Why the Resurrection?

My reflections on the cross and my response to Giles Fraser’s Church Times article attacking penal substitution generated a bit of interest in the blogosphere. I had a brief, but fairly unfruitful, exchange with Giles himself on Thinking Anglicans (a rare foray for me, these days), and on the Fulcrum forums it started an entire thread.

Unfortunately, the Fulcrum thread is headed ‘Cross vs Resurrection’, which is, of course, slightly mad, but does reflect the tenor of the discussion, just as Giles Fraser accuses believers in penal substitution of having no rôle for the resurrection in salvation, as if it were a matter of ‘either/or’.

Incidentally, as Alexander Kalorimos points out in the essay quoted by Giles Fraser, the notion of the penal death of Christ is the core Western tradition of both Catholics and Protestants, not some peculiarly ‘evangelical’ — much less ‘Conservative Evangelical’ — view. As the Anglican Prayer Book has it, Christ made on the cross a “full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world,” and in the 39 Articles we read that Christ “truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.” Hence also it is news when a Roman Catholic bishop says that “Christ did not die for the sins of the people”.

That notwithstanding, it is true, as Tom Wright has observed in Surprised by Hope, that this tradition has often failed to incorporate the resurrection adequately into its theological perspective. The words, “There’s a home for little children, above the bright blue sky, where Jesus reigns in glory, a home of peace and joy,” may have addressed the felt needs of a generation where infant mortality was commonplace, but they reflect a popular, rather than biblical, understanding of the Christian message.

But what part, if any, does the resurrection play in our salvation? In what follows, I am conscious of going out on a limb. Those who generally like what I write are invited to read it with discernment. Those who do not will need no such urging.

The first recorded proclamation we have of Christ’s resurrection is Peter’s speech to the crowd in Acts 2,

This man [Jesus of Nazareth] was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. (Acts 2:23-24)

The first point to note is that the resurrection is presented here, as elsewhere in Scripture, as an act of God on Christ (“God raised this Jesus to life,” v 32). It is something done to Jesus, not by Jesus.

The ‘saving work’ of Jesus in relation to the resurrection is therefore, I would suggest, an expression of his humanity through waiting in obedient and passive trust on his Heavenly Father.

Thus Peter quoted David’s attitude to death as prophetic of Christ:

... my body also will live in hope, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence. (2:26b-28)

The second point to note from Peter’s speech is that the resurrection (and accompanying ascension) are declarative acts. They represent God’s ‘not guilty’ verdict on Christ’s condemnation, and God’s own testimony that “This is my beloved Son” (cf 2:30):

For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”’ Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. (2:34-36)

The ‘shock value’ of the resurrection, as I have suggested previously, was not that God raises the dead but that God raised “this Jesus”, making him Lord and Messiah.

The second point I would make, then, is that the resurrection actually functions to throw us back on the crucifixion, confronting us with the scandal of the cross as both the work of “wicked men” and “God’s set purpose” (2:23).

But there is (I think) more, and it is not (I suggest) the obvious point that God’s future for the world is ‘resurrection shaped’ in terms of being a transformed ‘new heavens and new earth’, rather than a place ‘beyond the blue’. That hope, as I have observed earlier, was already part of the faith of Israel by this time. There was nothing remarkable in the idea that God raised the dead (Acts 26:8), or in the idea that God’s kingdom and the general resurrection would coincide (cf Jn 11:24).

The key, I think, lies in Romans 6:9,

For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.

However, this is actually not self-evidently true unless one understands the nature of the resurrection. Lazarus, after all, was raised from the dead (and was truly dead!), yet he died again. Why should Christ be any different? The answer Paul gives is not that Christ is Christ, but that Christ has been raised. But what does this mean, and how does it differ from the raising of Lazarus, or Jairus’s daughter, or Dorcas? The answer, I suggest, lies in vv 6-7:

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

The sinner who dies has been, as Paul puts it “justified from” (NIV etc, “freed from”) sin. Dying is the outcome of “sin unto death” (6:16), and the sinner who dies has suffered the just penalty for sin. In that sense, their slate is ‘clean’. But if they remain a sinner in death, then re-animation is no help. It helps to remember that we are not ‘souls in bodies’ but ‘embodied persons’. Resuscitated sinners would thus be back in the same realm of sin because they would be back as the same sinful people.

There is, however, the possibility of truly breaking the cycle, and we see it in Christ himself when we consider the course of his whole pilgrimage. For as Hebrews puts it,

... we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin. (Heb 4:15)

The picture this presents of Christ is outwardly familiar: he was tempted (specifically in the wilderness, but right through his earthly life), yet unlike us (and Adam) he did not sin. But there are two important questions this raises: was Christ capable of sin, and is he still open to temptation? Both are fundamental, and I suggest the answer to the first is yes, and the answer to the second is no.

If Christ was incapable of sin he was not tempted ‘as we are’. Similarly, his resistance to sin was, I take it, a real resistance, not a mere indifference, and therefore he was not ‘faking it’ in being tempted but ‘going through it’. (This itself has something to do with the Cur Deus Homo issue, and is also something he did ‘for us and for our salvation’.)

However, if he is still open to temptation then the life of the godhead is not what we have been led to believe, and there is the potential for corruption within God himself (contra James 1:13). To entertain this possibility would be to undermine the entire basis of our theology. But equally, we are taught that this freedom from temptation is not because Christ has left behind an assumed humanity. On the contrary,

Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of Man’s nature; wherefore he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth ... (Article VII)

This may seem odd to those who have not considered it before, but it essential to our salvation, for it means that human nature can be subsumed into God’s nature. Christ’s pilgrimage is thus the pilgrimage God intends for all humanity: that though we may be capable of sin (and unlike Christ, have sinned), we will one day no longer be open to temptation, and in that day will cease to sin.

My third point, then is that resurrection is not about ‘getting a new body’ but about ‘being a new creation’, whose embodiment is necessarily different from our present embodiment in this creation, where we remain simul justus et peccator — both righteous and sinners.

God’s resurrection of Christ is the outcome and expression of his ‘perfection’ as the term is used in Hebrews:

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. (2:10)

This does not mean that Christ was ever imperfect in the sense of being ‘faulty’, but it does mean that until he had suffered Christ was not all that he was to become. After he had suffered, however, he could move on to the final stage of his pilgrimage. In biblical-theological terms, his resurrection (and ascension) is his entering into the Sabbath rest:

After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. (Heb 1:3)

And we are called to persevere until we also enter that rest:

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. [...] Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.(4:10-11, 14)

Similarly, then, for us, resurrection is our reception into Sabbath rest. The cross obtains the forgiveness of our sins, without which we would face only the punishment of being driven from God’s presence and deprived of life, as mankind has been since the Fall (Gen 3:22-24). Yet forgiveness is not all that God has in store for us, and should not be all that we hope for ourselves:

For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

The answer is that God will, through Jesus Christ our Lord who died for our sins and was raised to life by him for our justification (Rom 4:25) — our being brought finally and fully into our right relationship with God.

Revd John P Richardson
29 April 2009

PS: I am conscious of glaring gaps and problems in relation to what I have said above. One is the nature of the resurrection of the wicked! However, it has taken several hours to write this and I offer it for comment from those willing to engage with it.

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A Jubilee for the West?

I've just had an idea which has got to be worth a go.

The Jubilee Debt Campaign has long been pushing for the cancellation of debts owed by the Third World, for reasons outlined here.

However, it is now surely the case that countries like Great Britain owe (or will soon owe) sums that dwarf the debts of typical Third World nations. Moreover, they too owe this money to wealthy lenders in wealthy countries. Again, as in the Third World, it is the average citizen, not the super-wealthy minority, who will ultimately have to pay the interest and the capital of these loans and who will suffer the consequences of indebtedness entered into by their governments.

The solution, however, is obvious: extend the Jubilee to the West. Indeed, I am rather warming to the Jubilee Debt Campaign's proposal here:

9. How do we prevent future debt crises? We need economic justice - covering debt, trade, aid, tax, etc - and responsible financing in the future. There must be international action to ensure that we never return to a debt crisis like the one which has now been crushing poor countries for decades. After the 'clean slate' of cancellation of unjust ('illegitimate') and unpayable debts, this will mean firstly that there must be just trade rules, a just tax system, and sufficient, high-quality aid – with a bias towards grants not loans – so that countries are not forced back into indebtedness. It also means that any future loans should be given responsibly, on fair terms, and in a transparent way which is open to scrutiny by parliaments, media and citizens. Any loans given on unjust terms should be considered the responsibility of the creditor and therefore eligible for cancellation in future.

In fact, if we can combine the principles of the Jubilee Debt Campaign with the approach of our present government, everybody wins (almost)! We can borrow the money, return to full prosperity and not be saddled with endless repayments. Magic!

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Love's Labours Lost - the end of the Covenant?

Anglican Down Under has a very interesting comment, under the title 'Much Ado about Nothing', on the attitudes being taken in (and towards) TEC over the issue of diocesan autonomy, raised by a number of bishops there recently. The 'Schori-supporters' line is that dioceses cannot go against the line of their 'church' or 'province'. The bishops' line is that, certainly as regards TEC, it is a conglomeration of independent dioceses with no Metropolitan or hierarchy over the dioceses. So, says ADU,

It would ... be extremely odd, would it not, for the following scenario to occur: the Communion as a whole proposes and circulates a covenant; Anglican church X rejects the covenant, but Diocese Y within X accepts the covenant; X then seeks to discipline Y. Presumably X's grounds for discipline of Y would be some kind of illegality with respect to Y's constitution. But Y's grounds for signing to the covenant would be commitment to Anglicanism. At this point the true bearer of Anglicanism would by Y and not X. Morally, at least, X would cease to be Anglican in the substance of its faith!

In my view, the sheer possibility of such chaos reinforces my own point that the 'game' (keeping TEC and similar variants of Anglicanism within a global Communion) is well and truly over, not least because there is de facto division in their own backyard. The whole thing has become totally incoherent, and it is impossible for a 'covenant' to draw it back together.

In further support of this, I would refer to the complete lack of response on the Fulcrum forum to a thread about the bishops' statement started two days ago. Healthy discussion continues there in a thread started by my own post here on the cross and the resurrection (not, though, vs. the resurrection) and there is a thread on the Covenant itself, but that is going round in circles and off at tangents (if such a thing is possible).

The silence surely speaks volumes. Who, any longer, can unravel anything of this? And what difference will it make? And finally, and most importantly, who really cares?

Certainly not TEC, which carries on regardless.

John Richardson
24 April 2009

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Crucifixion, fact. Resurrection ...?

If you follow this link, you will find a stimulating article by Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph attributing to the English Reformation under Henry VIII the establishment of freedoms which led, ultimately, to the greatness and prosperity that England later enjoyed:

Every half-millennium or so an event occurs in our history that changes the basis of society. The Romans come, the Romans go. The Normans come; and between their arrival in 1066 and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 there is one seismic event after which society sets off (after a false start or two) on an entirely new course: the Reformation in England. When the Convocation of Canterbury of the Church in England agreed in March 1531 to accede to Henry's demands about church governance that included the clergy's recognition of him as head of the English church, it also triggered a process of such profound economic and political change that even today there is still dispute about the extent of the consequences. Let me add my three ha'porth: without the Reformation we would not have had what Seeley called "the expansion of England", we would not have had a middle class educated and powerful enough to initiate the industrial revolution, we would not have had the empire we did, and would not have had the land and sea power that kept us free from invasion and foreign influence: not to mention the theological consequences.

That itself is worth pondering, especially on St George's day. But halfway through the article comes an additional interesting comment. Referring to the posting of Martin Luther's 95 Theses, Heffer writes,

it is an event in a foreign land in the ninth year of Henry's reign that stands as the most significant in all Christendom since the crucifixion (which we accept as historical fact: the resurrection, more significant to those who hold the Christian faith, is not for atheists like me).

Now my question is this: on what grounds do we accept the crucifixion "as historical fact" which are not also grounds for at least considering the resurrection as an historical fact? The evidence for the crucifixion is largely documentary - the attestations of those within and without the Christian tradition in the relevant period. But it is documentary sources also (indeed sometimes the same documentary sources) which testify to the resurrection.

On a different note, I would (naturally) contest that for Christians the crucifixion is (or ought to be regarded as) "more significant" than the resurrection. But that is another debate.

John Richardson
23 April 2009


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For England and St George

As my contribution to St George’s Day, I’ve copied out my old school song —the first time I’ve done so since having to write it out three times by hand in a class detention (for us being noisy) back in the early ‘60s. (Not having your school hymnbook in morning assembly was also a punishable offence, which meant most of us carried the hymnbook in our blazer pockets for our entire school career. I still have mine.)

I have a lot of affection for this song, written by James Edward Geoffrey DeMontmorency (a former Quain Professor of Comparative Law), because it establishes what I think is the basic principle of citizenship, namely ownership of a story (something which I explored here early last year). It is the same thing which drives so many people to take an interest in genealogy — who we think we are is affected by the story of which we feel ourselves to be a part.

This, however, is why I cannot accept the underlying political philosophy of the British National Party, who regard citizenship as essentially an ethnic concept. It is a fundamental biblical principle that citizenship of God’s people is open to anyone who will ‘own the story’. Ruth is characteristic of this (and is, of course, a profound challenge to the concept of exclusivity even on the basis of God’s judgement):

“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” (Ru 1:15-16)

According to Deuteronomy 23:3, no Moabite could become part of Israel, yet Ruth was a Moabitess (Ru 1:4). And in case anyone should think the exclusion was itself restricted, in the days of Nehemiah it was still taken to apply to mixed marriages (Neh 13:1). Whatever else this may mean, it surely is a word to those who would draw tight ethnic boundaries around social identity.

The same is true of the Passover regulations regarding non-Israelites, “An alien living among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land.” (Ex 12:48) The key to joining in the Passover is simply identification with the Lord’s Covenant people. And of course the Passover was itself celebrated as the recapitulation of a story:

In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.’ And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand. (Ex 13:14-16)

(I wonder, incidentally, whether the Passover is not a significant challenge to those who would deny the penal element of Christ “our Passover” dying on the cross.) The Passover feast made, and makes, every Jew part of the story. But it is not initially restricted to ‘born Jews’, provided the person wishes to embrace the Covenant.

But this is why I cannot accept the idea of a ‘multi-cultural’ nation which has been foisted on us in this country for the last half-century. If a country is to be more than a dormitory — a place where people sleep and work, but to which they feel no sense of belonging — then it must require of its citizens an awareness of and identity with the communal story. And what better way to do that than in song? So here it is, in all its glory — the John Roan School Song:

Here’s to old John Roan, who lived and worked and died
In the mighty days of Cromwell, of Milton, and of Blake*;
We were born in days of passion, we were reared in days of pride,
That gave the sea to England with continents beside;
Is there nothing we can give her for our Founder’s sake?
Ourselves we give to England till John Roan shall wake.
Here’s to old John Road, sing him loud, sing him low,
He it was who placed us on the road that we shall go.

Here in Greenwich once walked England’s deathless dead,
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, here made their music sweet;
Drake and Blake and Nelson in Greenwich broke their bread,
Flamstead, Halley, Airey, the ranging star flocks led;
While Wolfe still dreams among us beside the roaring street,
Of the broad realms of Canada he laid at England’s feet,
Then to old John Roan, sing him loud, sing him fair,
He it was who made us, sing him sweet for his care.

Here’s to those that come hereafter, the lads we shall not see,
The men of generations who will have new foes to fight;
We look forever forward, seaward, landward free;
Yea, in the air and in the depths, wherever men should be,
Our Greenwich men are lighting new beacons in the night,
John Roan’s men, the Roan boys, are building up the light.
Here’s to old John Road, sing him loud, sing him clear.
Sing him round the continents, sing him through the year.

* John Roan died in 1644, Oliver Cromwell in 1658 and John Milton in 1674. William Blake, however, died in 1857, making him an unlikely candidate. I presume this is therefore a reference to Robert Blake, 17^th century Parliamentarian and naval hero, who was laid in state in the Great Hall of the Queen’s House at Greenwich, following his death at sea in 1657, see also the second verse. Revd John Richardson
23 April 2009

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GAFCON - Game Over or New Game?

One of the most interesting people I ever listened to was an advertising executive, talking to a class studying Fashion and Design with Marketing, back in the 1980s. This man had a better grasp of human motivation than anyone I’ve ever met, before or since.

The reason, however, was self-evident: his livelihood depended on understanding what made people tick. Hence he knew (for example) that because 80% of men’s underwear was bought by women, the advertising and packaging needed to be aimed at them.

Another social group with an excellent grasp of human nature is journalists, and for much the same reason: they need a nose for a story, without which they cannot sell the papers that pay their wages. And it is this light that we might interpret the absence of journalists at the recent GAFCON primates press conference.

Some have read this as indicating that GAFCON is washed up. Personally, I believe it is rather because the national press now recognize there is no story in the division of the Anglican Communion — not because the Communion has survived the pressures of recent years but because it quite evidently has not. As a headline, ‘Anglican Communion Faces Split’ is now entirely on a par with ‘Dog Bites Man’.

In fact, the lack of press interest was already evident at the Alexandria Primates’ Meeting in February this year where, according to the Changing Attitude Blog, there were only seven people in the press briefings (including the blogger himself).

This lack of interest from those whose job it is to sniff out what is interesting is as profound as the silence of a canary in a coalmine. It is a sure sign that something has already happened, even though many people may not have noticed.

In case there is any doubt about this, let us remind ourselves that following that meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed a group of Pastoral Visitors “commissioned by him to conduct personal and face to face conversations in order to assist in the clearest discernment of the ways forward in any given situation of tension”.

One of those situations of tension is, presumably, North America. What, then, have the Pastoral Visitors achieved so far in that area? Does anyone know? Or care? The question is not entirely rhetorical, but the answer for most of us is undoubtedly ‘No’ to both.And the point is, this applies to Communion Conservatives as much as to anyone. I doubt very much that, for example, Bishop Tom Wright has any confidence in the scheme, even if he knows much about its workings. And certainly no-one in the hierarchy of TEC gives a hoot.Which brings us to the Windsor Process. If ever there were an argument for mercy-killing, the prospect of putting a bullet in this sad saga must be the best. Chinese Communism used to refer to the West as a paper tiger. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence must see that the Anglican Covenant is not merely paper, but soggy paper. It is to church discipline what Eeyore’s balloon was to birthday celebrations: “You did say balloon? One of those big coloured things you blow up? Gaiety, song-and-dance, here we are and there we are?” Or in the case of the Covenant, one of those things that is going to set boundaries, and define the faith and the faithful?

Those who believe the Windsor ‘Process’ is going to deliver what the Primates’ were demanding four years ago are fooling no one but themselves. Indeed, it cannot deliver, since the Anglican Communion as it was in 1998 is no more. In a few years time, that will be recognized as the date of the last true Lambeth Conference of the old, Empire based, gathering of global Anglican bodies. 2008 was not the year of the breakup, but it was the year in which the breakup could no longer be denied.

The old game is over, and that is sad (in my view). But the new game is beginning. We must look to the future. And it is not ‘Windsor shaped’. The journalists who stayed away from the GAFCON meeting knew this. They will not, I suspect, be there in droves when the Covenant is finally launched either.

The reality is that Anglicanism is now a mixed economy: Canterbury, GAFCON, the FCA, TEC, the ACNA will all vie for position, and it will be the economics of church growth, not reports and formal processes, which will decide the outcome. Our Lord Jesus Christ said that he would build his church. Time will now tell which that is.

Revd John P Richardson
21 April 2009

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On becoming 'theologians of the cross'

As some may have noticed, I’ve been away from the world of blogging and e-mail for a few days break (near the New Forest). I’m grateful to those who submitted comments about my post on Giles Fraser’s ‘Thought for the Day’ and sorry some of them took so long to appear.

I also couldn’t help being struck by the fact that a post put together at the last minute attracted so much comment —indeed it has generated its own thread on the Fulcrum website! Typical when something which took ten minutes gets the attention, whilst other things that take hours sink without trace!

However, it does rather make the point I was basically arguing, that there is a real tension between ‘cross centred’ and ‘resurrection centred’ theologies. Of course, neither is an ‘either-or’ approach, despite the tendency to caricature. The question is one of balance, not of choosing alternatives, and even Giles Fraser’s approach has a place for both.

I do, nevertheless, hold that whichever provides the ‘centre of gravity’ will shape the rest of our theology, and that, furthermore, it is the cross which should rightly take that position. Martin Luther’s dictum, Crux sola est nostra theologia (“The cross alone is our theology”), is, I think, a true summary of the Christian faith.

One of the points I was arguing, therefore, in my four Good Friday meditations is that we cannot think of the cross solely in terms of its salvific effects. We may, for example, have a theology which entirely accepts penal substitutionary atonement (another bone of contention), and yet which is not a ‘theology of the cross’. Without wishing to start a whole new argument (or create a whole new set of enemies!), I think much Charismatic theology falls into this category. Indeed, one could argue that the letters to the Corinthians very much address this problem. Compare Paul’s understanding of Apostleship with the Corinthian understanding of the Way of Christ:

Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. (1 Cor 4:8-9)

Despite the denial of the resurrection by some in the Corinthian church, it is widely accepted by commentators that a major part of the Corinthian problem was an over-realized eschatology — thinking that the benefits of the world to come could all be experienced in the ‘here and now’. The present application of the cross for these Corinthians was therefore the experience of life rather than death, whereas for the Apostle it was life through death:

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Cor 4:8-12)

The evangelical (that is to say, gospel) way is therefore not to assert that ‘because Christ has died, we live’. That is at best a mistake and at worst triumphalism. Rather, we must realize that because Christ has died we must die daily, and through that daily experience of death will come life, for us, and for the world.

Now it seems to me that this Apostolic understanding (which stands in contrast with the Corinthian understanding despite their faith in Christ!) relies on the cross being the transformative feature of our theology. As I argued before, there is nothing revolutionary in the belief that God raises the dead, and thus I must disagree with Tom Wright’s analysis which sees the resurrection as the ‘world-view changing’ element of the gospel message.

The Apostle Paul was a believer in the resurrection before he was a believer in Jesus, and presented this belief as an example of Jewish orthodoxy. Again, we might look to the exchange between Jesus and Martha concerning Lazarus:

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (Jn 11:23-24)

Of course there are issues here about bringing a future hope into the present in the person of Jesus. To repeat, this is not about choosing between cross and resurrection. But it is clear that Martha already believes (albeit without much present comfort) in the resurrection. The issue for her is that this Jesus is the one who embodies that hope. And of course that understanding will undergo further transformation through the crucifixion.

Indeed, as John presents it, the raising of Lazarus is a trigger for the death of Jesus — a death on which Caiaphas delivers the prophetic verdict, “it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” (Jn 11:50). Once again, therefore, it is the cross which is the focal, and transformative, element in the gospel.

Once again, though, I would emphasize the need to see that this transformation is not simply in us being saved, nor merely in knowing that we are saved. It is a transformation which comes from experiencing the cross — from being ‘theologians of the cross’ in Luther’s sense of “dying and being damned” and knowing God most intimately in this (the experience of what Luther called anfechtung).

And this, I venture to say, is so alien to most contemporary Christian theology that we all have something to learn.

John Richardson
19 April 2009

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Why the Cross?

‘Thought for the Day’ on the Today programme this morning was by the Revd Giles Fraser developing ideas he partially explores here about Easter, the crucifixion and the resurrection.

Giles’s thesis is an interesting, and conscious, example of the clash I explored in my Good Friday talks between a ‘cross centred’ and ‘resurrection centred’ theology.

As he puts it, until recently (or in his words, “For too long”), the most widely accepted view of salvation amongst Christians, “has at its core the idea that God requires the sacrifice of his own son so that human sin can be cancelled,” adducing, as an example, the words from There is a Green Hill Far Away: “There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin.”

Giles is, however, quite clear in his rejection of this. It is “a disgusting idea, and morally degenerate.”

Now apart from the fact that this must put a question mark over a great deal of Christianity, past and present, it leaves the question, “What, then, should be at the core of our belief?”

For Giles, the answer lies ready to hand: it is the resurrection (though you’ll have to listen to his Thought for the Day to hear that explored in its fullness). The resurrection is the triumph over darkness and death and (according to him) is the heart of the message we proclaim.

I mention this basically to illustrate that the problem I highlighted is not imaginary. There is a genuine, and significant, tension between these two concepts of the gospel — the one ‘cross centred’, the other ‘resurrection centred’.

The question I would put to those who follow Giles’s thesis, however, is simply this: why, for the past two thousand years, has the universal symbol of Christian faith been what it is — the cross? Isn’t this a clue?

Revd John Richardson
13 April 2009

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The Bishop of Chester: 'normal' relations with TEC must be questioned

(The Bishop of Chester 'gets it' with TEC. Why do so many other bishops in the Church of England not?)

To the Church of England Newspaper April 9

Sir,

Of all the reports emanating from The Episcopal Church in recent years, I consider that concerning the appointment of Katharine Ragsdale as Dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Massachusetts (April 3) to be the most shocking. That a promoter of abortion on demand, who describes abortionists as engaged in ‘holy work’, might be given such a senior position must call in question any possibility of normal relations with the province concerned.

If any right-thinking Christian has doubted the potential need for a new province in North America, they should ponder your astonishing report.

The Rt Rev Peter Forster, Bishop of Chester

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Good Friday: The Transforming Cross (4)

The Transformation of Power

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. ¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹ Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom 12:14-21)

Some of the Apostle Paul’s advice to the Church at Rome might seem odd to modern Christian ears. Specifically, why would we want to heap burning coals on someone’s head? That doesn’t sound very loving or moral.

The same advice might have sounded odd to Jewish ears, too, but for rather different reasons. Paul is quoting from the book of Proverbs, and when we look at this in context, what matters is not only what he has left in but what he has left out:

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you. (Prov 25:21-22)

Taken by itself, the Proverb might seem to imply that there is some sort of ‘quid pro quo’ involved in love for our enemies — do this for God and God will do something for you. But Paul will have none of it. To behave as he is suggesting is, indeed, to act in line with Scripture, but we do this because it is right, not because there is something in it for us.

Yet how many of us actually do what he suggests? In particular, how many of us seek to overcome evil with good? Surely evil is to be overcome by something more than us being nice to evil people?

Indeed, what springs to mind at this point is the famous quotation of Edmund Burke, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” It is a quotation so familiar that it has become an axiom of modern society, which is interesting, because it seems that Burke actually said no such thing. The quote is apparently a misquote, but its popularity is significant because it is says something we passionately and instinctively believe to be true —when the bad act, the good must react. Even if Burke didn’t say it, we all believe it to be true.

And just because it wasn’t said by someone famous, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. But how much less popular, even amongst Christians, is another quotation, from a source we do know:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. (Matt 5:38-39a)

In the Sermon on the Mount, from which this comes, we have what is sometimes seen as a manifesto for Christian living. Yet if it is a manifesto, it is remarkably impractical one. Occasionally we may hear someone say something like, “I don’t have much time for the Church, but I do believe in the Sermon on the Mount.” Rest assured, anyone who says that has probably not read the Sermon, and certainly not understood it, for who could love what Jesus said next?

If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. (Matt 5:39b-42)

We may admire it, we may be challenged by it, we may even try to live by it, but we cannot easily love words which demand that we become the potential victim of every bully, thief, shyster and charlatan. Indeed, we know that anyone who actually lived by these principles in this world would soon find themselves out of cloaks and money, miles from home with cheeks bruised red on both sides. Yet that is the whole point, for the principles of the Sermon on the Mount cannot work as a manifesto for this world, if by ‘work’ we mean, ‘lay down principles by which society could be governed’.

The Sermon on the Mount is addressed to lambs who live in the midst of wolves, telling them how to live as lambs. But it does not tell them how to avoid being eaten by the wolves. Indeed, it cannot, because in this world, the lamb that lives as a lamb will always, ultimately, be eaten by the wolf.

Of course the time is coming, as the prophet Isaiah says, when “the wolf and the lamb will feed together” (Isa 65:25), but that time is not yet. And so the lambs naturally look for some defence. Indeed, the truth is that the lambs have a fair bit of wolf in them as well. But the Sermon on the Mount is not interested in how to preserve the lambs from harm. It is interested only in telling lambs how to live as a lamb should. “If you truly want to live as God’s people,” it says, “this is the way.” But why would you ever think it would be the way of the world?

And it is a way that leads ultimately to the cross. The cross is the final expression of what happens when good meets evil without compromise on either side. It is the ultimate outworking of the Sermon on the Mount —the Preacher practising what he preached. And it is the total contradiction of everything we hold to be right: faced with evil, the Good Man does nothing. And to all outward intents and purposes the evil triumph.

And then three days later, Jesus springs from the tomb, overcoming death and routing the powers of evil which thought they had him in their grip. Or at least, that is how Christians often seem to think of the resurrection. But the Bible’s language is very careful at this point, and although it is true to say that Jesus rose from the dead, it is more accurate to say that God raised him.

This man [said Peter to the crowd on the Day of Pentecost] was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death ... (Acts 2:23-24a)

Faced with evil, the Good Man does not feign death until he can turn the tables on his enemies by coming back to life. He dies, and places everything into the hands of God.

And it is precisely in this action — in dying at the hands of wicked men — that Jesus overcame evil. As Colossians 2:15 puts it, he disarmed the powers and authorities and triumphed over them “by the cross.”

The lesson of this is profound, and it was not lost on the Apostles, though it often seems it is lost on the Church. The power of God and the wisdom of God lie in what the world calls weak and the world calls foolish. And this is not confined to the cross. Rather, it flows from the cross into every area of life — or it should.

And so when the Apostle Paul saw the Christians at Corinth dragging one another to court, he asked them first if they couldn’t find one of their own number wise enough to settle the case. But failing that, he said,

The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? (1 Cor 6:7)

“But that is impossible,” we reply (and we may be sure the Corinthians did, too), “Other people have rights, and we must have them too.” And so we seek to protect and defend ourselves, and to ensure our place in society and respect for our views. And all the time we are losing our influence and losing respect.

By contrast, the first Christians had no place in society and no protection either for their views or for themselves. Yet this was seen not as a disadvantage but a privilege, for it allowed them to live as their Lord lived:

Dear friends [wrote Peter], do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. (1 Pet 4:12-16)

That was the way followed by the first people to bear the name of Christ. They took everything thrown at them by the might of Rome, as Christ took everything that was thrown at him. And they won, not despite this, but because of this.

This is the power of the cross. And those who truly conquer in this sign are are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

John Richardson
10 April 2009

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Good Friday: The Transforming Cross (3)

The transformation of judgement

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴ having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Col 2:13-15)

The cross must be understood not as a momentary event, but a way of life. Furthermore, it is not just an event which happened to Christ, but an event which involves us. According to the New Testament, we are not merely passive onlookers, gazing on the cross of Christ, but active participants in the crucifixion. And this is not just, as preachers and hymnwriters have pointed out, a participation in having him crucified but a participation in being crucified with him.

The doctrine of penal substitution rightly emphasises that Christ bore the punishment for our sins. When Peter wrote of the crucified Christ, “by his wounds you have been healed”, he was alluding to the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53:5, whom the onlookers there considered, “stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted”. But he goes on to say, “he was was pierced for our transgressions,” and “was crushed for our iniquities.” The natural interpretation of the Servant’s suffering is that he bears God’s punishment for sin. The hidden truth, though, is that it is our sins, not his, for which he is being punished.

This doctrine of penal substitution, then, is not some novel reading of post-Reformation Evangelicalism, as some like to imply (though as eminent a theologian as Tom Wright denies). It is the heart and soul of the Bible, beginning with God’s warning to Adam in the Garden not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for, “in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.”

This death is not an effect of the fruit but a punishment of God. To the serpent, God said after the Fall, “Cursed are you”; to the woman, “I will multiply your pains”; to Adam “dust you are and to dust you will return.”

And when God showed his glory to Moses, it was the glory of a God who is merciful precisely because he turns away his own wrath:

“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, ⁷ maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”

That God punishes sin — indeed the least sin — is surely one of the clearest lessons of the Old Testament, not least because it is one of the most difficult.

And we cannot comprehend the New Testament unless we understand how God can forgive sin without simply ignoring sin — how God can remain true to his character as Judge as well as Deliverer.

The penalty aspect of penal substitution is something which we must never let go of. Yet in holding onto this understanding, we sometimes over-stress the element of substitution, forgetting that in the New Testament we are caught up in the death of Christ on the cross. Yes, Christ died for our sins, but, Paul asks, “don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” When he was crucified, we were crucified. And as he died for our sins, we died as sinners with him.

The Christian life, then, is not simply a life lived knowing that Christ died for us, but knowing that we died with Christ. And this has radical consequences.

The familiar lesson is that we should not go on sinning because we have died to sin. And this is true, but even this has major implications, for the Apostle’s approach is not to threaten Christians with the consequences of the Law, but to appeal to their understanding of their new life in Christ.

And this is quite different from the world’s approach (indeed, it must be said it is quite different from what is often the Church’s approach). For the world always does (and always must) rely on the law and the Church has often kept the law in its back pocket for use if the gospel appears to have failed. So the world will always be moralistic in its attitude and legalistic in its solutions. The only difference between the world’s morality and that of, say, the Pharisees, is a disagreement over what constitutes moral behaviour. The world’s understanding of this may shift this way and that. But both the world and the Pharisee agree that the right answer lies in the details — indeed, the minutiae — of the law, which must control and tame the human subject, under (of course) the supervision of the experts in the law who will mould the rest of us into the pattern of living they themselves approve.

The gospel, however, has nothing with which to ‘control’ the human subject — nothing, that is, other than the word of God. And so, confronted with the less-than-desirable behaviour of the Christian (and our behaviour is always less than desirable in some regards) — the Apostle’s ultimate sanction is the appeal and the warning. On the one hand, “I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God,” (Romans 12:1). On the other hand, “I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal 4:21). But there is no new set of Christian rules, no new list of Christian sanctions.

Yet that is not all it means for us to have died with Christ. We are dead to the Law so that we might live for God (Gal 2:19)

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)

And if we are dead to the law, we are dead to the prescriptions of the law. On the one hand, this is a liberty anyone would welcome. We are free, for example, from the obligations to observe rituals and regulations.

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

We might even add, we are free from the obligation of Good Friday, or Easter Sunday, for the person who observes these days and the person who does not are the same in God’s eyes, provided they have died with Christ and live by faith in him.

On the other hand, our freedom from the law means there is no limit to our obligations to others:

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

The lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?” hoping to tie it down. Jesus replied, “Who was neighbour to the man who fell among robbers? Go and do the same.”

But even then there is more to the life of the cross. For on the cross, our sinful self is crucified for its sins. The accusation nailed above Jesus’ head was, “King of the Jews.” The accusation nailed above our sinful selves on the cross with Christ is every sin we have ever committed (or will commit). And so we are set free not just from the penalty of sin, and not just from the power of sin, but from the condemnation of sin: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).

The life of the cross is not a life weighed down by an awareness of guilt and sin but of the “glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:21). We are aware of our sin, and we are aware of our guilt, but we are aware of them in the way that a person whose debt has been cancelled might be aware of their debt, or as someone whose headache has gone might be aware of their headache, or as someone who thought they’d lost their wallet might be aware of their anxiety when they discover it in their coat.

Our God is a God of judgement. Let us never forget. But the cross transforms judgement. No longer does it hang over our heads, not because there is nothing to judge, but because it has been hung over our heads on the cross itself, when we were crucified with Christ.

John Richardson
10 April 2009

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Good Friday: The Transforming Cross (2)

The transformation of suffering

“Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?” (Acts 26:8)

When the Apostle Paul made his defence before King Agrippa, described in Acts 26, he spoke as a Jew to Jews. He was therefore able to make a number of assumptions about things they held in common, prominent amongst which were, first, that the Jews were God’s people, living in expectation of his promises, and, second, that God is supreme, and therefore capable of fulfilling what he promised.

Paul’s argument, therefore, was that he was still living as a faithful Jew, even whilst proclaiming the risen Christ as Lord:

The Jews all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem. They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee. And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our fathers that I am on trial today. This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. O king, it is because of this hope that the Jews are accusing me. (Acts 26:4-7)

Now it is true that there were differences in Judaism about the expectation of the resurrection. The Sadducees, famously, did not believe in the resurrection, or in angels. Paul was well aware of this, and had exploited that difference in the recent past. But the Sadducees were a minority, and in any case, as Paul pointed out to Agrippa, nothing is impossible to God, so why would anyone be shocked at the message of Jesus’ resurrection?

Yet as Paul knew perfectly well, the message was shocking, and it made many people angry. And Paul knew that because he had once been shocked and angry himself, and had gone about persecuting the Church as a result. But why were people shocked and angry? It was not, as Paul had just observed, at the notion that God raised the dead, but at the notion that God had raised “this Jesus, whom you crucified”, making him Lord and Messiah.

Paul’s view of the world, in other words, was not changed by coming to believe in the resurrection. He already believed in the resurrection, as did most of his fellow-countryman. What really changed his world was realizing that the Messiah was the crucified one. When the risen Jesus appeared to him on the Damascus Road, Paul realized not that he had been wrong about the resurrection, but that he had been wrong about Jesus.

Certainly Paul preached the resurrection, but it was the resurrection of Jesus. And Paul’s message to people was not ‘resurrection’, but the resurrected Christ. Hence this man, whose life was transformed by an encounter with the risen Jesus, could write to the church at Corinth,

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Now this is important, because there are many today for whom the resurrection of Jesus is becoming the central message, with the cross as a kind of preparation for that. Rowan Williams does it eloquently in his book titled Resurrection. What the resurrection does, according to him, is to present the resurrected Jesus back to those who judged and crucified him as ‘the judge of his judges’ (3). However, the judgement he pronounces is on their judgement:

The exaltation of the condemned Jesus is presented by the disciples not as threat but as promise and hope. (3)

Salvation, then, is found not in the work of Jesus on the cross, but in accepting those we have rejected, just as the rejected Jesus accepted his judges and rejected their rejection of him.

But we find it in far more simple applications than that. Here is a clergyman writing in a recent newsletter:

The significance of Jesus’ resurrection is not just that one man rose from the dead but that the transformation of his cruel and lonely death is a sign of the transformation that is possible for all of us who trust in God as Jesus did. [....] For the first Christians and for Christians now, the resurrection of Jesus captures what God is seeking to do for every human being throughout history, taking the sorrow and suffering and wickedness and turning and changing it to inextinguishable life with him [...].

Of course, it is not wholly wrong to say that God is working to transform us, and indeed to transform the world. But here the work of God is manifested in taking our suffering, as he took the suffering of the cross, and transforming it into something else — as the cross gave way to the resurrection.

In other words, God is seen in the triumph, not the tragedy, and we are back with Luther’s ‘theologian of glory’.

Now the mistake is innocent. There is no malice in what was written, nor is there unbelief. Yet the effect is to change the entire understanding of the Christian life, for God is not seen in the death of Christ on the cross, but in the life of Christ in his resurrection. As he writes,

... this transformation is not a ‘cancelling out of the cross’ but rather the life which is born through it ...

It sounds fine, but it is precisely where the fault lies, for the result is that God will not be seen in sorrow, suffering and wickedness, but only in overcoming sorrow, suffering and wickedness. Now we see Luther was right when he wrote that the theologian of glory prefers “glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil.” The theologian of glory also prefers resurrection to crucifixion.

And who wouldn’t? But the message of the cross is precisely the message that the cross is God’s work and God’s way. And so the Apostle Paul wrote a very different testimony about God’s answer to prayer from the ones we would like to give:

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2 Cor 12:7-9)

What is transformed here? It is not Paul’s experience but Paul’s understanding of his experience, and therefore Paul's response to his experience. Of course Paul knew God could answer prayer by taking away the cause of his torment, and at first he believed that God would answer this prayer in that way. There is no argument here for giving up prayer.

But the answer he received was not an alternative to God’s gracious goodness, but an expression of that gracious goodness. And the answer was not that Christ’s power would overcome his weakness. It was that the weakness was the power. And this is the message of the cross: the power of God and the wisdom of God.

We must never make the mistake of imagining that the cross is the weakness of God and the resurrection is the power of God. For if we do, then there will be many times in our lives when we will be wondering when we will see God at work instead of seeing precisely that God is at work in the things we are waiting for him to change.

For the great work of God in the first instance is this: that we should be transformed into the likeness of his son; the son who, the writer of Hebrews tells us, was made perfect (which is to say ‘complete’ or ‘finished’) through suffering.

It is indeed not incredible to anyone who believes in any God Almighty that God could raise the dead. What is incredible is that God Almighty would be at work in the sufferings of the righteous one. Yet that being the case, all suffering is transformed.

John Richardson
9 April 2009

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Good Friday: The Transforming Cross (1)

The transformation of glory

Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” (John 12:20-23)

In April 1518, the Reformer Martin Luther was summoned before a general chapter of his own Augustinian order of monks at Heidelberg, and called to recant the position he had adopted the year before in his 95 Theses.

Luther refused, though he did resign as district vicar of his order. Instead, he put forward a much more lengthy statement of his views, in what became known as the Heidelberg Disputation. This showed how his thinking went far deeper than merely to opposing indulgences, or even to relying on faith rather than good works for salvation.

Rather, Luther’s theology (though ‘theology’ is too dry and clinical a word for it) was, at heart, the theology of the cross — an understanding that the cross transformed all of life. Indeed, for Luther the cross of Christ was not just the means of our salvation, it was an insight into the very heart of God —the point at which the invisible God is truly revealed.

But God is only revealed through the cross to the eye of faith, whereas most people think of God’s unseen character as being revealed through the physical things we see. In Luther’s opinion, this led to a false understanding of God:

That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened.

In other words, we cannot look at the world around us and truly understand God on the basis of surface appearances alone. Our natural inclination is to look at the mountains and say, “Here is the majesty of God,” or look at the stars and say, “Here is the power of God,” or to look at a newborn baby and say, “Here is the love of God.” But the eye of faith looks on the cross and says, “Here, truly, are the majesty of God and the power of God and the love of God.”

So Luther continued,

He deserves to be called a theologian ... who perceives the visible rearward parts of God as seen in suffering and the cross. (Following McGrath, here.)

Luther is alluding to the request of Moses, when he said to God, “Show me your glory” (Ex 33:18). God replied, “When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back ...” (Ex 33:22-23). What Moses saw of God was what a man is able to see and live — “the visible rearward parts”, to use Luther’s phrase.

Therefore the only theologian worthy of the name, according to Luther, is the person who recognizes the cross to be God’s ‘back’ — that is, the place where God’s glory may truly be seen by mortal human beings.

But if this is so, then it overthrows everything that human nature assumes about ‘glory’. So Luther went on to speak with contempt about the ‘theologian of glory’, meaning the person who thinks glory is ‘glorious’. This person’s whole life is based on the assumption that God’s power and love will be manifested in powerful, lovely things. Yet such a life is actually entirely mistaken and entirely un-Christian:

He who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore he prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil.

The last phrase is particularly striking: “he ... prefers good to evil”. Aren’t we supposed to do that? Aren’t we supposed to prefer good to evil? Luther’s point, however, is that what the world means by good and evil stands opposed to what the Bible means.

Thus the world calls suffering ‘evil’. The Bible calls suffering ‘good’. “We rejoice in our sufferings,” says Paul, “because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Rom 5:3-4). The world calls the cross ‘evil’, the Bible calls the cross ‘good’. When Peter rebuked Jesus for saying that the Son of Man must be crucified, Jesus replied, “Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” (Mk 5:33)

The false ‘theologian of glory’ may speak of the cross, adore the cross or wear a cross, but they prefer to know nothing of the cross in their own life. They see God’s power only in things everyone would call powerful, God’s miracles only in things everyone would call a miracle, God’s answers to prayer only in things everyone would call answers to prayer. They call themselves Christian, but they lack anything distinctively Christian in their view of life.

By contrast, Luther’s understanding of being a theologian is this:

Living, or rather dying and being damned make a theologian, not understanding, reading or speculating. (Alister McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross London, 1985, 152, quoted from WA 5.163, 28-29)

It is in the experience of what the world calls evil — indeed of what is evil: of ‘death and damnation’ — that, if we are living by faith in Christ, we truly encounter the true God.

Thus the word of the cross is not a momentary call to conversion: “Believe in Jesus and you will be saved.” Nor is it an invitation to escape from the awfulness of daily life: “Be saved and you will know God’s marvellous plan for your life.” The word of the cross calls us to the way of the cross: “Take up your cross and follow me.”

Hence, when Jesus referred to the crucifixion as “the hour ... for the Son of Man to be glorified,” (Jn 12:23), he immediately went on to apply the same principle to his disciples:

The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me ... (John 12:25-26)

There is nothing new or surprising for most of us in what Jesus says here. We know we must follow Jesus, we know we must take up the cross, we know we must deny ourselves. We even know, if we have been to the right sort of meetings or listened to the right sort of talks, that as Romans 3:28 puts it, “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

But we still struggle when God actually does what he has said he would do. We forget that Romans 3:29 goes on,

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

That is to say, the ‘good’ that ‘all things’ work for in those God loves is the good of being like Jesus. But Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), reveals the invisible God’s power, majesty, goodness, love and glory in this world in the cross. Hence the risen Jesus did not just tell Peter to feed his sheep as Jesus had fed them, but told him the manner of his death by which he would glorify God, as Jesus had glorified God (Jn 21:19).

This is the completion of what John says at the start of his gospel:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The glory of the Word-become-flesh was seen when he was lifted up from the earth, drawing all men to himself, bearing God’s judgement and casting out the prince of this world (Jn 12:31-32).

This is the kingdom, the power and the glory. And this is the way, and the truth, and the life of those who would glorify God in the likeness of his Son.

John P Richardson
8 April 2009

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UK Launch of Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

JULY 6, 2009, WESTMINSTER CENTRAL HALL, LONDON

BOOK ONLINE HERE

THE launch in the UK and Ireland of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), an orthodox Anglican movement for mission at global and local level, is to take place on July 6 in London.

The Fellowship is the outworking of last year’s GAFCON conference in Jerusalem, at which 1200 delegates signed up to the Jerusalem Statement. Those attending Gafcon 2008 represented some 40 million Anglicans world-wide, 70% of the total active membership of 55 million.

The launch event, entitled ‘Be Faithful! – Confessing Anglicans in Global and Local Mission’ will be held at Westminster Central Hall from 10.30am-5.30pm. The aim is to encourage and envision Anglicans who are committed to the orthodox teachings of the Anglican Church and who are passionate about global and local mission. It will be the first of regular ‘fellowship’ events both in the UK and across the world.

Speakers at the July 6 gathering, where around 2,300 bishops, clergy and laity are expected, will include contributors from across the Anglican Communion, including Bishops Keith Ackerman (President of Forward in Faith North America), Wallace Benn (Bishop of Lewes), John Broadhurst (Chairman of Forward in Faith UK) and Michael Nazir-Ali, Dr Chik Kaw Tan plus Archbishop Peter Jensen (secretary of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans www.fca.net). They, and others yet to be announced, will also lead gatherings in London churches on Sunday July 5th. the day before the launch.

Speak for England!

As noted on the Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream blog, one of the disturbing things to me about the imminent departure of the Bishop of Rochester is that, ironically given his origins, he has been one of the few public figures to speak powerfully for this country.

On Saturday last, I was speaking at our Men’s Breakfast. As we were eating, one of our number remarked on how much he enjoyed visiting Scotland: “There’s something about the atmosphere there,” he said, “the people are proud to be Scottish — not like here, we’re not proud of our country at all.”

And it is true. This must be one of the few countries — no, surely the only country — in the world, where to speak of national pride is to invite moral opprobrium.

At one stage I started sending out circular e-mails with a small logo of the Union Flag on them. I was soon told to stop as it looked ‘right wing’ and might offend people.

What? Are Finns offended by the Finnish flag, or Russians by the Russian flag, or Tobagans (if that’s what they are called) by the Tobagan flag?

The truth is, Great Britain as an entity, and England as a nation, have been systematically and deliberately dismantled and undermined from within. And I hate it!

I am reminded of the words of Leo Amery in the House of Commons on 2 September 1939, when Arthur Greenwood stood up to speak for the Labour Party following Neville Chamberlain, and Amery called across the floor to him, ‘Speak for England, Arthur!’, implying Chamberlain had not. Who, now Rochester is going, will ‘speak for England’?

And by the way, I know that is the Union Flag, not the flag of England (duh!), but it was undoubtedly England that held together the Union, not Scotland, Wales or Ireland. Thus it was taken for granted that if Arthur Greenwood had spoken ‘for England’ he would have spoken for the whole nation. And hence it was essential, in dismantling the British ‘project’ that the English element should be diminished at the same time as the other elements were elevated. A weakened England was necessary, otherwise the whole thing might have continued to hold together.

Revd John Richardson
5 April 2009

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A snare has entrapped you ...

I've done a little digging around the suggestion in Rachel's comment on my earlier post, that Genesis 3:16 should be translated as, “A snare has increased your sorrow.”

The origin of this seems to be the 1921 work by the early Christian feminist, Katharine Bushnell, God's Word to Women, which is still in print.

According to an article by Pat Joyce on this site here, “Bushnell holds that the first section [of Genesis 3:16] should be translated “a snare has increased your sorrow . . .”

It continues,

She gets “snare” from the Hebrew word ARB (ARB) translated “ambush” and” liers in wait” or “in ambush” fourteen times in Joshua and Judges. [Actually, I counted twenty.]

The difference is between the two translations given below is only in the vowel signs.

HaRBeh, AaRBeh, "multiplying I will multiply," which is usually translated as I will greatly multiply your sorrow

and

HiRBah AoReB, "has-caused-to multiply a lying-in-wait.” Remember that lyer-in wait can also be translated an ambush or snare.

[Although in fact, as far as I can see, the KJV never translates it as 'snare', see also Swanson, J. (1997), A Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains.]

The problem is that the first statement in the argument is simply not true, namely that "The difference is [sic] between the two translations ... is only in the vowel signs."

The first transliteration should be not 2 groups of 3 consonants: HaRBeh, AaRBeh (where, following Pat Joyce, "Upper case represents the original Hebrew letter. Lower case represents vowel signs"), but (using the same convention) 2 groups of 4 consonants: HaRBaH AaRBeH. There is a Hebrew consonant (He) at the end of each word, not a vowel point.

The reason for this is straightforward: the first word is an infinitive absolute, which combines with the imperfect of the same verb to express emphasis - "multiplying I will multiply", cf "not dying you shall die" (3:4, translated, "you shall not surely die.")

The word 'ambush', however, as Joyce acknowledges, is 3 consonants: ARB. You cannot therefore (following Joyce) derive this from a conjectural re-pointing of ARBH into AoReB ("a lying in wait", "an ambush" or "a snare"), because you still have a 'spare' He: AoReBH.

I have checked this as thoroughly as I can, but others may wish to contribute.

(The Septuagint, incidentally, follows both the Hebrew as traditionally pointed and the English translations: Πληθύνων πληθυνῶ , multiplying I will multiply.)

John Richardson
3 April 2009

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Susan Foh: What is the woman's desire in Genesis 3:16?

To my surprise and pleasure, I've discovered that Susan T Foh's article, What is the Woman's Desire? is available online as a pdf file. I read Foh's article some years ago and discovered that she'd come to the same conclusions regarding Genesis 3:16 as I had, that it needs to be read in the light of Genesis 4:7. In Hebrew, the two are closely parallel (if you don't do Hebrew, you'll struggle with Foh's article):

וְאֶל־אִישֵׁךְ תְּשׁוּקָתֵךְ וְהוּא יִמְשָׁל־בָּךְ

וְאֵלֶיךָ תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ וְאַתָּה תִּמְשָׁל־בּוֹ

Here are Foh's conclusions:

Contrary to the usual interpretations of commentators, the desire of the woman in Genesis 3:16b does not make the wife (more) submissive to her husband so that he may rule over her. Her desire is to contend with him for leadership in their relationship. This desire is a result of and a just punishment for sin, but it is not God's decretive will for the woman. Consequently, the man must actively seek to rule his wife.

The reasons for preferring this interpretation are:

1. It is consistent with the context, i.e., it is judgment for sin that the relation between man and woman is made difficult. God's words in Genesis 3:16b destroy the harmony of marriage, for the rule of the husband, part of God's original intent for marriage, is not made more tolerable by the wife's desire for her husband, but less tolerable, because she rebels against his leadership and tries to usurp it.

2. It permits a consistent understanding of hqvwt in the Old Testament also consistent with its etymology.

3. It recognizes the parallel between Genesis 3:16b and 4:7b. The interpretation of 4:7b is clearer; we know from the context that sin's desire to Cain involves mastery or enslavement and that Cain did not win the battle to rule sin.

4. It explains the fact that husbands do not rule their wives as a result of God's proclamation in Genesis 3:16b. (Further support is implied by the New Testament commands for wives to be submissive to their husbands and the requirements for elders to rule their families.) jb-lwmy xvhv is not an indicative statement, for if God states that something will come to pass, it will.

In short, the battle of the sexes is real, follows the Fall and is a result of judgement.

(I've now posted further on this, following Rachel's comment below.)

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