better way of understanding Paul’s warnings. Throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul is concerned for unity in the church. Beginning in chapter 10, he names the church as the body of Christ, and he continues without interruption to emphasize the unity, interconnectedness and interdependency of the body through chapter 12. In this context, his overwhelming concern for their practice of the Lord’s supper (chapters 10-11) is that it must reflect their unity and love as the body of Christ. Reading Paul’s warnings in light of all this, it becomes clear that (1) to eat unworthily is actually to eat without consideration of one another; (2) we therefore examine ourselves to ensure we are including, loving, preferring one another; and (3) we do this because we discern that we are Christ’s body, and Christ’s body is not divided. Considering this, and considering Mephibosheth and the prodigal son, we should not eat the Lord’s supper reservedly, but joyfully, as fellow sons and daughters.
Wayne Grudem concludes this as well. In Systematic Theology, he writes:
In the context of 1 Corinthians 11 Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for their selfish and inconsiderate conduct when they come together as a church: “When you meet together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk” (1 Cor. 11:20-21). This helps us understand what Paul means when he talks about those who eat and drink “without discerning the body” (1 Cor. 11:29). The problem at Corinth was not a failure to understand that the bread and cup represented the body and blood of the Lord — they certainly knew that. The problem rather was their selfish, inconsiderate conduct toward each other while they were at the Lord’s table. They were not understanding or “discerning” the true nature of the church as one body. This interpretation of “without discerning the body” is supported by Paul’s mention of the church as the body of Christ just a bit earlier, in 1 Corinthians 10:17: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of one bread.” So the phrase “not discerning the body” means “not understanding the unity and interdependence of people in the church, which is the body of Christ.” It means not taking thought for our brothers and sisters when we come to the Lord’s Supper, at which we ought to reflect his character.
What does it mean, then, to eat or drink “in an unworthy manner” (1 Cor. 11:27)? We might at first think the words apply rather narrowly and pertain only to the way we conduct ourselves when we actually eat and drink the bread and wine. But when Paul explains that unworthy participation involves “not discerning the body,” he indicates that we are to take thought for all of our relationships within the body of Christ: are we acting in ways that vividly portray not the unity of the one bread and one body, but disunity? Are we conducting ourselves in ways that proclaim not the self-giving sacrifice of our Lord, but enmity and selfishness? In a broad sense, then, “Let a man examine himself” means that we ought to ask whether our relationships in the body of Christ are in fact reflecting the character of the Lord whom we meet there and whom we represent. (997)
Grudem goes on to cite Matthew 5:23-24 as an example of making relationships right before coming to worship.
God could have chosen for this sacrament to take any form. It is highly instructive that he chose for it to take the form of a meal, with all the rich imagery that carries. He intends for us to enjoy it in fellowship with him and one another.
Calvin and covenant, again
I previously mentioned Peter Lillback’s book, The Binding of God, on Calvin’s understanding of and contribution to covenant theology. Calvin’s covenant theology was also the subject of Lillback’s Ph.D. thesis, as well as an article he wrote in 1982 showing how Calvin linked covenant theology and infant baptism. This article was previously available online only in scanned form with many OCR errors. I have corrected these and, with Lillback’s permission, the article is available here: “Calvin’s Covenantal Response to the Anabaptist View of Baptism”.
Whatever your view of infant baptism, this article is a helpful overview of Calvin’s covenant theology. Lillback spends time on continuity and discontinuity between the old and new covenants, including distinctions between law and gospel, letter and spirit, and general and special election. He also discusses covenant breaking, although he doesn’t directly address whether and in what sense God’s covenants are conditional and mutual, or the nature of covenant keeping; nor does he cover topics such as adoption and the Lord’s supper.
Seed
Tolkien, on p. 855 of The Lord of the Rings:
‘That is a fair lord and a great captain of men,’ said Legolas. ‘If Gondor has such men still in these days of fading, great must have been its glory in the days of its rising.’
‘And doubtless the good stone-work is the older and was wrought in the first building,’ said Gimli. ‘It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.’
‘Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,’ said Legolas. ‘And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli.’
‘And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess,’ said the Dwarf.
‘To that the Elves know not the answer,’ said Legolas.
I don’t know whether there is one true Roman Catholic eschatology or what it might be. Tolkien at least had a pessimistic eschatology which he thought was a necessary part of his Roman Catholicism. And as much as the fall of Sauron was an epic victory, this pessimism shades his work as well. But the above is a wise and I think true observation regardless of one’s eschatology. Death and resurrection is a pervasive and inescapable motif in life and creation.
Whether for civilization, church or family, better the deaths should be ones of repentance and self-sacrifice than of reaping and judgment.
I gotta have my orange juice. 