"The Father Himself Loves You"

Still working through Owen’s Communion with the Triune God:

Why does Jesus say in John 16:26-27, “I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you,” when he has already said in John 14:16, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever”? Why does he say he won’t pray to the Father for us when he’s already said he would? Because the Father already loves us, says Owen– there is no need for Jesus to ask him to love us.

Take no care of that, nay, impose not that upon me, of procuring the Father’s love for you; but know that this is his peculiar respect toward you, and which you are in him: “He himself loves you.” It is true, indeed (and as I told you), that I will pray the Father to send you the Spirit, the Comforter, and with him all the gracious fruits of his love; but yet in the point of love itself, free love, eternal love, there is no need of any intercession for that: for eminently the Father himself loves you. Resolve of that, that you may hold communion with him in it, and be no more troubled about it. (109)

Don’t buy for one minute the idea that Jesus has to persuade his angry Father to forgive us. The love of God the Father is the reason Jesus came in the first place. While we were dead in sins and trespasses, his love for us was so great that he planned to rescue us from his own wrath, at great cost to himself.

The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the deepest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave his Son to win;
His erring child he reconciled, and pardoned from his sin.
O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure, the saints’ and angels’ song.

He Descended Into Hell? (2)

My last post probably did not leave many readers (there are about 10 or 12 of you a day now) wondering about my personal preference on the use of “he descended into hell” in the Apostles’ Creed. I prefer not to recite it– in fact, I personally don’t recite it. Not because I think it teaches anything heretical, but because I don’t think it’s a helpful addition to the creed. Here are a few reasons.

First of all, the phrase isn’t as well attested as the rest of the Creed. (The Apostles’ Creed in its present form emerged over a few centuries; it wasn’t written at one time like many other confessions.) It appears for the first time in about 350, using the Greek word hades, which can mean “grave,” rather than gehenna which is closer to what the English word hell connotes. The phrase doesn’t show up at all in other versions until about 650. In other words, it’s not clear that anybody meant to say “he descended into hell” the way we mean it in English until AD 650.

Second, you have the different ideas of what the phrase means. Most today suggest that it means he descended to the state of death (which would basically make the Creed say, “was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to being dead”) or that he suffered the pain of death (which is true, but is also already captured in “was crucified, died, and was buried”). Or it could possibly mean that he suffered the unspeakable pain of being under God’s wrath, but that’s not what it says– it says he descended into hell. If this is metaphorical language, it’s the only metaphorical statement in a creed that’s basically a collection of straightforward, historically-oriented statements. It seems to me to be out of place.

Third, even though all these options say things that are true and wonderful, I doubt if the average person in the pew means this when they say “he descended into hell.” I have no data for this, but I strongly suspect that if you were to ask people in churches that regularly recite this part of the Creed what it means, you would get lots of different answers, and a lot of people would take it literally– that Christ physically went to hell. I think the answers would be a lot clearer on other parts of the Creed, because the rest of the Creed is very straightforward.

Fourth, the idea of the Apostles’ Creed, as opposed to longer confessions and catechisms, is to boil down the essentials of the faith– to say, “This is what Christians believe.” That’s where the name came from– not that it was written by the apostles but that it was a summary of the essential contents of their message. A phrase whose meaning is confusing and misunderstood by lots of Christians doesn’t seem to help with that goal.

So that’s my beef with “he descended into hell.” It’s not a hill I’d die on, just something that I was reminded of recently. I’d love to hear thoughts anybody has, especially if you disagree!

For more on this, you can read an article by Wayne Grudem that basically says a lot of this same stuff but gives more background.

He Descended Into Hell?

Depending on what type of church you grew up in, if any, you may or may not be used to saying “he descended into hell” right after “crucified, died, and was buried” in the Apostles’ Creed. I grew up reading that as a small italicized footnote in my Methodist hymnal, and in my first chapel service at RTS I was shocked to hear everyone say it– I was already barreling through “the third day he arose from the dead.”

In churches that recite that sentence as part of the creed, you have to answer the question of why you say it and what it means. It seems to imply that Jesus physically went into hell, the place of eternal torment for those outside Christ, between his death and resurrection. Some have understood this to be the case based largely on an initially confusing passage in 1 Peter:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared… (1 Pet 3:18-20)

Without going into too many details, most scholars now agree that this passage makes a comparison between the days of Peter’s readers and the days of Noah. Christ preached through his Spirit in Noah in the days of leading up to the flood, and similarly he now preaches as the day of God’s judgment approaches. So the “spirits in prison” are the spirits who are imprisoned at the time Peter is writing, those who refused to listen to Noah’s preaching. Therefore, almost everyone agrees that this passage does not teach a literal descent of Christ into hell. There are other passages that have been used to suggest such a descent, such as Eph 4:9-10 and 1 Pet 4:6, but they have more sensible interpretations as well.

So most people who retain “he descended into hell” in the Creed don’t intend for it to mean a literal descent of Christ into hell, but rather a statement that Christ continued under the power of death, the humiliation of death, for a time, and that he did this for us. This is true, of course, and it’s a truth that brings us great comfort. The Heidelberg Catechism sums it up this way:

Question 44. Why is there added, “he descended into hell”?

Answer: That in my greatest temptations, I may be assured, and wholly comfort myself in this, that my Lord Jesus Christ, by his inexpressible anguish, pains, terrors, and hellish agonies, in which he was plunged during all his sufferings, but especially on the cross, has delivered me from the anguish and torments of hell.

So again, this is true. But does that mean we should recite this part of the Creed? I’ll give my answer in the next post.

More from Owen

Don’t worry, I will eventually review this book. It’s long. I’m into the actual book now, but one of the editors has a long introduction giving an overview of Owen’s thought, and it’s very good in its own right.

When Owen writes of the empowering love of Christ, which is the very love of God, he notes that this love actually makes things happen. “He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven.” Notice that Owen frames this discussion in terms of love, and not in abstract philosophical speculation about predestination. How are we made alive and holy? By the love of Christ. How do we enjoy eternal communion with God? Because God in Christ loves us into his holy presence…

The redeeming love of God is not something that can be found in contemplating the glorious stars and moon, or the regularity of the seasons. Only in Christ Jesus do we discover with utter clarity that we are not dealing with a distant deity, but the Creator God whose love becomes incarnate. Divine love cannot be put into a category of vague spirituality that can be equally understood in all religions. Rather, according to Owen, the full revelation and anchor of our understanding of God’s love must be found in the incarnation. (34)

As Jesus himself said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). God demonstrates his love to the world by sending his Son, who is the “exact representation of his nature” (Heb 1:3).

Book Review: The Gospel & Personal Evangelism

Mark Dever, The Gospel & Personal Evangelism

(By the by, the RTS-Charlotte Bookstore has this book for cheaper than Amazon. I’m just saying.)

Mark Dever is one of my favorite pastor/authors. Best known for his book 9 Marks of a Healthy Church, he is an influential advocate of biblical preaching, gospel-centered churches, and theologically-informed passion for Jesus. He also has a reputation among those who know him well as a committed evangelist. C. J. Mahaney, another well-known pastor and author, tells a story in the foreword to this book about going to lunch for the first time with Dever and finding out he knew the entire staff of the local Subway by name, that he had had conversations about the gospel with all of them. Apparently Mahaney has been urging Dever to write this book for years, and I’m glad he did.

In this small book Dever asks seven basic questions about personal evangelism.

1. Why don’t we evangelize?
2. What is the gospel?
3. Who should evangelize?
4. How should we evangelize?
5. What isn’t evangelism?
6. What should we do after we evangelize?
7. Why should we evangelize?

Each of these is unpacked in a chapter of about 10 pages. His answers and explanations are simple but powerful. The book is designed to briefly encourage believers to share their faith, and it does that job very well. I myself am a lousy evangelist, often racked with guilt over my failure to interact with nonbelievers. Reading books on evangelism has often piled on to that guilty feeling, but this one made me excited to be more intentional in pursuing non-Christians. Dever shows that our excuses are illegitimate, that the gospel is great news, and that our love for God, desire to obey him and love for the lost should make us eager to preach the gospel. He also exposes ideas, even good ones, that are mistakenly viewed as the gospel (social action, “God is love,” moral reform) and shows how they fail to carry water when cut off from the true gospel.

A couple of minor flaws hinder the effectiveness of the book. One is the number and manner of Dever’s Scripture citations. He refers to Scripture often, which is of course a good thing, but frequently just lists several references at the end of a sentence, rather than quoting one or two relevant passages and explaining them. I appreciate his command of Scripture, but I think most readers are less likely to grab a Bible and look up seven verses than they are to pay attention to an explanation of how one or two verses support the point he’s making. There are also awkward transitions, abrupt endings, and even editorial mistakes that give the book, especially the last two chapters, a feel of having been hurried through. These aren’t dealbreakers by any means, but hey, this is a book review.

The greatest thing about this book is its honesty. Dever does not claim to give a foolproof method of evangelism; in fact, he is careful to distinguish between evangelism and the fruit of evangelism. The gospel produces a fragrance of life to some and death to others (2 Cor 2:15-16). But we should nonetheless be confident that God will bless our efforts to spread the good news. Believing that conversion is his work, not ours, frees us to be faithful and entrust the results to him. This book encouraged me to be more intentional about sharing my faith. Pick it up if you need that kind of encouragement too.

Union and Communion with God

From the introduction to John Owen’s Communion with the Triune God (ed. Kapic and Taylor, forthcoming from Crossway):

While a saint’s consistency in prayer, corporate worship, and biblical meditation are not things that make God love him more or less, such activities tend to foster the beautiful experience of communion with God. Giving in to temptations and neglecting devotion to God threaten the communion but not the union.

In other words, we have union with God the Father because of the work of God the Son, which is applied to us by God the Holy Spirit. This union is entirely wrought by God, not by us, so we can’t make ourselves more or less united to him by our good works or lack thereof. But we also have communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit– that is, personal interaction, communication with him. Our experience of this communion can be greater or lesser as we obey or disobey, as we seek or neglect him.

Creation (4): God and the Sea Monsters

I’ve gotten a lot of comments (OK, no I haven’t) from readers who were heartbroken because my series on creation stalled. But take heart– I’m back in the saddle.

The first five books of the Bible were written for the people of Israel who had come out of Egypt, wandered in the desert for 40 years, and were about to enter the Promised Land. It reminded them of all God’s mighty works for them: from creation, to saving eight people through the flood, to the promises to Abraham, to saving his people from the famine by sending them to Egypt, to bringing them out of Egypt where they had been forced into slavery.

So as the original audience read or heard Genesis, they were one generation removed from captivity in Egypt, and their ancestors had been in Egypt over four centuries. During that time they served other gods (see Joshua 24:14), and they continued to be tempted by syncretism, mixing the worship of the true God with that of false gods, throughout their whole history.

What does this have to do with the creation account in Gen 1-2? I’ve mentioned earlier that I believe Moses was the author of Genesis (backing that up will have to wait for another post, but let’s just say Jesus seems to have thought Moses wrote it). Moses, you’ll recall, grew up in Pharaoh’s palace, and we learn from Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 that he was “instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” There are several points in the creation account where it’s likely that the author is deliberately contradicting the Egyptian worldview in order to show that the God of Israel is the creator of the universe.

For example, Gen 1:21 says that God created the “great sea creatures”– in Hebrew it’s a plural form of the word tannin, a word that’s usually used of a scary creature that’s a hostile force. For example, in other Ancient Near Eastern myths the god Baal does battle with a tannin when he creates the world. What do we learn from Genesis? God created the tannin. He doesn’t have to battle anything, doesn’t have to fear anything. Whatever’s out there, he made. Another interesting thing about this word: it’s used twice of Pharaoh in Ezekiel, and in fact Pharaoh had a snake on his headpiece; it was one of his symbols. So Pharaoh uses the tannin as a symbol of his might, but again, Genesis 1 reminds us that God created the tannin. This is hammered home for Pharaoh in Exodus 7 when Aaron throws down his staff and it becomes a tannin. And not only that, but Aaron’s tannin swallows up the snakes Pharaoh’s magicians conjure up. God is saying to Pharaoh: I am not afraid of you. I created you, and I can do with you what I want. And he is saying to Israel: No matter what you have heard, I am the only God, your Creator. As long as you fear Me, you need fear nothing else.

In the next post (or so) I’ll look at another example of anti-Egyptian polemic in the creation account.

Book Review: The Israel of God

O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

“If you abandon Israel, God will never forgive you… It is God’s will that Israel, the biblical home of the people of Israel, continue for ever and ever.” This expresses the view of many Christians—witness the popularity of the Left Behind series, John Hagee’s ministry, and any number of books that explain the role of modern nations in biblical prophecy.

Is this true? Is the modern nation-state of Israel the continuation of the Israel of the Bible, so that when we read prophecies addressed to Israel we may assume they will find their fulfillment in present-day Israel or ethnic Jews? Robertson’s book asks that question: who is the Israel of God? He examines Israel in terms of its land, its people, its worship, its lifestyle, and its future, concluding that the present-day incarnation of Israel is the church of Jesus Christ: all those, Jew and Gentile, who are saved by trusting in his work and are a people set apart for him. Identifying the nation of Israel as a “people of God” distinct from the church dishonors the sufficiency of Christ’s work and seeks to step backwards in redemptive history—to return to types and shadows when the ultimate reality has been revealed.

Palmer Robertson is a master biblical theologian. He has a great eye both for the forest and the trees of the Bible; he can see the big picture as well as how all the details play their own vital role. As he traces different themes through the Old and New Testaments, he is faithful to each text in its historical context but can also see how OT themes anticipate NT ones, how the NT answers the questions of the OT. Simply put, the book is masterfully argued, and it is compelling in its entirety. I came in expecting to agree with his thesis, but understand my own position better after reading the book.

A couple of minor complaints: the chapter on Israel’s worship, which unpacks Hebrews 7 and shows that the high priesthood of Christ renders any other priesthood useless, is 32 pages long. I started to get bogged down about 2/3 of the way through and wonder when he was going to make his point. The material is excellent, but could probably be condensed (yes, it’s ironic for me to say that). I also thought there were a couple of weak spots in his exegesis of Romans 11—one or two straw-man arguments and logical leaps. I’m inclined to agree with his conclusion, though, which is that in Rom 11 Paul is describing all of God’s elect, Jews and Gentiles, being saved through history, not a future event where Israel is converted as a nation.

Robertson may be shouting into a tornado here, but he needs to be heard. His voice brings sober and responsible handling of Scripture to a hotly-debated topic, and he demonstrates its serious implications for our doctrine and practice. Read this book with Bible in hand, and you will be more grateful that Jesus is the high priest of a better covenant.

Peace!

But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made [Jews and Gentiles] into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall… And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. (Eph 2:13-14, 17-18)

This is why the Gospel is such good news: it is, at the root, an offer of peace. Not an offer of peace that comes from a friend you just had an argument with, but an offer of peace from a King you have taken up arms against. Instead of simply crushing the rebellion, the King sends an Ambassador with an offer of peace: Lay down your weapons and come home. The King will grant you amnesty. In fact, he will bring you into His family. To hardened rebels who are far off and who are near, the word goes out: You cannot win this war. But the King offers you peace.

Weekend Fun

Yeah, like you never Googled your own name.