Atonement (Part 3): A Wright Account of the Atonement

Today we begin to wrap up this min-series on the atonement by looking at what I take to be the most convincing account of the atonement. One that follows N.T. Wright’s work in NT Studies. We will be looking at this account over the next few days. I begin by laying out some groundwork.

[Tentatively this is the account I gravitate towards the most on. If you see anything wrong with it PLEASE point it out to me. Because I have blind spots too. And I am open to correction if my views lead to heresy =) thanks! ]

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The atonement is a subject that has been garnering a significant amount of interest over the last several years. Much of this interest has involved asking the question: “What is the best way to talk about the atonement?” One answer to this question that has become en vogue in recently is the Kaleidoscopic view of the atonement. Joel Green is one proponent of this view; this view states that there is no one model or metaphor for the atonement that adequately captures what happens on the cross. To a certain extent Green’s thesis is correct. The atonement is rich concept; it is so rich that human language cannot adequately capture what God is doing on the cross. This view displays the richness of the atonement by leaving room for many ways of talking about the atonement including Christus Victor and moral exemplar theories. However, it seems as though one theory of the atonement is left out of this model: penal substitution.

Penal Substitution (henceforth “PS”) is the theory of atonement that has dominated Reformed thought. As someone who finds myself within the Reformed tradition I have a bias towards this theory. While recognizing that the Kaleidoscopic theory is probably correct, I still want to leave room for penal substitution. However, for some people PS serves as a barrier to believing the Gospel. It is a well known fact that some reject the atonement because PS seems to imply that God is an angry man or a vindictive judge. At its worst, PS can seem like divine child abuse; the angry father beats and even kills the innocent son. These objections should be recognized and taken seriously. Thus, for those of us who have a commitment to the Reformed tradition it is imperative that a theory of penal substitution be formulated in such a way that God is not presented as an angry vindictive, abusive father. For the Reformed believer it is a matter of keeping her core commitments, while being able to present a view of the atonement which in and of itself is not offensive.

In this blog, I hope to present a way of understanding penal substitutionary atonement which does not distort our view of who God is. In doing this there are several core commitments that I want to keep.

Core Commitments

First, an evangelical and reformed doctrine of the atonement must have a Christology that is in line with the ecumenical creeds and the important Reformed confessions. At its most basic, it must be Chalcedonian in nature.

Second our theory of the atonement must be Biblical. By this we mean that it must be in line with Scripture, it cannot contradict scripture. It is important to understand that this commitment is not to be equated with proof-texting. We must not pull scriptures out of context to support our theory. Rather our theory of the atonement must be grounded in the meta-narrative of Scripture. It must also take seriously the fact that covenants play a major role in Scripture.

Third, our theory must take seriously the consequences of sin. By this I mean that it must be retributive. This in itself might be considered controversial, namely because retributive justice is such a controversial concept. But in its most basic sense I mean that the punishment for sin must fit the crime. Also it must not present the penal nature of substitution in such a way that God the Father is opposed to the Son. We must not say that the Father takes pleasure in destroying the Son. We must not say that the punishment the Son endures is God’s wrath arbitrarily being poured out upon him, rather we must say that the punishment the son endures is the consequence of sin.

Fourth, it must make the cross central.

Fifth, it must be substitutionary. We do not have the power to perform atonement for ourselves. We do not have the power to rescue ourselves

 

Atonement (Part 2): Abelard and a Moral Exemplar Theory(?)

Today we continue this quick series on the Doctrine of Atonement. The theory we are looking at today has often been called the Moral Exemplar theory. Many liberal theologians (especially feminist, womanist, and mujerista theolgians) have gravitated towards this view because it doesn’t seem to have the metaphysical and ethical implications that Satisfaction theories (Anselm’s theory and Penal Substitutionary Atonement) seem to have.

Reading through Abelard’s theory it is not longer clear to me that “moral exemplar” is the mechanism for atonement in his view… its seems to be located elsewhere. The “moral exemplar” piece seems to me to be an add on to the mechanism of atonement.

Anyway… here is a quick overview of Abelard’s atonement theory.

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Like Anselm, Abelard recognizes that sin is a problem for humanity. He believes that all have sinned by failing to keep their obligation, namely “to glorify the Lord”. In his Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, he addresses how the problem of sin is solved. He believes that in order to address the problem of sin, God must justify humans. However, contrary to what the Jews believe, Abelard says that “by works of the law, no flesh shall be justified” in God’s sight. As he goes through Roman 3, he notes that now something apart from the law has been revealed that justifies humanity in God’s sight, namely love. By suffering, Christ demonstrates his love for humanity. In demonstrating his love God demonstrates his justice. Through this demonstration of love, which is God’s grace and justice, humans acquire the remission of sin.

Having noted that this act of love, namely Christ’s death on the cross, results in the remission of humanity’s sins, he ponders how Christ’s death can justify sinners. He examines two different views and proposes a third. The first view that he examines is the view that it was necessary for God to become incarnate and die in the flesh, so that he might redeem humanity from the dominion of Satan. However Abelard points out that it seems wrong to say that God would hand humans over to the devil simply because the devil had seduced them. Also it seems to Abelard that God could have simply remitted the sins that humans have committed against him.

The other view that Abelard addresses for its misguidance’s is the view that the death of God’s innocent Son pleased God the father, resulting in reconciliation between God and humanity. Abelard believes that this view distorts God’s character, making him seem cruel and wicked for being pleased by the death of an innocent man.

Having explained why he believes these two views are wrong, he explains how Christ’s death on the cross reconciles humanity to God. He says that Christ’s death on the cross teaches us what it means to love. The result of this act of love is that “our hearts should be enkindled by such a gift of divine grace, and true charity should not now shrink from enduring anything for him.” In other words as a result of Christ’s loving death, humans are now capable of loving. Abelard explains that by suffering for us, we are given more than just the remission of sin, we are given the liberty to “do all things out of love rather than fear.” Since humans who have put their faith in Christ can now love, they can be justified, for God does not justify by works but by faith which is just ‘the love which comes from faith” in salvation through Christ.

How does Abelard believe that he has improved upon prior explanations of Christ’s work? He believes that he has given a more accurate picture of the nature of God’s character. According to Abelard the other views distort God’s character as being weak, because he cannot remit sins, or being cruel, because he demands the death on an innocent man. He believes that by focusing on God’s love, he provides a better picture of who God is. He also believes that by emphasizing that love justifies, he avoids the trap of believing that works can justify.

There are several problems that Abelard faces in his account. First, he never explains why Christ’s death is such a great act of love. It seems as though it would be a great act of love if Christ were somehow addressing a threat that humanity faces. But under his picture, no such threat is identified. Secondly, it seems as though Abelard ignores the fact that this view makes God seem unjust for simply remitting sins that have been committed against both God and other human beings. These two problems are major issues in this account of Christ’s work.

 

Atonement (Part 1): A Quick Overview of Anselm’s Atonement Theory

Today we begin a quick series on the Doctrine of Atonement. We begin by looking at the theory which has framed much protestant discussion of atonement: St. Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo.

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In Why God Became Man (Cur Deus Homo) Anselm is concerned with explaining the reasons for the incarnation of Christ. In the first part of the text, book one, he addresses the objections that people have put forth against the incarnation and he explains why it is impossible for humanity to be saved apart from him. In the second part of the text, book two, he addresses why it was necessary for the incarnation to occur.

In this brief blog (people have written entire dissertations on this subject!) I want to sketch out what I take to be Anselm’s message of the gospel as it is presented in Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man). In order to understand Anselm’s view of what the gospel is we must first get a grip on what he takes to be humanity’s purpose. Anselm believes that “human nature was created in order that hereafter the whole man, body and soul, should enjoy a blessed immortality”. He doesn’t elaborate much on what this blessedness is supposed to be like, but he does believe that the rational nature was created just so that it might enjoy the highest good, namely God. By enjoying God, human beings are blessed.

Anselm believes that something has occurred which has prevented human beings from attaining this blessedness. What has happened is that human beings have sinned. Since humans have sinned, they cannot attain blessedness. According to Anselm sin is “not to render his due to God”. But if sin is not rendering God his due, this begs the question, what is owed to God and what happened that humans have not rendered God his due? Anselm explains that what humans and angels owe to God is to be subject to the will of God. When one does not render one’s will to God one is taking honor away from God, therefore dishonoring him. He points out that the first instance of dishonoring God occurred when the first humans were conquered by the devil, thus subjecting themselves to the Devil’s will and not to God’s will. So for Anselm the problem is that humans have taken away honor from God.  If they are to attain blessedness they must not simply return what was taken away, they “must give back more than he (they) took away”. Thus, as long as man does not repay, he is unjust, and therefore he will not be blessed. So the question that Anselm leads his readers to ask is, how can they attain blessedness if there is a debt of honor owed to God that cannot be paid because all have sinned and are incapable of rendering the honor that God is due? There are several options. First God could remit the sin, however this option is ruled out for it would be unjust on God’s behalf to do this. A second option is that those who have taken honor away from God could be punished. A third option is that God could accept satisfaction for sin. However this satisfaction would have to be greater than the sin committed against him.  Satisfaction can be made “only when the debt that is due for sin according to the greatness of the sin has been repaid.”

However there is a problem with the notion that satisfaction can be made, namely that humans are incapable of making satisfaction since all humans are guilty of taking honor from God. This is a big problem for humans because no one has the right to make satisfaction except for man, but only God is capable of making satisfaction. The only solution would be that a God-Man makes satisfaction. This God-Man must be from the race of Adam to make satisfaction for sin, since it was humans from the race of Adam that committed the sins. Thus Anselm proceeds to explain how the God-Man was born of the race of Adam. This God man is the Son incarnate.

The God-Man lives a life free from sin thus he gives God what is due, his obedience. But the God-Man lives a life in which he gives more than what is due to God. He gives God his own life. God does not require the God-Man’s life as a debt, because there is no sin in him that would make it necessary for him to die. Because the God-man gives God more than God is due, God owes the God-Man a reward. However because the God-Man is God, he is in need of nothing, thus he has no need for the reward. Being that the reward must be given, the God-Man wills that what is owed to him by God be assigned to those for whom he died. Thus the merit which the God-Man has acquired through his death on the cross is freely given to the elect. This is the gospel according to Anselm, that humans have dishonored God and owe him a debt which is impossible to repay by anyone besides someone who is fully God and fully human, thankfully the God-man repays the debt and acquires honor that is due to him but is given to the elect. So for Anselm his gospel hangs upon the incarnation, that there is someone who is a God-man.

As Anselm explains the gospel in this dialogue, it often seems as though he believes that God necessarily acted the way that he did. This begs the question, is God bound to necessity? In one sense God is bound to necessity, but in another sense he is not. For Anselm the fact that God acts necessarily is not based upon any necessary conditions placed upon God from without. Any necessity that we might attribute to God is placed upon God by himself. For instance, God necessarily makes satisfaction for sin because it is God’s character to carry out what he began, namely of having a certain number of rational creatures enjoy blessedness and receiving the honor that he is due. A similar thing could be said for the fact that God necessarily cannot remit the sin, because it is part of God’s nature to be just and to be unjust would be against God’s nature. Thus if we are talking about any form of necessity in regards to God, it is not necessity imposed from the outside, but it is necessity that God has taken on upon himself, on account of his own changeless nature.

Obama, Romney, and Christian Ethics

Election day is around the corner and many Americans are still on the fence. Obama or Romney? Many Christians will go to the polls on Election day and vote based upon which candidate better lines up with “Christian Values.” This is a legitimate way to decide who will get one’s vote. Many Christians in my part of town believe that Romney best lines up with Christian/Biblical values. Many Christians I go to school with believe that Obama best lines up with Christian/Biblical values. In this blog post I want to briefly outline the ethics or values of both Obama and Romney as they are presented in a couple of interviews done by Ed Stetzer. Ed Stetzer interviewed some high up staff that adequately represented each candidate. For the sake of Christian Charity I will only highlight the positive aspects of their ethical stances. After taking a look at this I will suggest a paradigm for understanding their ethics and voting in light of their positions.

Obama’s Ethics

According to the his representative, “President Obama recognizes that as a society we will be judged on how we care for the ‘least of these.'” This is evident if we look at his stances on immigration, healthcare, and creation.

“On immigration, the Bible tells us to show care and respect for “strangers in the land” (Deuteronomy 10:19). President Obama has promoted pragmatic and compassionate immigration policies, including support for the DREAM Act that would provide a path to citizenship through higher education or military service for young people who came to America as children.”

“He has expanded health insurance to 32 million Americans, supported maintaining nutrition assistance for needy families, unemployment benefits for those who are out of work, Head Start programs for early childhood education, and doubling Pell Grants for students who may not otherwise be able to afford to attend college.”

“We are called to be stewards of God’s creation (Genesis 1:26), and President Obama has taken steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mercury pollution, protect water quality, and promote clean, renewable energy.”

Obama’s ethics are clearly a reflection of his belief that we are a government of, by and for the people, which means the values and priorities of our governmental institutions are a reflection of all of us. Because of this we cannot divorce ourselves from this responsibility as a society.

Regarding some of his more controversial positions: Gay Marriage and Abortion

“President Obama believes that it is fundamentally unfair to deny certain rights and protections to gay and lesbian couples who perhaps adhere to a different religious perspective.”

“While the President is pro-choice, it is not an issue he takes lightly, and there are certainly people of faith on both sides of this debate. President Obama believes we should be working together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions. He has strengthened programs that encourage adoption, increased pre- and post-natal care, and has increased access to contraception.”

Upon doing a quick survey of Obama’s ethics its clear that he is in favor of helping immigrants, the poor, and the oppressed. He is interested in taking care of creation. He desires to protect the freedom of people to do whatever they want as individuals, whether it be gay marriage or abortion.

Romney’s Ethics

Regarding the poor:

“Governor Romney’s governing history indicates a reliance on important partnerships between public and private sectors to address these problems. Furthermore, his life of involvement in his church demonstrates a consistent record of caring for the “least of these” in our midst.”

Regarding Gay Marriage:

“Governor Romney has long supported the civil rights of all Americans while still opposing the right for same sex couples to be joined in marriage.”

Regarding Abortion:

“Governor Romney has been quite transparent about his “conversion” on this issue, which resulted from a scholarly discussion on the matter of stem cell research during his term as governor of Massachusetts…I do not have the slightest concern about his fidelity to the defense of human life beginning at conception.”

Regarding Immigration:

Romney plans to “implement a national immigration strategy that bolsters the U.S. economy, ensures our security, keeps nuclear families together, addresses the problem of illegal immigration in a civil and resolute manner, and carries on America’s tradition as a nation of legal immigrants.”

He plans to secure the borders by: “completing a high-tech fence to enhance border security”, “ensuring that we have the officers on the ground we need to gain control of the border”, and to “develop an efficient, effective system of exit verification to ensure people do not overstay their visas.” He will discourage undocumented immigration, especially among young people by opposing “all “magnets” that entice illegal immigrants to come to our country. (As governor, he vetoed in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants and opposed driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.)

A Paradigm for Understanding Obama’s and Romney’s Ethics

Reading through their positions on these political (ethical issues) it become clear to me that neither candidate really displays a more consistent Christian morality. Let me explain why…

Obama’s Ethics are best understood as corporate ethics. Romney’s ethics are best understood as individualistic ethics. For Christians both are essential. Romney is concerned about ensuring the morality of individuals. Homosexual acts and abortion are all sins that are committed by individuals. Obama is concerned about ensuring a corporate morality. He goes after the systems and structures that are immoral. For instance the systematic injustice faced by the poor when they are denied access to healthcare or a proper education. This observation is true not only of the candidates but the parties as a whole. For instance consider the democratic stance on the role of government and the republican stance on the role of government. Republicans tend to believe that freedom is a freedom from coercion. Democrats tend to believe in a version of freedom in which freedom is the ability to do something, rather than merely being a lack of restrictions preventing one from doing something. Thus these views of freedom influence their views on what the government is supposed to do. Republicans believe that the government should not coerce, so the government should stay out of the picture as much a possible, this is how to help people be free. Democrats believe that freedom is the ability to do something, so the government should help people to be free, thus by stepping in to situations they can help people actualize their freedom.

This might be an oversimplified analysis of the situation…. but when you (Christians) go out to vote next week keep in mind that one candiate is not necessarily more moral than the other. They just approach morality from two different directions (individually or corporately). As Christians both paradigms for morality are supposed to come into play. Vote accordingly.

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http://www.edstetzer.com/2012/11/why-vote-for-president-obama-a.html

http://www.edstetzer.com/2012/11/decision-2012-an-interview-wit.html

http://www.mittromney.com/issues/immigration

Jonathan Edwards and Typology

My theological interests are all over the place lately. Recently I have been really interested in typological reading of the OT. Its kind of cool because it coincides with me teaching a class on 2 Samuel at Eternity Bible College in a few weeks. On top of typology I have also been really interested in Reformed theories of atonement and as always Jonathan Edwards. This week I started reading Amy Plantinga Pauw’s book on Jonathan Edwards: The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards. I primarily picked it up because I’m trying to nail down Edwards’ atonement theory. Anyway… back to Typology. Pauw has an interesting couple of pages on Edward’s use of typology. I just want to share some of that with you (also I want to organize my own thoughts about typology and Edwards).

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Pauw begins by noting that Reformed Scholastics and Puritans were pretty much in love with typology… because it gave them “sufficent latitude to work imaginatively with Biblical material”(38). Now this alone is not a good reason to use typology. Just because it helps us preach better or study the bible better is not a justification for using typology. Nevertheless people like Edwards “accepted and wholeheartedly embraced… the typological approach to Scriptures which came to him from Puritan-Protestant figural sources” (38).

There are various ways to use typology. First we can read scripture typologically, for instance we can find Christ as the fulfillment of various types and images in the Old Testament. (Lets assume that reading Scripture typologically is okay.) We can also move beyond scriptural sources and find images and types of divine things (atonement, the Trinity, God’s faithfulness and love) in nature, human history, and current events. Edwards thoroughly believed this. Some might object to doing this…..they might say that this is a crude and unsophisticated hermeneutic (for scripture and for understanding the world around us.) Edwards knows that people will object to this yet he says:

“I expect by very ridicule and contempt to be called a man of a very fruitful brain and copious fancy but they are welcome to it. I am not ashamed to own that I believe that the whole universe, heaven and earth, air and seas, and divine constitution and history of the holy Scriptures, be full of images of divine things, as full as a language is of words; and that the multitude of those things that I have mentioned are but a very small part of what is really intended to be signified and typified by these things.”

Why does Edwards say this and why does he risk ridicule and contempt in order to find God in things like storms, spiders, marriage, family, and historical occurrences? The reason is quite simple. He believes that “God is a communicative being.” In fact in one of his Miscellanies Edwards says that “communication of himself to their understand is his glory, and the communication of himself with respect to their wills, the enjoying faculty is their happiness.” (This theme is echoed throughout The End for Which God Created the World.) So God delights in communicating himself and about himself. God delights in speaking to us. And God speaks in the language of typologies. In the Typological writings Edwards says that “Types are a certain sort of language, as it were, in which God is wont to speak to us.” However we must learn to speak that language. I believe that (to a certain extent) if we are going to learn to hear God speak to us through nature and through the OT we need to learn (or better yet be taught) to understand this language.

Christ, Culture, and College Students – A Reformed Perspective (Pt. 5)

Last time we looked at cultural transformation in light of the biblical meta-narrative. Today we wrap things up by looking at what vocation looks like in light of all we have said.

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God’s Sovereignty and Vocation

Working with college students who desire to make an impact on culture, we will certainly minister to students who don’t have the time or “abilities” to engage in cultural transformation as it is normally thought of. Some students will not have the ability to create art or music. Others will not have time or resources to advocate for social justice or to create new ministries. These students will still desire to make an impact on culture but they will feel bad because they think that their “regular,” “unflashy,” or “unspectacular” vocations can’t make an impact on culture. As ministers its our responsibility to show them that even though they are not in a “flashy” or “impactful” vocation nevertheless they are in a vocation which is necessary and important for God’s intentions regarding culture and its transformation. Helping students understand that their vocations as a student, a banker, a barista, or a retail worker is extremely important in God’s eyes is one of my primary tasks. I believe that the best way to do this is to paint a big picture of God’s sovereignty over all areas of culture in a way similar to what Abraham Kuyper did in Lectures on Calvinism.

Kuyper breaks up his lectures into six parts. The first part explains what “life-systems” are and the type of questions and answers that life-systems attempt to ask and answer. He argues that Calvinism is the most coherent life-system. In the second part Kuyper examines Calvinism’s relationship to religion. In the third through the fifth part he addresses the relationship between Calvinism and several specific spheres of culture. In the final part he addresses what Calvinism’s role in the future will be and how it needs to adapt to the future. It is the second part that is especially relevant to our understanding of God’s sovereignty and vocation. In the second part he argues that in the humans tend to make religion about themselves, but Calvinism is different in that for Calvinism true religion is always for the sake of God.[1] In fact all things exist for the sake of God, all of creation exists to glorify God. Since all of creation exists for the sake of God “then it follows that the whole creation must give glory to God.”[2] This means that God is not limited to being glorified within the confines of the church or the “sacred.” God will be glorified in the base things and in the secular. God is interested in all of life, since all of life is meant to give glory to God. Thus when humans do anything whether it be serving coffee, sweeping floors, managing bank accounts, or playing sports, humans are employed in God’s service to bring God glory in those areas. Since God is sovereign over all things, not just the “religious” things, God desires to be glorified through all sorts of vocations.

The sovereignty of God is the theological foundation for helping students understand that all vocations are important, because all vocations have the potential of glorying God. Now when working with college students it will be important to help them make the connections between the tasks involved in their vocation and how that can specifically bring glory to God. For instance if one student desires to be an artist we might help them see that through art we glorify God, ennoble human life, and bring pleasure to others.[3] The first of these is obviously a worthy end and the second two are worthy ends because they encourage human flourishing and they are a part of the cultural mandate. Another student might be considering taking some political science classes because she wants to be a politician. We might also use the doctrine of God’s sovereignty as a way to encourage her that this is a worthy vocation. We could point to the scriptures which say that those who “rule” serve God by ruling people according to His ordinances.[4] However it is important that when we explain how almost all vocations can be used to glorify God we must make it clear that there are God honoring ways to carry out those vocations and God dishonoring ways of carrying them out. For instance there are God honoring ways for students to be baristas at Starbucks or cashiers at the local retail store. For instance the God honoring way will treat others with respect recognizing the formal imago dei in all people, since the imago dei serves as foundation for ethics.[5] The God dishonoring way will ignore the imago dei. By ignoring the value that this other person has in virtue of the imago dei they might end up treating the customers as means rather than ends; this might result in treating them as a sales figure or as a nuisance when they ask for a complicated specialized drink at Starbucks.

Conclusion

By examining these four aspects of Christ and Culture we have seen that having a robust theology of Christ and Culture indeed is very practical and that it can really help college students be more faithful disciples of Jesus. It is my hope that students would engage with these theological and biblical concepts so that in their lives they might engage with culture and thereby fulfill the cultural mandate of bringing glory to God through “making” culture.

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[1] Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931), 45.

[2] Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, 52.

[3] Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, 153.

[4] Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, 103.

[5] Emil Brunner and Karl Barth, Natural Theology, (Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2002), 44.

Christ, Culture, and College Students – A Reformed Perspective (Pt. 4)

Last time we looked at the concept of cultural transformation. Today we turn to our third subject: cultural transformation and the Biblical meta-narrative.

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Transforming Culture and the Biblical Meta-Narrative

There are many Christians throughout the history of the Church who have held the view that God desires to transform culture; that God desires some sort of restoration. For instance Augustine and Calvin both held views like this. Recently (within the last 100 years) there have been several theologians who have advocated for a view of transformation that hopes that transformation can occur fully in the present. People Like Richard Niebuhr and F.D. Maurice have advocated for a view that eschatological restoration and shalom could happen in the present. This has led them, and others like them to expend great efforts in social and moral reform. People who advocate for this view often do end up working towards the ends that were mentioned in When the Kings Come Marching In. However the biblical drama makes the claim that this sort of transformation and restoration cannot fully occur in the present, it will happen in the eschaton. Thus a proper understanding of the Biblical drama is necessary for understanding our role in the transformation of culture. In Christ and Culture Revisted D.A. Carson points out how the Biblical drama can help us form a better understanding of Christ the transformer of culture. Carson begins by outlining the biblical meta-narrative. The Biblical meta-narrative contains some important “chapters” for understanding Christ and culture. There is the good and perfect creation, the fall, redemption, and new creation. Carson argues that any account of Christ and culture  must incorporate these “great turning points of redemptive history.”[1] If we end up overemphasizing one of these chapters over the others we end up with a skewed view of Christ and culture. Carson argues that this is what Niebuhr has done in advocating for a fully present transformation of culture. Carson believes that Niebuhr has elevated the good-creation chapter, and has failed to take into account the falleness of creation and the fact that sin permeates all of creation. Because all of creation is tainted by sin, the only hope for redemption and restoration is through an act of the grace of God. Niebuhr encourages and advocates for something that is impossible on this side of the eschaton because sin makes it impossible in the present.

This is an important critique of Niehbur’s understanding of Christ transforming culture, especially for college students. College students often believe that all the wrongs in this world could be made right if only people lived justly and lovingly. They often hope for transformation now. However according to the Biblical narrative this hope is unfounded. College students should still be working to alleviate and even prevent wrongs and social injustices, however they must understand that full transformation cannot happen until Jesus intervenes at the end of the age[2]. Keeping this in mind will certainly prevent frustration when college students are not seeing change or are seeing change too slowly. It will also alleviate stress because they know that the transformation is not ultimately up to them but it is ultimately up to Jesus the true transformer of culture.

[1] Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited, 44.

[2] Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited, 58.

Christ, Culture, and College Students – A Reformed Perspective (Pt. 3)

After a brief “interruption” with a mini-series on preaching out of Acts 2:42-47 we finally turn back to looking at Christ, Culture, and College students. In the last post we looked at what culture is and we talked about the cultural mandate. Today we turn to our second subject: the transformation of culture.

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Transforming Culture

            It is a well know fact that college students nowadays are eager to transform culture. In my opinion (and in the opinion of many others) we are currently seeing an unprecedented movement in college students in terms of activism. Students are seeing that there is much wrong with the world and they are rushing out to help fix these things. In order to help these students be more effective with their time and resources it would be helpful to understand what areas of culture God desires to transform. Richard Mouw by expositing Isaiah 60 helps us perform this task.

In When the Kings Come Marching In Mouw examines four images found in Isaiah 60 in order to understand the transformation of creation that God desires. The four images he discusses are the image of the “ships of Tarshish,” “the kings of the earth,” “the milk of many nations,” and “the light of the city.” (Later on I might end up doing a blog about this book…) By the ships of Tarshish, Mouw understands the Bible as communicating God’s position on cultural artifacts. Mouw explains that cultural artifacts can have God glorfying functions and idolatrous functions. However God desires to purify and transform the idolatrous nature of these cultural artifacts for the sake of his own glory. Mouw understand the image of the “Kings of the Earth” as representing political structures. God will call the political structures, both the idolatrous ones and God glorifying ones, back to himself for judgment, healing and sanctification. Mouw believes that  “milk of many nations” implies that diversity of cultures and peoples is necessary for proper human flourishing. Finally, Mouw sees the “light of the city” as the centrality of Jesus in the new creation. He understands the atonement as the basis for our understanding of cultural transformation. Without Jesus at its center, lasting transformation of culture cannot happen because “Jesus is the power that attracts the procession into the City.”[1]

These images help us understand the cultural transformation that God wants to enact in the future. God desires to take the best and most God glorifying aspects of every culture for himself. God desires to bring justice and set wrongs to right. God desires to create a people for himself that includes peoples of all nations, tribes, and tongues. Finally God wants to make himself central in this new reality. These four things are ends that college students could be working towards. They could work towards creating cultural goods that are bring glory to God. They could work for social justice and to help alleviate suffering in the world caused by systemic injustices. They could work to help the church become more multi-cultural. Finally they could work to make Jesus the center of reality by means of sharing the gospel and evangelism. All of these are cultural transformations that students could begin working towards now.

However if they decide to engage in the project of transforming culture they must first have a proper understanding of how God desires to transform culture…. this “proper understanding” leads us into the topic for next time: Transforming Culture and the Biblical Meta-narrative.

[1] Mouw, When the Kings Come Marching In, 104.

The Challenge of Acts 2:42-47 (pt. 2)

So yesterday I mentioned some of the challenges of preaching out of Acts 2:42-47 (which should be incredibly easy… but its not). The reason I wrote the blog yesterday was because I was sitting at my local Starbucks, STUCK, not knowing where to take the sermon. So what I did was I stopped and prayed. And as I prayed God brought the point of the passage to my mind….

The Church is the community formed around the cross for the sake of God’s glory…

 As I was thinking of ways to preach this sermon I was stuck in a action oriented mentality. “This is how we do church.” “We need to do this.” “If we aren’t doing this we aren’t being the church.” “These things are hard to do.” “We need to do some more praying.” DO DO DO! I was ignoring a crucial fact… the church is the called out community! The Church is created by God not by us! DUH! The point is you don’t teach, pray, fellowship, give, evangelize and become a church. NO, the Church is the community called out by God. Its so easy to get these two things it confused. The list of things isn’t a list of things we do… it’s a list of things we are. These actions are a part of our identity….

  • Christ was generous towards us on the cross so we can be generous towards one another
  • Christ opened up a path to the father so we can pray confidently as sons and daughters of God
  • Christ endured suffering on the cross so that we can be glad and rejoice with sincere hearts
  • He became powerless so we could have the power of the Spirit

These things are more than just what we do… they are who we are.

We are generous. We are prayerful. We are joyful. We are powerful. All because of Christ’s life and death on the cross for us. Because these things are things that we can’t manufacture on our own they inevitably point to Jesus. We as a community are given our identity by Jesus so if your community is its generous that’s because of him. We don’t get the glory. We don’t get the attention. He does! If we can be glad and joyful its not because we are positive people. Its because we can be glad and joyful in Christ. So our joy points to Christ. Its something that we can’t get the glory for, only he can get the glory for that. Now if we are doing signs and wonders… on our own… there is something weird about that. Anyway, if we pray and someone gets healed; if we prophecy and someone is encouraged; Its not because of us. We can’t heal someone! We can’t know the depths of their heart. Its because we have the Spirit, God’s gift to his people, that we can do these things. So ultimately our generosity; our prayers; our joy; our power all point back to Jesus. And this pointing back to Jesus is the ultimate act of mission. We are a witness to Jesus because he has given you all you need to witness to him.

The Challenge of Acts 2:42-47 (pt. 1)

The Challenge

So this week I was given the task of preaching on Acts 2:42-47, what the NIV calls “The Fellowship of the Believers.” Normally being given this text to preach is every preacher’s dream. Its so easy! You just preach about community and how to do church! To a certain extent I can resonate with this. I have done it a million times…as the Lifegroup Director for Rocky Peak’s college group, SOMA, it’s a passage that I am constantly going back to whether it be for Lifegroup trainings or for conversations with leaders. On top of this I have even have written about it at length in this blog. (See https://cwoznicki.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/simple-smallgroups-pt-2-biblical-life-groups/ ) I have written that in this passage there is a relational pattern, 2- a spiritual growth pattern, and 3- a missional pattern. In other words, in the language of Soma’s culture we see believers 1-encountering Christ, 2-being community, 3-being on mission. So the challenge of preaching this passage is to say something that hasn’t already been said, its to approach it from a different angle. On top of that the challenge is not to be simply descriptive as to what the Christian community is supposed to be like, this is not an official blueprint for Church. Also the challenge not to make it prescriptive. We don’t want to turn this into imperatives. We don’t want to say… Go be loving! Go be generous! Go pray! Because these actions were spontaneous for the early church (spontaneous in the sense that it came from within rather than simply being random.) We can’t force people to be loving or generous or prayerful. On top of those three challenges (1-don’t repeat what has already been said, 2-don’t merely be descriptive, and 3-don’t merely give imperatives) there is the ultimate challenge of any sermon… how do we point this to Christ?

Pointing the Sermon To Jesus

Karl Barth says that the Bible becomes the word of God when the Spirit takes it and points it to Jesus. Maybe you don’t agree with this… but he applies this logic to sermons too. Barth ends up saying that a sermon becomes the word of God when the Spirit takes it and points it to the Word of God, Jesus Christ himself. I completely agree with this latter point. A sermon becomes God’s word for God’s people when the Spirit makes Jesus appear wonderfully glorious to them. This is why a sermon is an act of worship, because it points people to Jesus and says “Look at Christ! Look at how glorious he is! Look at the honor and glory and praise he deserves because of who he is and because of what he has done for us!” So if the sermon becomes a sermon when it points people to Jesus it means that in church we can end up with people who aren’t giving sermons. They might certainly be teaching the Bible, they might certainly be giving us great truths from Scriptures. If they are doing this they are teaching but they certainly aren’t preaching. I don’t want to teach Acts 2:42-47. I want to preach Acts 2:42-47. I want to make it point to Jesus. The goal of a sermon on Acts 2:42-47 is to take “The Fellowship of the Believers” and make you want to worship Jesus for what he has done. This is the challenge I face this week.  But as I am starting to read this passage and really dive into it I begin to see Jesus all over the place. I begin to see the cross all over the place. I begin to see the gospel all over the place….

The Church is the community formed around the cross for the sake of God’s glory…