the-ascension-may-june-2016 by Modern Reformation

MODERN REFORMATION VOL.25 | NO.3 | MAY-JUNE 2016 | $6.95

THE

Ascension PA RT

GETTING TO THE CORE In order to help more Christians know what they believe and why they believe it, we are in the process of creating Bible studies that connect with believers at any level. To learn more visit us online.

C O R E C H R I S T I A N I T Y. C O M

V O L .2 5 | N O. 3 | M AY-J U N E 2 0 16

FEATURES

24 Goin’ Up to the Spirit in the Sky? The Ascension Is Not What You Think It Is

40 “It Is Good That I Go”: Jesus Bids His Disciples Farewell

B Y M AT T H E W B A R R E T T

B Y M I C H A E L S. H O R T O N

32 At the Right Hand: Why Jesus Being Seated in Heaven Changes Everything on Earth

50 The Work of the Church until Christ Returns M I C H A E L H O R T O N TA L K S W I T H R U S S E L L M O O R E

B Y J E R E M Y T R E AT

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

KNOW WHAT YOU BELIEVE With over twenty-five years of radio broadcasting and magazine publishing, our mission is help Christians “know what they believe and why they believe it” through conversational theology. Visit us at whitehorseinn.org to learn more and browse the archives.

WHITEHORSEINN.ORG

V O L .2 5 | N O. 3 | M AY-J U N E 2 0 16

DEPARTMENTS

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

BOOK REVIEWS

BY ERIC LANDRY

“The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts”

R E V I E W E D B Y B R U C E B AU G U S

T H E O LO GY

“Consecrating” the Culture with Machen and Wilberforce

BY STEPHEN ROBERTS

8 INTERVIEW

GEEK SQUAD

Reassessing Kuyper and His Legacy

Sacraments in Space and Time

Q&A WITH AD DE BRUIJNE

B Y D E R E K R I S H M AW Y

B I B L E S T U DY

B A C K PA G E

Acts of the Apostles

The New Birth

B Y J O H N J. B O M B A R O

B Y M I C H A E L S. H O R T O N

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY PATRICK ATKINS

Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Executive Editor Eric Landry Managing Editor Patricia Anders Associate Editor Brooke Ventura Marketing Director Michele Tedrick Design Director José Reyes for Metaleap Creative, metaleapcreative.com Review Editor Ryan Glomsrud Designers Ashley Shugart, Harold Velarde Copy Editor Elizabeth Isaac Proofreader Ann Smith Modern Reformation © 2016 All rights reserved. I S S N - 1 07 6 -7 1 6 9 M o d e r n R e f o r m a t i o n ( S u b s c r i p t i o n D e p a r t m e n t ) P.O. B o x 4 6 0 5 6 5 E s c o n d i d o , C A 9 2 0 4 6 ( 8 5 5 ) 4 9 2- 1 6 74 i n f o @ m o d e r n r e f o r m a t i o n . o r g w w w. m o d e r n r e f o r m a t i o n . o r g S u b s c r i p t i o n I n f o r m a t i o n U S 1 Y R $ 3 2 . 2 Y R $ 5 0. 3 Y R $ 6 0. Digital Only 1 YR $25. US Student 1 YR $26. 2 YR $40. Canada add $10 per year for postage. Foreign add $9 per year for postage.

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

LETTER from the EDITOR

kingship and his kingdom. In his article, Pastor Treat also shows us what the ascension means for us as the subjects of King Jesus who will one day reign with him. Our third article, from our editor-in-chief Michael Horton, examines those strange words of Jesus in John 16:7, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” Dr. Horton’s article will show how the presence of the Holy Spirit is more beneficial for the church than the continued presence of Jesus on earth. he Christian church has been waitIn addition to these feature articles, we’re ing for the return of Christ longer than including two interviews related to the topics Israel waited for his first appearing. we’re taking up in this issue. The first is with Back on that spring day on Mount Dutch theologian Ad de Bruijne, an expert Olivet when the disciples saw Jesus ascend into on the life and legacy of Abraham Kuyper. heaven, did they expect this wait to be so long? The second is with Russell Moore, who serves How should the church conduct itself while its as president of the Ethics and Religious king and head is absent? What is Jesus doing Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist in heaven all this time anyway? Convention. He is also the author Although sometimes overlooked and of Onward: Engaging the Culture often misunderstood, the ascension without Losing the Gospel. While of Christ is as cardinal a doctrine of each interview takes up its own “ JESUS ASthe faith as the incarnation and resdistinct subject, we hope you’ll urrection. In this issue, we’re defining see how our thinking about the CENDED TO and defending this doctrine by applyrole of the Christian and the THE RIGHT ing the benefits of Christ’s absence to church here between Jesus’ first HAND OF the church body he left behind. and second comings is deterO u r f i r s t a r t i c l e , f r o m Ne w mined by what Jesus is doing THE FATHER Testament theologian Matthew after his ascension. WHERE HE Barrett, answers some of the quesWith this issue, we’re now RULES AND tions: Where did Jesus go? Why is it halfway through the 2016 calenREIGNS. ” significant that Jesus was taken up dar. Still to come are issues on into the clouds? What did his deparjustification, heaven, and the ture communicate to the disciples? incarnation. We’d love to hear How should we understand the charfrom you—especially if you’re acter of the event itself? a new subscriber. Contact us at editor@modOur second article, from Pastor Jeremy Treat, ernreformation.org or follow us on Facebook takes up the meaning of the ascension. Pastor and Twitter. Treat argues that ascension essentially means enthronement. Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father where he rules and reigns. This act of ascending, then, helps to define both his ERIC LANDRY exec utive editor

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

THEOLOGY

“ Consecrating” the Culture with Machen and Wilberforce by Stephen Roberts

ike me, you are probably disoriented by how quickly culture is changing. Just over a decade ago, there was no such thing as “gay marriage.” Now it is a legal right. When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court got the ball rolling on the establishment in 2004, most college students were hauling desktop computers to college. Now they take laptops, along with tablets, smartphones, and Apple watches. Amid the rapidity of these changes, our temptation to retreat from public engagement is understandable. That’s why it’s important for us to gather historical and biblical wisdom in order to gain perspective in our outlook and

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

purpose in our prayer. We can gather a few lessons from two great fathers of the faith: J. Gresham Machen and William Wilberforce.

THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN Many Christians lament the present cultural decline as if it were unique. Over two centuries ago, the great Christian abolitionist William Wilberforce observed: The peculiar doctrines of Christianity went more and more out of sight, and as might naturally have been expected, the moral

THEOLOGY

system itself also began to wither and decay, being robbed of that which should have supplied it with life and nutriment. One hundred years later, J. Gresham Machen noted that “this optimistic religion of a selfsufficient humanity has been substituted today, to a very considerable extent, in most of the Protestant communions, for the redemptive religion hitherto known as Christianity.” As a result, “A polite paganism…with reliance upon human resources was being quietly and peacefully substituted for the heroism of devotion to the gospel.” Both Wilberforce and Machen witnessed a corresponding decline in the church’s proclamation of the gospel and culture’s adherence to basic moral norms. Every age has seen its share of disappointments, decline, and decay. While creation and humanity are still imbued with a degree of created dignity, the fact is that humanity is in rebellion against God, and like Abel we feel the weight of that rebellion upon our own brow.

MAINTAIN FOCUS ON PRIMARY MISSION It’s a great relief to know that our mission is not to transform society. While we long for fewer broken homes, less crime, and trustworthy public servants, these are the byproducts of faithful Christian witness in the world, not its purpose. Machen did not generally want to be associated with the fundamentalists of his day, because they, like the liberals, often made the church merely a means to a greater end—social transformation. The liberals wanted a social utopia; the fundamentalists wanted a “Christian” America defined in terms of morality. In this approach toward culture, Machen reminds us that “religion itself, and even God, are made merely a means for the betterment of conditions upon this earth.” As a result, “religion has become a mere function of the community or of the state.” In its quest to save culture, the church is often at risk of losing the gospel. Machen reminds us:

“The fact that the primary purpose of the church is spiritual, not social, doesn’t mean that the Christian is not to participate in culture.” Its weapons against evil are spiritual, not carnal; and by becoming a political lobby, through the advocacy of political measures whether good or bad, the Church is turning aside from its proper mission, which is to bring to bear upon human hearts the solemn and imperious, yet also sweet and gracious, appeal of the gospel of Christ. The fact that the primary purpose of the church is spiritual, not social, doesn’t mean that the Christian is not to participate in culture. Machen himself was quite the political activist. He corresponded with and influenced various politicians, and even testified before a Senate committee on education. But his activism was a consequence of the gospel, not the gospel itself.

CULTURAL CHANGES ARE NOT IRREVERSIBLE Perhaps we have joined the culture-at-large in lifting our noses in chronological snobbery. Maybe we’ve bought into the cult of self-esteem and celebrity, or been carried off into utopian flights of fancy. Whatever the cause, we tend to believe that the whims of our culture have ultimate, eschatological importance, which is why we grow euphoric when the tide seems to go our way and despondent when it heads the other direction. We place more significance on our powers of persuasion than on God’s silent providence. T. S. Eliot reminds us that human causes by nature are transitory:

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

If we take the widest and wisest view of a Cause, there is no such thing as a Lost Cause because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph. In the service and cause of Christ, we know that worldly kingdoms come and go, but the kingdom of Christ will reign forever and ever. We fight for a cause—the gospel—which is foolishness and weakness in the eyes of the world but is nothing less than the wisdom and power of God. We recognize that the ordinary means of grace are extraordinary in the power that stands behind them and in the power they hold over the human heart. Machen reminds us that “this world cannot be bettered if you think that this world is all. To move the world you must have a place to stand.” To put human culture into proper perspective, we must remember that our foundation is in the character and work of a God who does not change like the shifting shadows of historical circumstance. People and societies change; God does not. Despite how things may seem, he reigns over all, so that everything will be brought to its God-appointed end.

WE MUST JOYFULLY CONSECRATE THE CULTURE IN ALL SEASONS A former Navy Seal, Eric Greitens, once wrote that he believed he had been born in the wrong era—one that no longer valued courage and sacrifice. I think many of us can relate. But God’s holy, wise, and powerful providence does not allow for this. We may yearn for a different age, but the truth is that we have been specifically called to live in a season such as this. Consider the discouragement Wilberforce faced in his time. Did you know that the slavery

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

battle consumed forty-six years of his life? He suffered eleven defeats in Parliament before the slave trade was abolished in 1807, and the abolition of enslavement did not occur until 1833. Yet his God-given determination in that great cultural calling was not diminished, nor was his faith in Jesus Christ. Machen wrote of three different approaches to culture: compromise, capitulate, or consecrate (my paraphrase). The liberals compromise the truth in order to make Christianity more palatable to the pagan mind, while the fundamentalists tend to run away from the academy and culture at large. Machen advocated a third way: consecration of the culture. Instead of destroying the arts and sciences or being indifferent to them, let us cultivate them with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist, but at the same time consecrate them to the service of our God. By consecration, Machen did not mean the overly idealistic quest to sanctify culture, but the basic responsibility to engage culture to the glory of God. “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Likewise, “every branch of human endeavor” must “be brought into some relation to the gospel. It must be studied in order to be demonstrated as false, or in order to be made useful in advancing the kingdom of God.” In our present age of Christian ghettoization, Machen reminds us to engage the world around us and do it to the glory of God.

GOD WILL HAVE THE FINAL WORD, SO LABOR WITH CONFIDENCE A Christian sister put together a video documentary of her struggle with cancer, including her physical suffering and sorrow at the thought of leaving her young children. Uncertain of what the future held, she concluded, “Whether I live or I die, God wins.”

THEOLOGY

Sometimes, we see visible fruit to our labors. It was said of Wilberforce that he “changed the moral outlook of Great Britain.…The reformation of manners (morals) grew into Victorian virtues and Wilberforce touched the world when he made goodness fashionable.” But contrast that with Machen and the several thousand lonely believers who followed him into exile from the PCUSA. Machen did not dwell on this fact at the point of his death; he merely remarked that he was “so thankful for the active obedience of Christ.” No hope without it.

Brothers and sisters, there will be a day when the trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend, a day when our robes will be washed white in the blood of the Lamb, and every tear will be wiped from our eyes. Until then, let us joyfully consecrate our lives and labors to the glory of God, patiently waiting for that assured and blessed moment. REV. STEPHEN ROBERTS is an evangelist with Falls Ortho-

dox Presbyterian Church in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, and a chaplain in the United States Army Reserve.

INTERVIEW

Reassessing Kuyper and His Legacy Q & A with Ad de Bruijne

W 8

hen it comes to Christian engagement with culture in its various forms, many Reformed and evangelical Christians have turned to

the legacy of Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920). As modernism engulfed the Dutch Reformed Church, he led the founding of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands and wrote weighty

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

theological tomes. While emphasizing the irreconcilable antithesis between Christian and non-Christian worldviews, he was just as convinced that God’s common grace makes common society possible. He was fascinated by the whole range of cultural activity, arguing that government, education, the church, science, and the arts should be “sovereign” in their own right, without one sphere controlling the others. In a similar way, Kuyper met religious pluralism with his notion of “pillarization”: that Reformed, Roman Catholic, and secular communities should be free to develop their own social institutions. Following through with his ideas, he founded a national newspaper and the Free University of Amsterdam, and served as prime minister from 1901 to 1905. His Stone Lectures (published as Lectures on Calvinism), delivered at Princeton Seminary in 1898, advocated his vision of Reformed theology applied to various cultural spheres. Although he is largely forgotten in his native country, Kuyper is often invoked today by Christians in the United States on the political right and left. But is this the real Kuyper? We’ve asked a specialist, Ad de Bruijne, professor of ethics and spirituality at the University of Kempen in the Netherlands, to offer a sneak peek at his recent work on this seminal figure.

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y C H R I S T O P H E R D E L O R E N Z O

What is the significance of Abraham Kuyper in Dutch church circles and society these days? Unlike in America and in countries where Christianity is on the rise, in the Netherlands for many years the attention and appreciation for Abraham Kuyper has been limited. Secularists consider him the prototype of the ongoing Christian ambition to control the public domain with Christian norms, even in modern times. With their farewell to the Christian past after World War II and during the sixties, they also abandoned Abraham Kuyper and his heritage of Christian public participation and the connected societal

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

“Recent years have witnessed a remarkable resurgence of interest in Kuyper.”

pattern of “pillarization” that granted each worldview its own corner in the public domain.

Those Reformed Christians who tended toward a more liberal theological position found little relevance in Kuyper’s openness to creation and culture, because they themselves had become culturally adapted in a much more straightforward manner. Other Reformed Christians kept their distance from Kuyper precisely because of this cultural openness, which they considered indicative of secularizing tendencies and even to have caused the shift toward liberalism within once-Reformed circles. Kuyper’s direct neo-Calvinist heirs (such as Klaas Schilder, Gerrit Berkouwer, and Herman Dooyeweerd) developed new versions of neo-Calvinism that were meant to correct Kuyperian constructs of thought but resulted in new theories that detracted attention from the views of Kuyper himself. Notwithstanding these intellectual attitudes, the typical Dutch phenomena of Christian public organizations and Christian public action (e.g., Christian political parties) have remained until the present. These should be seen as direct legacies of Kuyper and his combined vision of common grace and church-society antithesis. Recent years have witnessed a remarkable resurgence of interest in Kuyper. For

INTERVIEW

example, Dutch public television has broadcast a series about Kuyper’s journey around the Mediterranean and its historical significance. His evaluations of religious and political developments, particularly those concerning the relationship between Christianity and Islam, strike many viewers as challenging and still relevant. Secular and church historians have considered Kuyper as a unique and an intriguing historical figure because of his activities in church and society as well as his intellectual creativity. Today, albeit hesitantly, theologians are starting to regain a more open-minded and unbiased attitude toward Kuyper. I myself, having been educated with the vision that Kuyper was a great Christian intellectual but of no relevance today, have rediscovered the importance and impact of Kuyper’s thoughts for today’s “post-Christian” or “post-Christendom” Western societies. Likewise, Reformed and evangelical Christians, from nations where Christianity is on the rise and the church is becoming a visible participant in society, have convinced me that Kuyper’s thought should be engaged when reflecting upon possible Christian public responsibilities in church and community. The contemporary dialogue between the Reformed and the so-called neo-Anabaptist positions on the relationship between church and society (the latter being represented for example by John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas and their disciples) could profit highly from his work. Kuyper appears to have already seen the new stage of Western history during which Christians would return to a minority position, and he offers guidance to form theories and practices for such times. Kuyper’s work could prove helpful for many necessary in-house Reformed debates about an appropriate attitude toward contemporary culture, especially between those who foster ideals of Christian cultural renewal and those who emphasize the importance of the distinction between this world and the coming kingdom of

God. Kuyper confirms and challenges both ends of this spectrum, and I think hints at a promising “third way” that utilizes the strengths of cultural engagement and ecclesial focus that would be helpful for today’s discussions.

You’ve recently returned from the United States after visiting major centers of Kuyper interest and research. What do you make of the “American Kuyper”? In what ways do we get him “right” and “wrong”? If I am not mistaken, there are not one but several “American Kuypers”! Without intending to stigmatize, I think I have noticed significant differences among those who relate to his work. The traditional Christian Reformed Kuyper perception seems different from the Presbyterian Kuyperians who approach him through the lens of Cornelius Van Til. Political and public theorists often value Kuyperian concepts such as “principled pluralism,” “sphere-sovereignty” and “faith-based public action”; yet they sometimes interpret him in substantially different ways with respect to the role of government, a more capitalist or social economic policy, and a Republican or Democratic public position. Mainline evangelicals appreciate the theological, philosophical, and cultural depth and breadth of his concept, while confessional evangelicals either use Kuyper as support in their “culture wars” or expect him to liberate them from their traditional inclination to a dualist stance in which Christians keep their distance from the public domain and other “nonspiritual” spheres of life. It is hard to identify one or more of these “Kuypers” to be absolutely incorrect, since Kuyper’s thought is flexible, complicated, and full of tension. However, I do see some weaknesses and potential dangers in the American interest in Kuyper. One of these is the development of a one-sided image of his concepts. Often only a very small selection of his prodigious

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

work is read and used, mostly Lectures on Calvinism and Common Grace. Sometimes, his thought lines have been dissolved from their original surroundings and used as independent concepts, often mediated through secondary literature or the work of later neo-Calvinists. For many scholars, the works of the neo-Calvinist Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd function as the source of Kuyperian thought. Others are influenced by contemporary neoCalvinists such as Nicholas Wolterstorff. Without denying their importance, it should be realized that Dooyeweerd’s elaboration of Kuyper’s thought in some important respects has also meant a departure from Kuyper’s work as a whole. Returning to Kuyper’s own work is necessary to really understand and engage him, and—in my opinion—is also more rewarding for today’s challenges. I am glad that more of his work has been translated into English. This will deepen the American—and global—appropriation of and debate about his visions. Another danger comes with the appropriation of Kuyper’s context-specific insights and activities. Transferring these historically grounded ideas to other contexts requires more hermeneutical sensitivity than is sometimes displayed in hasty appeals to his work. Many do not know that Kuyper could, on the one hand, imagine a time in which a state-church would be acceptable

(though not ideal); while, on the other hand, expect a period in which Christians would be wise to more or less follow the Anabaptist example of a retreat from public life and display their Christian witness primarily within the context of the local church. Kuyper’s strong public claims and influential public and cultural activities were very much connected with (what he saw as) the particular Dutch calling of being a “Calvinist” nation in the context of modernity. He even states that he would not pursue the same public strategy in Spain or in Belgium. Despite the recent process of secularization, America still contains a large majority of “cultural Christians” and a substantial minority of “committed Christians” who could be mobilized for public engagement. Exactly the same state of affairs could be noticed in Kuyper’s Dutch context. Having lived in the United States for almost a year, I am struck by the “Christian atmosphere” that still exists, even in the media, despite the strict separation of church and state and some almost-pathological efforts to remain religiously neutral. This is very different from what we experience in contemporary Dutch society. Moreover, contradicting Kuyper’s personal expectations, new “Christian” nations have developed, especially in Asia and Africa. Nevertheless, conclusions should not be drawn without carefully analyzing these different

“Returning to Kuyper’s own work is necessary to really understand and engage him, and...is also more rewarding for today’s challenges.”

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

INTERVIEW

contexts. This sensitivity doesn’t always seem present in references to Kuyper. In addition, fellow Christians from nonDutch contexts should be aware of some negative consequences of his strategies that occurred in later decades in the Netherlands. The new public power that Christians displayed in the wake of Kuyper’s activities has summoned a sentiment of resentment among non-Christians and a more vehement departure from the Christian tradition than in some “less-Christian” European countries. Could it be that a relation exists between some versions of public Christianization and a subsequent more radical secularization and post-Christian re-sacralization? Another urgent point of consideration consists in the adequacy today of the much acclaimed model of “principled pluralism” (i.e., different communities with varying worldviews working together). In theory, I acknowledge its worth, but in practice I see some problems. Today’s postmodern versions of pluralism seem to be different from the pluralism we see in the nineteenth-century modern context. In those days, people still consciously identified with a coherent religion or worldview, which applied to

“In harmony with this Augustinian influence, Kuyper did not consider the Christian activity of reforming this world and its structures to be directly contributing to building the kingdom.”

all parts of their lives. In contrast, today’s pluralism is individualistic, eclectic, and fluid and refuses to be organized into fixed worldviews or traditions. Given this context, if we were to repeat the Kuyperian model, then we would be attempting to play a societal game of interaction with our fellow-citizens without realizing that they probably won’t participate and, as a matter of fact, are themselves involved in other public games with different rules.

What was Kuyper’s view of “cultural transformation”? Did he think that Christians could change culture directly through social, political, and ecclesiastical projects? One of the discoveries I made during my Kuyper study is that much of his thought was built on Augustine’s work. His doctrine of common grace fulfills the same function as Augustine’s concept of the saeculum. This is indicative of a much more eschatological dimension in Kuyper than has often been realized, since many consider him as being mainly oriented toward creational structures that he equates with God’s kingdom.

In harmony with this Augustinian influence, Kuyper did not consider the Christian activity of reforming this world and its structures to be directly contributing to building the kingdom. This contradicts a common impression of his position, which is often summarized as “building the kingdom” or “creating a Christian culture.” Kuyper even explicitly denies the adequacy of such expressions. It is certainly true that he explicitly advocated Christian public action and aspired to develop, reform, and improve creation and culture. However, the fruits of such activities should not be characterized as direct contributions to Christ’s kingdom. As a matter of fact, Kuyper states that this cultural development will end during history and even turn into its opposite during the expected rule of the antichrist. All fruits of this process will be annihilated, at least at first sight. Only

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

after the eschatological times when God inaugurates his new creation through an all-consuming fire, will he in his faithfulness bring back these seemingly vanished positive fruits of history, restored and consummated. Then they will be integrated into the new reality of the kingdom. During the course of human history, possible historical-cultural improvements and fruits should be seen in the context of common grace, but they should not be treated as direct evidence of the special grace of salvation that belongs in the context of the church. However, this model contains an important nuance, since Kuyper does think that the history of common grace can proceed only after it has been stimulated and indirectly influenced by special grace. The presence of the gospel and the church in the Western world since Christ’s ascension has indirectly caused spectacular scientific and cultural developments. Kuyper articulates certain instances of common grace that have been enhanced by special grace as “Christian.” But we should not forget that he carefully distinguishes between two kinds of “Christian identity,” the first of which refers to a “Christianly” colored reality of common grace, while only the second directly originates in Christ and in spiritual regeneration in the context of the church. A further nuance develops as soon as we realize that Kuyper’s church not only refers to the institution that is Christ’s bride, but also to all organic realities of Christian community formation in which the new life of Christ is shared among the realities of creation. This new life being recreation and not an Anabaptist negation of creation, such communities are necessarily connected to existing creational structures and spheres. To the extent that this shared regenerated Christian life displays itself in the context of God’s creation, earthly firstfruits of the kingdom are anticipated. This, however, refers to a form of direct cultural renewal that in principle remains within the context of the church as an organism (i.e., Christians in their various callings), while the church as institution ministers

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

God’s means of saving grace. Kuyper’s aim for Christian public, social, and political action was not to reform this world into kingdom reality, but to serve God’s intermediate aims with this world and thus glorify him under the conditions of sin, with the burgeoning shared life of the kingdom in the context of the church and in expectation of the new world to come.

As you know, there has been a tendency in American Reformed circles to see Kuyper’s approach and a “two-kingdom” view as polar opposites. Do you think Kuyper would see it that way? One of the most intriguing but also disturbing observations I made when engaging today’s American Reformed scholars is the rather polarized character of the debates between the adherents of “one kingdom” and those of “two kingdoms.” In both, I recognized genuine Reformed and even neo-Calvinist accents, so that I found it difficult to understand and accept this polarization. I would rather consider this important difference of opinion as indicative of a range of possible Reformed answers. They are both challenging and stimulating precisely because they each seem to preserve some important insights. I would hope that brotherly dialogue between both could contribute to a convincing Christian engagement of society and culture in our times. I think both accents need, correct, and complete each other. The “one-kingdom” approach, in my opinion, runs the risk of a more or less nineteenth-century progressive idea of Christian development from which the classical Augustinian “two cities” concept has disappeared. The “two-kingdom” line, on the other hand, sometimes forgets the deeper unity of these two and also the narrative character of all knowledge. In a post-Christian context, consensus between Christians and non-Christians will not be as obvious and predictable as in the past. While the natural knowledge of creation

INTERVIEW

and its structures requires an overtly evangelical framework to be convincing and recognizably Christian, it should not be replaced by exclusively biblical content and be honored and used in its own relative value. As for Kuyper himself, with his doctrine of common grace he basically came close to a two-kingdom position. He allows for a worldly sphere that should not be equated with God’s kingdom, but nonetheless remains under the rule of God and offers a stage for Christians to serve God by participation in the many earthly responsibilities of this world. During his lectures at the Free University, Kuyper explicitly stated that two kingdoms should be distinguished, that of nature and that of grace. His book Pro Rege presupposes these two kingdoms. However, Kuyper was not happy to accept this duality just like that. He meant that very book to explain how Christ’s kingship could be conceived as uniting and integrating both God’s providential kingship over creation

and his coming kingdom of salvation, without blurring the distinction between the two. Considering the state of the discussions among my American colleagues, I think this Kuyperian ambition would still be valuable for both sides in the debate.

What are some important and perhaps even surprising discoveries you’ve made in this research project on Kuyper? I came back to studying Kuyper after I had done my first readings of his work many years ago. This return has been a feast of discoveries, which has convinced me that we should stop working only with some often repeated “Kuyperian concepts,” but instead engage his thought—and especially its theological roots—as a whole. Contrary to the commonly held perception, Kuyper was not mainly a strategic thinker and actor, and his theology

“Kuyper’s aim for Christian public, social, and political action was not to reform this world into kingdom reality, but to serve God’s intermediate aims with this world and thus glorify him under the conditions of sin, with the burgeoning shared life of the kingdom in the context of the church and in expectation of the new world to come.”

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

was not inferior to that of Herman Bavinck. Most of Bavinck’s much acclaimed theological depth was already present in Kuyper’s work. However, since he found no time to write his dogmatics, all this lies under the surface of his many other works and has to be uncovered.

I think Kuyperian thought has great potential to help Christians engage the post-Christendom world. While many would consider Kuyper—who was, after all, a Christian prime minister!— to be the quintessential Constantinian or Christendom political leader, I found that he engaged Constantine and Constantinianism long before today’s debates. He is no less critical in his evaluations than Yoder and Hauerwas are today, and even anticipated most of their arguments. The same is true with some of the defenders of Constantine, such as the English ethicist Oliver O’Donovan and the American theologian Peter Leithart. Yet Kuyper proposes a route that challenges both sides of the debate and thus proves remarkably pertinent for today’s discussions. There is also much more of eschatological emphasis in Kuyper’s work than has been acknowledged, which comes with some unexpected insights for the Reformed and neoCalvinist readers. For example, he appears to have had far-reaching expectations of a spiritual and national future for the Jewish people, with direct consequences for Christian public and cultural ambitions. He also believed that God’s eschatological closing act of history was approaching during his days, and that the period of neo-Calvinist cultural flourishing in the Netherlands and North America would be the last positive era before the beginning of the dark times of the antichrist. Especially in his later works (after the First World War), an aging Kuyper sometimes struck chords that some years later sounded in the writings of his younger contemporaries, Barth and Bonhoeffer. In those years, his high expectations of a Christian future for America had disappeared. In his evaluation of the developments in the American church and theology, he expressed

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

“I think Kuyperian thought has great potential to help Christians engage the postChristendom world.”

deep disappointment with this “promised land.” I also noticed a parallel in Kuyper’s thought between the plurality of nations and the pluriformity of the institutional church. In both cases, plurality is both a natural-creational reality and the most unnatural measure of God’s common grace since Noah, the latter being meant to preserve the former. What is also fascinating is Kuyper’s attention to spirituality, in which he foresaw the possible secularizing derailment of a neo-Calvinist position that (in the Netherlands at least) would later actually occur. He tried to prevent such a development by returning to the classical spiritual traditions, especially by extending the Reformed “mystical union with God in Christ” to the spheres of Christian experience of creation and Christian creational activity. Although I could go on mentioning relatively new insights in Kuyper that resulted from my studies, I will restrict myself to one final observation. It struck me that Kuyper already sensed the so-called hermeneutical question and the challenge of contextuality, which many younger neo-Calvinists engage with today. He combined classical truth-claims (e.g., the authority of Scripture) with historical and contextual sensitivity, while allowing for the subjective and provisional dimensions in our knowledge. In contrast to the overly eager quest for inspiration outside the Reformed tradition, Kuyper reminds us of what this tradition still has to offer contemporary challenges.

B I B L E ST U DY

Acts of the Apostles: The Dawn of Christ’s Reign by John J. Bombaro

ollowing the four Gospels within our Bibles is the “Acts of the Apostles,” in which the New Te s t a m e nt s h i f t s f r o m t h e accounts of God, present among us in the person and work of Jesus the Son, to the Son’s presence among us—with the Holy Spirit—in the persons and works of the church. Sorely neglected (save for annual readings around Pentecost), Acts is not only an action-packed dossier on the early mission and expansion of Jesus’ kingdom—the holy Christian church—but also an authoritative statement of the church’s rule of faith and a confession of its doctrine. Thus Acts ever belongs to

the normative canon of Christian Scripture, to be mined by each generation of the church for orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Amid the alarming advancement of Sunni Islam, coupled with the utter loss of urgency in missional endeavors— to say nothing of contemporary Christianity’s slouching progress toward secularism and consumerism—revisiting Acts’ enduring message of the church’s raison d’être could hardly be more timely, for it speaks directly to the church about the lampstand committed to her and, with the book of Revelation, the perils of undervaluing it. The very placement of Acts (following the Gospel of John in the canonical, though not compositional, order) indicates some

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

continuity, a degree of continuance with the Gospels that immediately precede it. And that’s precisely what the opening verse of Acts requires: the perspective of historical progression. The operative word in Acts’ first sentence begins: “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach” (1:1). Luke, the traditionally accepted author of the book, pens a sequel to the pioneering “doings and teachings” of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels with more kingdom “doings and teachings” now that Christ has been raised from the dead and possesses all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18) and is claiming his rightful inheritance—namely, the entire globe and “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev. 7:9). Although these post-resurrection “doings and teachings” initially take place almost exclusively through his apostles, they also increase through commonplace disciples, which eventually becomes normative. The movement is linear: The Father acted decisively through the Son to accomplish the redemption of Israel in real human history. Now the Son acts decisively through the church in the power of the Holy Spirit to apply redemption to both Jew and Gentile, thereby reconstituting the Israel of God in the Son, again, in real human history. Simply put, Acts is the open-ended, factual story of the world’s rightful king expanding his global kingdom through its citizenry, demographic divisions notwithstanding. It heralds a new world order with a new king enthroned: not Caesar, but Christ—ruling not by coercion and force but by grace and gospel. Good news for the world, especially a world that has found peace by every other means perfectly elusive. It was of necessity that Luke broke from his first book and started afresh with this new composition. Something momentous had been inaugurated: through the death and resurrection of Messiah, God’s kingdom had come at last; and now the ascended and enthroned Jesus was ruling and reigning over, in, and through his kingdom citizenry. That’s what a king does.

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

Jesus was no longer engaged in the cosmic battle to establish God’s kingdom—his perfect life, death, and resurrection achieved that. Now he was expanding his kingdom of peace, truth, and love through the means of grace committed to his kingdom people. What was impossible with sinful humanity was now possible with a merciful God, because Jesus Christ had fulfilled all covenant obligations, borne the penalty for covenant violations, and by his expiating blood and perfect righteousness made humanity once again inhabitable by the Holy Spirit. This is the content of Acts’ apostolic homilies. They repeatedly intimate that the works of Christ are of one piece: from the incarnation to the crucifixion and resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost. Christ doing and teaching, Christ ascending and reigning, Christ gifting and dispensing. And following Pentecost, says Luke, Jesus is doing so through the likes of those baptized into the life of the Triune God. To be sure, there’s a noted discontinuity due to the finality and once-and-for-all efficacy of the crucifixion of the Son of God; but with Christ’s resurrection, there is now his promise to renew the existing creation. Consequently, there is continuity with Jesus’ establishment of the kingdom of God on earth: his “doing and

“Acts is the open-ended, factual story of the world’s rightful king expanding his global kingdom through its citizenry.”

B I B L E ST U DY

teaching” continues. The transition point for how Christ continues to “do and teach” is, significantly, the ascension. And it is the ascension that yields the symbolic rebirth of people from “every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5), the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. An all-too-typical reading of Acts sees it emphasizing the presence and performance of the Holy Spirit to the exclusion of Christ: Pentecost cueing the presence of the Holy Spirit; the ascension punctuating Christ’s absence. The notion of a truant Jesus, however, is the exact opposite of what Luke intends by the ascension. For the ascension hallmarks the presence of Christ “doing and teaching” through the church. Luke left off the “former treatise” with the risen Christ making himself known to his disciples and apostles “in the breaking of the bread” (24:31, 35) and in the Scriptures (24:27, 44), and then ascending “up into heaven” (24:51). The Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, however, are not to be read as discontinuous because of the ascension. Rather, in addition to the resurrection, it is the ascension that further renders them a contiguous account of the acts of Christ. Heaven, of course, is not “up there, out there.” It isn’t far away. Instead, our spatiotemporal dimension is suffused with the invisible

“It is the ascension that yields the symbolic rebirth of people from ‘every nation under heaven’…the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.”

dimension of heaven, comprising one reality over which Jesus has all authority (Matt. 28:18). The ascension, perhaps surprisingly, actually signals the enthronement of the ever-present Christ and thus his active reign on earth, as well as heaven, until the two dimensions are fully reintegrated and manifested. After all, the ascension doesn’t bring a postponement of his availing prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10), but the initiation and instantiation of its fulfillment. So we should expect Christ’s present earthly reign (not heavenly) to be the subject of Acts: a progressive rule that reaches its apogee and fullness on “the Last Day,” not in chapter 28 verse 31. Acts would have us remember that it was the present Christ who sent the Holy Spirit upon the disciples and apostles (Luke 24:49; cf. John 20:22). And so Christ himself is present and active in the church and not merely the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus himself promised in John 14:18 and Matthew 18:20 and 28:20. So critical is this understanding that it serves as the lodestar for the reading horizon of Acts as it recounts the ascension. Luke records how Jesus “was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (1:9). The cloud conceals Jesus from their sight, leaving them “gazing into heaven” (1:10). Beginning with the apostles themselves, the church would learn to “live by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7) when it comes to the promises and presence of Christ; that is, when it comes to his real voice and real presence. Significantly, the cloud doesn’t vanish, and that is because it signals the presence of heaven or, better, the heavenly presence of Jesus. Too frequently, commentators take the cloud as signaling Jesus’ absence. But Meredith Kline’s Images of the Spirit makes the correct identification of this Old Testament “glory-cloud” with the visible manifestation of the Lord’s abiding presence called the Shekinah.1 This cloud appears throughout the Bible at key junctures in redemptive history, punctuating the epochal work and presence of God among and for his people.

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

“Jesus isn’t upstaged by the Holy Spirit, but rather is working in the power of the Holy Spirit through his body—the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”

Once one appreciates this, then one finds that John 14:14, “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (emphasis added), is fulfilled in Acts. Jesus isn’t upstaged by the Holy Spirit, but rather is working in the power of the Holy Spirit through his body—the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Luke and Acts therefore teach an orthodox Christology that sets the parameters for orthopraxy concerning the ministration of the word and the sacraments. We have not a distant Lord, but one who is ever present, accomplishing his will concerning his kingdom; and we—the church in every age— are the means by which it advances “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). Outside of the Gospel of Mark, no writing in the New Testament compares with Acts’ tempo, variety, and intensity. Jaroslav Pelikan aptly describes it as “a book of frenetic action amid a constantly shifting scene.” 2 Lutheran commentator Gerhard A. Krodel quotes perhaps

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

the best description of Acts, offered by Edgar Johnson Goodspeed: Where, within eighty pages, will be found such a varied series of exciting events— trials, riots, persecutions, escapes, martyrdoms, voyages, shipwrecks, rescues—set in that amazing panorama of the ancient world—Jerusalem, Antioch, Philippi, Corinth, Athens, Ephesus, Rome? And with such scenery and settings—temples, courts, prisons, deserts, ships, barracks, theaters? Has any opera such variety? A bewildering range of scenes and actions (and of speeches) passes before the eye of the historian. And in all of them he sees the providential hand that has made and guided this great movement for the salvation of mankind.3 There’s undoubtedly a particular feeling and understanding that Luke wants his readers to have—namely, that Jesus remains very much on the move, that his is the providential hand

B I B L E ST U DY

“Even though we are reading about the church in its apostolic era, this entire book (like its predecessor) is about Jesus, about his actions in and through the apostles.”

guiding Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, so that his powerful and truly liberating kingdom is established everywhere his word is proclaimed and the Spirit poured out. These then are the multiple levels for reading Acts; the two most important being the story of the early church and the particular concerns and interests of the early church. Acts provides essential information about the expansion of the gospel among the Gentiles, the reversal of Babel’s confusion and alienation, the lamentable trajectory of Judaism vis-à-vis the church, the controversies regarding power and authority, cults of personalities, and God’s will for all the world to be found in Christ. But one thing is certain: Even though we are reading about the church in its apostolic era, this entire book (like its predecessor) is about Jesus, about his actions in and through the apostles. It’s that which is really the story of the early church and, indeed, our ongoing story: Christ is the principal actor in and with the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father. Christ is like the maestro of an orchestra, but with the apostolic orchestra in the foreground and the conductor in the background. But in this ongoing concert, there is to be full audience participation, a choir keeping time with the apostolic orchestra directed by

the great Maestro. And there’s the third level of reading Acts: those baptized into Christ in every age are participants in this global performance. To be sure, the truncated end to the book of Acts lends itself to this understanding. The story continues, and we share in the performance of apostles, the score of which Christ has committed to Holy Scripture and makes manifest in the church’s mandate from age to age. These acts of Jesus through the apostles, and since then the post-apostolic church, continue until this same Jesus comes “in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (1:10). Readers today can have the greatest confidence that Christ works in and with the church. His presence indeed abides with us through word, sacrament, and the assembly of believers. REV. JOHN J. BOMBARO (PhD, King’s College, University of London) is the parish minister at Grace Lutheran Church in San Diego, California, and a lecturer in theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego. 1. Meredith G. Kline, Images of the Spirit (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1980), 14–19; 36–41; et passim. 2. Jaroslav Pelikan, Acts, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005), 23. 3. Gerhard A. Krodel, Acts, Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1986), 13. Cited also in Pelican, Acts, 23–24.

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

BINGELISTENERS REJOICE You can get your fill of theology everywhere from the car to the treadmill. Previous White Horse Inn broadcasts are available for download or streaming 24 hours a day.

WHITEHORSEINN.ORG/ARCHIVES

BECOME A SILENT CO-HOST Through your monthly support as a partner of White Horse Inn, you will help others rediscover the riches of the Reformation. Our partnership benefits include a subscription to Modern Reformation, private partner podcast or CDs, books, and invitations to special events.

WHITEHORSEINN.ORG/SUPPORT

V O L .2 5 | N O. 3

FEATURES

40 “It Is Good That I Go”: Jesus Bids His Disciples Farewell 24

GOIN' UP TO THE SPIRIT IN THE SKY? THE ASCENSION IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS

AT THE RIGHT HAND: WHY JESUS BEING SEATED IN HEAVEN CHANGES EVERYTHING ON EARTH

THE WORK OF THE CHURCH UNTIL CHRIST RETURNS

Goinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Up to the

Spirit

Sky?

The Ascension Is Not

W h a t Yo u T h i n k I t I s

by MATTHEW BARRETT illustrations by PATRICK ATKINS

In 1970, Warner Brothers sold over two million records of the catchy tune, “Spirit in the Sky.” A one-hit wonder, Norman Greenbaum’s song proved to be a classic. Though it was birthed in the hippie generation, you’re still bound to hear it everywhere you go. It was featured in movies such as Apollo 13 and has set the beat to Law & Order episodes and Nike commercials. The song starts with one of the most groovy guitar riffs in music history—even my Baptist brothers and sisters can’t resist making their way to the dance floor. But what many may not realize is that this chic tune has something to say about Jesus and life after death.

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

Note some of the lyrics: When I die and they lay me to rest Gonna go to the place that’s the best When I lay me down to die Goin’ up to the spirit in the sky… Prepare yourself you know it’s a must Gotta have a friend in Jesus So you know that when you die He’s gonna recommend you To the spirit in the sky… Never been a sinner I never sinned I got a friend in Jesus So you know that when I die He’s gonna set me up with The spirit in the sky… Now here is a song full of theology! Apparently, there is some abstract, divine, cosmic spirit who can be found up in the sky. When you die, that’s where you go: up, up, up to the spirit in the sky. How do you know you’ll get there? If you’ve “got a friend in Jesus,” he’s “gonna recommend you to the spirit in the sky.” And this whole thing about the sky and Jesus doesn’t have anything to do with sin. “Never been a sinner,” he says with confidence. “I never sinned.” All that matters is that “I got a friend in Jesus” and “he’s gonna set me up with the spirit in the sky.” So, it’s all good. Greenbaum’s catchy lyrics still describe popular belief today. In fact, all too often they sum up what many think Christianity is all about. Christianity is not about being a sinner and awful stuff like that. Christianity is just about Jesus being your buddy, so that he sets you up with the ethereal spirit in the sky. Jesus hooks you up, like any good friend would, so that you get to go to the best place. This is what the Bible’s all about, isn’t it? This is what life after death is all about, right?

NEVER BEEN A SINNER? I’m not sure if Greenbaum ever read the Bible, but he might be interested to know that the

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

Bible actually has a lot to say about Jesus and the “spirit in the sky.” The last thing we read in Luke’s Gospel, and one of the first things we read in his sequel (the book of Acts), is that Jesus ascended into the sky after appearing to his disciples in his resurrected body. What may be a surprise, however, is that this whole “spirit in the sky” business has everything to do with you and me being sinners. Oh sure, we have a friend in Jesus, and Jesus does indeed hook us up—just not in the way Greenbaum ever could have imagined. To see why, we need to go all the way back to Psalm 24, written by King David. He opens it with two frightening questions: “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” (v. 3). The answer is discouraging: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation” (v. 4). It may sound simple enough, but there is no one who fits these qualifications. The whole story of the Bible is the story of humans rebelling against a holy God, sinners who fall short of his glory and law-breakers who deserve nothing but eternal condemnation. In other words, no one can be found to ascend the hill of the Lord and take hold of salvation because no one is righteous (Rom. 3:10–18). Ever since Adam and Eve sinned and were cast out of the garden—out of the presence of a holy God—no one can stand in God’s “holy place” (Ps. 24:3), at least not without a bloody sacrifice to atone for his sin and appease divine justice. If he tries, God will destroy him (e.g., Lev. 10:1–3). The prophet Isaiah painfully learned that when we stand in the presence of a holy God, we come to the devastating realization that we are utterly condemned (Isa. 6:5). The only solution is to somehow have our guilt taken away and our sin atoned for (Isa. 6:7). Someone who does have clean hands and a pure heart must be found to ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in God’s holy place, mediating on our behalf. Only then will we receive the blessing and righteousness

from the God of our salvation that Psalm 24:5 talks about. Just when it seemed that there was no hope, King Jesus burst through those ancient doors into the heavenly court. As our perfect high priest and spotless lamb, Jesus (and Jesus alone) was capable of ascending the hill of the Lord in order to stand in God’s holy place. In the second half of Psalm 24, David rejoices because the “king of glory” returns from the battle victorious (24:7–8). Jerusalem is to open its gates in celebration because the Lord of hosts has returned with his captives in his train (Ps. 68). As those who enjoy all the blessings of the new covenant, we know that Jesus Christ has done exactly that through his death and resurrection. Though we are unrighteous, condemned before a holy God, the Son of God became incarnate. He lived a perfect life of obedience, so that his righteousness could be imputed to our account. But that’s not all. Not only did he live for us, but he died for us, too. To quote Isaiah, he was “pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities” (53:5). He took the wrath of God that was ours, for God put him “forward as a propitiation by his blood” (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2). While we were God-haters, God “loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). As Paul says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). The Father then raised Jesus from the dead (Luke 24:1–12), placing his stamp of approval upon the cross-work of his Son, publicly declaring to the world that Christ’s work was effective for accomplishing redemption. Having satisfied the wrath of God against sin (Satan’s weapon against us) and broken death’s grip (1 Cor. 15:54– 55), our Savior could not be held in the tomb by the evil one. Therefore, it is Christ’s bodily resurrection that grounds our regeneration (1 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 2:5–6; Col. 3:1), justification (Rom. 4:23–25; 1 Cor. 15:17), sanctification (Rom. 6:3–12; Col. 3:1–4), and future resurrection (1 Cor. 15:1–57).

JESUS IN THE SKY But is that the end of the story? Not at all. Christ also ascended into heaven, an event we too often overlook, thinking it has little significance. Jesus not only rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples, but before their very eyes he also ascended into heaven. As Luke records, Jesus led his disciples as far as Bethany, lifted up his hands to bless them, and while doing so “parted from them and was carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:51). In response, the disciples “worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy” (24:52). In Acts, Luke adds that Jesus promised his disciples that they would receive “power when the Holy Spirit” comes upon them, enabling them to be his witnesses to the end of the earth (1:8). “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (1:9). As they gazed up into heaven, two men suddenly appeared in white robes, asking, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (1:11). Our temptation is to think that the ascension is merely a bonus, something to be tacked on at the end of the cross and the resurrection. But nothing could be further from the truth. The ascension is the key to the salvation narrative.

WHY THE ASCENSION MATTERS Christ’s Ascension Turns His Humiliation into Exaltation Let’s return to Luke 24. Prior to Jesus’ ascension in front of his disciples, he appeared to two of his followers on the road to Emmaus. Believing that he was the one to redeem Israel, they were perplexed as to why Jesus could suffer defeat on a cross. Their confusion only grew when they heard the tomb was empty. Rebuking these two men for their ignorance, Jesus responded, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

reproached, but now God has given him the name above every name (Phil. 2:9). On earth, he was in the form of a servant (John 13:4–5), but now he is dressed in the robe of a prince and kings cast their crowns before his throne. On earth, he was the man of sorrows (Isa. 53), but now he is anointed with the oil of gladness. On earth, he was crucified, but now he is crowned. On earth, he was forsaken by God (Matt. 27:46), but now he sits at God’s right hand. On earth, he had no physical beauty (Isa. 53:2), but now he is the radiance of the glory of God (Heb. 1:3). Watson exclaims, “Oh what a change is here! ‘Him hath God highly exalted.’” Without the ascension, there can be no exaltation of our crucified and risen Lord. Without the ascension, the king returns victorious from battle, but no ancient doors open to receive him into glory.

“ IN HIS EXALTED STATE, CHRIST NOT ONLY IS OUR PROPHET AND KING, BUT HE ALSO CONTINUES TO BE OUR PRIEST.”

24:26). Jesus then took them back to the Old Testament Scriptures and showed them how the entire Old Testament pointed forward to this climactic moment in redemptive history. Peter makes a similar point in Acts 3:19–21. He tells his listeners to repent, not only so that their sins might be blotted out, but also that God might “send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.” Both of these passages declare that the ascension was anticipated in the Old Testament as the very means by which the crucified Christ transitioned from his state of humiliation to his state of exaltation. The ascension, in other words, is the mechanism by which Christ is fittingly lifted up as the victorious king. As a result of this ascension, Christ now sits at the right hand of the Father, ruling and reigning over all (Eph. 1:20–21; Heb. 10:12; Mark 16:19; Acts 2:33). The Puritan Thomas Watson drives this point home in his book A Body of Divinity. While on earth, Jesus lay in a manger, but now he sits on his throne. On earth, men mocked him, but now angels adore him. On earth, his name was

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

Christ’s Ascension Assures Us of Our Past, Present, and Future Redemption Not only is the ascension the indispensable means by which Christ is exalted as Lord and king, but it also demonstrates that his priestly work of redemption is secure. We tend to think of Christ’s priestly work on our behalf as limited to the cross. However, Scripture says his priestly work as mediator continues in heaven (Rom. 8:33–34; 1 Cor. 15; Eph. 4; 1 John 2:1). In his exalted state, Christ not only is our prophet and king, but he also continues to be our priest. As Hebrews 4:4 says, we have a “great high priest who has passed through the heavens.” As high priest, Jesus doesn’t minister in an earthly tabernacle or temple like the priests of

“PAUL REMINDS US THAT ‘CHRIST JESUS IS THE ONE WHO DIED—MORE THAN THAT, WHO WAS RAISED—WHO IS AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, WHO INDEED IS INTERCEDING FOR US.’”

old, having to enter with the blood of an animal sacrifice. He enters into the sanctuary of heaven by means of his own blood (Heb. 7:27). As the priest who never dies but holds his priesthood permanently, he is “able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:24–25). What great news this is for those united to Christ by faith. Though our future glorification awaits us, already God has “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6– 7). What a comfort this is to the believer who struggles in the fight of sanctification. As John reminds us, should we sin (and we will!), we “have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). Since our advocate is the “propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2), no

one can condemn us (Rom. 8:1). Paul reminds us that “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34). Therefore, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Rom. 8:35). Certainly without the ascension, we have no priest at God’s right hand, making intercession for us. The ascension is also proof that one day we will be exalted to that place of glory where Christ sits enthroned. As a result of his ascension, Christ, through the Spirit, has poured out gifts on his bride until he returns (Eph. 4:7–14; Ps. 68:18; cf. Acts 2:33). But the day will come when, as Revelation 3:21 promises, God will grant to all those who have conquered the privilege of sitting with him on his throne. The glory God has given to Christ, Christ has given to us, God’s children (John 17:22). In the time between our justification and final glorification, we long for that day when we enter into the house of our

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

Father, a house Jesus is even now preparing for us (John 14:2). Christ’s exaltation most definitely is our exaltation. The Ascension Introduces a New Era in Redemptive History and Inaugurates a New State of Affairs Writing on the ascension presents the potential danger of collapsing the ascension into the resurrection. We don’t want to turn the ascension into a mere exclamation point at the end of the resurrection; it’s important in its own right and should not be eclipsed. It introduces a new era in redemptive history and inaugurates a new state of affairs, one in which King Jesus reigns from his heavenly throne. While the final consummation may await us, the start of this consummation has already been inaugurated in the ascension of our king. His exaltation is the firstfruits of the great harvest to come in the new heavens and earth (2 Pet. 3:11–13). In that light, we must keep history and eschatology (last things) in their proper balance. If we emphasize only history, then we are left with merely one more historical event among a plethora of others of equal significance. Likewise, we don’t want to disregard history for the sake of eschatology. There are those who don’t care whether Jesus physically rose from the dead and physically ascended into heaven—all that matters is what existential impact this myth might have for the future. However, in this view the ascension may inspire change in behavior, but it cannot effect real change in this world, either now or in the future. We are left with a Docetic (nonphysical) view of Christ and his ascension. But a Docetic ascension can only result in a Docetic consummation— it’s the “spirit in the sky” mentality that pervades our popular culture as well as our churches. As Christians, we must affirm not only a physical, historical, incarnate Christ, but also a physical, historical, ascended Lord. Only then can eschatology take full effect and break into the present age. Christ’s physical absence does not leave us spiritually homeless. Though he has ascended into heaven to prepare a place for

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

us, he remains present through word and sacrament. In the meantime, his bodily absence makes us long for his bodily return, when he will restore all things and establish his new creation (Acts 3:19–21).

“I HAVE A FRIEND IN JESUS” In the end, Greenbaum was half right. We are “goin’ up to the spirit in the sky,” and Jesus does “set us up” to go to the place “that’s the best.” But there’s just one (big!) problem: It will not happen the way Greenbaum thinks it will, nor is the “spirit in the sky” what he thinks it is. The ascension is not a pantheistic permeation of the divine with the natural, as if the spirit in the sky is some impersonal, eerie mist that is one with the universe. Rather, he is the Triune God, the Creator and Ruler of the universe. Yes, those who die outside of Christ are “goin’ up,” but it is before a holy judge, and the verdict they will hear is, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23). They are “goin’ up,” but are then goin’ down “into the eternal fire” (Matt. 25:41). Not so for those united to Christ. Yes, it is true, “I got a friend in Jesus” and when I die “He’s gonna set me up with the spirit in the sky.” But it’s not because “I never sinned” or because Jesus is my buddy. Quite the opposite. It’s because Jesus has never sinned, and his righteousness has been credited to me as a gift. We only have a “friend in Jesus” because as our priest he has made peace by his own blood, the blood of the new covenant (Matt. 26:28). How do I know this for sure? Because not only has Jesus died, but he has also risen in the sky, and continually intercedes for me at the Father’s side. MATTHEW BARRETT is tutor of systematic theology and church history at Oak Hill Theological College in London, and founder and executive editor of Credo Magazine (credomag.com). Barrett is the author of Salvation by Grace, Owen on the Christian Life, and God’s Word Alone. He is also the series editor of The Five Solas Series (Zondervan). You can find his books at matthewmbarrett.com.

Why Jesus Being Seated i n H e a v e n C h a n g e s

Everything on Earth

by JEREMY TREAT

Right

HAND

Jesus died for our sins, but he’s not on the cross anymore; he’s seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling the universe. Despite the overwhelming importance of Jesus sitting in heaven (mentioned around thirty-three times in the New Testament), it is an aspect of his work that is often overlooked in the church. This is no minor oversight: without Jesus being seated in heaven (often referred to as the “session of Christ”), the gospel unravels. That is why the New Testament repeatedly mentions Jesus sitting in heaven and does so in a way that connects it with the other aspects of his work (e.g., Matt. 26:64; Acts 2:33–35; Rom. 8:34; 1 Pet. 3:22; Heb. 1:3–4). The Messiah whom Paul proclaims is “the one who died—more than that, who was raised—and is at the right hand of God” (Rom. 8:34). The early church recognized the narrative importance of each link in the chain, with the Apostles’ Creed expressing belief in Jesus who was born, conceived, suffered, descended, rose, “is seated at the right hand of the Father,” and will return to judge the living and the dead.

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

If you’re still not convinced of the indispensable significance of Jesus being seated in heaven, let’s look at the other two-thirds of the Bible: the Old Testament. Psalm 110 is the most quoted Old Testament passage by the New Testament authors, more than Psalm 23 and Isaiah 53. Paul, Peter, and Jesus all referred to Psalm 110. Can you guess what it’s about? That’s right, a Messiah who would sit at the right hand of the Father. When you study this psalm, you’ll see that it’s a vision of a Messiah— more specifically of a priest-king—who will sit at the right hand of God and rule over his creation on his behalf, using his enemies as a footstool. This is the vision of a Messiah who would not only ransom sinners but who would also rule the cosmos. The session of Christ is impor tant in Scripture, but just how does Jesus being seated in heaven change everything on earth?

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF JESUS SITTING DOWN IN HEAVEN? Sitting down always means something. In baseball it means you are out; in musical chairs it means you are in. What does it mean for Jesus? Using Ephesians 1:20–22 as a guide, I’d like to demonstrate that Jesus sitting down in heaven signifies at least three aspects of his work: completion, authority, and human royalty. First, Jesus sitting down in heaven demonstrates that he completed the mission for which he was sent to earth. Paul says in Ephesians 1:20 that the Father seated Jesus at his right hand, but this statement comes after a breathtaking proclamation of Christ’s work of cosmic reconciliation (Eph. 1:3–14). God set forth a plan to unite all things in Christ; and when Jesus had achieved this through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, his mission was complete. The priest-king accomplished his task and therefore he sat down. Second, Jesus being seated at the right hand of the Father signifies his position of unrivaled authority and honor. According to Ephesians 1:21, not only is Jesus seated at the right hand of

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

the Father, but he is also “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.” In the context of Ephesus, the glorious capital of the ancient world, this refers directly to the demonic realm. In the broader context, however, it includes Christ’s supremacy over all things—material and immaterial, good and evil. When Jesus sat down on the throne, a worldwide demotion was served to every other power. Third, Jesus being seated at the right hand of the Father represents the restoration of human royalty. If you question “human royalty,” let’s think back to Genesis 1–2. In the creation narrative, Adam is made in the image of God—the divine king—and is therefore called to rule over the earth on God’s behalf (Gen. 1:26–28). This isn’t permission for ruthless tyranny but a commission for responsible stewardship. As his image bearers, God entrusted Adam and Eve with the task of expanding the boundaries of Eden until the entire earth experienced the flourishing that flows from the gracious reign of God. But, of course, Adam and Eve sinned; and rather than spreading the blessings of God to the ends of the earth, they brought the curse of God upon his creation. Adam failed at his task of ruling over the earth on God’s behalf. Enter Jesus. The one from Nazareth is the “last Adam” (1 Cor. 15) who came as a man and fulfilled every aspect of humanity that Adam had forfeited through sin. That’s why Paul says in Ephesians 1:22 that when Jesus sat down, God put all things “under his feet.” This is a reference to Psalm 8, which talks about God placing all things under Adam’s feet (Ps. 8:6). Paul, however, says this psalm (which is a commentary on Genesis 1–2) is fulfilled in all things being placed under Jesus’ feet (Eph. 1:22). Adam is ultimately a sign pointing forward to Jesus, the true Adam who would not just bring God’s people back to Eden, but who would expand Eden to the ends of the earth. As a genuine human being, Jesus kept the covenant, fulfilled the law, and achieved Adam’s task of ruling on God’s behalf. He shares in the reign of God, not only as the divine Son of God

but as a forerunner for humanity who will one day be fully restored as image bearers who rule on God’s behalf in the new creation (Rev. 20:6). The resurrected physical body of Jesus seated in heaven is a foretaste of God’s eternal plan of uniting the new heaven and the new earth around the kingship of Christ (Rev. 21:1–5).

IS CHRIST’S SESSION THE BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN? The typical view of Jesus being seated in heaven is something like this: Jesus came to earth as the Suffering Servant; but when he rose, ascended, and sat down on his throne, he became king. In other words, the session of Christ was the beginning of his kingship. There is a hint of truth here, but it’s also a bit misleading. First, there is significant scriptural evidence that Jesus was reigning before his session. Jesus said “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” before he ascended and sat down at the right hand of the Father (Matt. 28:18). We can go back even further. Jesus was declared king at his birth (Matt. 2:2), anointed as king at his baptism (Matt. 3:13–17), was recognized as a king throughout his life (John 1:49; 6:15), and went to the cross with the scornful— and yet ironically true—title: King of the Jews. Jesus went to the cross as a king seeking to establish his kingdom, not as a pretender trying to establish his kingship. Jesus’ death was not a defeat that needed to be made right by the resurrection, but a victory that needed to be revealed and implemented in the resurrection. Likewise, Christ’s session was not the beginning of his reign but the completion of his earthly task and continuation of his reign through the Spirit. Jesus was raised from the dead and seated on the throne not in order to be king but as king. Throughout his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus is king. That said, there is still a process of Jesus becoming king—a development in his kingship. This is a complex question, requiring a careful understanding of the ancient background for becoming a king and

of Jesus as both divine and human. Becoming a king in ancient times was a process, the high points of which were anointing and enthronement. Before his death and resurrection, Jesus was already king in at least two senses: as the divine Son of God, and as the human publicly anointed as king in his baptism. And yet, Jesus was not king in the following two senses: he had yet to definitively defeat Satan and establish God’s kingdom, and he had yet to restore human royalty. Therefore, while Jesus is king as the divine Son of God, his human kingship was a process of establishing his Father’s throne on earth as it is in heaven.

WHAT IS JESUS DOING NOW? If Jesus, having completed his task, has sat down, what is he doing now? Is he taking a break while the Holy Spirit gives it a shot for a while? Sadly, this is how many think of Jesus’ heavenly activity, but it could not be further from the truth. Luke’s two-volume set (Luke-Acts) beautifully puts on display the continuity between Jesus’ earthly and heavenly reign. Luke opens the book of Acts by saying, “In the first book…I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do.” Did you catch that? In referring to Jesus’ birth, life, teaching, death, resurrection, and ascension, Luke says it was what Jesus began to do. Jesus is still at work. The Son of God ascended to heaven and sat down, but it wasn’t on a La-Z-Boy recliner; it was on a throne where he now rules over us, prays for us, and anticipates with us. First, as the enthroned monarch of the universe, Jesus is reigning on high. New Testament scholar Murray Harris puts it well when he says, “The resurrection proclaims ‘He lives—and that forever’; the exaltation proclaims ‘He reigns— and that forever.’” The world, however, is still in rebellion against its rightful king, following the prince of darkness. Christ’s reign over the world, therefore, is expressed in both grace and judgment. The church, however, is the place where the reign of God is to be realized on earth as it is in heaven. The church is a signpost to the eternal kingdom of God, offering the present

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

“THE PEOPLE OF THE GOSPEL ARE THE SPHERE IN WHICH CHRIST REIGNS THROUGH WORD AND SPIRIT, AND HIS CHARACTER IS PUT ON DISPLAY IN THE VERY LIVES HE IS CHANGING.”

world a sneak preview of its eternal destiny, rid of evil and redeemed by Christ. The people of the gospel are the sphere in which Christ reigns through word and Spirit, and his character is put on display in the very lives he is changing. Did you ever find it interesting that Jesus told his disciples “I will be with you always” (Matt. 28:20) and then vanished into heaven? How could he fulfill this promise? By sending his Spirit. The ascension and session of Jesus represent the key link between Easter and Pentecost. It was the ascended and enthroned Christ who sent the Holy Spirit to apply and continue his

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

work. Remove this link in the chain, and the chandelier falls from the ceiling. No session, no Pentecost. No Pentecost, no union with Christ. No union with Christ, no salvation. Pull out the ascension and session of Christ, and we’re left with a chasm between redemption accomplished and redemption applied that would leave all of humanity hopeless. Second, Jesus not only reigns over us, but he is also praying for us. Romans 8:34 shows that the exalted king is also an intercessor: “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God,

who indeed is interceding for us.” Pause for a moment to take that in. If you’re a follower of Jesus, he is praying for you right now. What is he praying for? The seventeenth-century Puritan Thomas Watson was right to argue that Jesus is probably praying now what he was praying in the upper room in John 17: that we would be protected from evil (v. 15), that we would grow in holiness (v. 17), and that the Father would finish the work he began in us (v. 24). Can you recall a time when a godly, mature person prayed for you? Was it not deeply encouraging and confidence giving? How much more when the Son of God prays for you! Third, as he sits on the throne, Jesus is anticipating with us. The Apostle Paul, looking forward to the return of Christ, says, “Then comes the end, when he [Jesus] delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:24–25). Jesus reigns, but he is also looking forward to the day when he will hand to his Father what the Father entrusted to him. The kingdom of God has already arrived in the first coming of Christ but will not yet be fully realized until the second coming of Christ. In other words, the kingdom has come, is coming, and Jesus is looking forward to the time when it will come in its fullness. In the meantime, we are called to follow our crucified and risen king in the tension of the already and not yet of the kingdom of God. Within this narrative, Jesus, ruling from the right hand of the Father, is both a guarantee of the glorious outcome and a reminder that this

“ IF YOU ARE IN CHRIST, SUFFERING IS NOT A SIGN OF GOD’S ABSENCE BUT A REMINDER THAT HE IS THE GOD OF THE CROSS WHO IS NOT WAITING FOR US ON THE OTHER SIDE OF HARD TIMES.”

world is far from its eternal state. This is a tension we must embrace: things are not as they should be, but one day they will be. The kingdom has come, so we should expect to experience the transforming effects of God’s grace. We should overcome sin. We should see lives changed. And yet, Christ has not yet consummated his work, so we should expect hardship, struggle, and opposition. As a pastor, I’ve discovered that many people are frustrated with God for breaking promises he never made. In this sin-corrupted world, God did not promise us freedom from pain. In fact, he said the opposite: “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). When you encounter opposition, remember that you’re in a war with an enemy who is infuriated and knows his time is short. When you suffer, don’t assume it’s because God is against you. If you are in Christ, suffering is not a sign of God’s absence but a reminder that he is the God of the cross who is not waiting for us on the other side of hard times.

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

HOW DOES JESUS BEING SEATED IN HEAVEN AFFECT MY LIFE ON EARTH? So how does all this play out practically in the way we live our lives? First, Jesus being seated in heaven reminds us of the confidenceinfusing doctrine of the sovereignty of Christ. Jesus reigns over all, and nothing can thwart his purposes. The kingship of Jesus is not just a doctrine to believe, it’s a truth by which to live. Jesus is never surprised, he’s never been in a bind; and whatever you’re dealing with right now, he’s not worried about it. Jesus is sovereign, which means that nothing in your life is a result of his negligence. He’s not just “sitting around” in heaven; he’s sustaining the universe from his throne. That’s why the right response to the sovereignty of Jesus is not inactivity, but hope. Biblical hope is not wishful thinking; it’s unflinching confidence in God’s power to accomplish God’s purposes in God’s timing. As the early church theologian Tertullian once said, “Hope is patience with the lamp lit.” It’s a willingness to endure because you can see where you’re headed in light of the sovereignty of Jesus. Here’s where it gets really good. The Apostle Paul says that not only is Jesus sitting in heaven, but so are we! In Christ, God “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6). Astounding! But what does this mean? How could that be? You’re probably sitting down right now; and wherever you’re sitting, that probably feels more real than the idea that you are sitting in heaven. The key to understanding this idea of us sitting in heaven right now is in recognizing the connection between Jesus and his followers. In Ephesians, it says that Jesus rose, ascended, and then was seated at the right hand of the Father (Eph. 1:20). Then it says we too are made alive, raised up, and seated in heaven (Eph. 2:6). But we’re not just walking down the trail that Jesus blazed. Jesus isn’t merely an example to imitate; he’s a savior to whom we are united. The entire key to this parallel between Christ and Christians is the phrase “with him” (stated three times in Eph. 2:5–6),

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

which is a reference to the glorious doctrine of union with Christ. Christ is seated in the heavenly places, and because we are in Christ, so are we. Paul is not trying to get us to imagine how we are in two places at one time. His concern is less philosophical and more pastoral. Paul is primarily showing us not that we are in heaven literally, but legally. When a man and woman are married, their covenant union means that what legally belongs to one now belongs to the other. So it is for the church, the bride of Christ, who, because of our covenant union with Christ, is the legal recipient of all that is his. And that’s true not only of receiving his righteousness (justification) but also his resurrection life and place at the right hand of the Father. In union with Christ, we receive his victory, his perspective, and his power in the way we live our lives on earth. In short, to be seated in heaven means that the control room for your life is in heaven. Although you are here on earth, your identity, affections, and motivations are determined in the throne room of God. Jesus lived, died, and rose for us. But he’s not on the cross, he’s not in the tomb, and he’s not eating breakfast with the disciples in Galilee. He’s seated on his throne at the right hand of the Father. We would do well to heed Paul’s charge: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). May this old hymn, “Once in Royal David’s City,” represent the longing of our hearts: Not in that poor lowly stable, With the oxen standing by, We shall see Him, but in heaven, Set at God’s right hand on high; When like stars His children crowned, All in white shall be around. JEREMY TREAT (PhD, Wheaton College) is Pastor for Preaching and Vision at Reality LA, adjunct professor of theology at Biola University, and author of The Crucified King: Atonement and Kingdom in Biblical and Systematic Theology (Zondervan, 2014).

G 40

“

Good

That I

”

Jesus Bids His

Disciples Farewell

by MICHAEL S. HORTON

One way to summarize the “Farewell Discourse” in John’s Gospel (chapters 14–17) is with the phrase “trading places.” In this discourse, the judicial and transformative aspects of the Spirit’s ministry converge, and Jesus impresses upon the hearts of his confused and fearful disciples that his departure is a net gain. We need Jesus Christ— enfleshed in our glorified humanity—at the Father’s right hand, ruling and subduing the enemies of his kingdom and interceding for us. But we also need the Holy Spirit to accomplish what only he can: to work within us to bring about repentance and faith, and to intercede within us so that we relate to the Father in joy as his adopted children rather than in fear (Rom. 8:15).

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

Before his ascension, Jesus tells the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for “the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.” In just “a few days,” he tells them, they “will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” (Acts 1:4–5, 8; cf. Luke 24:49). We do not have to speculate about what the disciples “heard [Jesus] speak about” concerning the Holy Spirit. Whatever else he said about the Spirit must have been an elaboration on what he had spoken to them in the Farewell Discourse, which Jesus said they would understand only later. This discourse (John 14–16) occurs in the upper room during Passover and the institution of the Lord’s Supper: “For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). And it is provoked especially by Jesus’ announcement of his departure. First, Peter asks him: “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.” (John 13:36–8) Then Thomas asks him: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:5–6) After all that, Philip pleads, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us” (John 14:8). Philip’s question is the last straw. Jesus seems exasperated by the failure of the disciples to understand that he is the way: “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (v. 9). Happily, for our sake, these questions provoked

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

Jesus’ most thorough explanation of the Spirit’s mission. He performs the exodus, assumes his conquest-throne, and sends the Spirit to distribute the spoils of victory. The answer to the disciples’ anxious questions (John 14:1–14) is not to downplay the reality of his departure until he returns in the flesh; rather, it is to promise the Holy Spirit (14:15–31). Just as Jesus went to the cross alone and was raised alone, he ascended to the Father alone, even as the disciples scattered. Only he could perform this work. And yet he performed it as a public, rather than private, person. Jesus not only shows the way: he is the way. They cannot follow him now to where he is going. But they will be united to Jesus after his ascension in a new yet even more intimate way after Pentecost. The disciples will no longer merely walk by Jesus’ side and eat and drink common meals with him. The Spirit will unite them to Christ like branches to a vine (John 15). Because of his work, they will be able truly to eat his flesh and drink his blood for eternal life, as he promised in John 6. The disciples are already clean because they belong to him; already fruitbearing branches because they belong to the vine. They are, says Jesus, no longer to be called servants but friends. “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you” (15:15–16). The fruit is love, particularly for one another in the communion of saints (v. 17). They will be a new family, around which a new humanity will grow. The Paraclete is the answer to their anxiety about Jesus’ departure. Why would Jesus desert them in this hour when they are on the brink of establishing the Messiah on the throne of his father David in Jerusalem? The pattern of Jesus’ course over the next few days recapitulates the pattern familiar to the disciples: Israel’s story of exodus, conquest, and the distribution of the inheritance to each of the twelve tribes. It is, however, no rerun of past episodes. Rather, it is the reality for which the old covenant pattern was merely a preview of coming attractions.

Jesus identifies the Spirit as “another paraklētos.” Commentators—and even translators—have frequently sought to distinguish the Spirit from Jesus by identifying the former as “comforter” rather than “advocate.” Already in the early third century, Origen observed that “in the Greek [paraklētos] bears both meanings.” Nevertheless, “in regard to the Savior ‘paraclete’ seems to mean intercessor.…When used of the Holy Spirit, however, the word ‘paraclete’ ought to be understood as ‘comforter,’ because he provides comfort to the souls to whom he opens and reveals a consciousness of spiritual knowledge.”1 Though possible lexically, the translation “comforter” hardly catches the courtroom image with which this term was frequently associated. In rabbinical literature, it meant “advocate” or “attorney,” contrasted with “accuser” (Avot 4:11). “Whosoever is summoned before the court for capital punishment is saved only by powerful advocates” (Shabbat 32a) echoes Job 33:23–24. Furthermore, the sin offering is spoken of as an interceding paraclete (Sifra, Meżora’ 3:3; Tos. Parah 1:1). And in modern Hebrew, a paraklit is a solicitor/ attorney.2 Most translations render paraklētos “advocate” in 1 John 2:1.3 Furthermore, Origen seems to have overlooked Romans 8:26–27 when he says that “in regard to the Savior ‘paraclete’ seems to mean intercessor.” After all, the apostle applies this intercessory role to the Spirit as well in those verses. The decision for “comforter” in relation to the Spirit is therefore determined by a concern to distinguish Christ’s work from the Spirit’s. I think this is the wrong distinction. The Son and the Spirit are engaged in a judicial operation. Jesus himself said that the Holy Spirit is “another paraclete” (allos paraklētos), and the role he attributes to the Spirit is obviously legal. When this “other attorney” comes, Jesus instructs, “he will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (vv. 8–9). The verb for convict here (elegchein) means “to expose.” Satan is judged already (vv. 10–11). Through Jesus’ victory, the prosecutor of the brethren is defeated, so that the prosecutor of the world and justifier of believers can begin

his recovery mission. The primary reference is to what will happen at Pentecost. Of course, the effects will reverberate outward in concentric circles to the ends of the earth. However, Peter’s Pentecost sermon reveals each aspect of the work that Jesus here attributes to the Spirit as the inner witness to his external word. Peter prosecutes the case against them (“You put him to death”), while also proclaiming God’s righteousness (“But God raised him from the dead”) and judgment (“it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him”). Therefore, through the external word of conviction, righteousness, and judgment, the Holy Spirit inwardly convicts and assures. Without this work of the Spirit within, the external proclamation would not have led to its profound effect: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37). And “about three thousand were added to their number that day” (Acts 2:41).4 Everything that Jesus promised Peter and the other disciples in his discourse was actually fulfilled at Pentecost—and is still being fulfilled today. The Spirit’s ministry is not to add something to Jesus’ work, but to remind the disciples of what Jesus has said (John 16:12). This is the basis for the New Testament as revealed Scripture. Just as Jesus didn’t speak on his own authority, but spoke what his Father told him, so now the Spirit will speak the word of Christ and keep the church in the truth. The Trinitarian fellowship is obvious: The Father sent the Son, and the Son took what belonged to the Father and gave it to his people; the Son returned to the Father, gave to his Father the people entrusted to him, and then sent the Spirit who “will take what is mine and declare it to you” (v. 14). We can therefore be certain where the Spirit is active in power: it is wherever Christ is being proclaimed in his saving office for the forgiveness of sins, justification, and an inheritance in the new creation. We see the qualitative difference that Pentecost brings. Even with Jesus among them, the disciples stand on the old covenant side of the great divide of the two ages. In John 14:16,

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

Jesus distinguishes between the Spirit’s presence now (“he dwells with you”) and his presence after Pentecost (“he will be in you”). Whatever graces of the Holy Spirit, whatever forms of his presence for the saints of old, Jesus speaks in the future tense of the Spirit’s indwelling all of his saints. Indeed, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you,” Jesus pledges, referring to Pentecost rather than to his second coming.5 He identifies his own presence with that of the Holy Spirit. Jesus will be with his people in a more intimate way after his ascension than before, because his Spirit will live within us and unite us to Christ. The Spirit is waiting for the cry, “It is finished”— for the tearing of the curtain in the temple he has long since abandoned; and then he will fill his true temple in the upper room and begin the last judgment by sentencing guilty sinners and justifying, sanctifying, and glorifying them in Christ. In relating the Son and the Spirit, there are two dangers to be avoided: confusing and separating them. It is certainly true that the Son and the Spirit exist eternally in an ineffable union of essence. However, I do not think that this is the Johannine emphasis as much as the association of the Spirit with Jesus in the economy—in “these last days.” Here the stress is on the one work in which they are engaged, yet differently

as befits their distinct persons and roles. The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of Christ”—not lowercase “s” as if to identify the Third Person with Jesus’ human soul. While remaining a distinct person from Christ, his presence in these last days is Christ’s presence. But they have distinct ministries in the different stages of redemption. Thus unity and distinction are both evident in this discourse. Jesus says, “But when the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning” (15:26; emphasis added). The Spirit never confuses himself with Jesus. On the contrary, it is by focusing his ministry on the work of Christ that the Spirit’s difference, as well as unity with him, is demonstrated. Yet precisely in doing so, the presence of the Spirit is identified as the presence of Christ himself. Blurring the distinctions between the Son and the Spirit—and then, between Christ and the church—has become a dominant tendency in much of contemporary theology. This tendency is discernable even in the otherwise helpful work of theologian and Eastern Orthodox metropolitan John Zizioulas. Although I agree wholeheartedly that pneumatology (study of the Holy Spirit) is a crucial (and often missing) link between Christ and his church, I demur from his conclusion in Being as Communion that this means “there is no gap to fill by the means of grace.”6 This reflects an over-realized eschatology. I would argue that it is precisely because of the Spirit’s work in these last days that there is both a real union with Christ and a gap to fill by his return. Therefore, the means of grace remain crucial in this semi-realized era of Christ’s kingdom. Zizioulas adds, “The Holy Spirit makes

“ WHILE REMAINING A DISTINCT PERSON FROM CHRIST, [THE HOLY SPIRIT’S] PRESENCE IN THESE LAST DAYS IS CHRIST’S PRESENCE.”

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

“CHRISTOLOGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY REMAIN DISTINCT BECAUSE CHRIST FOREVER REMAINS THE HEAD RATHER THAN THE BODY, AND YET CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH ARE NOT SEPARATED BECAUSE THE HOLY SPIRIT UNITES THE MEMBERS TO THE HEAD.”

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

real…Christ’s personal existence as a body or community.” Consequently, “All separation between Christology and ecclesiology vanishes in the Spirit.”7 Zizioulas is to be commended for a more robustly pneumatological perspective on Christology and ecclesiology. However, a proper pneumatology will preserve rather than resolve the “distinction without separation.” Christology and ecclesiology remain distinct because Christ forever remains the head rather than the body, and yet Christ and his church are not separated because the Holy Spirit unites the members to the head. As in the analogy of husband and wife, Christ’s relationship with his church is a union and communion rather than a fusion of persons (Eph. 5:23–32). The tendency to conflate Jesus and the Spirit is evident also in Raymond Brown’s argument in the Gospel According to John: “The Paraclete is the presence of Jesus when Jesus is absent”— indeed, “another Jesus.”8 I suggest that this reflects an over-realized eschatology that tends to collapse Jesus into the Spirit and then both into the church as a continuing incarnation.9 It fails to appreciate Jesus’ promise to send the Spirit as “another Paraclete.” Taking its cue from Augustine’s concept of the totus Christus (“the whole Christ” as the head of his church), there is a recurring emphasis in Roman Catholic ecclesiologies on collapsing the historical Christ into the church.10 It was good for Jesus to go to his Father, not because the Spirit would replace him but precisely because the Spirit is different in his person and operations from the Son. Jesus has accomplished what only he could and is still fulfilling his mediatorial office in heaven. But now we need the Spirit to accomplish what only he can, given his distinctive role in the economy of grace. The further conflation of the pneumatic Christ with the church leads inevitably to a domestication of the Spirit—reducing him to the immanence of ecclesial being and action. However, this is not only a Roman Catholic temptation. It reaches an extreme in the conviction of Russian Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov that the church is the incarnation of

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

the Spirit.11 Yet increasingly in Protestant, even evangelical, theological circles there is slippery talk of the church as the extension of Christ’s incarnation, whether the church is understood as an institution or a charismatic community. In spite of the emphasis on the free Spirit who descends where he will, even in Pentecostal and charismatic circles, the tendency to treat the Spirit as a possession of the individual believer or a particular movement of revival is evident. A chapter in Pentecostal theologian Frank Macchia’s Baptized in the Spirit is titled “Christ the King and the Spirit the Kingdom.”12 First of all, there is the depersonalizing tendency: the Spirit not as the one who brings the kingdom to completion but simply as the kingdom. Does this not belong to the history that speaks of the Spirit as “the bond of love” or “the fellowship of the Father and the Son”? Would it not strike us as odd to hear the Father or the Son spoken of as “the kingdom”? Second, rendering the Spirit identical to the kingdom makes him just as indistinguishable from the field of his agency as it does to say that the church is the Spirit’s incarnation. One serious cost of such immanentizing of the Spirit (and over-realized eschatology) is that a church, kingdom, individual, world, or movement that simply is the Spirit cannot be brought into being, sustained, and led into the consummation by the Spirit. It cannot be judged or saved; it cannot hear a word that is external to itself. Therefore, we must not run too quickly past the ascension to Pentecost. Where is Jesus? He has ascended bodily to the right hand of the Father, from whence he will return at the end of the age to judge the living and the dead. Everything that Jesus had taught them in the upper room before his death is now about to be fulfilled. And yet, just at this point when they are prepared for conquest—with the Greater Joshua as their leader—Jesus leaves. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold two men stood by them in

white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9–11)

“ JESUS CAN SAY ‘I WILL COME TO YOU’... BECAUSE THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE ONE WHO ‘WILL TAKE WHAT IS MINE AND DECLARE IT TO YOU.’”

Understandably, the disciples were stunned. At first, it must have seemed as if they had been bereaved of their Master once more. We must join the disciples in their anxiety over the Lord’s heavenly repatriation before we can experience the full impact of the Spirit’s advent. In one sense, Jesus is absent, and the church has to fully accept this fact. Jesus is not the Holy Spirit or the church or the inner soul of the pious individual or community. His absence from us in the flesh underscores the difference from the head and members of this new commonwealth. Not even his omnipresent deity can save us from the longing for his bodily return. Instead of looking away from the absent Jesus, taken up from us in the cloud, we must reckon fully with this fact if we are to appreciate the glorified humanity we share with him by the unique work of the Holy Spirit. In another sense, though, Jesus is present— and not simply in his omnipresent divinity. It would require the Spirit’s descent at Pentecost for them to realize the comfort of Jesus’ earlier instruction: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14:18–20). At Pentecost they will come to know Jesus in a way that had completely eluded them. They will know Jesus not simply as a unique individual, but as the eschatological Vine, Head, Cornerstone, and Firstfruits of the New Creation in whom they share. Jesus can say “I will come to you” (John 14:18) because

the Holy Spirit is the One who “will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:14). Though he departed in the flesh, he is present not only in his divinity but in the power of his indwelling Spirit who unites us to his glorified humanity in heaven. Once we accept the real difference between the ascended Savior and the indwelling Spirit, the real unity between them and their work becomes visible in the different things that they do in one and the same work of salvation. Paradoxically, the Spirit is responsible both for the Son’s departure and for uniting us to the Son who has departed—in a new way never experienced, even yet by the disciples. This intimate relationship that Jesus divulges in the Farewell Discourse of John’s Gospel is also apparent in the Pauline corpus. Strictly speaking, Jesus does not indwell believers. And yet, Jesus and the Holy Spirit become somewhat interchangeable characters in the Epistles. The Spirit by whom the Son became incarnate was also present at the cross. We are

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

redeemed by “the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God” (Heb. 9:14; emphasis added). The Spirit raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 1:4; 1 Tim. 3:16; 1 Pet. 3:18). Once more, the external works of the Godhead remain undivided: Christ’s resurrection is attributed also to the Father (Acts 2:32; 17:31; Rom. 6:4; 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:15) and to the Son himself (John 2:19–21; 10:17–18). However, each is responsible for the resurrection according to his own distinct attributes and actions. The Spirit’s role in the resurrection was to make Jesus’ humanity the life-giving firstfruits of the new creation (Rom. 1:4). Adam became “a living being” by the Spirit’s breath, but the last Adam is for us “a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45–47). As Sinclair Ferguson observes concerning Romans 8:9–10, “Here, clearly, the statements ‘Spirit of God lives in you,’ ‘have the Spirit of Christ,’ and ‘Christ is in you’ are three ways of describing a single reality of the indwelling of the Spirit.”13 No longer a body of death, Christ’s humanity “has become a body of glory” (Phil. 3:21). It is now “spiritual”—not as opposed to physical, but as glorified and life-giving spirit. Ferguson writes: Such is the fullness of the Spirit into which Jesus entered at the resurrection that Paul is able to say that “the last Adam [became] a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). Thus, to have the Spirit is to have Christ; to have Christ is to have the Spirit….In this sense, through the resurrection and ascension, Christ “became life-giving Spirit.” The explanation for this is found in a further remarkable statement: “Now the Lord [the antecedent is “Christ,” 2 Cor. 3:13] is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17–18).…In effect, Paul is teaching that through his life and ministry Jesus came into such complete possession of the Spirit,

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

receiving and experiencing him “without limit” (Jn. 3:34), that he is now “Lord” of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18). With respect to his economic ministry to us, the Spirit has been “imprinted” on the character of Jesus. This is precisely what it means for Jesus to send him as allos paraklētos.14 Paul prays that the Father “may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:17; emphasis added).15 From now on, the Son’s identity is shaped by the Spirit, the Spirit’s is shaped by the incarnate Son’s ministry, and we are being shaped into Christ’s likeness by the Spirit “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:17–18).16 MICHAEL S. HORTON is the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California).

1 Origen, First Principles, translated by G. W. Butterworth (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973), 119. 2 See http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11899-paraclete. 3 Origen suggested that when referring to Jesus, it means “advocate/ intercessor,” but in reference to the Spirit it’s “comforter” (First Principles 2.7.3, ANF 4:284–85). Again, this is possible (and Origen, a native Greek speaker, should carry weight); however, it is a judgment formed as much by what is drawn from the larger context both within and outside Johannine theology. 4 Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spirit: Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1996), 70. 5 Ferguson, 76. 6 John Zizioulas, Being as Communion (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), 110. 7 Zizioulas, 111. 8 Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1970), 690. 9 I develop this point more fully in Covenant and Salvation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), and People and Place (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008). 10 See my People and Place. 11 Sergei Bulgakov, The Comforter (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004). In fact, Bulgakov identifies his view as “pious pantheism”—or, more precisely, he adds, “panentheism.” Yet it is difficult to discern the difference when he writes, “The Spirit is the world itself in all its being—on the pathways from chaos to cosmos” (199–200). 12 Frank D. Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 89. Despite the chapter title “Christ as the King and the Spirit as the Kingdom,” I find intriguing Macchia’s effort to integrate the motifs of Spirit baptism and the kingdom. 13 Ferguson, 37. 14 Ferguson, 53–55. 15 Ferguson, 56. 16 Ferguson, 56.

Work

Church

until Christ

RETURNS MICHAEL HORTON

talks with RUSSELL MOORE

On the

night before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed to his father: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” Precisely what it means be in the world, but not of it, is a topic that has sparked more than a few discussions, debates, and ideas as Christians think through the implications of living as loyal citizens of the kingdom of heaven while living as honorable citizens in the kingdom of humanity. Editor-in-chief Michael Horton recently chatted with Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, to discuss the ideas in Moore’s recent book, Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel (B&H Books, 2015).

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

HORTON: Onward is eye-opening and engaging from

start to finish. Isn’t “engaging the culture without losing the gospel” one of the great challenges of the hour?

tendency to move to the opposite ditch in order to avoid the one we just got out of, and I think that’s something we have to be mindful of.

MOORE: It really is. It’s a difficult balance for us to face; there are many temptations for Christians (myself included!) to veer off into extremes on either side.

You write that we should see ourselves as a prophetic minority, that the church of Jesus Christ is never a majority in any fallen culture, even if we happen to outnumber everyone else around us. What do you mean by that?

One thing I’ve appreciated about your work is that you don’t throw rocks at people engaged in the “culture wars.” You engage with the powers that be and make important cases for the value of life and defense of liberty, but you’re also critical of some of the ways in which Christians have conducted these operations. What do you think has changed in the status of Christianity in America?

I mean that the mind-set of the people of God is an “otherworldly” mind-set. It’s a challenge to the way things are in a fallen universe. If we have minds patterned according to the gospel and not conformed to the world, then we are going to have a different way of viewing things. One of the mistaken assumptions we made when we started engaging in the political process—which I think is the right thing to do as citizens—was that we needed to play by the same sorts of rules: specifically, the rule that you need to be able to boast of your large numbers. We see that going on in elections right now. There’s a widely held assumption that the alleged 54 million evangelicals who didn’t come out to vote last time will vote this time if there’s the right candidate, so you need to engage and cater to them. It’s counterintuitive to say that most Americans actually don’t aspire to exactly the same things we aspire to and that we’re not as many as some of our leaders have boasted. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless in the way Scripture defines power.

What I see going on right now in American Christianity is a kind of panic that results in fear rooted in a lack of confidence, which runs contrary to a biblical vision of God’s sovereignty and the power of the gospel. I also think it’s built upon a faulty notion of the past. For a long time, Americans operated under the assumption that we were a majority in American life—whether we’re talking about the “silent majority” language of the late 1960s that’s being brought back now by the Donald Trump campaign, or later on, with the “Moral Majority,” with the rise of the Religious Right. They might not agree with us theologically, but they agree with us on values. I think this led to a kind of Christianity that privileged values over gospel, which really skewed priorities in some ways, and which we’re still paying for now. One of the biggest challenges I face is engaging a younger generation of conservative evangelicals. They’re so put off by the faults of the last generation—whether that’s the exuberance of the possibility of politics, or the anger that sometimes came through—they simply want to move to the other side. You and I both know that whenever you meet an antinomian, it’s usually someone coming out of a legalist background, and vice versa. So we have a

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

So when the media talks about the evangelical vote, it’s somewhat misleading. It can be. Journalists tend to think of evangelicals in exclusively political terms, and they’re often not able to differentiate between the sorts of tribes we have in evangelicalism. They’re not really cognizant of the huge differences between a Kenneth Copeland type so-called evangelical and a Billy Graham evangelical or a Tim Keller evangelical, and so forth. If your only interaction with evangelicals is at the level of people

who are caucusing in Iowa, that can result in a skewed understanding.

pledge allegiance to our country while recognizing the limit of that allegiance.

You write that Christian witness in Christian America is respectable because it upholds morality and success, not because it preaches the gospel of crucifixion and resurrection:

I’m sure you’re familiar with the “Benedict Option” that has been put out there. Could you explain it and then discuss the success you think this model is having?

Jesus could have remained beloved in Nazareth by healing some people and levitating some chairs and keeping quiet about how different his kingdom is. But Jesus persistently has to wreck everything, and the illusions of Christian America are no more immune than the illusions of Israelite Galilee. If we see the universe as the Bible sees it, we will not try to reclaim some lost golden age. We will see an invisible conflict of the kingdoms, a satanic horror show being invaded by the reign of Christ.…If the kingdom is where Christ is, then we dare not assume the power of the state for the purposes of the church, and we dare not subordinate the ministries of the church to the authority of the state. The kingdom is defined by the gospel, and the gospel is defined by the kingdom. (55)

The “Benedict Option” is a term coined by Rod Dreher from the 1980s book by Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, who said we need a conservation of the Christian traditions, which means we need new monastic communities— not necessarily monasteries, but communities that are, in certain ways, walled off from the outside community in order to keep the light burning for a future generation. In a sense, I think he’s right. I think it’s important that we create these alternative institutions—chief among them, of course, being the institution we don’t create at all, which is the church. We need a church that understands where it comes from and where it’s going, that spends time educating the next generation in what it means to call ourselves Christians. When we think of “the church,” we don’t primarily think in terms of our generational demographic or our national identity, but we think of “the church” in terms of the global body of Christ, spanning space and time. Having this sort of “community” is critical, and the “Benedict Option” is right to articulate our need for it. Where I think it goes wrong is in its particular gloominess about American culture. I really don’t think we’re entering into a new Dark Ages—not in any way essentially different from what the church has encountered in past ages. We’re not confronting anything we haven’t confronted before, and I don’t think we’re in a persistently downward regress any more than we’re in an infinitely upward progress. I don’t think that’s an evangelical view of history.

Are you suggesting that it’s precisely because Christianity holds the kingdom of heaven as the ultimate kingdom that it can have a different witness, even by simply saying that what happens in the caucuses and elections is not the ultimate reality? That’s right. This doesn’t mean that caucuses and elections aren’t important; it means that they’re not ultimate. This is not only something that saves our souls by centering us in the gospel of Christ and the knowledge of what is really ultimately significant, but it’s what enables us to serve as citizens. One of the primary needs we have as Americans is the ability to know that neither the state nor the culture is ultimate. I think people who understand that make the best citizens. The best Americans are those who aren’t “Americans” first—that is, when we maintain a certain distance from our American identity, we’re free to be good citizens. We’re able to

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

“WHEN WE START WITH THIS SENSE THAT WE’RE THE ‘REAL AMERICA’ AND A MAJORITY IN THIS COUNTRY, AND THEN SEE THAT ALL OF OUR EFFORTS HAVEN’T PANNED OUT THE WAY WE THOUGHT THEY WOULD, THIS LEADS TO A SORT OF SIEGE MENTALITY.”

You mentioned antinomianism and legalism as being two poles that we swing back and forth between. Can you say the same thing about cultural transformation on one hand and this kind of handwringing on the other? Does the “gloomy outlook” on our role in culture stem from an overconfidence in our abilities to make the culture Christian in the first place? It really does. That’s why we see the sort of panic we have right now, because there’s a narrative of loss. There are always things that are culturally lost, always moments in time when we can look around and say, “We’re losing something culturally significant.” But when we spiritualize that to the point where we think we’re experiencing the sort of sorrow the Israelites would have felt at the loss of the Ark of the Covenant, then we’re moving into a different evaluation of what’s happening. When we start with this

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

sense that we’re the “real America” and a majority in this country, and then see that all of our efforts haven’t panned out the way we thought they would, this leads to a sort of siege mentality. That’s one part of it. The other part of it is this: If we have an evangelical Christianity with a leadership disconnected from church life, then we typically end up with a Christianity driven by donor bases and fundraising. This results in a culture war industrial complex, in which in order to motivate people (just like the rest of the world) we have to convince them that this point in time is worse than any other in the history of the world, and the way that they can act is by filling out this card and sending this check to this ministry or nonprofit organization. I think those two things work together to create a constant anxiety in the minds of Christians.

You advocate what you call “engaged alienation.” What do you mean by that, and what does that look like in local congregations? I think we become overly concerned about those aspects of the Christian gospel that will seem bizarre to people. One hundred years ago, people were saying, “Well, modern people are not going to be able to be Christians if they have to accept virgin births and empty tombs. So let’s just give them Golden Rule ethics and those sorts of things, and strip all that supernatural stuff away.” The churches that went that route are withering and dying today. Today, people are saying the same thing, just in a different form: “If you’re going to reach Millennials, you have to do away with the Christian understanding of sexuality.” Both ignore the fact that a Christian view of the miraculous and a Christian sexual ethic were always offensive and ridiculous to the people who heard them. That’s why, when Mary tells Joseph that she’s pregnant, his response is not, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” His

response is, “Well, you must have been involved with some other man.” He knows how babies are conceived. A Christian sexual ethic has always been controversial. It’s part of the taking up of one’s cross and following Christ. In more conservative circles, there’s more frequent discussion about values first, and using those values as the bridge by which we reach people with Jesus. We see that in the ways in which churches have talked about marriage and family, saying that we can reach non-Christian people by talking about how to have healthy marriages, because we know they aspire to the same sort of vision of marriage. So we say, “Here’s how you communicate; here’s how you have a healthy parenting relationship; here’s how you have a date night—and Jesus helps you have all of those things and make all those things work.” The New Testament model, on the other hand, doesn’t run away from the strangeness of the gospel, which is Christ and him crucified for sinners. One of the things that strikes me whenever I’m reading through the Gospels or the book of Acts is that whenever Jesus and the apostles get the impression that they’re making sense to the crowds around them, they always assume that the crowds aren’t getting the thrust of the gospel. “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” There’s a continual emphasis on that message until people see that this is a strikingly different statement. This is not just adding Jesus to my already existing life plan: this is Jesus upending my life plan. I think we have to be more willing to do that in the age to come.

“ THIS IS NOT JUST ADDING JESUS TO MY ALREADY EXISTING LIFE PLAN: THIS IS JESUS UPENDING MY LIFE PLAN.”

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

changes the way we see people, and it gives us the confidence we as the people of Christ ought to have. We have a promise from Jesus, which is that he will build his church and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. If we really have confidence in this, then we can be kind toward the people around us and have patience as we press the truth-claims of Christ.

When you use that term “engaged alienation,” it seems that you’re holding two things together: On one hand, our “strange” distance from the culture and the idea that we can’t lose that strangeness without compromising the gospel; on the other hand, maintaining an engaged relationship with culture. It’s not the “Benedict Option,” where we run from culture into our enclaves; it’s engaging with culture while holding true to our identities as disciples of Christ. How does our hope in Christ actually encourage us to engage, instead of running between the two extremes of being antagonistic or retreating?

You define the church as an embassy of the future. If the church Christ is building is an embassy of the future, what does that look like?

If we have a truly evangelical view of conversion, and a Christian view of the image of God, then that’s going to change the way we see the people and culture around us. Rather than seeing the people who disagree with us as our ultimate enemies, we see them as potential brothers and sisters in Christ. If you hold to a semi-Pelagian view of salvation, then this means that the people who almost agree with you—the sort of traditionfamily-values people who just need that extra push—may be possible fellow saints. But if you hold to a biblical understanding of the gospel, then that means that every person outside of Christ is hiding from the voice of Christ, and that the Spirit of God speaking through the voice of Jesus in the gospel can transform any heart. Saul of Tarsus was not the sort of person who was likely to be won over by the Christian community. But God delights in taking someone like that and making him not only a member of the church, but a leader of the church. When I encounter people who think they hate Christianity (but really hate the caricature of Christianity), it’s hard for me to resist the temptation to see those people as enemies to be vaporized with my arguments. That’s not unique to me; I think every Christian has that temptation in some way, whether it’s on Facebook or dealing with prodigal kids or college professors. But if you step back and say, “It may be that this person is my future brother or sister in Christ; this person may be someone that God uses to evangelize my children or grandchildren,” this

There’s a strong emphasis today on contextualization, and that’s a good thing—you want to make sure that people understand what it is you’re saying. But I think we often contextualize the present when we should also contextualize the future. The church shouldn’t simply enable people to hear the gospel in their present context, but it should show people what the future in light of that gospel looks like, what the kingdom of God looks like. For instance, I think James is instructive when he chastises the church about honoring the one in fine clothing and telling the poor man to sit someplace else (James 2). The person in fine apparel is likely someone with cultural power; and if you want the gospel to go forward, you think you want to focus on reaching the culture-makers. It’s the same thing we see with our evangelical testimonies—you find the beauty queen or the corporate CEO whom everyone admires and who commands attention, and have that person talk about Christ, thinking that will get people’s attention. But James drives home the point that God has chosen the poor, the powerless, to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. He essentially says, “You think you’re playing church politics here, but you don’t have a long enough view of the future.” That ought to be evident in our churches, where we really understand that the hotel maid who can barely speak English and who trusts in Jesus Christ may be powerless in her context right now, but is a future queen of the universe and is treated that way. I think there’s a great deal of unwitting theistic social

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

“THAT BALANCE CONGREGATION WO WITH EMBODYING OF THE KINGDO BEARING ONE ANOT LOVING ONE ANOT EXERCISE OF

Darwinism that seems to go on in church life that contradicts what we mean when we say that we’re marching to Zion, to the kingdom Jesus is establishing.

It sounds like you’re saying that you can’t have churches where the gospel isn’t really shaping the culture of that church and then go out into the political arena and expect to stop same-sex marriage. As I read your book, it seemed you were describing two different ideas of cultural engagement. There’s the congregation with people who identify themselves as homosexuals in a church that (on paper at least) believes the gospel but doesn’t practice discipline. They can come to the Lord’s Table and still be practicing homosexuals. Then there’s the congregation where homosexuals are constantly given the cold

shoulder and treated as pariahs, where discipline is enforced but the winsome proclamation of the gospel is sidelined. It seems that you’re saying the church needs to become a place where, in this example, saying no to same-sex marriage has plausibility because of the way people live and are treated, and that life matters in this church because we actually care for orphans and widows and encourage adoption and all of the other things that make the story believable. Is that what you mean when you say that the church needs to be an embassy of the future? Exactly. If we don’t do that, then I think we end up unwittingly repudiating the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul says, “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.” It’s easier to judge the people on

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

TAKES AN ENTIRE RKING ITSELF OUT THE PRINCIPLES M OF GOD, WHILE HER’S BURDENS AND HER THROUGH THE OUR GIFTS.”

the outside and not hold accountable the people on the inside—but that gives people a false understanding of what the kingdom of God is. For instance, if you’re not willing to guard the Lord’s Table from unrepentant sinners, then you’re saying to people that they surely will not die. That’s the message of the devil, not the voice of Christ. In contrast, if you rail against sinners without an understanding of the cross, and what it means to be both undergoing the justice of God and being freely justified by the blood of Christ in the cross, then you’re going to end up suggesting to people that the gospel is only for those who are sinners in some sort of way that really isn’t that bad. That’s also a repudiation of the gospel. I think that balance takes an entire congregation working itself out with embodying the principles of the kingdom of God, while

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

bearing one another’s burdens and loving one another through the exercise of our gifts.

So without disengaging from the culture, we need to see more and more churches become places where the words of truth are embodied in reasonably truthful living consistent with the gospel proclaimed? Yes, that’s right, and also in modeling how to articulate a Christian gospel to those who don’t understand it. There are some churches that do this well, and there are many churches that do not because they are still operating in a Bible-Belt sort of mentality, which assumes that the people around you are asking, “How do I have a good marriage and go to heaven?” Increasingly, that is not the sort of question on the minds of American people and certainly not in other places in the world. We can’t just deal with caricatures; we also have to confront those alternatives to a Christian way of living by acknowledging, teaching, and modeling how to have those conversations with those who disagree.

You argue that since our churches have always been in step with the broader culture, there never really was a culture war. That’s counterintuitive to a lot of people. Could you explain that a bit? I’m not arguing that there’s not a culture war, just that the culture war isn’t as black and white as we might think. What has unfortunately happened—particularly in the American church—is that the church has accommodated itself to the outside culture. For instance, we see that with the divorce revolution: it’s not that churches gave up a biblical view of divorce and remarriage; it’s that divorce became normal to us. Very few churches articulated divorce as liberating and self-actualizing; but when it became normal, we began to talk about it in therapeutic terms. When we minister around divorce, we typically do that in terms of divorce recovery. There’s a reason for that, of course, but we don’t deal with divorce in terms of sin. Whatever one’s position is on divorce and remarriage and the exception clauses, many divorces and remarriages happening in our churches fall outside of the parameters established by Scripture. We

“ WE ALSO HAVE TO CONFRONT THOSE ALTERNATIVES TO A CHRISTIAN WAY OF LIVING BY ACKNOWLEDGING, TEACHING, AND MODELING HOW TO HAVE THOSE CONVERSATIONS WITH THOSE WHO DISAGREE.” 60

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

don’t address it because it just seems normal to us, which means we actually leave people under accusation. They can’t come to the place of truly finding liberation and freedom from that in the gospel if it’s never spoken of in terms of sin.

What does social witness look like in actual practice? Is it the church? Is social witness just individuals living out their Christian faith? What should social witness mean in our context today? We have to speak with a “Thus saith the Lord” on those social issues where God has clearly spoken in Scripture. On issues that are on the principle level in Scripture, we shape and form the consciences of people in order to apply those principles. There are going to be other issues we don’t speak to at all because we don’t have a clear word from Scripture. We know how to speak authoritatively, especially when it comes to personal ethics. When someone comes to me and says, “I’m just trying to think through God’s will for my life. Should I leave my wife for my secretary?” the answer is “No, you shouldn’t do that.” The word of God says no. But suppose someone comes to me and says, “I’m trying to think through whether or not my teenage daughter ought to have an iPhone.” Well, I have some principles from Scripture I think can help that person to think through the issue, but I’m not going to discipline the parents if they make a different decision than I would. Then there are some questions that are Romans 14 issues of conscience that I’m not going to address at all. I think the same thing happens in terms of our social witness. We have to be the people who say, as the people of God, “Enslaving human beings is wicked” and “Aborting unborn children is wicked.” We have to be the people who speak to that, especially since we, in an American republic, are in a situation different from the first disciples in the Roman Empire. In a democratic republic, the ultimate ground of authority is the people, which means that the Romans 13 accountability to wield the sword in our context doesn’t just apply to the president or members

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

of Congress; it ultimately applies to the people who delegate that to them. So the responsibility of the church is to train people how to live out their lives as Christians, in all their different vocations, with one of those vocations being citizens of an earthly kingdom. There are going to be some things to which we speak clearly and definitively, other things we speak to at the level of principle, and other things we don’t speak to at all. I don’t think there’s a Christian view on the balanced budget amendment or the line-item veto. I have a position on gun control, but my second amendment views are not rooted in my first or second commandment views, so I speak to that very differently. Now, if we’re speaking with someone who said, “Yes, I think everyone has the right to bear arms and to shoot innocent people,” there’s a clear moral principle that applies to that statement, so I would respond with a resounding word from God. That’s not the conversation we’re having, though, when we’re discussing gun control; what we’re really talking about is how we can stop gun violence and the best measures to implement that.

And if we aren’t careful to make those distinctions, then the church loses its authority when it does speak from God on the basis on his word. That’s exactly right. I remember being a teenager in my home church, and someone had put out one of these Christian voting guides that were popular at the time. It had a Christian view on abortion—and I do think there’s a Christian view on abortion and several other issues—as well as a Christian view on foreign aid and a line-item veto. Even as a teenager, I was able to recognize that this was just someone’s political agenda they had supported with Bible verses. That sort of witness is not only inconsistent with the Bible, but it is also ultimately self-defeating because it breeds cynicism.

A SIMPLE STORY COMES TO LIFE With every issue of this year’s Modern Reformation, we’re unraveling the compelling stories

of God’s people, giving a glimpse into the world in which God is at work—a world much like our own. Along the way, we’ll discover how our stories make sense only in God’s story.

WHITEHORSEINN.ORG/BACKISSUES

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews 64

The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

Panentheism and Jonathan Edwards

Panentheism in World Religions

REVIEWED BY

SIDEBAR BY

Bruce Baugus

Michael S. Horton

by Joe Rigney

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

BOOK REVIEWS

Revisiting Christian Hedonism (and Edwardsian Panentheism) The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts by Joe Rigney Crossway, 2015 272 pages (paperback), $16.99 rogressive, corporate, mild-mannered Minneapolis is an unlikely evangelical mecca, but the popularity of a particular leaky-shoed denizen has made it so for his many young, restless, and Reformed(ish) fans. Joe Rigney was just such a fan-turned-pilgrim when he made the trek from Texas to the Minnesotan tundra to study at his master’s feet; now he is assistant professor of theology and Christian worldview at Bethlehem College and Seminary. This is important context that enters into The Things of Earth through many autobiographical passages. As you most likely know, the master—John Piper—has spent the bulk of his public ministry urging bland evangelical epicures to become maximally hedonistic in a distinctly Edwardsian sense. Not that Piper was being clever, but telling hedonists they are not hedonistic enough was sure to resonate, at least among the more earnestly restless set. And indeed, many believers wasting their lives, as he puts it, pursuing the lesser pleasures of the American dream, found his spiritual, God-centered sensuality revolutionary. He validated their pursuit of pleasure, gave voice to their disappointments with the world, and convinced them their sybaritic passions could only be satisfied in God, who is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

This rendered an otherwise clunky and ill-fitting faith viable for many evangelicals. But some, such as Rigney, who found themselves living their faith in fresh and lively ways, also came away convinced that the pursuit of higher, spiritual pleasures—the cultivation of a pure and potent delight in God—was incompatible with an easy enjoyment of the mundane blessings of life. You will never yearn to make sandcastles by the sea, the thinking goes, till you despise making mud patties by the puddle. If all the pleasures of this world are mere mud patties and puddles compared to the pleasures of God, then we must learn to despise the things of earth, stripping our lives of lesser pleasures in order to delight undividedly in the greatest of all pleasures. For his part, Rigney lived on ramen noodles seasoned with the “smugness” of a self-righteous ascetic (203). A good case can be made that the less mature Rigney misunderstood his master’s teachings, but Piper a c k n o w l e d g e s a “s t r o n g a s ce t i c t e n de n c y ” t o h i s brand of Christian hedonism and appeals to a parallel tendency in Scripture (11). Rigney agrees that the gospel calls and equips believers to pursue lives of self-denial. His primary target is not the ascetic cast of life in Christ but asceticism, which denies the goodness of created gifts and counts abstaining from the pleasure of earthly things a spiritual good. A form of the latter is what Piper probably never taught (though he admits to a certain imbalance of emphasis in rhetoric and life) but what Rigney and others took from his teachings. The Things of Earth is Rigney’s attempt to give the pleasure of created things back to those who had those things slapped from their hands or struggled to freely and gladly receive them in the first place.

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

But Rigney’s particular proposal for how we might treasure God by enjoying his gifts (unnecessarily) rides on a panentheistic doctrine of God with distinctly occasionalist and idealist accents. “Panentheism” is not my characterization but Rigney’s confession, inspired by Jonathan Edwards’s unfinished and posthumously published dissertation, The End for Which God Created the World. Edwards’s dissertation is surely the most celebrated and cited text, after Scripture, in Christian hedonist circles. This is not the place to inspect Edwards’s argument, and exactly what version of these three positions he embraced is hotly contested in the secondary literature. What is not much debated is that Edwards held some version of each one and all three are departures from the classical theism of the Reformed tradition to that point. In this book, Rigney binds Christian hedonism to this controversial Edwardsian legacy, arguing a panentheistic doctrine of God is not only required by Scripture but the key to shamelessly enjoying a hamburger and fries and all the other things of earth. Rigney asserts that “God is an author. This world is his story. We are the characters” (51). This world, he continues, is “a dramatic rendering of [God’s] epic poem that is so potent that his words actually take on flesh” (52). As he conceives it, God is the one performing the “dramatic rendering,” and his creatures are the words he speaks. Quoting N. D. Wilson, he claims “we are made of ‘words. Magic words… words so potent, spoken by One so potent that they have weight and mass and flavor. They are real. They have taken on flesh and dwelt among us. They are us’” (53). As such, we are characters in a story that resides in the divine author’s mind with the consequence that “the intentions of the [divine] author and the intentions of the characters mutually indwell each other.” Although “God remains God, and the creatures remain creatures…the characters and all their thoughts, intentions, and actions are the content and product of the author’s creative will” (54).

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

“Rigney…[argues that] a panentheistic doctrine of God is not only required by Scripture but the key to shamelessly enjoying a hamburger and fries and all the other things of earth.”

Quoting Edwards, Rigney reasons that “it is because God is in us that our blood runs, our pulse beats, our lungs play, our food digests, and our organs of sense perform their operation,” and he follows this occasionalist arc to its conclusion of continuous creation: The same power that made things to be the first moment that they ever were is now exercised to make them to be this moment, and is continually exercised to make them to be every moment that they are….God’s preservation of the world is nothing but a continued act of creation. (49) Anticipating the objection that actual human beings “are more real than characters in a fairy tale,” Rigney pushes back. We may indeed be more real than fictional characters, but relative to the divine author, he argues, we are much “less real” than fairy-tale creatures are relative to their human author—so much so that “the distance between fictional characters and real persons [is] largely irrelevant” (52–53). That conclusion strongly suggests a kind of idealism—that we are just ideas in the divine mind

BOOK REVIEWS

PA N E N T H E I S M and J O N A T H A N E D WA R D S

hile most of our attention has been on atheistic critiques of Christianity, another worldview has gained wider acceptance. It’s called panentheism. Unlike pantheism—“all is divine”—panentheism means, literally, “all is in God.” In practice, it also can mean “God is in all.” Many thinkers and movements that have been designated “pantheist” throughout the ages have been closer to panentheistic. What’s the difference? In pantheism, there is no distinction between God and the world; everything that exists is an extension of God. But panentheism acknowledges some distinction between God and the world. God is more than the sum total of everything that exists. At the same time, panentheists believe that God and the world need each other. Of course,

the world would not exist without God, but the reverse is also true: God would not exist without the world. Why? Because it is his very nature to bring forth the world, just as it is the sun’s nature to shine and a fountain’s nature to discharge water. There are generally two ways to go with this panentheism. One version emphasizes God’s dependence on the world, as seen in approaches such as process thought and in varying degrees among many modern theologians such as John Cobb, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Jürgen Moltmann: Both our history and God’s being are evolving together; God is realizing his own being in and through the flow of history. A second version emphasizes the world’s dependence on God to the extent that the world itself

BY MICHAEL S. HORTON

is pretty unreal. The only entity that really exists is God, and creaturely actions are little more than divine actions in their visible manifestations. This is the idealism of Jonathan Edwards and others. In either case, God needs the world to manifest his glory, and the world needs God to (sort of) exist. You can emphasize that your acts of thinking are actually God’s or vice versa, but either way there isn’t a sharp Creator-creature distinction. Panentheism faces insurmountable difficulties from a biblical perspective. Biblical theism affirms that God created the world out of nothing (ex nihilo). The world has no existence apart from God, but it is also not a part of God. Creation is just that: created. It doesn’t emanate from God’s being but exists con-

PANTHEISM

PANENTHEISM

"A L L I S D I V I N E"

"A L L I S I N G O D" O R

tingently—in other words, not out of necessity but out of God’s freedom and love. Neither divine nor demonic, creation is God’s workmanship. Many other doctrines are affected by a rejection of this biblical view of the God-world relation. As Professor Baugus points out in his review article, the great Calvinist theologian Jonathan Edwards at least approached panentheism. Indeed, Charles Hodge warned that he couldn’t discern “a hair’s breadth” between what he called pantheism and Edwards’s idealism. Although Edwards has proved an enduring source of sound teaching on a variety of topics, I suggest rather strongly that anyone concerned to stay within the bounds of historic Christian orthodoxy remain wary of his more speculative meanderings.

EMPHASIS 1 : God's dependence on the

world; modern theologians: John Cobb, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Jürgen Moltmann

"G O D I S I N A L L"

No distinction between Creator/creature

Some distinction between Creator/creature

EMPHASIS 2 : The world's dependence on God; modern theologian: Jonathan Edwards

Vol. 25 No. 3 May/June 2016

or, in this case, characters in the story God is telling himself. Rigney confirms this in an endnote: “Creation exists in God in the same way that an author’s story exists in his mind. The story is not to be identified with the author, but the story is, in some real sense, in the author” (243 n.16). As with much of what Rigney (and Edwards) says about God and creation, there are nonoccasionalist, non-idealist, and perhaps even non-panentheistic ways to understand many of his claims. The drift of his argument, however, is consistently in these directions. Consider his discussion of divine glory: “God’s glory is his Trinitarian fullness,” and this fullness is “flowing out from himself, emanating and overflowing to creatures” (41). In this way, “creation is a reflection of the divine nature, and the divine nature is fundamentally triune.” Therefore, “we ought to be able to recognize aspects of the Trinity in what God has made” (36). The overflow of God’s Trinitarian fullness to creation has a corresponding return: creatures are “drawn in so that we come to share in divine knowledge, love, and joy, or, as Peter says, we become ‘partakers of the divine nature’” (41–42). He describes this return to God as the “promise of perichoretic participation” in which “the triune glory of the Father, Son, and Spirit is being extended to us so that we participate in their knowledge, love, and joy. We are being invited into the fellowship of the Godhead,” he continues, “so that we have the same union with God that the Father and Son have with each other” (44). Here, as in several other places, Rigney hedges somewhat. While our “perichoretic participation” in the divine nature “will approach such a union of knowledge, love, and joy…with ever-increasing speed,” we will never catch up because God has an infinite head start on us (44; emphasis original). Still, “the glory and fullness of God includes…our knowledge of his perfections and our love for his perfections, and all the thoughts and affections and actions that flow out of that knowledge and love.” This is because “our knowledge of God is simply God’s knowledge of himself in us” and our “love for God is simply

M ODERNRE FOR M ATION .OR G

God’s love for God in us” and so on. “This,” he explains, “is the origin and…end” of all things, “the Alpha and Omega,…the supreme harmony of all” (46; emphasis original). Traditionally, perichoresis refers to the unique way the three divine persons mutually indwell or interpenetrate one another such that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father and the Spirit likewise. After Jürgen Moltmann, however, Trinitarian panentheistic doctrines of God have tended to open up and extend perichoresis to creation, as Rigney does here. It is not surprising, then, to find Rigney arguing along panentheistic lines that “God’s love for God pushes him into creation” and that “creation is God’s self-expression, the free overflow of his triune personality and life…that makes invisible realities visible” (61–62). Rigney writes: In creation, God gives himself. And giving himself means that he does his deeds and in some sense is himself through the things he has made. This is not pantheism, the idea that God is everything and everything is God. But it is the notion that God is in everything, that creation really is the bearer of divine life and glory, so that (to quote Lewis again), when we look at any aspect of