Introducing Christian Doctrine by Millard Erickson

James,

EXCELLENT post, my friend.

Let me say I agree with you and let me address some of your comments.

First, I did not intend to say that evil befalls the saints because the saints are still sinners. I should have been clearer on this. I think this does happen, but my intent was to show that God would be justified in taking the lives of even the saints because the saints sometimes sin (and are still sinners, even though they are forgiven). For support of this idea, Paul tells the Corinthian Christians that taking the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner would lead to death.

Secondly, I did not intend to say that the destruction of Hurricane Katrina was due to any "special" sin of the French Quarter. In fact, I was quite dismayed at Pat Robertson's and Jerry Fallwell's comments as they suggested this very same thing. My point was to show that God was there and was still where He had always been--on His throne and in control. And, in the eyes of non-believers (actually, the believers too), God is just (if He did bring Katrina for "Special" sins) because He is always just in judging sin.

Certainly I agree with the idea that God brings these things about to remind non-believers (and believers) of what Luke 13 says, "Unless you believe, you will likewise perish."

Many Blessings!

The Archangel

 

Allan, would you agree we are all sinners?

1. Give ear to my words, O LORD, Consider my groaning.
2. Heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God, For to You I pray.
3. In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order {my} {prayer} to You and {eagerly} watch.
4. For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You.
5. The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity.
6. You destroy those who speak falsehood; The LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.
7. But as for me, by Your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house, At Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You.
8. O LORD, lead me in Your righteousness because of my foes; Make Your way straight before me.
9. There is nothing reliable in what they say; Their inward part is destruction {itself.} Their throat is an open grave; They flatter with their tongue.
10. Hold them guilty, O God; By their own devices let them fall! In the multitude of their transgressions thrust them out, For they are rebellious against You.
11. But let all who take refuge in You be glad, Let them ever sing for joy; And may You shelter them, That those who love Your name may exult in You.
12. For it is You who blesses the righteous man, O LORD, You surround him with favor as with a shield.

We are only declared righteous in Him. He leads us in His righteousness.

I'm giving you basically the reverse of what you asked to prove my point. It is only in Christ that we can be loved........ IMHO.

We are no better than the worst sinner. It is only by justification that we are better. Again, this is in my opinion.

Ephesians 2

Made Alive in Christ
1. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2. in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
3. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
4. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5. even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6. and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly {places} in Christ Jesus,
7. so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, {it is} the gift of God;
9. not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
11. Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called "Uncircumcision" by the so- called "Circumcision," {which is} performed in the flesh by human hands--
12. {remember} that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
13. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14. For He Himself is our peace, who made both {groups into} one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall,
15. by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, {which is} the Law of commandments {contained} in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, {thus} establishing peace,
16. and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

 

Allan, excellent post. I certainly see your point, although I don't agree with you.

I do think we agree in principle, and that is good. But I agree with Piper because there are passages that talk about God this way, namely Romans 3:

Romans 3:21-26 (ESV)
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— [22] the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25] whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26] It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Verse 25 shows us the "Problem." God had chosen to "passover" sin (which means He did not require the proper payment for them--and even the sacrificial system was inadequate here as "The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin."

The propitiation through Christ was necessary because, without it, God would have been unjust and His glory would have been impugned.

So, in this way, we are beneficiaries of God's working to preserve and display His own Glory.

Also, this "pattern," if you will if followed through scripture will always help to show that God is always the beneficiary and we are always the benefactor. Now, I do not agree with Piper simply for this practical purpose. Rather, I agree with Piper because of his exegesis and arguments (which I have not necessarily represented here in their entirety). It just so happens that the practical outworking of this idea is a good safeguard for us and our theology.

As for "Difficult to understand," I did not mean to sound demeaning in any way. It is just that I still have to think through the above arguments and the water, as it were, is extraordinarily and uncommonly deep.

Many blessings,

The Archangel

 

Allan, ReformedBeliever: Excellent converations! WOW. And I did not take the "Glaring problems" line as offensive. But, as I have promised to soften my rhetoric for the sake of skypair, reformedbeliever's suggestion is an excellent model to follow in all our postings.

Let me try to argue the other side of the coin to show why it should not be that God primarily loves us.

Here's a story to illustrate: I went to a well-known Catholic high school (see my "About Me" on my blog for a link). Even though I was a Baptist, I was required to take the Catholic religion classes. My senior year, my religion teacher told us that "Religion was that which we held to be of ultimate value (paraphrase)" To this I countered: If this definition is true, then in dying for us, doesn't God "Worship Us?"

If his definition is true, and I think many people have that idea of what "religion" is, then for God to have us as the primary object of His love is to commit idolatry.

God's love for us cannot be denied. The scripture is clear--and there are many references to choose from. My argument (and Piper's) is that we are not ultimate in God's economy (the way He does things), we are secondary. God is ultimate in His own economy and, because He is, we benefit from His setting His love on us. Therefore, He is the benefactor, we are the beneficiary.

Allan, I doubt you'll agree with this. I think that's OK. The difference in our theological leanings probably impacts this discussion greatly. As someone with Reformed Theology, this is not a tough pill to swallow. However, when I think back to my pre-reformed days, I know this pill would have been spit out! So, I understand your reluctance to accept this. Again, I think it is OK if you don't.

Many Blessings,

The Archangel

 

With 2200 views and over 220 replies, this thread is running at a 10% ratio of replies to views. This is a really great response and one that I think is directly related to the way we are responding to each other. Thanks guys and gals.

 

AA, RB, Jarthur, Allan,

Perhaps our differences can be overcome by a good definition of "love." I think that some here are expressing love as an emotions particularly attached to something in the individual or some special, unseen relationship.

Let's try this: To love is to want the best for someone. I used to say "being a blessing to someone" until I read someone saying that "You know you don't love your neighbor when you hear a bad report about them and you hope it is true." IOW, I was just looking at one side (the Calvie side) of it before! :laugh:

The Bible seems to speak of a God who wants the best for every living creature, no? He sees them all as the COULD ideally be -- in fact, as they were in unfallen Adam. Is anyone seeing love in some other way that would be helpful?

skypair

 

That is a great point sky. Is God some mushy individual in the sky just swooning over us? I don't think so. Does God have emotions? I don't think so. Emotions would involve change.... as in one emotion to the other. I just don't see God as emotional. Anyone else?

 

reformedbeliever, et al.

I do think that God has emotions. I can easily see why you'd say He doesn't. However, scripture describes Him using emotional words like love, anger, etc. It is a possibility that these words are anthropomorphisms, but I don't think so.

As far as I can tell, when the Bible speaks about love, especially when it talks about God's love, it talks in terms of action--a demonstrated love.

Love in the Bible is not an ooee-gooey feeling, but it is a verb and that verb requires action (I know it appears as a noun too).

I would suggest that the love of God in the Bible is best defined as His desire to demonstrate His grace and mercy to His covenant people.

Also, the Old Testament concept of hesed or covenant love (the NASB translates this word as loving-kindness) cannot be overlooked. Hesed is best understood as God's loved demonstrated within the confines of a covenant.

I have not done a study to see if or where hesed occurs outside of the covenant community.

Hesed suggests that it is God who sets His love (His desire do demonstrate grace and mercy) on His people.

I know this post leans very far into reformed theology, but the OT does describe love this way, and so does the NT for that matter.

Anyway...that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

I'm not convinced His emotions are like our human emotions. I do think the emotional language would be anthropomorphistic language. It is just hard for me to imagine God experiencing one emotion and then changing (over a period of time) to another emotion. I'll have to look into this more. I can't remember if Millard covers this in the book. Maybe I should pull it down off the shelf?

 

After second thought, I may have to retract my thoughts here. Christ did weep didn't he? As a man he experienced involuntary emotions. Or were they involuntary?
It is said that God's emotions are controlled. He does not experience emotions the way we do.... involuntarily. It is more as if His emotions have a purpose that He will accomplish.
This is interesting.

 

reformedbeliver,

Yes, good post. There is an important distinction to be made, which I did not make and I should have.

As humans, our emotions are fallen and subject to our fallen nature and sin. God, because He is God and because He is perfect has no such challenges to deal with when it comes to emotions.

So, if He does have emotions as I believe He does, they are not human emotions, they are Godly emotions. Therefore, His emotions always serve His nature and His character whereas we, at times--because we are sinners, are subject to our emotions.

So, there is a difference.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

Thank you Archangel. God's emotions would have to be perfect... and ours is certainly not. For example jealousy is a self serving emotion for us, but for God it is a good thing. God's jealousy is more of wanting what is good for us.
Wayne Grudem describes God's love as giving of Himself for us. We can imitate that love by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.... yet we will always fail to do so in a perfect manner such as God.
I agree, our fallen nature will distort and corrupt any communicable attribute of God to ourselves.
Therefore, our love is not a mirror of God's love. God's love has purpose that will be accomplished. God's love is eternal.... and unchanging.

 

I agree. God does not have emotions as we know emotions to be. Emotions means you must learn something. God knows all things.

 

Here is part of a column I wrote about a year ago called "I seek only love"

 

1. Understanding the true nature of the God-man, Jesus Christ, has brought about not a few heresies in the history of the church (the councils of the 4th and 5th centuries).

2. We will never understand completely the true nature of the Incarnation. But I believe the emotions of Jesus were genuine as they come. The Hebrew writer says:

"In the days of His flesh, He [Jesus] offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety" (italics mine).

3. I see no reason why these "loud crying and tears" are not genuinely human.

***Edited for grammar and spelling.

 

In Dr. Larry Crabb's Understanding People, he lists Emotions as part of the image of God---I concur.