Knowledge of God is insufficient. Good action without knowledge of what the proper end of the good actually entails is insufficient. Beauty that does not reveal truth and equip us for the good is pointless.
Faith has to fit in the middle of these three somehow. Faith seeking understanding, being worked out in life, inspiring us to face the coming day because of the beauty available within it.
It seems difficult to understand with all the books you have to read in a doctoral program. There is no time to pause, no time to act, no time to reflect. And it's even worse when you work a job where people just call you up and yell at you all day.
But theology must somehow enter into such a life, or it is pointless. It either transforms life, this life, or it is empty knowledge, futile action, useless beauty.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Friday, February 3, 2012
Christian View of the Afterlife
An article I wrote for my church this week:
Many of the people who attended Ethos group this past Sunday were confused about something that Jason said in his sermon. While preaching on Matthew 24, Jason explained that when we die our bodies remain, but our souls go to be with the Lord. Then, at the second coming, Christ brings our souls with him and reunites them with our bodies in the resurrection. When many of us became Christians we did so after hearing the promise of spending eternity with God in heaven thanks to Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Unfortunately, this promise isn’t quite the promise that the Bible makes, and based on the discussion I experienced in Ethos group this Sunday, it seems likely that many of us need to expand our knowledge of the Biblical view of the afterlife. (I needed some help in this area myself, and have been talking with Jason to make sure I have everything straight). So, just what is the Bible’s view on this matter?
Before I go too far, I want to be clear: If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will spend eternity with God. The question I want to ask is not whether Christians are with God for eternity, because we all seem to agree on the answer to that question: yes. Instead, I want to ask: where and in what form will you be spending eternity with God?
Resurrection: Eternity with God in Bodily Form
Let’s answer the second question first. In what form will you be spending eternity with God? The Biblical answer to this question is the resurrection. Even in the Old Testament, we see clear teachings about the resurrection of the dead. One clear passage that explains this is Isaiah 29:19-21:
“But your dead will live;
their bodies will rise.
You who dwell in the dust,
wake up and shout for joy.
Your dew is like the dew of the morning;
the earth will give birth to her dead…
See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her;
she will conceal her slain no longer.”
This passage clearly teaches that one day God will come to judge the people of the earth for their sins, and on that day those who have died and are buried in the ground will rise and awake to new life. This is a theme carried on throughout the Old Testament (i.e. in Daniel 12:13, Job 19:21-27), but it is expanded and clarified in the New Testament.
When Jesus disputed with the Pharisees, he made his views of the resurrection very clear:
“I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out – those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.” (John 5:25-29).
Jesus was quite clear: He is the one who will one day judge the earth and punish evil doers for their sins. At the resurrection, when the dead come to life again, those who are righteous through faith in Christ will be separated from those who apart from Christ are trapped in their sins, and the sinners will be judged and condemned. This is consistently the New Testament view (see 1 Corinthians 15:12-57, Revelation 20-21, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, etc.). So when we ask the question, “in what form will you be spending eternity with God?” the Bible clearly answers: in bodily form at the resurrection. When Jesus Christ returns we will all rise from the grave and return to bodily form, and our bodies will be perfected and freed from death, decay, and sin.
Heaven While We Wait for the New Creation
If you’ve followed along with me so far, you’ve probably come up with the obvious question: what happens to me between my death and Jesus’ second coming? We can find an answer to this question in Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross. Two thieves were crucified on either side of Jesus, and one cried out “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answers, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:42-43). We know it will be at least 2000 years from the time of Jesus’ crucifixion in the first century until his second coming and the resurrection (assuming Jesus comes soon). Jesus doesn’t say “you will be with me in a few thousand years.” He says “you will be with me today.” When we die, we go into God’s presence in paradise, in heaven. Then, when Jesus returns we are restored to our bodies.
What happens at the resurrection? The resurrection is the first step of a larger move that God will make to restore creation. When Jesus returns there will be a resurrection of Christians and a millennial reign of Christ on earth (Revelation 20) and then will come “a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). This is the image of the end that John receives in Revelation 21. A new Jerusalem descends from heaven to earth, and a loud voice from heaven calls out, “Now the dwelling place of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4).
So when we ask where we spend eternity with God, the answer is only heaven for a short while. We are in heaven while we await the second coming of Christ, at which point we return to our bodies through the resurrection. Eternal life is in two stages: as a spirit in heaven with God for a time, and then in the body on the earth with God forever.
Theology of the Afterlife and Life Today
Why does all of this matter? Can’t we just acknowledge we will spend eternity with God and go about this life without worrying about the details of the next life? Actually, once we understand the Biblical view of the afterlife, there are quite a few important implications we can draw out. I’ll share just five:
(1) The Victory of God
If we lived eternal life as a spirit in heaven, it would be as if God had retreated and left the created world to fade away in sin. But the Biblical view of the resurrection and the new creation teach us that God did not retreat and give victory to Satan. Instead, He will return and renew creation, casting Satan down and asserting his victory over the rebellion of the created order by dwelling there with us for eternity. The resurrection of the dead also shows God’s victory over death, because the grave cannot hold us. Our bodies will one day live again.
(2) The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
The resurrection of Jesus Christ only fully makes sense in light of the Biblical view of the afterlife. Jesus was raised from the dead as “the firstborn among the dead” (Colossians 1:18), the “firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). When we look back to Jesus’ resurrection, we see our own future state as resurrected beings and it gives us hope. No other religion offers such empirical proof of its views of the afterlife, but since Christ has been raised we have no reason to doubt our fate.
(3) The Goodness of Creation
Many heresies throughout the centuries have claimed that matter is evil but spirit is good. Genesis 1:31 says, “God saw all that he has made, and it was very good”, but after the fall, can we still call creation good? The Christian view of the afterlife reminds us that creation is redeemable and still inherently good. We must renounce the world in its corruption and bondage to Satan, but we must also endorse the world as God’s creation which He will one day restore to a state of perfection.
(4) The Continuity of Personal Identity
Some religions envision the afterlife as a merging or melding of all things in one consciousness. Others envision eternal life as an impersonal state of ecstasy. However, the Christian view of the afterlife reminds us that our personal identities matter. We will dwell forever with God as distinct persons, conscious of ourselves and others, and interacting with one another bodily.
(5) The Beauty of the Body
Many today struggle with their body image, feeling uncomfortable in their body and even finding their bodies ugly. The Biblical view of the afterlife reminds us that our bodies are gifts from God, gifts that will be with us for all eternity. When we are eternally with God in the perfected new creation, we will be in our bodies. The body is not an ugly cage trapping our soul. It is a beautiful part of our identity which will stand glorified in God’s glorious presence one day in the future. This can be a source of hope for those today who are deceived into despising their bodies or ignoring their own beauty.
Such a discussion could go on for many pages, but hopefully this will suffice to reintroduce us to an important Biblical topic: the afterlife. Let us all faithfully await the day when our knowledge will become personal experience.
Many of the people who attended Ethos group this past Sunday were confused about something that Jason said in his sermon. While preaching on Matthew 24, Jason explained that when we die our bodies remain, but our souls go to be with the Lord. Then, at the second coming, Christ brings our souls with him and reunites them with our bodies in the resurrection. When many of us became Christians we did so after hearing the promise of spending eternity with God in heaven thanks to Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Unfortunately, this promise isn’t quite the promise that the Bible makes, and based on the discussion I experienced in Ethos group this Sunday, it seems likely that many of us need to expand our knowledge of the Biblical view of the afterlife. (I needed some help in this area myself, and have been talking with Jason to make sure I have everything straight). So, just what is the Bible’s view on this matter?
Before I go too far, I want to be clear: If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will spend eternity with God. The question I want to ask is not whether Christians are with God for eternity, because we all seem to agree on the answer to that question: yes. Instead, I want to ask: where and in what form will you be spending eternity with God?
Resurrection: Eternity with God in Bodily Form
Let’s answer the second question first. In what form will you be spending eternity with God? The Biblical answer to this question is the resurrection. Even in the Old Testament, we see clear teachings about the resurrection of the dead. One clear passage that explains this is Isaiah 29:19-21:
“But your dead will live;
their bodies will rise.
You who dwell in the dust,
wake up and shout for joy.
Your dew is like the dew of the morning;
the earth will give birth to her dead…
See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her;
she will conceal her slain no longer.”
This passage clearly teaches that one day God will come to judge the people of the earth for their sins, and on that day those who have died and are buried in the ground will rise and awake to new life. This is a theme carried on throughout the Old Testament (i.e. in Daniel 12:13, Job 19:21-27), but it is expanded and clarified in the New Testament.
When Jesus disputed with the Pharisees, he made his views of the resurrection very clear:
“I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out – those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.” (John 5:25-29).
Jesus was quite clear: He is the one who will one day judge the earth and punish evil doers for their sins. At the resurrection, when the dead come to life again, those who are righteous through faith in Christ will be separated from those who apart from Christ are trapped in their sins, and the sinners will be judged and condemned. This is consistently the New Testament view (see 1 Corinthians 15:12-57, Revelation 20-21, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, etc.). So when we ask the question, “in what form will you be spending eternity with God?” the Bible clearly answers: in bodily form at the resurrection. When Jesus Christ returns we will all rise from the grave and return to bodily form, and our bodies will be perfected and freed from death, decay, and sin.
Heaven While We Wait for the New Creation
If you’ve followed along with me so far, you’ve probably come up with the obvious question: what happens to me between my death and Jesus’ second coming? We can find an answer to this question in Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross. Two thieves were crucified on either side of Jesus, and one cried out “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answers, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:42-43). We know it will be at least 2000 years from the time of Jesus’ crucifixion in the first century until his second coming and the resurrection (assuming Jesus comes soon). Jesus doesn’t say “you will be with me in a few thousand years.” He says “you will be with me today.” When we die, we go into God’s presence in paradise, in heaven. Then, when Jesus returns we are restored to our bodies.
What happens at the resurrection? The resurrection is the first step of a larger move that God will make to restore creation. When Jesus returns there will be a resurrection of Christians and a millennial reign of Christ on earth (Revelation 20) and then will come “a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). This is the image of the end that John receives in Revelation 21. A new Jerusalem descends from heaven to earth, and a loud voice from heaven calls out, “Now the dwelling place of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4).
So when we ask where we spend eternity with God, the answer is only heaven for a short while. We are in heaven while we await the second coming of Christ, at which point we return to our bodies through the resurrection. Eternal life is in two stages: as a spirit in heaven with God for a time, and then in the body on the earth with God forever.
Theology of the Afterlife and Life Today
Why does all of this matter? Can’t we just acknowledge we will spend eternity with God and go about this life without worrying about the details of the next life? Actually, once we understand the Biblical view of the afterlife, there are quite a few important implications we can draw out. I’ll share just five:
(1) The Victory of God
If we lived eternal life as a spirit in heaven, it would be as if God had retreated and left the created world to fade away in sin. But the Biblical view of the resurrection and the new creation teach us that God did not retreat and give victory to Satan. Instead, He will return and renew creation, casting Satan down and asserting his victory over the rebellion of the created order by dwelling there with us for eternity. The resurrection of the dead also shows God’s victory over death, because the grave cannot hold us. Our bodies will one day live again.
(2) The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
The resurrection of Jesus Christ only fully makes sense in light of the Biblical view of the afterlife. Jesus was raised from the dead as “the firstborn among the dead” (Colossians 1:18), the “firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). When we look back to Jesus’ resurrection, we see our own future state as resurrected beings and it gives us hope. No other religion offers such empirical proof of its views of the afterlife, but since Christ has been raised we have no reason to doubt our fate.
(3) The Goodness of Creation
Many heresies throughout the centuries have claimed that matter is evil but spirit is good. Genesis 1:31 says, “God saw all that he has made, and it was very good”, but after the fall, can we still call creation good? The Christian view of the afterlife reminds us that creation is redeemable and still inherently good. We must renounce the world in its corruption and bondage to Satan, but we must also endorse the world as God’s creation which He will one day restore to a state of perfection.
(4) The Continuity of Personal Identity
Some religions envision the afterlife as a merging or melding of all things in one consciousness. Others envision eternal life as an impersonal state of ecstasy. However, the Christian view of the afterlife reminds us that our personal identities matter. We will dwell forever with God as distinct persons, conscious of ourselves and others, and interacting with one another bodily.
(5) The Beauty of the Body
Many today struggle with their body image, feeling uncomfortable in their body and even finding their bodies ugly. The Biblical view of the afterlife reminds us that our bodies are gifts from God, gifts that will be with us for all eternity. When we are eternally with God in the perfected new creation, we will be in our bodies. The body is not an ugly cage trapping our soul. It is a beautiful part of our identity which will stand glorified in God’s glorious presence one day in the future. This can be a source of hope for those today who are deceived into despising their bodies or ignoring their own beauty.
Such a discussion could go on for many pages, but hopefully this will suffice to reintroduce us to an important Biblical topic: the afterlife. Let us all faithfully await the day when our knowledge will become personal experience.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
N.T. Wright on Steven Colbert
I watched this video this morning. I think it's interesting to see a famous theologian on the Colbert Report presenting fairly clearly the Christian views of the afterlife on a major network. It's also pretty funny at times.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
A Day Late and a Buck Short
Well, really several days late... but I read this prayer to my wife on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and thought others might be interested:
A Pastoral Prayer (1956)
O God, our Heavenly Father, we thank thee for this golden privilege to worship thee, the only true God of the universe. We come to thee today, grateful that thou hast kept us through the long night of the past and ushered us into the challenge of the present and the bright hope of the future. We are mindful, O God, that man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of things and humanity is not God. Bound by our chains of sins and finiteness, we know we need a Savior. We thank thee, O God, for the spiritual nature of man. We are in nature, but we live above nature. Help us never to let anybody or any condition pull us so low as to cause us to hate. Give us strength to love our enemies and to do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us. We thank thee for thy Church, founded upon thy Word, that challenges us to do more than sing and pray, but go out and work as though the very answer to our prayers depended upon us and not upon thee. Then, finally, help us to realize that man was created to shine like stars and live on through all eternity. Keep us, we pray, in perfect peace, help us to walk together, pray together, sing together, and live together until that day when all God's children, Black, White, Red, and Yellow will rejoice in one common band of humanity in the kingdom of our Lord and of our God, we pray. Amen."
King, Jr., Martin Luther. "A Pastoral Prayer." In Conversations with God. Edited by James Melvin Washington. (New York: Harper, 1994), p. 190.
A Pastoral Prayer (1956)
O God, our Heavenly Father, we thank thee for this golden privilege to worship thee, the only true God of the universe. We come to thee today, grateful that thou hast kept us through the long night of the past and ushered us into the challenge of the present and the bright hope of the future. We are mindful, O God, that man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of things and humanity is not God. Bound by our chains of sins and finiteness, we know we need a Savior. We thank thee, O God, for the spiritual nature of man. We are in nature, but we live above nature. Help us never to let anybody or any condition pull us so low as to cause us to hate. Give us strength to love our enemies and to do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us. We thank thee for thy Church, founded upon thy Word, that challenges us to do more than sing and pray, but go out and work as though the very answer to our prayers depended upon us and not upon thee. Then, finally, help us to realize that man was created to shine like stars and live on through all eternity. Keep us, we pray, in perfect peace, help us to walk together, pray together, sing together, and live together until that day when all God's children, Black, White, Red, and Yellow will rejoice in one common band of humanity in the kingdom of our Lord and of our God, we pray. Amen."
King, Jr., Martin Luther. "A Pastoral Prayer." In Conversations with God. Edited by James Melvin Washington. (New York: Harper, 1994), p. 190.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Looking for a Good Debate
Recently I have been trying to find a good balanced debate between an evangelical perspective and a liberal or post-liberal perspective on theology. The search is important to me partly as a result of my past: I attended a (for the most part) post-liberal & neo-orthodox seminary, where evangelical perspectives were dismissed as "ignorant fundamentalism." While I attended this school, the school itself was dismissed by conservatives that I knew as being devoid of Christians, and I was warned to be careful or I might wind up in hell. This period in which I experienced joint condemnation was a time of extreme trial for my spiritual health, but by God's grace I prevailed and I am at peace with my evangelical beliefs, even as I consider myself at an advantage with respect to my understanding of a wide array of theology which many evangelicals have never encountered. But as part of my healing process, I would love to see a fruitful dialogue between the two groups, an honest attempt to understand one another's perspectives. But here is what I have seen so far:
The Alitzer Montgomery Debate
The first book I read that was a dialogue between evangelicals and a different perspective was the transcript of a debate between Thomas J.J. Alitzer and John Warwick Montgomery on the "God is Dead" theology. Alitzer was famous for his theology which suggested that the metaphor "God is dead" was the appropriate way to describe the current appropriate existential posture of Christians toward the divine. (That's a terribly inadequate summary of the perspective, but the details of the position are irrelevant). What bothered me about the debate is that Montgomery arrived having read virtually every one of Alitzer's books, and with thorough citations from various authors in response. Alitzer arrived without any real preparation. At one point, amid Montgomery's rebuttle, he said "I've never met anyone who held this view before." It was evident that not only had Alitzer not prepared by reading any of Montgomery's work, he had not even read much evangelical thought at all. It was a frustrating debate (if it can even be called that).
Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? (I know, lame title)
The second book that I've read was primarily a debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan on the historicity of the resurrection. I got this book from a friend, and was a bit embarrassed by it at first, to be honest. I've read lots of Crossan's work, and he is a stud of a scholar, but I've always had the idea that Craig was a bit of a pop culture apologist. I figured Craig would get destroyed, so the book just sat on my shelf for almost two years until I ran out of things to read. But the debate surprised me (really more shocked me) because Craig went into the debate with four key pieces of evidence and four key objections to Crossan's work, which Crossan never once addressed or rebutted. The debate was live, but several contributors from the Jesus Seminar and from evangelical seminaries contributed papers in response, and neither of the Jesus seminar respondents addressed a single one of Craig's main four points or four main objections. Now, I know that Crossan has written huge volumes of historical analysis, so why not address Craig's argument at all? He just talked past him, as did Marcus Borg and Robert J. Miller. It's like the "erudite" and "elite" scholars of the seminar dismissed the conservative points simply because they considered the scholars ignorant from the start, but the conservatives took the Jesus Seminar's arguments seriously (though they did fail to address some key points) but perpetuated the critical condemnation through such pejoratives as "peter pan theology" and jokes about Crossan disappearing in a puff of smoke when God demonstrated that Crossan was wrong in his views. In other words, each side's presentation was skewed from the start by the same assumptions I encountered at Duke, but the irony is that the "liberals" came off looking ignorant, and the "conservatives" came off looking less Christian.
Does anyone know of a good book that allows these groups to dialogue in a serious fashion?
The Alitzer Montgomery Debate
The first book I read that was a dialogue between evangelicals and a different perspective was the transcript of a debate between Thomas J.J. Alitzer and John Warwick Montgomery on the "God is Dead" theology. Alitzer was famous for his theology which suggested that the metaphor "God is dead" was the appropriate way to describe the current appropriate existential posture of Christians toward the divine. (That's a terribly inadequate summary of the perspective, but the details of the position are irrelevant). What bothered me about the debate is that Montgomery arrived having read virtually every one of Alitzer's books, and with thorough citations from various authors in response. Alitzer arrived without any real preparation. At one point, amid Montgomery's rebuttle, he said "I've never met anyone who held this view before." It was evident that not only had Alitzer not prepared by reading any of Montgomery's work, he had not even read much evangelical thought at all. It was a frustrating debate (if it can even be called that).
Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? (I know, lame title)
The second book that I've read was primarily a debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan on the historicity of the resurrection. I got this book from a friend, and was a bit embarrassed by it at first, to be honest. I've read lots of Crossan's work, and he is a stud of a scholar, but I've always had the idea that Craig was a bit of a pop culture apologist. I figured Craig would get destroyed, so the book just sat on my shelf for almost two years until I ran out of things to read. But the debate surprised me (really more shocked me) because Craig went into the debate with four key pieces of evidence and four key objections to Crossan's work, which Crossan never once addressed or rebutted. The debate was live, but several contributors from the Jesus Seminar and from evangelical seminaries contributed papers in response, and neither of the Jesus seminar respondents addressed a single one of Craig's main four points or four main objections. Now, I know that Crossan has written huge volumes of historical analysis, so why not address Craig's argument at all? He just talked past him, as did Marcus Borg and Robert J. Miller. It's like the "erudite" and "elite" scholars of the seminar dismissed the conservative points simply because they considered the scholars ignorant from the start, but the conservatives took the Jesus Seminar's arguments seriously (though they did fail to address some key points) but perpetuated the critical condemnation through such pejoratives as "peter pan theology" and jokes about Crossan disappearing in a puff of smoke when God demonstrated that Crossan was wrong in his views. In other words, each side's presentation was skewed from the start by the same assumptions I encountered at Duke, but the irony is that the "liberals" came off looking ignorant, and the "conservatives" came off looking less Christian.
Does anyone know of a good book that allows these groups to dialogue in a serious fashion?
Monday, November 21, 2011
Experiencing Christianity in a Trinitarian Fashion
One of Christianity's main beliefs is that God is a Trinity. Christians claim that God exists as three Persons in one Being. Many Christians do not understand this claim and simply suggest that it is a mystery. To be sure, we can never fully understand the being of God. However, I think there are substantial resources in Christian theology to help clarify and explain the Trinity.
I believe that the first step that the average Christian should take in trying to understand the Trinity is to learn to experience the Trinity in daily life. Often, Christians experience God, but this experience is undifferentiated and often Christians do not know which person of the Trinity they are experiencing, or how to experience all three Persons simultaneously. If we can learn to distinguish between the three Persons in our daily experience of God, then we can begin to develop an understanding of the Trinity.
In a recent Bible study, I attempted to explain how we experience God as Trinity in the midst of suffering. All Christians know that suffering can be redemptive, but to understand the full degree of suffering's redemptiveness, we need to understand how God is present with us. First, we know that God is present through His sovereign coordination of the events of our lives. Often in suffering God provides circumstances that offer comfort. In temptation, God provides us a way to escape sin. This is the experience of God the Father as Sovereign in the middle of suffering. Simultaneously, we experience God as a comforting presence within us. Often, in times of suffering, we experience our most profound awareness of God, our most intense times of prayer, and our most powerful moments of worship. This is our experience of the Holy Spirit as Comforter. Finally, when we contemplate Christ as our co-sufferer, we recognize that we have a God that has shared our experiences.
Let's explain this another way. In suffering, we find meaning in the events around us. This is the experience of the Father. We find a solidarity with God amid our suffering. In the same way that veterans of different wars immediately feel solidarity, when they meet each other as a result of their similar experiences, we have a solidarity with God through Christ. In suffering, when we feel God's presence and his inexplicable peace, we experience the Holy Spirit.
At the risk of being redundant, I'll phrase things a third way. In suffering, when we experience God above or around us, it is God the Father. When we experience God beside us, it is Jesus Christ. When we experience God as within us, strengthening us, it is God the Spirit.
This is but one example of how we can experience God as Trinity, and through clearly articulating our experience of God in this way, we grow in our understanding of the Trinity.
I believe that the first step that the average Christian should take in trying to understand the Trinity is to learn to experience the Trinity in daily life. Often, Christians experience God, but this experience is undifferentiated and often Christians do not know which person of the Trinity they are experiencing, or how to experience all three Persons simultaneously. If we can learn to distinguish between the three Persons in our daily experience of God, then we can begin to develop an understanding of the Trinity.
In a recent Bible study, I attempted to explain how we experience God as Trinity in the midst of suffering. All Christians know that suffering can be redemptive, but to understand the full degree of suffering's redemptiveness, we need to understand how God is present with us. First, we know that God is present through His sovereign coordination of the events of our lives. Often in suffering God provides circumstances that offer comfort. In temptation, God provides us a way to escape sin. This is the experience of God the Father as Sovereign in the middle of suffering. Simultaneously, we experience God as a comforting presence within us. Often, in times of suffering, we experience our most profound awareness of God, our most intense times of prayer, and our most powerful moments of worship. This is our experience of the Holy Spirit as Comforter. Finally, when we contemplate Christ as our co-sufferer, we recognize that we have a God that has shared our experiences.
Let's explain this another way. In suffering, we find meaning in the events around us. This is the experience of the Father. We find a solidarity with God amid our suffering. In the same way that veterans of different wars immediately feel solidarity, when they meet each other as a result of their similar experiences, we have a solidarity with God through Christ. In suffering, when we feel God's presence and his inexplicable peace, we experience the Holy Spirit.
At the risk of being redundant, I'll phrase things a third way. In suffering, when we experience God above or around us, it is God the Father. When we experience God beside us, it is Jesus Christ. When we experience God as within us, strengthening us, it is God the Spirit.
This is but one example of how we can experience God as Trinity, and through clearly articulating our experience of God in this way, we grow in our understanding of the Trinity.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
"In his Father's Likeness"
I'm in the Library reading a book (A History of Women in the West, Vol. 1, p. 366). In it, the author speaks of how a father would be taken to see a child after childbirth. If the father accepted the child, it was taken into the family. If the father did not, it was left exposed to die. A son was accepted and brought into the family only if the father accepted the child as "in his father's likeness" (i.e. proving it was his son).
This has tremendous implications for our own adoption into the family of God. When we are re-created in the likeness of the father through our new birth in Christ, it means that we are accepted into the family of God.
This has tremendous implications for our own adoption into the family of God. When we are re-created in the likeness of the father through our new birth in Christ, it means that we are accepted into the family of God.
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