Reformed Apologist: God

Showing posts with label God. Show all posts

Thursday, July 21, 2011

The Necessity of the Divine Will (by way of a polemic against man's free will)

Arminians are strange birds at times (but maybe so are we Calvinists). They hold to something that has commonly been referred to as libertarian free will (LFW), which is basically the ability to choose between alternatives with equal ease. It’s also been referred to as the power of contrary choice. They argue (or just assert) that without LFW man cannot be morally accountable for his choices. If they argue, it goes something like this. If man is morally accountable, then he can choose contrary to how he will. Man is morally accountable, therefore, he can choose contrary to how he will. (Principle of Alternative Possibilities - PAP)

Here is a very user-friendly refutation against LFW:

Now where many Calvinists get a bit uncomfortable is when the tables are turned back on them. Does God have LFW? Well, most Calvinists will say no, God does not have LFW. Yet what they give with one hand, they take away with the other. They don’t want to say that God has LFW, but they don’t want to say that God is unable to choose contrary to how he chooses.

Again using the proof, though with some modification, let’s see if God could have not chosen to create:

1. Choices are either caused or uncaused.
2. If a choice is uncaused, then it comes from nothing and is, therefore, morally irrelevant.
3. Choices are morally relevant.
4. Therefore, choices are caused (and, therefore, necessary by definition).
5. The causes of choices are chosen or not chosen.
6. If causes of choices are chosen, then an infinite regress of choices and antecedent-causes precede any choice.
7. An infinite regress of causes and choices is impossible, therefore, the causes of choices are not chosen.
8. Choices are causally necessitated by something not chosen. (4 & 7)
9. Creation is caused by choice.
10. Creation is a caused by something causally necessitated and not chosen. (8 & 9)
11. Something caused by something that is causally necessitated would itself be equally causally necessitated (and therefore could not be otherwise by definition).
12. Creation is something
13. Creation could not be otherwise. (10 – 12)

Calvinists will sometimes say things like “If creation was necessary, then creation has claim on God.” That was actually said to me several years ago by John Frame. My reply was simply that creation does not have a claim on God but his eternal intentions do. Why should it seem strange that God cannot act contrary to what he wants most to do? After all, if it is actually true that agent A will do X in state of affairs S, then it is also true that agent A must be inclined to X in S in order for X to obtain, lest pure contingency (i.e. something from nothing) obtains. Yet if it is true that A can refrain from X in S, then it is false that A must be inclined to X in S (for the possibility of of refraining from X implies that A need not be inclined to X); yet the truth of X presupposes that A must be inclined to X in S. Therefore, since inclination is necessary for X, then X is caused.

Calvinists can introduce mystery into the mix along with the creator-creature distinction and even paradox if they like, but nothing can change the fact that LFW is a philosophical surd and no amount of mystery, creator-creature distinction, or paradox (whatever that might mean to someone) can undermine what is patently false. The only thing left to say, as Frame said to me, is "Well, maybe God has an unrevealed attribute that is somewhere between pure contingency and necessity, something like LFW but not really LFW." (I paraphrase but that's pretty close to it.)

Finally, in common parlance someone even like myself might say without contradiction something like "I could have chosen differently," but that simply underscores that the choice in view was made according to liberty, a freedom to choose as as one likes, which is nothing akin to the radical "freedom" that LFW contemplates.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Letham Messages

Here is a link to select sermons and lectures by Dr. Robert Letham.

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Trinity & Paradox

It has been rightly argued by some that we can distill these claims from the Athanasian creed:

1. The Father is God.

2. The Son is God.
3. The Spirit is God.
4. The Father is not the Son.
5. The Father is not the Spirit.
6. The Son is not the Spirit.
and,
7. There is only one God.

An apparent contradiction in view is:
A. f = g (premise)
B. s = g (premise)
C. f ≠ s (premise)
D. f = s (from 1, 2, by transitivity of identity)
Contradiction or Paradox?

It seems to me that these conundrums can be dealt with in many ways by adding additional biblically informed propositions to the incomplete ones. Simply replace some of the abbreviated premises with premises that contain more biblical truth and paradox disappears, yet without being able to uncover the mysteries of the Trinity. (i.e. The solution is rational but ought not to be considered rationalistic.)

Equivocal terms lead to unreliable conclusions:

It should be noted up front that there is a semantic difference between is and =, for x is y does not imply y is x; yet x = y is equivalent to y = x. (Please don't read on without digesting that.) The leap from what x is (found in 1-7) to what x equals (the complaint in the "apparent contradiction" i.e., A-D) is fallacious, which I trust will become apparent.

Points 1-7 (which utilize "is") imply that three distinct persons all share in the one divine nature and occupy what can be called "the same divine space". So far, so good. Points A-D that follow (which utilize "=" instead of "is") leads to confusion (and supposed paradox). Points 1-7 and A-D must be nuanced, for 1-7 does not imply the conclusion of A-D, which is not only an apparent contradictory but rather a real contradictory.

First, with respect to the confusing four points (A-D), the only way Jesus equals God is if Jesus and God are numerically identical - exactly the same without remainder. Yet God can mean Trinity, which Jesus is not. God can also mean the person of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus is not. Finally, God can mean the person of the Father, which Jesus is not. Accordingly, to say that "Jesus equals God" and the "Father equals God" is equivocal at best and if taken literally leads to modalism because identity is transitive, which would mean that Jesus and the Father are the same person.

With respect to points 1-7, indeed, we should rightly say that Jesus is God because Jesus shares the divine essence: he is very God of very God, but that is not what is implied in points A-D when things such as "Jesus = God" are stated. In other words, if what is meant by "Jesus is God" is that that Jesus equals God, then of course that would be incorrect. But that is not what is typically meant by "Jesus is God", which makes reference to his divine nature, one in being with the Father.

Jesus is a specific person. Accordingly, if Jesus equals God, then God must equal Jesus and, therefore, must be a specific person (the same as Jesus), which would preclude any other person from sharing in the divine nature such as the Father, which in turn would undermine the doctrine of the Trinity. So yes, Jesus is God because Jesus is divine, but Jesus and God are not synonymous terms - for if they were synonymous terms, then "Jesus is God" could be equated to "God is Jesus". (In simple terms of analogy, Jim is human does not imply Jim = human.)

Jesus does not equal God, for the Father and the Holy Spirit are also God yet are different persons than Jesus. There is more than one God-person in the Godhead, all of whom mutually indwell the other two. There is only one triune-God, that in three persons and oneness of being lives in perfect harmony.

More on the equally ultimate, unity and diversity:

The Father is God just as the Son is God, but an essential property of the Father’s *person* (not to be confused with the ontological essence), which merely is to say it can only be predicated to the person of the Father, is his relationship to the Son and the Holy Spirit. Being distinct persons, there are differences between the members of the Holy Trinity. The Father is not God apart from his intra-Trinitarian relationships. That to say, the Father is not God apart from being a member of the Trinity. These Trinitarian relationships are essential properties of personhood, not essence (lest Father is Son). If we cannot distinguish properties in this way, we cannot distinguish persons. Accordingly, f does not equal s because neither f nor s have the same intra-Trinitarian relationship with the other two divine persons in the Godhead. So, as we fill in what it means for f and s to be g, we do so not in a vacuum but with other biblical propositions in view, informing us of g as it pertains f and s. Indeed, it is true that f is g and s is g, and if that was the end of the story we might be in trouble. Without further elaboration, f is g plus s is g is consistent with modalism, so we needn’t be surprised that such constructs, though true, must be interpreted through a biblical lens in order to avoid heresy.

Although I don’t deny the prima facie intuitive notions surrounding 1-7 that can lead to a conundrum, it can be maintained on the consistency of God and his desire to communicate to his people that those intuitive notions that appear logically problematic can disappear when we presuppose additional revelation, which is not to say that mysteries can be solved. Logic cannot solve true mysteries, but biblically informed logical pursuit can demonstrate that certain doctrines are not actually seemingly-contradictory. It’s when we think intuitively, which is to say apart from Scripture, we can get in trouble. As I've noted elsewhere, that's an insight of Van Til's apologetic but not one that I think he carried into this thinking on paradox. (For instance, when we use only experience unaided by revelation we can think one essence necessarily implies one person; when we presuppose Scripture we can know that proposition is false.)

Finally, the original formulation if it is interpreted as allowing for f=s, (which is prior to the intra-Trinitarian elaboration that forbids such an interpretation), ends up implying that the sending of the Son was arbitrary, which means the Son could have sent the Father. The arbitrariness is not demanded by the original construct (1-7), rather it comes as a result of an interpretation of the original construct that does not consider other biblical truths, such as each divine person in his intra-Trinitarian relationship with the other two divine persons. In other words, without, for instance, an elaboration of how the Son relates to the Father, 1-7 might be wrongly inferred as implying an apparent contradiction, leaving it open that the Son could have sent the Father. In the final analyses, the original construct of 1-7 is true and it is fine as far as it goes; I believe it is most suitable for a creed, but it is not a full blown theology of the Trinity, which a creed ought not to be.

Finally, regarding the arbitrariness noted above (an idea I gleaned from Robert Letham's writings), there is good reason to believe that there is an actual appropriateness that the Son was sent in the incarnation and not the Holy Spirit, but the first construct is void of such implication.We may learn of the ontological relationship through the economic activity, as Dr. Letham rightly pointed out in his review of Dr. Robert Reymond’s Systematic Theology. So for example (and as Dr. Letham has written here) the submission to Father by the Son reveals something of who the Son is prior to his incarnation, which is consistent with the turning over of the kingdom to the Father by the Son in the eschatological consummation.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

God, One or Three Persons, or Both?

A well regarded professor at a prominent Reformed seminary has been quoted as saying this:

“This is one of Van Til’s most original contributions to theology proper. As he said at the beginning of the chapter, to speak of God as one is to speak of God as a person. This fits our ordinary experience, as, for instance, when we pray, we pray to one person. It also fits biblical data that constantly refers to God as a person. By this reminder Van Til avoids two errors. The first is the tendency, found mostly in Western theology, of separating God’s essence, which becomes a remote inaccessible being, from the persons. The other is the neoorthodox error of reducing personality to relationship, rather than regarding it as the foundation of ontological consciousness.”

To pray “Our great God in Heaven – Father, Son and Holy Ghost” is to address one God in three persons. It is consistent with oneness and plurality being equally ultimate in the Godhead. It is not a prayer to three Gods let alone a prayer to individuals stripped from their intra-Trinitarian relationship. Most of all, it is not a prayer to a one person trinity.

God’s revelation of himself was progressive, not instantaneous. To Abraham God revealed himself as God Almighty, and to Moses as I Am. In the fullness of time the Second Person of the Trinity revealed God as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. When we worship God according to God’s full revelation, we worship the Trinity – one God in three persons; not one God in one person. To think of one God as one person is at least to blur if not utterly eclipse the doctrine of "God in three persons." We may not strip the one God from the plurality of persons in the Godhead, nor may the distinct persons of the Trinity be stripped from their intra-Trinitarian relationships, which is an all too common occurrence in the evangelical church. When we know any person of the Trinity aright, we know him in relation to the other two divine persons. For each person of the Trinity is to be worshipped and adored in accordance to his intra-Trinitarian relationship, for the Trinity is to be worship as the undivided Trinity. Accordingly, we worship the Father who chose us in Christ and glorified him. We worship the Christ who was obedient to the Father and glorified him. We worship the Sprit who baptizes us into existential union with Christ. (We do not worship a Holy Spirit, as is so common today, that has so little to do with Christ and his cross.) This is not to say that personality equates to relationship, for there is of course an ontological aspect of personality, but notwithstanding that ontological aspect cannot be understood apart from the ontological relationship. It does not exist without it.

If we worship the one true God at all, we do so with at least some understanding of the unity and diversity of divine persons in the Godhead. And if we worship any particular person of the Trinity at all, we do so with at least some understanding of His relationship to the other divine persons in the Godhead for that is how God is revealed because that his how God is God is three in a different sense than he is one, and one in a different sense than he his three. God is not one in the same sense that he is three.

So, when the WCF 1.1 and 1.2 speak of God as “he” I see no problem interpreting the personal pronoun in light of oneness of “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost” which is consistent with the doctrine found in the very next paragraph, WCF 1.3, which addresses the three distinct persons in the Godhead. At the very least, we need not allow the standards to contradict themselves by allowing God to be one person in the same sense that he is three persons. So for instance, the triune God who is “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost” is “infinite in being and perfection,” etc. So again, I disagree with this professor. When we address the Trinity as “You” in our prayers we should not be ignoring the other aspects of God’s revelation; we should as best we can, in our finitude, appreciate that we are addressing the triune God as one. By rejecting the notion that God should be perceived as one person we don't deny that God is personal and relational. In fact, by appreciating that God is three persons and one, we can begin to appreciate that God is the ultimate - personal and relational.

We need not at every moment elaborate upon every aspect of orthodox Trinitarian doctrine, but what we say about the Trinity should be consistent with the rest of what we don’t say that is in accordance with Scripture. (Just like there is no need to always mention human responsibility when speaking about divine providence, yet our doctrine of divine providence should look nothing like that of blind fate.) When we address God has “You” – we should be thinking that we are addressing the one single God who eternally exists as Father Son and Holy Ghost (in three distinct persons). By “You” we should not be thinking that we are addressing the triune God as one person in particular – for the triune God is not one person in particular; nor should we think we are addressing three distinct persons separately. Rather, in our finitude we should be striving to address God as Scripture reveals God – as the one true God that eternally exists in relation as three persons all of Whom are harmoniously working to apply the accomplished redemption to the world. It seems to me that by introducing the concept that the Trinity may be perceived as a person, the person we would end up addressing in such a construct would be a fourth person. It would be much better to simply pray to the first person of the Trinity, through the Son by the Holy Spirit.

In sum, we are not denying the divine essence or distinct persons with such a construct but rather through acknowledging the equal ultimacy that God has revealed about the Godhead, we can find a personal God without thinking of him in terms of one person. To err on the matter of equal ultimacy must always be at the expense of something. To err toward the side of one being, at the expense of persons, is a move toward modalism; whereas to err on the side of persons, at the expense of being, is a move toward tri-theism. By thinking in terms of a one person Godhead is not a solution to the problem, as the professor suggests, but rather is to eclipse God's revelation of being three persons, which is to emphasize being at the expense of persons. In this case, that error would seem to stem from the desire to find a single person with which to relate, yet in doing so undermining the ultimate reality found in the unity of a plurality of persons. And I suspect that the need to define God in that way, as one person, stems from the fundamental error of considering personality the "foundation" for "ontological consciousness" without reference to relationship, a sine qua non for God's ontology! That is not to suggest that any person derives his divinity from another, but by downplaying the intra-Trinitarian relationship in favor of abstracting ontological consciousness from that relationship leaves one seeking elsewhere (outside the Trinity - even to a fourth person) for that which was desired in the first place, a personal and relational God who is love.

Added 6/10/11 Finally, to address one person, we may say "you" (singular). When we address three persons at once, we may say "you" (plural). But what if we wanted to address the three not as plural (i.e. not by saying "you" as shorthand for: you-1, you-2 and you-3), but as an organic one comprised of three? We have no such English word to my knowledge, but maybe context dictates the meaning. Or do southerners have a singular-plural word for "you" - that being, "y'all"?

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

To Whom Did Mary Give Birth & Who Died Upon The Cross?

I won’t bother to get into the historical debate that surrounds these two topics but a word or two will be offered as “food for thought” regarding Mary giving birth to God the Son and a divine person dying upon the cross.

Did Mary give birth to a divine person, or just a human nature? If birth implies the origin of someone new, then only humanity came forth in the virgin birth since the person born of the virgin always existed. However, Mary carried a person (and not just an embodied nature) in her womb, and after her water broke, she then labored to bring forth the person she had carried. In common parlance we call that giving birth. Since a divine person was born, we must let that reality inform our understanding of birth (rather then let our understanding of birth redefine what occurred in that manger in Bethlehem). Birth need not precede the origin of a new person, precisely because the eternal Son of God, a person, was born of a virgin. It's really quite easy when we start with Scripture. Question 37 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it this way, or rather it simply assumes the point when making another:

“How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man? Answer: Christ the Son of God
became man, by taking to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul, being
conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her
substance, and born of her, yet without sin.” (emphasis mine)

Who was born of of the virgin Mary is the question we should be asking, not what was born. Sure, Jesus became man by taking to himself body and soul but it was Christ who was born of Mary. Accordingly, Mary giving birth to her Savior-son is not ground for Protestant objection. Aside from that, no unbiblical Marian dogma can be rationally inferred from such teaching.

Now for the 2nd condundrum. Did God the Son die on the cross, or just his humanity? A divine person took upon a human body and soul in the incarnation. That body is now glorified but before that, it lay in the grave – dead, awaiting resurrection life. Accordingly, a divine person's body lay in the grave. The body died in the death of a person, which is what happens when any person dies. Yet does the soul ever die, whether divine or human? We are not annihilationists after all. Are things getting a bit clearer? What's the problem that a divine person died? When we die our bodies will lie in the grave but the soul will remain operative in the intermediate state. So then, how does the death of the Second Person impinge upon the doctrine of the Trinity? Was the death of the body sufficient to do away with Jesus’ sovereign rule over the universe anymore than his being born of a woman? Is death even sufficient to stop the Rich Man (from Luke 16) from trying to correct God? One would have to ask how the Lord managed prior to the incarnation if we may not say that the Second Person of the Trinity, at least in some sense, died upon the cross and his body lay in the grave.

The same person who was born, died - and is now risen and ascended to God's right hand.

Happy Easter!

Ron

Counter since: 9/6/2006

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Good Works in Christ, Imitation or Transformation?

Mark Garcia’s book Life in Christ has afforded me occasion to reflect more upon “union with Christ” in particular with respect to good works.

Scripture is clear that we are to be imitators of Paul (as he is of Christ), and of God. (1 Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 5:1) Yet for the believer it is not only true that we are to imitate Christ - we are indeed destined to do so. Moreover, not only is our imitation of Christ unavoidable (Ephesians 2:10) - it is no mere imitation but rather an actual fellowship in Christ’s suffering granted to all believers virtue of their spiritual union with Christ. As Mike Horton rightly noted (over ten years ago in his timely book “In The Face Of God”), “Christ’s cross was more than God’s method of saving us; it is our own cross, our own death, burial, and resurrection. We are united to Christ… Not only are we identified with his victory but are also destined to share in the ‘fellowship of his suffering.’”

We have an inheritance that is unshakable, which in a real sense serves as an impetus in the believer’s life toward the faithful reception of what the promise of final adoption contemplates. It is our unalterable union with Christ that not only ensures the eschatological reality that awaits all believers - it also defines the very path by which we must enter into that glory. That foreordained path is none other than Christ’s path of faith-wrought works and suffering. Just as we have been foreordained unto good works (Ephesians 2:10), we have also been predestined to become conformed to the image of Christ. (Romans 8:29) However, being an imitator and becoming like must be distinguished but can never be separated in the life of the believer. For one thing, the former can be the product of hypocrisy whereas the latter is unique to the believer and in one sense the very telos of our salvation. The believer’s obedience, which will be evidenced in this life and openly acknowledged on the last day in all who love the Lord, is not merely an imitation of Christ’s obedience but rather a divinely appointed fruit of being baptized into the once suffering - now glorified - Savior of men. It is part of our salvation and as such should be embraced through faith and certainly not avoided (not that it can be). Moreover, just as the believer’s alien righteousness is more near than far (to paraphrase Richard Gaffin), our obedience through suffering is granted within the orbit of a reality of intimate union with Christ’s "historical-experience", as opposed to being experienced in the context of mere imitation through vastly different circumstances that have little or nothing to do with the righteousness of Christ's gospel.

As we received Christ, so too are we to walk in him, and so we shall. We did not find Christ but rather he us. So too will our trials come in Christ, when we least expect them. We need not seek them out, let alone work for them. Our task, as we try to live peaceable lives in Christ, is to receive such trials and in turn respond in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit in a manner well pleasing to the Father through Christ.

To be saved from our sin is not only to follow Christ’s example by walking in his steps (1 Peter 2:21), it also entails a true participation in Christ’s sufferings to the end that we might be “overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:13) From the believer’s vantage point we imitate Christ by grace because he first loved us. But we have another perspective that we do well to reckon as fact, especially if we are to think Christ’s thoughts after him as we endeavor to imitate him as we ought: All things are divinely appointed and working together in order to conform believers not into mere imitators of Christ but into the very image of him in whom they are united so that he might be the firstborn of many brethren who share not only in his suffering but through that union-suffering, his glory. This suffering, which to our shame we too often so desperately try to avoid, is no less a gift than the faith through which our God-appointed suffering is to be interpreted. (Philippians 1:29) Being a gift, it is not something to be shunned but rather accepted in its proper season - if we are to desire and experience a more intimate fellowship with Christ.

Ron

Counter since: 9/6/2006

Thursday, September 04, 2008

"Developing a Trinitarian Mind" - Sound Observations & Advice from Robert Letham

In the August-September 2008 issue of Ordained Servant, a publication of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Dr. Robert Letham had these brief yet worthy words for the church of Jesus Christ, especially its ministers, to reflect upon and put into practice.

Developing a Trinitarian Mind

Robert Letham

In one of the chapters of my book, The Holy Trinity, I describe at some length how the worship of the Western Church has been truncated by the comparative neglect of the doctrine of the Trinity. For most Christians—and I include members of Reformed churches—the Trinity is merely an abstruse mathematical puzzle, remote from experience. Despite our reservations about many aspects of the Eastern Church, Orthodoxy in contrast has maintained a pronounced Trinitarian focus to its worship through its liturgy, which has roots in the fourth century. This is no incidental matter; worship is right at the heart of what it means to be Christian and what the church should be doing. The sole object of worship is God. The God whom we worship has revealed himself to be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons in indivisible union. I have argued elsewhere that this is his New Covenant name (Matt. 28:19-20). It follows that our worship in the Christian church is to be distinctively Trinitarian. Yet if we were to thumb through any hymnbook, we would be hard pressed to find many hymns that contain clearly Trinitarian expressions, while many of our favorites could equally be sung by Unitarians—think of "Immortal, invisible" or "My God, how wonderful thou art." As for the average person in the pew, why not try a random survey next Sunday—ask a haphazard selection of half a dozen people what the Trinity means to them on a daily basis, and see what results you get? Then compare your findings with the words of Gregory of Nazianzus, who wrote of "my Trinity" and "when I say God, I mean the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

If this problem is as real as is generally recognized but yet as important as I have presented it, how do we go about seeking to redress it? There are no easy, slick solutions. This is not a matter to be resolved by a quick twelve-step program or in an adult Sunday school class. It will take much thought, careful teaching, and a concerted plan to put right what has for so long been askew—since I argue this has been a problem for centuries, with notable exceptions, at least since Aquinas. What is needed is to instill in our congregations a mindset directed, as of second nature, to think of God as triune. From there will come ripple effects on the way we think of the world around us, and of the people with whom we mix. What we need is to develop a thoroughly Christian view of God, the world, the church, ourselves, and others.

The first, and indispensable, steppingstone is ourselves as leaders of the church, and in particular those who are ministers of the Word. It is of the utmost importance that we saturate our minds with reflection and meditation on God, for we stand in the pulpit as no less than his representatives in speaking his Word. It means our consistently contemplating God in Trinitarian terms. John Stott has been accustomed to begin each day with a threefold greeting to the Holy Trinity; how far are your own prayers and thoughts of God shaped in this way? It takes disciplined thought and prayer, consistently day in, day out deliberately to think of God biblically, theologically, and ecclesially as triune. As leaders of the church you are called by God to do this. You cannot expect the congregation committed to your charge to follow suit unless you are leading the way. It means your being shaped and driven not by some man-made purpose or by the concoctions of management gurus but by the truth of the triune God himself drawing and molding you.

There are definite and particular ways in which your congregation can be taught to develop its grasp of the Trinity. The first such avenue is in your preaching and teaching. How often have you preached on the Trinity? The Church of England, in following the church year, has Trinity Sunday the week after Pentecost; this can provide an opportunity to draw attention to the Trinity at least once a year, as Advent is a reminder of the incarnation, Good Friday of the atonement, Easter Sunday of the resurrection, and Pentecost of the coming of the Holy Spirit. However, this is a bare minimum—just about starvation rations. Perhaps a short series may help, providing it is not something that is forgotten as you move on to other things. Much better is, on top of that, to refer consistently to God not always as "God" or "the Lord" but as "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," always bearing in mind that he is three in indivisible union.

The same principles apply to praying as to preaching. You may not be able to preach on the Trinity every week—it would be unbalanced if you did!—but you can pray every week. When you pray, pray "Our Father in heaven." What an amazing way to address God! It means that we, through Christ the Son, have been granted by adoption the same relationship to the Father that he has by nature! It immediately throws us into the context of prayer to the Father by the Holy Spirit (see Rom. 8:26-27) through the mediation of Christ the Son. We should bring this to expression regularly in our public prayers. We should show the congregation that this is the way we pray. We should show them that in prayer we are saturated in a Trinitarian atmosphere, given to share in communion with the triune God. We should impress upon our people that in the Holy Spirit, God the Trinity has come to dwell with us, indwelling—better, saturating—us and making his permanent residence with us (John 14:23).

This leads us to the nature of church worship and the structure of the service. In all the works of God he takes the initiative. He created in accordance with his free and sovereign will; no one was there to advise him. In grace, the Son became incarnate "for us and our salvation"; this too was the result purely of the grace of God, undeserved, unprompted. In our own experience, God himself brought us to new life by his Spirit; our faith and repentance is a response to his prior grace. We love him because he first loved us. Is it any different in worship? Is that primarily something we do? No, first of all God goes before us. He has called his church to himself. He is there to greet us. As we gather, it is to meet with him, but first he has drawn us. Moreover, our acts of worship are accepted because they are offered in union with Christ. He, in our nature, is at the Father's right hand. From this it follows that the elements of worship are a dialog in which the holy Trinity takes the initiative. Through his ordained servant, the Father through his Son by the Holy Spirit calls us to worship. He speaks to us in his Word read and proclaimed. He receives our praise and prayers. He communes with us in the sacrament. In the benediction he dismisses us with his blessing—which is far from a pious wish or prayer that such things might be, if it is the will of God. Rather, the benediction is a declaration of a real state of affairs, undergirded by his covenant promises. This is a dynamic view of worship, one that follows squarely in the Reformed tradition and is rooted in biblical teaching. Our congregations need to hear it, they need to understand it, they need to imbibe it and be permeated by it. At my previous church, our regular bulletin expressed this. Periodically we would draw everyone's attention to it and sometimes produce a written two-page memo explaining it, so as to keep it fresh in mind.

The call to worship is a good place to begin. I often use a congregational response to the call. It is based on Ephesians 2:18, where Paul says "For through him [Christ] we ... have access by one Spirit to the Father." These words impress on the mind the point that our worship can only be Trinitarian. So too does the famous passage in John 4:21-24, where Jesus says that those who worship the Father must worship in spirit and in truth. Every occurrence of πνεῦμα (pneuma, spirit) in John, except two, is a reference to the Holy Spirit, while the truth is consistently a reference to Jesus (John 1:9, 14, 17, 14:6). Hence, acceptable worship of the Father is in the Holy Spirit and in Christ, the Son. It is important that this is stamped upon the service right from the start. Christian worship is worship of the holy Trinity, nothing less.

The church where we now attend has, immediately after the call to worship, a short Trinitarian doxology which the congregation sings in response; it is varied from time-to-time so as not to get monotonous. Then the first hymn is very often, if not invariably, Trinitarian, a practice I have come to use myself as often as I can. Calvin thought this was the most appropriate way to begin too, so we are in good company. However, as I remarked, there is a considerable lack of explicitly Trinitarian hymns. Many from the ancient and medieval church have this focus. Our former music director in Delaware, Peter Merio—a graduate of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki who also taught there—brilliantly arranged one gem from the fifth century that we dug up from the English Hymnal, edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1933; but there are very few in Reformed circles with his capabilities. Some recent favorites try hard but fall into heresy—an ever-present danger in this area. The hymn "There is a redeemer," which I have heard sung in the OPC, is generally excellent but has a refrain, "Thank you, O our Father for giving us your Son, and leaving your Spirit till the work on earth is done." The Father does not leave the Holy Spirit; the Eastern and Western Churches divided over arguably less.

We have looked at preaching and teaching, prayers, the call to worship and benediction, hymns; there remain the sacraments. Baptism is into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Dare anyone say the Trinity is a recondite matter for advanced philosophers when every single member of the Christian church has the name of the Trinity pronounced over him or her? According to Matthew 28:18-20 it is the foundation for Christian discipleship. Similarly, in the Lord's Supper we receive and feed on Christ really and spiritually; this is by the Holy Spirit who makes the sacraments efficacious. Moreover, since the works of the Trinity are indivisible, in feeding on Christ by the gracious enabling of the Holy Spirit, we are given access to the Father in the unity of the undivided Trinity.

In short, every aspect of Christian worship is an engagement with the Trinity or, rather, a way in which the Trinity engages us. As leaders of Christ's church, we have the indescribable privilege of leading his people into the realization of something of what this entails. It is a task far beyond our capacities; we are utterly ill-equipped to deal in such transcendent matters. The Bible records that, when given a revelation of the veiled glory of God, human beings are brought to their knees, overcome, broken (e.g., Isa. 6:1-5, Ezek. 1:1-3:15, Acts 9:1-9, Rev. 1:9-18). Yet in his grace our God has admitted us to fellowship, communion, and union with him as his adopted children, so that we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another by the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18). The Father and the Son have made their permanent residence with us in the person of the Holy Spirit (John 14:15-23). As ministers of the Word, we have been co-opted as instruments by which the flock of Christ are changed into his image by the Spirit so that Christ will be the first-born among many brothers. Doesn't that thrill you? Doesn't it make you want to know him better? Doesn't it impel you to develop a mind shaped by the knowledge of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and to lead your congregation on to that goal too?

Robert Letham, a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, teaches Systematic and Historical Theology at Wales Evangelical School of Theology. Ordained Servant, August-September 2008.
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Saturday, September 09, 2006

Could Jesus Have Sinned?

Could Jesus have sinned? Nineteenth century, Princeton Theologian Charles Hodge argued that He could since for Hodge temptation always presupposes the possibility of sin. Naturally, therefore, Hodge reasoned that since Jesus was tempted, He must have been able to sin. In one sense, Hodge can be refuted quite readily since an action cannot be contrary to the decree of God; which would imply that since Jesus did not sin then he could not have sinned.

An argument that supports such a conclusion can be found at:

http://reformedapologist.blogspot.com/2006/03/arminianism-in-light-of-future-tense.html

To get to the heart of what Hodge and others have asked, we might rephrase the question to “Could God have decreed that Jesus sin?” Even that, however, is an unsatisfactory question since God’s decree, being eternal, was necessary. I hope to Blog on the necessity of the divine decree in the weeks to come.

The question Hodge and others have tried to ask is indeed a hypothetical one that grants the Arminian notion of the non-necessity of choices that defy both the decree of God and the metaphysical axiom that responsible choices being caused are, therefore, necessary and not purely contingent. Such concessions as these do not, in my estimation, take away from the legitimacy of the question at hand. Whether the incarnate Christ could have sinned speaks to the question of His person, which deals with a most reasonable Christian inquiry.

The question we must concern ourselves with is whether an action (in this case the action of sin) defies an essential property of the person committing that action. For instance, if I were to have chosen to dine at a Chinese food restaurant last evening instead of a Mexican food restaurant, my choice would not have been contrary to my personhood, which is human, let alone destroyed it. However, had the incarnate Son of God sinned, he would no longer have been a divine person, which is a contradiction since divinity is an immutable property. The reason Christ could not have sinned is simply because were He to have sinned, He would have stopped being God incarnate. We might argue that if one state of affairs necessitates a contradictory state of affairs, then it is impossible that the first state of affairs obtain. If P, then Q; ~Q, therefore, ~P is a valid form of argumentation. Conseqently, it would seem to follow that if Jesus could have sinned, then Jesus could have stopped being God; but it’s not true that Jesus could have stopped being God; therefore, it is not true that Jesus could have sinned.

Ron

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Sunday, April 23, 2006

Another Kind of Mutual Indwelling

When we are baptized into Christ, we are baptized into his life, death, resurrection and ascension to the Father’s right hand. In Christ, we are robed in God’s righteousness (Philippians 3:9) and accepted in the beloved (Ephesians 1:6). There is, however, a mutual indwelling between the Son of God and those who are adopted in him; for we are not only in Christ but He resides in us. By our being in Him, we are seen as righteous in the Father’s sight, for he sees the righteousness of his only begotten Son, who is our righteousness. With Christ in us, we are enabled to walk in good works, for which we have been ordained (Ephesians 2:10). The mutual indwelling occurs at the same moment. For there is nobody in Christ who is not indwelt by His Spirit, and there is nobody indwelt by Christ’s Spirit who is not, also, in Christ. Being in union with Christ entails a mutual indwelling, which is the grounds for our forgiveness and Christian life.

Ron

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