I haven’t been here on this site for some time, but I’m planning to return to posting once in a while. I’ll share sermons, reading notes, and maybe more. For now, I’ll start soon with sharing some recent work- sermons and articles that have been published elsewhere.
Peace,
Jacob Hanby
We are not yet what we will be. John tells us that “what we will be has not yet appeared” (I Jn. 3.2); yet, at the same time, it is us who will be what we will be. This body will be resurrected, glorified, just as it is Jesus’ same historic body that was born of Mary, brought up in Nazareth, suffered on the cross, that now, glorified, reigns at the Father’s right hand.
It’s true of our bodies, it’s true of Christ’s historic body, and it’s true of His body the Church: the Church that we see now, awaiting glory, is the Church that will be glorified, “… new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21.2). Here’s Henri de Lubac making this point beautifully:
“For between the means and the end there is not merely an extrinsic relationship. Gratia inchoatio gloriae [tr. Grace is the beginning of glory]. Since we are dealing with two states of the same body, we might use a closer comparison; we might say that just as our poor fleshly body is the same one that, in a spiritual state, will have its lot in glory – corpus humilitatis nostrae configuratum corpi claritatis Christi [tr. The body of our humanity is conformed to the body of Christ’s splendor] – so the Church which lives and painfully progresses in our poor world is the very same that will see God face to face. In the likeness of Christ who is her founder and her head, she is at the same time both the way and the goal; at the same time both visible and invisible; in time and in eternity; she is at once the bride and the widow, the sinner and the saint.” – de Lubac, Catholicism, p. 73-74.
Henri de Lubac
This has tremendous pastoral implications. The Church has a telos, and pastors are to prepare them, shepherd her, towards it. The very bodies that you baptize, who receive bread and wine at the Table you preside, whom you bury, are the bodies that will rise again. The corporate body is the society that will dies and rises to new life, and will rise to new life finally to inhabit the New Earth. The pastor is called to shepherd the Church through her life as she “painfully progresses” toward the end of the beatific vision, toward glory, toward Resurrection.
Eugene Peterson employs a trigonometric metaphor to give shape to pastoral ministry: three “essential acts of ministry” form the angles of a triangle:
“Three pastoral acts are so basic, so critical, that they determine the shape of everything else. The acts are praying, reading Scripture, and giving spiritual direction… I see these three essential acts of ministry as the angles of a triangle. Most of what we see in a triangle is lines. The lines come in various proportions to each other but what determines the proportions and the shape of the whole are the angles. The visible lines of pastoral work are preaching, teaching, and administration. The small angles of this ministry are prayer, Scripture, and spiritual direction. The length and proportions of the ministry ‘lines’ are variable, fitting numerous circumstances and accommodating a wide range of pastoral gifts. If, though, the lines are disconnected from the angles and drawn willfully or at random, they no longer make a triangle. Pastoral work disconnected from the angle actions- the acts of attention to God in relation to myself, the biblical communities of Israel and church, the other person- is no longer given its shape by God. Working the angles is what gives shape and integrity to the daily work of pastors and priests.”
(Working the Angles, pp. 3-5.)
The “angles” (according to Peterson, the most essential aspects of pastoral ministry) are among the most neglected aspects of pastoral work. It’s possible for a pastor to carry out a “successful” ministry in the eyes of his church and the public without attending to prayer, Scripture, and spiritual direction. “I don’t know of any other profession in which it is quite as easy to fake it as in ours,” Peterson says. Yet apart from these, the pastor is not fulfilling the calling of his office.
(an excerpt from a paper I recently wrote for Theopolis Institute)
Athanasius speaks of the pre-existence of the Word; the Son is “by nature bodiless and existing as the Word;” in time He “appeared to us in a human body for our salvation.” (Incarnation, 1) Yet Athanasius also speaks frequently of the act of creation not by abstracting, but in reference to “our Savior Jesus Christ” (particularly in Against the Gentiles, 2). He looks back on the whole of the life of God through the lens of what God has done in Christ on the cross.
Robert Jenson (in the first volume of his Systematic Theology as well as his clarifying article, ‘Once More the Logos asarkos‘) takes this further. For Jenson, we cannot conceive of the Word of God asarkos, without flesh. That is, the Word of God is Jesus of Nazareth, not a metaphysical entity to which the human body becomes united. “Jesus is the Son/Logos of God by his relation to the Father, not by a relation to a coordinated reality, ‘the Son/Logos.’”
Robert Jenson, 1930-2017
Oliver Crisp (The Word Enfleshed) raises concerns with Jenson here, including that Jenson’s view erodes the doctrines of impassibility and immutability. I wonder, however, if we can appreciate Jenson’s direction (or what I understand of it) without going to the extreme that he does. Athanasius looks backwards from the point of God having fully revealed Himself in Christ (particularly in the cross and resurrection), and understands the person of the Son in terms of Jesus Christ. When we consider the eternal Word of the Father, Jesus is who we are to have in mind, by Athanasius thinking.
Martin Chemnitz takes a similar line, which I think may get at the spirit of Jenson’s thought:
“It is also the nature of the hypostatic union that now after the incarnation the person of the Logos cannot and ought not to be considered or made an object of faith outside of, without or separate from the assumed nature, nor in turn the assumed flesh outside of and without the Logos… For in the flesh of Christ dwells the whole fullness of the deity of the Son, and the Father is in the Son. We thus begin from the flesh of Christ and from there mount to communion with the deity of the Logos, and from there to communion with the entire Trinity.”
(The Two Natures of Christ, cited by Fr. Aidan Kimel at http://afkimel.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/st-athanasius-the-great-theologian-of-the-cross/)
In T.F. Torrance in Plain English, Stephen D. Morrison offers an introduction to Thomas Torrance and thorough explorations into the main features of his theology. Morrison introduces Torrance, and structures the book in two parts around his epistemological foundations and his theological contributions.
Torrance was a Scottish theologian and pastor, a student of Karl Barth and professor of dogmatics in Edinburgh. Torrance’s theology was driven by the question, from a dying soldier and later from a dying parishioner, “Is God really like Jesus?” Torrance reported,
“That incident left an indelible impression on me. I kept wondering afterwards what modern theology and the Churches had done to drive some kind of wedge between God and Jesus… There is not hidden God, no Deus Absconditus, no God behind the back of the Lord Jesus, but only the one Lord God who became incarnate in him.” (quoted by Morrison, p. 14.)
Torrance’s Epistemology
Morrison spends the first three chapters discussing Torrance’s approach to science, theology, and scientific theology. Torrance viewed science as an approach to knowledge that is “clear and precise, not impersonal or abstract,” according to Morrison (p. 15). Torrance pursues a unified epistemology, a scientific approach to knowing in which natural science and theology are not seen to be in contrast, but rather both areas for exploring God’s created order, whether that of the world around us or God’s self-revelation. Science, for Torrance, is “a technical term concerning the way we acquire knowledge.” (p. 17) This scientific approach to theology is not an abandonment of revelation, but thinking clearly about how creatures are to receive revelation. Natural science and theological science are
Natural science and theological science both pursue objective reality, but they are fundamentally different in their approach to that reality. Natural science pursues, searches out, discovers truth about the world; theological science receives, is confronted by Truth. As Morrison says, “Theological science is therefore impossible if God has not first spoken to us. Nature, on the contrary, is mute and cannot speak for itself. Natural science discovers truth; theological science is encountered by the Truth.” (p. 19)
Theology is not an abstract, impersonal pursuit, but rather a personal encounter with the Creator that must lead to change on the part of the creature. This change of the creature conforming his thinking to the revelation of God Morrison terms epistemological repentance (p. 43). Chapter 2 discusses Torrance’s kata physin theme in his theology, that is, thinking about God according to His nature (and the nature of reality). In it, Morrison expounds well Torrance’s emphasis on thinking God’s thoughts after Him. God has revealed Himself in the person of His Son, and our task now is to understand God is light of His self-revelation. According to Torrance, this involves the recognition that true theology is to be thought out of a center in God, not ourselves.
Morrison wraps up the first part of the book discussing Torrance’s reformulation of natural theology. Torrance followed his teacher, Karl Barth, in rejecting natural theology as a stand-alone system for knowledge of God. He seeks to understand natural theology, though, as an unavoidable reality that can be understood in terms of revealed theology. For Torrance, natural theology has no place as an independent pursuit, but it is a fruitful category with revelation and grace as its foundation.
Evangelical Interests
Having covered Torrance’s epistemological foundations, Morrison moves on to Torrance’s positive theological pursuits. First is Torrance’s emphasis on the homoousion, the unity of being and act in the Father and Son. Torrance sees this unity of Father and Son as the foundation of the truth of the Gospel. If the Father and Son are not unbreakably united, then the incarnation of the Son is not truly a revelation of God, for there must still be something to God behind what we see in Jesus. According to Torrance, “Thee homoousion asserts that God is eternally in himself
what he is in Jesus Christ, and, therefore, that there is no dark unknown God behind the back of Jesus Christ, but only he who is made known to us in Jesus Christ.” (The Trinitarian Faith, quoted in Morrison, p. 80) Morrison highlights two important aspects of the homoousion: first, apart from the unity of the being and acts of Father and Son, we have no sure confidence that we truly know God; and second, if the Father and Son are one in being and act, then ” it was truly God who acted for us and with us in Jesus Christ.” (p. 85-86)
In view of the homoousion doctrine, Torrance’s Christology is elevated to center-stage, for it is in Christ that God is acting to reveal Himself, to redeem fallen humanity. Jesus is the God-man, both God for man, and man standing before God. His office of Mediator connects God and man “in such a way that in his incarnate Person he embraces both sides of the mediating relationship. He is God of the nature of God, and man of the nature of man, in one and the same Person.” (The Mediation of Christ, quoted in Morrison, p. 136) His humanity is thus a vicarious humanity, the true and faithful response of man to God in our place and for our sake. Morrison demonstrates how Torrance’s theology keep the person and work of Christ united as God’s provision for a faithful covenant response.
There are several areas of Torrance’s theology that seem to offer particularly fruitful ways forward for the church. I especially found the section on Torrance’s reconciliation of Barth and Calvin’s views on the sacraments intriguing and fruitful. His doctrines of atonement and union with Christ as well seems to offer bridges toward a catholic theology of Christ’s work. Morrison expounds well Torrance’s significant contributions in these areas.
Conclusion
Stephen Morrison describes himself as an “amateur”, but his work shows a thorough and in-depth knowledge of Torrance’s theology and scholarship. He has given us a wonderful introduction to a prolific and fruitful theologian. Morrison’s book leaves one somewhat unsatisfied, however, but that sense of longing for more is the very aim, I suppose, of this book: the moment one finishes T.F. Torrance in Plain English, one wants to next read as much T.F. Torrance as one can.
Incarnation and the Cross
In On the Incarnation, St. Athanasius sets out to offer an apology for the cross of Christ.He sums up the whole of the Christ-event under the heading of “Incarnation,” rather than limiting the scope the study to the Son of God taking-on human flesh at His birth to the Virgin Mary. That this is the case can be seen in his opening lines: after reminding the reader of what has been said previously in Against the Gentiles, Athanasius states the purpose for the present work:
… let us, with the faith of our religion, relate also the things concerning the Incarnation of the Word and expound his divine manifestation to us, which the Jews slander and the Greeks mock, but we ourselves venerate, so that, all the more from his apparent degradation, you may have an even greater and fuller piety towards him… (Inc., 1)
That “the Incarnation” is connected here with that “which the Jews slander and the Greeks mock” hints for us at what Athanasius has in view. In I Cor. 1:23, Paul uses that description for the crucifixion, not the human birth of Christ. For Athanasius, then, to speak of the incarnation of Christ is to speak of the whole of His work: His birth, career, death, resurrection, and ascension. The Word is made manifest to us as the One who confounds the wisdom of the world, and this chiefly through the cross.
Redemption from Corruptibility and Death
The Incarnate Word is none other than Who created the world, and He becomes man to effect a new creation. Athanasius now addresses, in 2-10, creation and God’s “dilemma” regarding life and death. God created the world “from nothing, and having absolutely no existence God brought the universe into being through the Word…” , and He placed His special grace “upon the human race,” making them in His own image (Inc., 3). The imago Dei comes up later as the basis for the coming of Christ, who is the image of the Father, to recreate man in God’s image (Inc., 13-14).
Through man’s sin, Athanasius says, we fail to obtain incorruptibility: death means “not merely to die, but to remain in the corruption of death.” (3) Through the transgression, corruption “prevailed” against humanity, and the race dove further into it in all manner of wickedness. He cites Paul in Rom. 1:26-27, showing that “[even] acts against nature were not far from them…” (5). Athanasius describes evil as “non-being”; God is the source of all good, and evil is not sourced in Him. In turning toward evil, man has turned toward non-being, and non-being will be the end of corruption.
For this reason, to redeem us from the corruption of death, the Word became man: “For we were the purpose of his embodiment, and for our salvation he so loved human beings as to come and appear in a human body.” Athanasius speaks in eschatological terms, describing the nearness of the end for humanity: “the race of humans was perishing, and the human being [made in the divine image] was perishing, and the work of God was being obliterated.” (6) This work being an apology for the cross, Athanasius demonstrates how what God has done to redeem the world in Christ truly “befitted the goodness of God” (10).
The incarnation (and, included within that, the death and resurrection) of Christ is fully in accord with God’s goodness. Rather than claiming that God would be perfectly just to let the world go to hell, as many do, Athanasius argues that it would be outside of God’s character to abandon His creation. He uses the analogy of a king who built a house or a city rescuing his work from peril. A good king would not abandon his city to ruin at the hands of “bandits” and “careless inhabitants”; much less so would God leave His creation to corruption. A god who does not redeem is not the triune God, for God has sovereignly chosen to be the god who redeems.
By Ricardo André Frantz (User:Tetraktys) – taken by Ricardo André Frantz, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3763892
Restoring the Imago Dei
God acts in Christ to redeem humanity from death to life, and He also works in Him to restore humanity in the imago Dei. We are made in God’s image in creation, and recreated in God’s image in our redemption. However, for Athanasius, even the original creation of man is not in God’s image in a general sense; man created in God’s image is man in the image of Jesus Christ:
“… he bestowed on them his own image, our Lord Jesus Christ, and made them according to his own image and according to the likeness, so that understanding through such grace the image, I mean the Word of the Father, they might be able to receive through him a notion of the Father, and knowing the Creator they might live the happy and truly blessed life” (11).
Athanasius here establishes the doctrine of the imago Dei as God’s gracious bestowal on man a real participation in the person of the Son, without which any knowledge of the Creator is impossible. Through foolishness and demonic deceit, “despising the grace thus given to them,” turned away from God to darkness and fell from the knowledge of the Father (11). Athanasius cites Paul, showing that this turning away consists in idolatry, worshipping the creation rather than the Creator (Rom. 1.25), and turning further to worship of demons.
It is in light of this “turning away”, this “darkening” of the imago Dei that God works in Christ to renew humanity in the image. “…what was God to do?”, Athanasius asks (13). He follows the same logic regarding the renewal of the imago Dei as earlier, with God’s “dilemma” regarding life and death: just as a king would not let his domain fall by the foolishness of his subjects or deceit from the outside, so it would not befit God’s goodness to let his creatures remain in darkness; “So the Word of God came himself, in order that he being the image of the Father (cf. Col. 1.15), the human being ‘in the image’ might be recreated.” (13). Through the work of Christ, man is recreated in God’s image. The new birth in John 3, Athanasius says, indicates “the soul being born again and recreated in that which is after the image” (14). Union with Christ is a real participation in the Son, the eternal image of the Father.
In the remainder of this section, Athanasius discusses the implications and results of Christ’s incarnation. In renewing humanity in the imago Dei, He banished death and revealed Himself to be ruler and king of the universe (16); in His incarnation, the Son took on a “real and not illusory body”, uniting Himself to humanity and sanctifying the body, previously under the corruption of death (17).
Athanasius then moves on to discuss Jesus’ death and resurrection, recounting “the end of his life and dealings in the body”, by which “Christ is known to be God and Son of God” (19). He has shown already that the fall of man brought the reign of death and corruption, and death was thus “required of all”; the climax of the incarnation, though, is Jesus taking this death on Himself “on behalf of all” (20). Athanasius demonstrates a substitutionary atonement, Jesus giving Himself “in the stead of all,” bearing the completion of death in His own body in order to deliver humanity from death’s reign. Christ’s death gave a double, and paradoxical, effect: “the death of all was completed in the lordly body, and also death and corruption were destroyed by the Word in it.”
Jesus gave Himself over to death on behalf of all, and His resurrection transformed the whole event of the cross into His victory over death. Athanasius speaks beautifully of the many effects of the death and resurrection: the cross became the sign of victory; His body remained undivided to demonstrate that His Church will be one; He stretched out His hands on the cross as He draws Jew and Gentile into one new man in Himself; He was lifted up on the cross to purify the air and open the way to heaven; by His death He truly revealed the Creator to the creatures (24-26).
Proofs of Death’s Defeat
Athanasius offers two main proofs for the defeat of death: the attitude of Christian disciples towards death, and the continued works of Christ in the world.
That death is in fact truly defeated in Christ’s death and resurrection is powerfully demonstrated, Athanasius argues, by the way the disciples approach death: the death of death is shown in that Christians, men, women, and children alike, no longer fear death, but “with the sign of the cross and faith in Christ tread it under foot as something dead” (27). The disciples despising of death attests to Christ as the one who has truly defeated death. Death is naturally feared, but since the death and resurrection of Christ, Christians boldly face death, with the sure confidence in the resurrection. This real change in the believer’s attitude towards death demonstrates a real change in death itself; death has lost its sting, being swallowed up in the victory of Christ (1 Cor. 15.54-55).
The defeat of death and the resurrection of Christ is seen, moreover, in Christ’s continued work in the world of the living. Athanasius states the obvious: “If anyone is dead, he cannot act”; and yet, Jesus is clearly active in the world, particularly in the community of disciples:
“Is it like a dead man to prick the minds of human beings so that they deny their father’s laws and revere the teachings of Christ? Or how, if he is not acting… does he stop those active and alive so that the adulterer no longer commits adultery, the murderer no longer murders, the unjust is [sic] no longer grasps greedily, and the impious is henceforth pious… For where Christ and his faith are named, there all idolatry is purged away, every deceit of demons refuted, and no demon endures the name but fleeing, only hearing it, disappears. This is not the world of one dead, but of one alive, and especially of God” (30).
God is seen by His works, Athanasius argues, and God’s works in and through the Church clearly demonstrate the reality of Christ’s resurrection and continued life.
Refuting Jew and Gentile
Athanasius ties the remainder of the work back to his opening statements; he set out to expound upon the Incarnation of Christ which the Jews slander and the Greeks mock (1), and he now answers the slander and mockery of Jew and Gentile. He demonstrates, against the Jews, that the death and resurrection of Christ fully accords with Scripture, paying special attention to Isaiah’s prophecies that the Messiah would suffer and die for the sake of all, and at the hands of Israel. Against the Gentiles, who mock at the idea of God taking on human flesh, he argues that it is perfectly fitting for the God who created and fills the cosmos to enter into the creation in a human body, “… For the human race is part of the whole; and if the part is unsuitable to be his instrument toward the knowledge of his divinity, it would be most absurd that he should be made known even through the whole cosmos” (41). It is right and fitting, Athanasius argues, that the Creator take on human flesh in order to restore and save His good creation. By this work the body, and the creation as a whole, is sanctified and redeemed.
This leads to Athanasius’ beautiful (and famous) statement of deification:
“For he was incarnate that we might be made god; and he manifested himself through a body that we might receive an idea of the invisible Father; and he endured the insults of human beings, that we might inherit incorruptibility” (54).
The purpose of the Incarnation of the Son of God is to bring about God’s original purpose for humanity: to bring us into the divine life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that we might join in the eternal fellowship of love in God. Through great pain Jesus entered into our humanity, suffered and passed through death for us, that He might defeat it, delivering us from death’s reign and bringing us into eternal union with Himself.
(Some rough, sparse notes on the Triumphal Entry and the Temple Action in Mark for a Theopolis seminar discussion)
Mark 11.1-25
The Entry, 11.1-11
A “drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany…”, two disciples sent, v. 1
B Instructions for obtaining colt, vv. 2-3
B’ Disciples fetch the colt, vv. 4-7
Central: C Jesus’ entry and reception in Jerusalem, vv. 8-10
A’ Enters Jerusalem then to Bethany, with the twelve, v. 11
King of Zion, Zech. 9:9-17
Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a colt recalls the words of Zechariah: the King will bring peace by delivering His “flock” from their enemies
The response of the people show that they recognized this correlation (vv. 9-10)
The new Jehu, 2 Kings 9.11-13
Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem signals His coming as King to overthrow the new Joram and Jezebel.
Temple Action, 11.12-25
Possible structures:
“Sandwich”:
A Jesus curses the fig tree, vv. 12-14
B Jesus cleanses the Temple, vv. 15-19
A’ The fig tree withered, vv. 20-26
(The “sandwich” structure, however, doesn’t account for v. 11, when Jesus initially looks around the Temple, then leaves “as it was already late.” This seems significant.)
Another look:
A Initial visit, v. 11
B Jesus inspects and judges the fig tree, vv. 12-14
A’ Jesus inspects and judges the Temple, vv. 15-19
B’ The fig tree withered to its roots, vv. 20-26
or…
A Jesus inspects the Temple, v. 11
B Jesus inspects and judges the fig tree, vv. 12-14
B’ Jesus judges the Temple, vv. 15-19
C’ The fig tree withered to its roots, vv. 20-26
I’m not satisfied with either of these, but it seems the weight must somehow be on vv. 20-26 and the lack of correspondence in the Temple action. This would create an anticipation for the coming destruction of the Temple.
The money changers:
The “Temple market” was an allowance for cases when worshippers could not bring an animal from a distance (Deut. 14.24-27)
The problem is not with the market, but that the Temple has become a shelter, “den”, for the powerful of Israel who are oppressing the people (PJL, The Four).
Jesus’ statement draws from two prophetic texts, Isaiah 56.7 and Jeremiah 7.11. In quoting from these, He recalls the whole contexts and message of those passages, and those messages are key to understanding the meaning of His Temple action.
– A house of prayer for all nations, Isa. 56.
In quoting this text, Jesus is signalling the inclusion of Gentiles, but also that Israel’s leaders have become “dogs” and “shepherds who have no understanding” (Isa. 56.9-12)
– Den of robbers, Jer. 7.11
The context of this quotation is Yahweh rebuking Judah through Jeremiah, who is standing “in the gate of Yahweh’s house” (Jer. 7.2).
The people of Judah live unfaithfully by stealing, murdering, committing adultery, etc., then presuming to be able to come into God’s house as though all is well. They are oppressing the fatherless and widows and shedding innocent blood (Jer. 7.6), then finding shelter in the Temple system. It’s on this basis that Jesus executes judgment on the Temple.
Summary: Jesus rides into Jerusalem to bring in the Kingdom of peace. The means by which that kingdom will be established is the overthrow of Israel’s oppressive leaders and judgment of the Temple, and with Jesus Himself as the true Temple (Mark has already shown that everything the Temple offered is found in Jesus: His ministry is essentially a mobile alternative Temple.)
(Note: A sermon I preached a few weeks ago at Providence Church in Caro, MI)
This is the first Sunday of Epiphany, the traditional Sunday in the church year to commemorate the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan River. Epiphany is all about the revelation of Jesus identity as the Son of God in flesh.
His baptism marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, His ordination as Israel’s priest. This morning, we will consider the significance of John the Baptist’s ministry, what takes place in Jesus baptism, and how His baptism informs our own baptism.
1. John’s baptism and the return from exile
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.”
Israel was sent into exile because of her sin. To be delivered from exile is to have your sin dealt with.
John the Baptist is “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”, and he is doing this, Mark tells us, in the wilderness. Typologically, the wilderness in the Bible is the place of exile. The wilderness as a place of exile, of judgment for sin, is woven into Israel’s self-identity. After the exodus from Egypt, God leads his people to the promised land, yet they refuse to enter. And as judgment for their grumbling and disbelief, that generation must wander in the wilderness 40 more years. At the end of these 40 years, God brings the people under Joshua’s leadership across the Jordan into the land.
Israel’s exile in Babylon, and Judah’s in Assyria, lasted 70, followed by a return to the land and a rebuilt Temple. However, though the people are in the land, they are in a real, theological sense still in exile. Though they are geographically in the land, they are still slaves (Ezra 9). The promises of return are really being fulfilled, but the fullness of God’s outpouring of the Spirit is still to come. Daniel is shown this in his vision; though the people are going to return, they are spiritually not ready. The exile will be stretched out another 490 years. If we do the math, that takes us right about to the ministry of Jesus. Israel will be awaiting the new exodus until the Messiah comes.
What is John doing baptizing in the wilderness? He is declaring to the people that they are still in exile. And those who are coming to him for baptism are acknowledging that truth, and confessing that they are in sin and need deliverance. They need a new exodus.
And here is John, preparing the way of the Lord; and the way is prepared by leading the people to repentance.
We are at another water-crossing event; a new Israel is being formed.
But not only a new Israel; just as God’s Spirit hovered over the waters in the creation of the world, so God’s Spirit now is over the waters in Jesus’ baptism as Jesus inaugurates His work of new creation.
2. Israel’s new exodus happens in the person of Jesus
a. Jesus is Israel personified
Jesus is Israel personified, and he is living as Israel faithfully. Immediately after this he will be driven into the wilderness for 40 days, but rather than grumbling and rebelling in the wilderness, He will remain faithful. As Israel, Jesus is the recipient of all God’s promises to Israel; “For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him.” (II Cor. 1:20)
b. Jesus is Israel’s God in person
Jesus is Israel personified, and He is Israel’s God in person. Mark quotes the first line of Malachi 3.1Mal. 3.1b: “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says Yahweh of hosts.” A part of the expectation of the new exodus Israel was waiting for was the coming of Yahweh. When God comes, He comes to judge and deliver. Jesus is Israel’s God, and He now visits Israel to judge the unfaithful, and deliver the remnant through His death and resurrection.
c. Jesus brings the union of heaven and earth.
Jesus is the union of Israel and her God, and He is the union of Heaven and Earth. When Jesus is baptized, Mark tells us that after coming up out of the water, “immediately He saw the heavens being torn open. In Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism, we are told this happened while Jesus was praying, and perhaps we can speculate that He was praying the words of Isaiah 64.1, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence.”
3. Jesus’ baptism is our baptism
a. Opening of the heavens– as we are baptized, the heavens are opened to us; we are baptized with water from above (Jn. 3). To be given access to the sanctuary means that you are a priest (Heb. 10. 19-22).
b. Baptism of the Spirit– just as the Spirit came upon Jesus at His baptism, so God gives His Spirit to us at ours (Acts 2.38).
c. Adoption by the Father– Jesus is declared the Son of God at His baptism. Of course, He is the eternal Son. But here, he takes on the particular kingly and messianic sonship. When we are baptized, we are brought in to the family of God, adopted as sons. (Gal. 3. 26 & 27).
Really, there is just one baptism, as Paul says in Eph. 4- and this one baptism is the baptism of Jesus recorded here. All other baptism are a participation in the baptism of Christ.
Conclusion: The baptism of Jesus shows Israel, shows the world, that heaven and earth are going to be reconciled, united. Access to God’s throne will be restored. And that reconciliation happens in the person of Jesus; we have full access to the Father in Him. And we have the Same Spirit, by whom we walk in Him in persevering faith.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
While the created order so powerfully reveals God’s “goodness, wisdom, and power” (WCF 1:1) as to leave humanity without excuse for our sin, they are not sufficient to give us knowledge unto salvation, the Westminster Confession of Faith states. For this reason, God revealed Himself to his people throughout the history of redemption, and committed “the same [revelation] wholly unto writing” for the purpose of propagating the truth and establishing the church against the corruptions of the flesh, the world, and the devil. Scripture is given for the salvation of mankind and the ordering of the church.
To know God is to know the God who reveals Himself, who interacts with His creation, and he does so with words. Kevin Vanhoozer, in his essay in Christian Dogmatics, highlights God as “a personal speaker: a communicative agent who uses words to do things, mostly in relation to administering covenants and addressing his covenant people.” (Allen and Swain, p. 34) Vanhoozer argues that Scripture is the discourse of the triune Lord, God’s active arm in the economy of salvation. “The Father initiates, the Son effectuates, and the Spirit consummates the discourse that Holy Scripture preserves in writing[…].” (p. 44) He seeks a doctrine of Scripture shaped by the Trinity. He unpacks this thesis by examining the ontology (what Scripture is), function (what Scripture does), and teleology (why Scripture is and does) of Scripture.
Ontologically, the Word of God is divine discourse. By His word, God interacts with His creation, particularly by making covenants, which Vanhoozer defines as “binding words- words sealed by an oath- by which God promises to be there and do things for his people.” (p. 46) The divine discourse takes various forms in the economy of salvation: God has spoken to His people directly (Adam and Eve, Abraham, giving of the Ten Words); He has spoken through particular covenant- representatives (Abraham, Moses, the prophets, etc.); and, climatically, God sent His Word in the person of his Son to reveal Himself among us. This divine discourse is recorded for us in Holy Scripture, the body of written text inspired by God Himself. It is “the creaturely instrument of God’s living and active Word[…].” (p. 48)
Functionally, “Scripture is a creaturely ingredient that continues to function as part of the economy of triune communicative action.” (p. 50) It is “living and active” (Heb. 4:12), not simply a static recording of past speech. God uses His Word in history to accomplish his purposes. He speaks through the Word, and the Word “solicits a personal response on the part of its hearer or reader[…].” The Word is inherently missional: God sends out His Word on mission to accomplish his purpose in his creation.
Teleologically, the divine discourse is intended “to transform the reader- to form Christ in us.” (p. 53, emphasis original) Scripture is intended to be heard (or read), and in that reception the Spirit brings the effect of transformation, a response from the hearer.
By Andy Nestl – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17441527
In The Trinity, Karl Rahner laments the lack of scholarship put “towards development within [trinitarian theology]”. (The Trinity, p. 9) Positive work in trinitarian theology has fallen so far by the way that “should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false,” Rahner says, “the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged”. (pp. 10-11) The doctrine of the Trinity, it seems, bears little to not at all on the Christian life. This stems, in part, from an imposed disjunction of theological loci in dogmatics: namely, the disjunction between the treatises “On the One God” and “On the Triune God”. Progress in trinitarian theology can be achieved in part seeing again the mutual indwelling of these two treatises.
Rahner’s fundamental thesis is as follows: “The ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity and the ‘immanent’ Trinity is the ‘economic’ Trinity.” (p. 22) In other words, the God who has revealed himself in salvation history as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the one true God, and this God truly is, within the divine life, as he has revealed himself. We know what we know of God through his self-revelation, and he has revealed himself in the Word by the Spirit.
While addressing difficulties connected with his thesis, Rahner states a presupposition that seems fundamental to his project:
“We develop a theology which neither explicitly nor (more dangerously) implicitly considers a pretended possibility never mentioned in revelation; we cling to the truth that the Logos is really as he appears in revelation, that he is the one who reveals to us (not merely one of those who might have revealed to us) the triune God, on account of the personal being which belongs exclusively to him, the Father’s Logos.” (p. 30)
Rahner makes this statement in respect, particularly to the question of the uniqueness of incarnation of the Son, ruling out an ‘incarnational potentiality’ in the divinity in general. More broadly, though, this presupposition carries through the rest of his thought: that what we see of God in salvation history matches what is true of God in himself, ontologically.
Jacob G. Hanby 
