Having Two Legs

Eucharistic Meditation

You are God’s possession. He has purchased every one of you with the blood of Jesus, and He has placed the renewed image of Christ on your heads and named you with His name in baptism. But it is sometimes tempting to come to this table as the prodigal son returned to his father, believing that a place among the slaves would be most deserved. And yes God does own you, but that thought never crossed the mind of the Father of the prodigal son; the Father was looking for His son. He was looking and waiting for His son. And this is all to say that you are His sons and daughters. And He rejoices over you and he kills the fatted calf. This is that feast. This is the feast of forgiveness. So do not come in disbelief; your sins are forgiven. Rejoice and give thanks. You are the family of God; so come. You are the sons and daughters of the King; so come and eat.

Exhortation

What are you praying for? What are you expecting any minute now, any day now? The Bible teaches very plainly that God uses the prayers of men, women and children to accomplish His ends. God used the prayers of Abraham to heal Abimelech and save Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He used the prayers of Isaac to open the womb of Rebekkah. He used the prayers of Moses to save Israel from the wrath of Yahweh. He used the prayers of Hannah to bless Israel with Samuel. God used the prayers of David to defeat the enemies of Israel. God heard the prayers of Jesus and the Apostles and healed and restored many people in Israel. And the Bible no where gives any indication that prayer has ceased to work the same way as it always has. Prayer is standing in the great assembly and court room of God as a member of the royal priesthood and prophets and prophetesses pleading our case before the Master of the Universe. So what are you praying for? Proverbs says that Yahweh hears the prayer of the righteous and James agrees, saying that the prayer of the righteous man avails much. And that the saints have not because they have not asked. How should things be different in your life? What needs work and fixing? Start praying for it now. And imitate the prayers of Scripture, particularly paying attention to the prayers of the Psalmist. Pray fervently, with every ounce of strength you have. Jesus sweat blood He prayed so hard. Call out to God, cry to Him, argue with Him, plead with Him, present Your entire case to Him. Of course He is God and He knows all things: But He is your Heavenly Father and He delights to give good gifts to His Children. Our reluctance and half-hearted praying is a Trinitarian heresy; it’s hyper-Calvinism fit for deepest pit of Hell. You serve the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who has stooped down to be with His people. And when we do not pray, when we do not seek His face, and wait expectantly for Him to hear and answer, we scorn the Incarnation, we scorn the Father, and we do not believe that the Spirit who is in us, is waiting expectantly to perfect our prayers to the King.

The Church as Body and Building

We know that the Church is a divine institution. In fact it almost seems sacrilegious to even call the Church an “institution”. The Church is just the Church, and the New Testament analogies fall largely within the categories of architecture and anatomy. The Church is the Body of Christ with Christ as the head, and the Church is a new Temple building with Christ as the chief cornerstone. One analogy seems to emphasize the organic nature and diversity inherent in the Church while the other stresses the permanence, stability, and unity of the structure. The temptation has always been to lean toward either one or the other conception at various points in history. In many ways these analogies reflect the simple reality of both one and many within God’s people. But consider how these conceptions might be reflected on issues of discipline. A more organic/anatomical leaning church or theologian would probably tend to be more flexible and forgiving to lapsed Christians who denied the faith and/or sacrificed to the emperor during persecutions in the early centuries of the Church. Other tendencies might be that ceremonies (while important) might vary to some extent, and polity/government/authority may be conceived of in broad terms, a succession of offices of leadership flowing down from Christ and the apostles. A modern ‘anatomist’ would be fairly catholic, liberal minded, perhaps emphasizing things like open communion, the inherent goodness of diversity, perhaps celebrating doctrinal development, and stressing lifestyle piety and morality. On the other hand, the ‘structuralist’ –the church or theologian with a more architectural view of the Church—might see apostasy with an eye more toward the damage caused to the church, generally considering repentance with more skepticism. These might also emphasize the details of ceremony, the mechanisms of spiritual transformations (e.g. the sacraments, and other sacramental rites), and doctrinal purity. A modern ‘structuralist’ might tend to emphasize things like apostolic succession, the longevity and significance of doctrine and dogma, and the inherent authority of the Church. Notice that with these two tendencies there is also an inherent picture of healing: the ‘structuralist’ sees deviation as an automatic problem and one doesn’t tend to reuse old materials. The ‘anatomist’ assumes difference in the body and a more natural self-healing mechanism in cases of harmful deviation with the necessity of amputation or surgery only in extreme circumstances. Where the problems are real or lethal, one hopes for the pessimism of the ‘structuralist’ approach, but where problems are perceived or transitory one hopes for the patience and optimism of the ‘anatomist’.

Of course having both of these principles explicit in Scripture indicates that the two are equally necessary conceptions of the Church. And we can see that no one church has only tended in one direction. Most traditions of the church have leaned in different directions on different issues. While we might point out that the East has leaned toward the anatomical picture of the church and the West has leaned toward the structural picture of the church, exceptions abound. One view may be that Protestantism has been an attempt to steer a middle course, certainly not without failings. But the earliest reformers and protestants were Christians who felt the weight of necessity to be connected to the Church of Jesus Christ and His Apostles and yet the simultaneous obligation to preserve faithful practice and doctrine. These tendencies are witnessed in the tendency for some traditions to highlight the work of the Holy Spirit while others underline the centrality of the work of the Jesus Christ, the Son. Other segments of the Church have accentuated freedom while others have stressed the proper forms. And the list could go on an on. But the fact that this discussion has been around since the time of the apostles is encouraging. It means that this is a constant part of the conversation. The on-going call of the Church to be the Church means living, worshiping, thinking and arguing with an awareness of these two realities that the Church is called to reflect.

I bought gas

… for $1.99/gallon yesterday. And then I saw another station with gas for $1.97/gallon.

Obviously, these a signs of the immanent end of the world.

Fibonacci Poetry and Covenantal Streakers

The following are a few thoughts generated by my Old Testament class last week. Naturally, beginning with Genesis, there had to be some discussion of Genesis 1-2 and what the Biblical answer is to Evolution and more generally, modern science.

Dr. Schwab, the Old Testament professor at Erskine, graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He earned his Master of Divinity and his PhD there, doing his dissertation on the Song of Solomon. His presentation was quite good, drawing somewhat (or heavily as the case may be) from Meredith Kline’s Images of the Spirit, Schwab outlined the biblical world as created to be the throne and glory of God. He demonstrated that throughout Scripture, light and fire and clouds are the glory that surround Yahweh, and that the thrones or habitations of this glory (e.g. the tabernacle and temple) were designed to mimic and display that glory. And in a glorious climax, Schwab point out that Genesis 1 is also designed to picture the cosmos as God’s dwelling place, His house and throne.

Unfortunately, for all of Dr. Kline’s insight and scholarship in this, Dr. Kline is also the originator of what is called the “Framework Hypothesis”. On this reading of Genesis 1, the creation narrative is a highly developed poetic device which only intends to picture the world in three tiers, and these tiers are “framed” by the days 1-3 running parallel thematically with days 4-6. The first three “days” are merely the spheres: heaven, earth, seas, and the last three days are the filling of those spheres with their proper rulers: Sun, Moon and Stars, birds and fish, and finally animals and man. In other words, Genesis 1 is not intended to describe the actual sequence or time involved in the work of creation but rather merely an extravagant spatial demonstration.

Now just so I’m being fair, it is quite true that I was a bit taken with this hypothesis a number of years ago. For about a year between my senior year of high school and the first half of my freshman year in college, I found this theory appealing and fascinating. But I repented!

But the real unfortunate thing is that all of Kline’s (and Schwab’s) insights on the tiers, the spheres, and symbolism can stand perfectly good and worthwhile without the conclusion that the “days” aren’t days. Why pit history and poetry against each other? Why undermine the very argument for the reflection of God’s glory by assigning meaning to words foreign to the text and context? Sure, we might point out that Gen. 2:4 uses “day” in a more general sense, but all through Gen. 1 we’re told how long these days are: they consist of one morning and one evening. It’s the context that determines that day means a week in 2:4, and it’s context that determines that a day means 24 hours in 1:2ff.

One of the interesting things about this is the fact that Dr. Schwab pointed out that he came to the text of Genesis 1 with the mind of an engineer. He was an engineer for a number of years before turning to theology, and he explained that he comes to this text with engineer’s questions. And that’s not all bad, but the story is telling. A poet would come to the text of Genesis 1, see the lovely parallelism and symbolism and never doubt for a moment the historicity of the poem, because every real poet knows that poetry is not an escape from the world, but an intensification of reality. Poetry is reveling in the real world with all of its oddness and peculiar ways. But the engineering mind comes to the text notices the poetry and immediately doubts the historicity of the text. And this is a very radical misunderstanding of the nature of symbolism and poetry. The implicit claim is that metaphor is empty. When the Lover says, “My love is like a red, red rose” it will not do for him to explain to his love that when he is speaking poetically he does not mean to be making any claims about whether roses are really red or whether or not there really exits a plant called “rose”. It will not do to say that all the poem is meant to express is the poet’s feelings/intentions of love. Of course that may be the main thrust, but if there is no such thing as red or roses then his metaphor is about as helpful as a glass hammer.

Or take the lines “And miles to go before I sleep/ And miles to go before I sleep” from the poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. Surely Frost means to say more than simply the distance he plans to travel before going to bed. But he certainly doesn’t mean less than that. Otherwise his poem is meaningless (or at least the last two lines are).

I have a theory of my own that there is a strain of Gnosticism running through some of the circles of the Reformed world that have embraced the Framework Hypothesis. Just to be clear, I’m not accusing anyone of being 3rd century heretics. Nor am I accusing Kline, Schwab or anyone else of heresy. I would be happy to worship with these and the many other dear saints that hold these views. However, what I am suggesting is that there are some similarities in thought between the Framework guys and some of the Gnostics. First, there is a disparagement of creation, and particularly the creation of time. While the Framework folks are not openly denying the goodness of Created matter, they are devaluing the importance of the creation of time: the day, the week, months and years which is ultimately a disparagement of the sun, moon and stars which is a disparagement of matter. Time is part of the created order. Time measures the movements of the burning, whirling bodies of heaven. And how we organize and spend our time is a direct response to the way God has designed the world. Will we live in conformity to His creative pattern or will we turn His poetry into a quadratic equation and mince words until it’s all a big charade with no actual binding force for anyone?

The other strain of Gnosticism is the prioritizing of thought or sentiment over physical reality. This is what their fibonacci poetry does, confusing words with numbers, as though words are merely meant to demonstrate values and dimensions. They do that of course, but they do more than that as well.

Finally, what I find highly interesting is that often the most ardent supporters of the Framework business are also enamored with a dispensationalism-lite, imagining “intrusions” of grace and law popping up here and there running around through the covenants like a couple of streakers at a baseball game. And to top all the fun off, they are usually quite satisfied with an amillienial eschatology because hey, it’s all gunna burn anyway. All the pieces seem to fit: a timeless creation meant only to reflect a greater reality above and beyond and a story with intrusions from the heavenly realm sputtering along like an old beater, waiting for the Last Day when we can leave it all at the junk yard and get whisked up to Elysium—er—I mean—heaven with the other 3 faithful saints.

And as I said before, I say all this with love for these brothers and sisters: just some thoughts and observations and feedback is welcomed.

Eucharistic Meditation

This is a covenantal meal. This cup is the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus, and this bread is His body for you. Every week when we gather here you are renewing covenant with your God. A covenant is an agreement with stipulations and blessings and curses which flow from obedience or disobedience. And this meal is a covenantal victory meal, this is tasting the first fruits of salvation and grace and blessing. Because of Jesus, God already accepts us as covenant keepers in the midst of our sins, in the midst of our trials and struggles. God invites us to the feast of the New Covenant as though all of the terms and requirements of the covenant have been kept. Because they have. And that only leaves one thing for you to do. Jesus says, “This is the work of God: that you believe in Him whom He sent.” So come and believe, eat and believe, drink and believe, and rejoice because God has already accepted your works.