Tag Archive for 'theology'

Christianity and Covenants: Husbands and Wives

Published by Colin November 3, 2009 in Religion and Theology. 36 Comments

This is the second article in a multi-part series on Christianity and covenants. Other topics are:

Husbands and Wives
It is an incredible thing that many churches will sometimes spend valuable sermon time preaching on the evils of homosexuality, pre-marital sex or general “left-wing” debauchery, and yet often ignore fundamental aspects of the marriage relationship as layed out in scripture and deduced in Christian theology. Many Christians view this as a “defense of marriage” against encroaching secular humanism or (leftist) moral relativism. Some even go to the polls or to protests against gay marriage as part of the purely “defensive” effort.

Ironically, these highly visible, yet “defensively” dubious activities, have no ability whatsoever to “save” or “protect” the sanctity of marriage - rather, husbands and wives loving and submitting to one another in light of the gospel is where the power is.

Marriage does not exist as a political tool for the government to use to promote family values or even reproduction. Marriage also is not just any relationship between two people who “love” each other. Marriage is, first and foremost, an image, a covenant that is a representation of Christ’s relationship with the church (Ephesians 5:22-33).

The Marriage Covenant
A marriage is not a contract. The husband does not agree to love the wife if she submits to him. The wife does not agree to submit to the husband if he loves her. In fact, the marriage relationship is actually two separate covenants that are acknowledged before God.

When a man and woman take marriage vows, they each make a promise to unconditionally, and unilaterally fulfill a set of promises. It is the same kind of covenant that God makes with man. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) puts it perfectly:

[Husbands:] Your unconditional acceptance of your wife is not based upon her performance, but on her worth as God’s gift to you.

Ironically, even on the CBMW website, a bastion of complementarianism, it was difficult to find a corresponding statement for wives. This was the best I could do:

There are many situations where a husband is selfish, unreasonable, and hypocritical. This alone does not release a wife from her responsibility to respect and submit to him.

But really, the point is simple - the roles and structure in marriage is ordained by God. It is voluntarily entered into by husbands and wives, both of whom engage an unconditional set of vows to one another.

This is what makes marital love so special - it is a self-sacrificing love - a love that does not come from merit or profit. The best synonym I can think of for this kind of love is “commitment.” It means that spouses make a deliberate, intentional choice to overlook each other’s faults, to forgive one another and to commit to one another in the same way that God has done these things toward us.

Christ forgave us while we were still sinners - so we love our spouses, knowing that they have, do and will sin against us. Christ gave himself for us, so we too surrender our lives, our pride and our independence for the benefit of our spouse. Christ clothes us in his righteousness and has saved us - we protect, honour and affirm the role of our spouse and their worth as a child of God.

The marriage relationship comes back to the gospel. As it should - Paul already reminded us of this in Ephesians 5.

Perverting the Gospel
The feminist movement in the hearts of men and women has been the greatest modern assault on marriages. I worded that sentence carefully. It is not simply feminism - in the sense of certain intellectuals, books or even ideology. It is the fact that something other than biblical marriage has encroached upon the marriage covenant in the hearts of husbands and wives.

A quick way to survey these views, is to go back to Ephesians 5, and interpret them in the theology of marriage being an image of Christ and the Church.

Marriage is a 50/50 partnership:  If my salvation from sin were a 50/50 partnership with God, I’d be in big trouble. If Christ and I are both responsible for salvation, how can I expect that I maintain it in all of my continuing sin and falling short of God’s standards? What if Christ and I disagree on how best to save me?

Marriage is a give and take relationship: Imagine if the gospel were give and take. Maybe God should stop “taking” all the time and give me a little more leeway to indulge sin? But if I wanted to give to God, what can I bring that is worthy of a perfect, self-sufficient God?

Marriage roles are interchangeable: Perhaps it isn’t me who needs saving, it’s God! And I can save him just as well as he can save me.

Marriage is conditional: God only has to forgive me if I first apologise. God will only save me if I make a vow to praise him forever. What if Christ’s death and resurrection were only available to people of a certain pre-existing righteousness?

Now if marriage has less to do with the gospel, then more egalitarian, even feminist views on marriage are potentially compatible with marriage. However, scripture argues that marriage and the gospel go hand in hand.

This goes back to an earlier point. What is the best way to affirm and support the biblical view of marriage? It is not to attack feminism in others, or egalitarianism - but rather for us to have a deeper knowledge of the gospel. For us to continue to probe the love with which God has loved us and to meditate on the work of Christ on the cross. In doing this, we will have a better understanding and vision for loving our spouses.

Christianity And Covenants: God’s Covenant With Mankind

Published by Colin October 26, 2009 in Religion and Theology. 2 Comments

This is the first in a multi-part series on Christianity and covenants. Other topics are:

God and Man
This topic is one which, even in beginning to think about it, overwhelms me with gratitude towards God. This is because the contract between God and man is completely and utterly one sided - it is a unilateral contract initiated by God towards people who have wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and, in fact, have been openly hostile and at war with God.

But this is a difficult concept to grasp - especially in light of the fact that we see nothing like this in our world, in our church and even in ourselves. Each and every day, we hold grudges, remember wrongs, complain, gossip, slander one another and set up all kinds of conditions for our relationships. We love those whom we perceive as loving us and we scorn and dislike those who we believe (real or imagined) have wronged us. Our “love” is drowned with conditions and clauses - and all of these are rooted in sinful, selfish, self-righteous pride which is quick to condemn and slow to forgive.

I can think of no better contrast then Ephesians 2:4-9 (NKJV). After laying out the pure and perfect wretchedness of mankind, Paul contrasts this with the great mercy and grace of God:

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

God, in order to demonstrate his grace and kindness, has chosen to save us - despite our being completely dead.

For the purposes of covenants, this is an apt image of a unilateral act - a corpse being raised to life. A corpse cannot make contracts - it is dead. There is no life in it. A dead thing, in order to act, must first be acted upon - it must be made alive. God, in his grace, made us alive, and thus enabled us to have faith and receive his grace.

Contrasting God and Man
As sinful people, what is it that we would do with our enemies? If we could avoid the consequences, we would see them made dead, not alive. We desire vengeance, justice (by our own hypocritical standards) and often enduring punishment through ostracism, exile and exclusion. When someone has wronged us, even as Christians who have experienced God’s grace, we find ourselves incapable of generating the godly characteristics to forgive - it is never our first response. This is because we are obsessed, by nature, with conditional covenants.

But God has instead chosen to act upon man, making promises to him about what he, as a sovereign free being, will do. Moreover he has followed through on those promises in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who provided the promised deliverance of sins. God made the promise and then did all of the work himself.

There is no greater example of a unilateral covenant.

The Benefits of a Unilateral Covenant
If God’s covenant with man is a unilateral covenant, then man can breathe a little easier. If salvation is dependent upon the grace of God, and not on conditional works of man, then salvation is held by God. The bible reveals that God is just, honest, forgiving, loving, unchanging and keeps his word - therefore, his promise and delivery of saving grace is not revocable by man. Those who have placed their faith in Christ are protected by Christ and “sealed” by God the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:22 and Ephesians 1:13, 4:30).

Another benefit of a unilateral covenant is a right perspective of sin. Knowing that it was God who saved us, and that our works and decisions are not conditions of grace, frees us from seeing our sin as putting us in jeopardy of breaking any covenants. Rather it stimulates us towards deeper worship, knowing that in spite of our sin, God has still graciously saved us. Our thanks to God is not tainted by any sense of accomplishment.

Moreover, it points us towards a sustainable and powerful solution for our sins - God himself, rather than our own initiative, methods and tricks to simply change our behaviour or external appearances. A lot of Christians go through cycles of guilt and and self-righteousness as they temporarily adjust their behaviour and put away some sin - and then it comes roaring back and the cycle starts again. But if we realise that it is only God who can completely deal with sin, then we acknowledge that our abilities are meaningless and we stop trying to simply change our behaviour and appearance of sin. We can go to God and petition him for his grace and ask him to change us from the inside out, as only he can.

Also, knowing this should trickle down to our relationships with each other. If grace is of God, then we need not compare ourselves to each other and seek to judge one another. We can be honest and open about our sin, and we can receive rebuke, encouragement and correction without being “hurt”, “exposed” or “wounded”(which is really just our pride and self-righteousness revealing itself). Knowing that our sin is not going to rob us of grace, allows us to be used by God to help one another confront and cut-away sin.

Summary
God’s covenant with man is one-sided. Unlike men, who are vengeful and unforgiving towards our enemies, God is forgiving and merciful to those who have wronged him. The bible says we are “dead” in transgressions, and therefore, we are the receivers of grace and cannot initiate or seek out a contract with God - rather, God seeks out us.

Being the recipient of God’s promises gives us a right view of sin, a deeper worship and provides complete and total assurance of our salvation. It also provides us the opportunity to have healthy and intimate relationships with other Christians where we can pursue holiness together.

How To Sabotage An Argument, Part 2

Published by Colin July 20, 2009 in General. 3 Comments

This is the second and final article in a series on how to basically lose an argument before you start it [part 1 here]. This line of reasoning is based on the premise that people who engage in an argument are doing to so in order to discover and communicate truth.

Hence, four more ways to sabotage your argument:

Ascribe Nefarious Intentions and Motives to the Other Side
This is quite prevalent in large, seemingly irreconcilable debates: abortion, religion, left versus right, etc… People who are pro-choice are not seen as intelligent people who are making a self-ownership case for abortion (although this would be wrong), but as “baby killers” or people who “support murder” or “do not support life.”This is ridiculous. Aside from the negligible portion of the population who are homicidal, no one else wants to see babies being killed. These people are not wrongly motivated - rather, they are wrong in methods.

Political leaders are called evil all the time - some of them are. George W. Bush has been hailed as the great Satan for the last seven years or so (and Obama has not been treated any different - except by the media), but it is very realistic that Bush has pursued what he has out of good motives and intentions. He has been sincerely wrong, probably criminally so, but he is not necessarily out there to thwart humanity and bring about apocalypse.

Attack the Personal Actions of Your Opponent
This line of reasoning follows from a very valid principle - practice what you preach. But at the same time, for the purposes of arguing things that aren’t always liveable (or if they are, aren’t lived anyway) it is completely useless. Ron Paul was attacked in the 2008 election for being one of the higher proposers of appropriations (earmarks) in congress. It was alleged that because Paul put forward earmarks, that someone this discounted what he said about fiscal responsibility. But truth isn’t dependent on our acting it out (Paul also voted down every single earmark he proposed). Just because someone doesn’t stop at stop signs, doesn’t mean they would be wrong to suggest that stopping at them is a good idea.

Become Self-Righteous About Your Arguments, Facts and Case
This is an easy mistake to make. After all, if we didn’t think we were right, then why would we argue? But this is not a problem with being right, it is a problem with believing one is infallible or that a morally neutral position is somehow “right” in the sense that it is good, while the other side is bad/evil. But more than that, it is a condescending attitude toward your opponent and/or his ideas. This is presuming a certain argument before your opponent makes it. With your own ideas, it is a blind refusal to allow them to be penetrated by other’s reason, logic or facts.

Forget That You Are Speaking With A Person
This is the most important thing, and the summary of the article.  We aren’t arguing with robots, with brainwashed automatons, with ideologies - we are arguing with people. People deserve to be respected and treated as people - they are intelligent, rational beings - despite how silly, ignorant or radical their worldview is.

How To Sabotage An Argument, Part 1

Published by Colin July 6, 2009 in Essays, Religion, Politics and Philosophy. 2 Comments

Before I take a look at the meat of this article, I want to use a situation common to most of us to try and lay out my argument.

When I get upset with other drivers on the road, regardless of how “legitimate” my case is, and I actually become angry (as opposed to simply annoyed) it is often because:

  • I am not merely upset at the other driver, but am engaged in part of a universal quest to educate/set straight the mass of bad/discourteous drivers ruining the roads for others.
  • I question the ability of the driver in question (this is especially true of the very old and the very young - and sometimes the female gender) and wonder how they have managed to get licensed, let alone insured.
  • I am ticked off directly by what they have done.
  • I lack empathy for people who have circumstances which require them to drive slowly (transporting breakables, they have medical issues, they are enjoying the scenery).
  • I forget that there is actually a driver in the other car.

In many ways, this is a microchasm for human interaction when it comes to debate in general - especially intellectual discourse. Our base instinct, in discourse, if often to act like this with people with whom we are arguing. As the debate wears on, the chances of seeing the implosion of the discussion increase as instinctual techniques begin to take over and our very own words and ideas start to lose the argument before we begin.

I want to lay out a few common ways to sabotage your argument (this often happens early in the argument) by way of tactics I have seen on this site, other sites and mistakes that I myself have made over the years. Feel free to add your own thoughts on items I have missed or not explained well enough.

Not Understand What “Winning” and “Losing” Mean in Debate
In some ways, this is starting with the basics. What is the point of debate? If it is to convince others that I am right and they are wrong, then I’ve already “lost.”

The point of debate is not intellectual conquest, or the winning of hearts and minds to your cause. Debate should be a cooperative exercise that discovers, communicates or clarifies truth between individuals. When I am arguing about capitalism, or if I am witnessing to someone who is sceptical, it should not be my hope to decimate their current thinking and replace their conclusions with my own. Rather, I hope that I am contemplatively leading them to understanding that they were yet unaware of, while, at the same time being aware that I don’t know everything myself, and can learn from their counter-points.

Winning a debate doesn’t mean that each side comes away agreeing with the other side. But in a “won” debate, each person has new information to add to their own frame of reference, and hopefully has made a meaningful contribution to the collected  knowledge of another.

Make Your Argument an “Us Versus Them” Battle
At times, I do feel like I am on a crusade when it comes to debating about certain ideas about which I am passionate. Take Ron Paul supporters in 2008. I felt a lot of solidarity with these people and I found myself more agitated over certain issues than I normally am. I was so zealous about what I viewed as my “us” (big-tent libertarianism - from the libertarian GOP to newly converted democrats supporting Ron Paul) that it became easy to believe that those who were arguing against me were part of a “them” (Neo-Cons, Compassionate Conservatives, Theocrats, etc…). But the moment that collective motives and group activism are attached to our debating - are we really sharing the intellectual road to discovery with someone, or are we stereotyping, classifying, dismissing and attempting to “war” with them as if defeating an “enemy” rather than working with an ally, albeit one very different than ourselves.

A tale-tell sign of this is ad hominems and other demonisation tactics. The second I begin painting my opponent with broad brush strokes is the moment where I’ve stopped seeking truth, and started zealously proselytising and regurgitating some kind fo party line.

Ascribe an Entire Ideology to Your Opponent  Because of One Point, Line of Reasoning or Word
This could be viewed as a sub-point of the”us versus them” problem because it uses the same categorisation, stereotyping and dismissal - but it is different. Allow me to explain.

We all have certain words, phrases and concepts that conjure up past experiences (perhaps even traumatic ones) or simply evoke knee-jerk reactions based on philosophical or intellectual dislikes. Some of these for me are:

  • friendship evangelism
  • tithing
  • gossip
  • freedom isn’t free
  • free X (where X is healthcare, school or some other social good)
  • global warming
  • credit crunch

There are lots of different reasons that these words are more likely to reveal argumentativeness in me. But the point is that when someone uses these phrases (and others) I get a quasi-instinctual urge to correct them in ways that vary - from merely making a face, to opening a canned lecture and going on for half an hour.

But worse than that - it is part of that process of making uninformed conclusions and ascribing entire ideologies to your opponent because they’ve used language that triggers something in you. In other words, they may have meant something completely different (and the unique perspective of each individual almost guarantees that this is the case) but in one fell swoop, all of your own prejudices have been heaped onto their argument.

Aside from my own blunders in this area, I see this a lot with traditional hot-button issues for people such as abortion, feminism, supporting the troops and drugs. I think there are a lot of people in the academy, for example, who can accept my classical-liberal economic views. But if I spoke very loudly about my views on abortion or feminism, I might be practically blacklisted. By the same token, there are a lot of left-leaning bible-believing Christians who have trouble finding places in conservative churches because they might be anti-war or for universal healthcare.

Belittle/Disparage the Credentials/Lack Thereof of Your Opponent
I hope to do a whole piece on this soon, but one place where I see this being commonly practised is in the pulpit and some churches. Because of the heresy coming out of the academy (this has been a problem for thousands of years, by the way - it is hardly a “post-modern” phenomenon), it has become fashionable to broadly criticise education, theologians and academics.

A PhD doesn’t automatically make someone arrogant, proud, idolatrous, humanistic or a heretic (among other words I’ve seen). It simply means that someone has spent a lot of time specialising in a certain area of a specific field. If an academic (perhaps even one who went to a bible college) who researched Israel in 750-735BC wants to then go and talk about why Jesus didn’t exist and all religions lead to God - it says nothing, absolutely nothing about formal education, other academics or academics and Christianity. By the same token, I have seen some well-educated clergy and church leaders dismiss men who, with little formal bible education, were able to do great works from God, start large churches and write edifying books.

But the broader point is this - the other side in an argument has education and experience that is different that yours - and this is going to lead them to different conclusions. Rather than judgementally classifying and then dismissing their experience and education, try to come to grips with thier findings and consider that they might have an angle on things that you have missed. Where their experience and education are misinforming them - correct it.

In the second half of this series [go to part 2], I hope to look at more ways to sabotage an argument, including issues of motives, practising versus preaching, self-righteousness and the fact that were are debating with people (which may seen self-evident, but you’ll see what I mean).

Popular Racist Theology

Published by Chris A March 30, 2009 in Religion and Theology. 84 Comments

The term race, as it is commonly used in reference to the ancestry of a particular ethnic group, is a loaded word. The early uses of this term, as it related humans, were confined to biology, where it was meant to describe what were thought to be the various human subspecies. In modern science, the notion that there are subspecies of Homo sapiens has long since been debunked.  Nevertheless, somehow the term stuck and is commonly used today outside of scientific thought to describe ethnicity.

Racism is simply the belief in the superiority of one ethnic group over another, and carries with it the idea that a person’s potential as a human being is predominately determined by his ethnicity or “race”; therefore racist theology is any religious study that incorporates racist ideals.

Brazenly Conspicuous
Certain forms of racist theology are clearly evident. Most Americans, in light of what might be recalled from the recent collective memory, may automatically think of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Black Liberation Theology.  Or perhaps they will think of the Christian Identity Movement.  These are two of the most obvious and egregious examples of racist theology masking as Christianity, but what about the subtler and more widely accepted teachings – not only those associated with Christendom, but also other religions?

The Curse of Ham
The racist doctrine of the curse of Ham teaches that Ham and/or his son Canaan, grandson of Noah, were cursed by God (or Noah, depending on the variation of the teaching) because his father Ham uncovered the nakedness of his father, Noah. The result of this curse is that Canaan’s descendants became black and taken into slavery. Some actually believe that Ham himself was turned black for this sin. As is the case with most racist theology there are elements of truth mixed in, such that the waters are muddied enough so that the teaching becomes believable to the unlearned. In order to sort truth from fiction, let us examine the account given to us in Genesis 9.

20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father’s nakedness.

24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,
“Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers.”

26 He also said,
“Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem.

27 May God extend the territory of Japheth;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be his slave.”

First of all, I want to point out that God did not curse anyone here. In fact, after blessing Noah and his sons, the Bible records that God said in verse 8 of this chapter, “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you.” The curse was Noah’s doing, and there is no indication anywhere that either Ham or Canaan was turned black. Also, there is no mention of Canaan’s descendants in the curse. Noah said that Canaan would be the slave of Shem, not that Canaan’s black descendants would be slaves to white people.

Whether to justify slavery or to explain the alleged inferiority of blacks to other ethnic groups, this teaching has been prevalent among Christians, Jews, and Mormons. Islamic teaching, however, does view the curse of Ham in racial terms. The teaching has largely been abandoned as something that is commonly taught among mainstream adherents of Christianity, Judaism, and Mormonism, yet remnants of this teaching still persist, and the use of a version of it once held by Mormons was recently brought up in connection to the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney.

In addition to the account of what has been construed as the curse of Ham found in Genesis 9, other religious texts besides the biblical one have expounded on the teaching. Early Christian theologian and scholar Origen Adamantius wrote in Homilies on Genesis:

For the Egyptians are prone to a degenerate life and quickly sink to every slavery of the vices. Look at the origin of the race and you will discover that their father Cham, who had laughed at his father’s nakedness, deserved a judgment of this kind, that his son Chanaan should be a servant to his brothers, in which case the condition of bondage would prove the wickedness of his conduct. Not without merit, therefore, does the discolored posterity imitate the ignobility of the race.

One particularly extra-biblical and bizarre Judaic teaching about the curse of Ham found in the Babylonian Talmud states:

Our Rabbis taught: Three copulated in the ark, and they were all punished — the dog, the raven, and Ham. The dog was doomed to be tied, the raven expectorates [his seed into his mate’s mouth], and Ham was smitten in his skin (Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 108b).

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints once held that blacks were banned from the priesthood based on Brigham Young’s interpretation of a passage in the first chapter of the Book of Abraham:

1:24 When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land. 1:25 Now the first government of Egypt was established by Pharaoh, the eldest son of Egyptus, the daughter of Ham, and it was after the manner of the government of Ham, which was patriarchal. 1:26 Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.

Arabs and the Curse of Ishmael?
It is widely assumed among Christian Zionists, and perhaps others who prefer not to assume that title, that Ishmael, the first son of Abraham, was cursed because God’s blessing came upon Isaac. They believe that the root of the turmoil in the Middle East is the fault of the descendants of the “illegitimate” son of Abraham.  Let’s look at what the Bible actually says in Genesis 17:

3 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you…15 God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” 17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” 18 And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”  19 Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.

First we should notice that Ishmael was not cursed; actually he, not unlike Isaac, was blessed. The main difference was that God’s covenant was to Abraham was to be through Isaac and not Ishmael. Isaac was God’s idea, and Ishmael was Sarah’s idea. Because God initiated a covenant with Abraham on His own terms, of course the full blessing of the covenant would naturally be on the son God promised to Abraham. However, there was no curse involved with the other son. It also must be noted that Christ is the seed of Abraham and all men, regardless of ancestry, through Him partake of the blessing of Abraham that was to be made available to all nations of the earth.

Some of the racial prejudice against Arabs, who are thought to be the descendants of Ishmael, has its basis in a misinterpretation of Genesis 16, when the angel of the Lord prophesied to Hagar about the nature of her son that was to be born.

11 The angel of the LORD also said to her:
“You are now with child
and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the LORD has heard of your misery.

12 He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”

Here again, just as with the curse of Ham doctrine, it is presumed that this statement about Ishmael must also include all his descendants. In this instance, I will say that there may be more justification for such a suggestion because verse 12 says, “He will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” Since we only know for sure of one brother, Isaac, and the text says “all his brothers” that could be taken to mean the descendants of Isaac. Certainly that would describe the long history of contention between Arabs and Jews. However, we must also consider the possibility that the prophecy was specific to Ishmael alone, and that he had other brothers through Hagar.

At any rate, we certainly do not want to be in the position of claiming that because of this prophecy, Arabs are all “wild donkey” people, and that they are a subhuman warlike race genetically predisposed to the destruction of Israel.

Thinking About The Economy

Published by Bryan September 29, 2008 in Religion, Current Events, Philosophy and Theology. 3 Comments
There is one bit of advice given to use by the ancient heathen Greeks, and the the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest; and lending money at interest - what we call investment- is the basis of our whole system.

Now it may not absolutely follow that we are wrong. Some people say that when Moses and Aristotle and the Christians agreed in forbidding interest (or ‘usury’ as they called it), they could not foresee the joint stock company, and were only thinking of the private money lender, and that, therefore, we need not bother about that they said. That is a question I cannot decide on. I am not an economist and I simply do not know whether the investment system is responsible for the state we are in or not. This is where we want the Christian economist. But I should not have been honest if I had not told you that three great civilizations had agreed (or so it seems at first sight) in condemning the very thing on which we have based out whole life.

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

By providence I was re-reading some of Mere Christianity last week, and this section is a good place to start a discussion on Christians and the current economic crisis. Christian responses to what has happened are just beginning to appear. The most notable being The Archbishop of Canterbury . Although the ABC throwing Marx into the mix is bound to stir up some controversy, it is encouraging to see discussion on the issue that goes to actual discussion of how the economy should be set up.

I firmly believe that any response Christians give to a crisis must have both an immediate action attached, and a long term consideration of the situation.  Often the Church does the first, but leaves the second.

What do I mean by an immediate action in response to a crisis?   I think the end of It’s A Wonderful Life is a great example. A need is discovered, people rally around and do what they can to bring the person out of the immediate situation. I’ve heard that this has happened in this case with some churches offering counseling to people hit by this, and I have no doubt that when people loose their jobs the church will be there to offer financial support and friendship (If it does not drop the name church please).  Even Starbucks understands the importance of this when right after they were offering free coffee in the morning to people who worked on Wall Street.

What the church likely won’t be as good at, is offering comment on the economic system as a whole.  I don’t mind the church waiting a bit to do this, deal with the immediate concern first, but I fear it just won’t come.  I’m glad the ABC has begun this, but where are the other voices?  The ABC may be an intelligent man, but he is not an economist.  Where are the economists to answer Lewis’ questions?   Where are those from within the Church that can offer comment on how the economic system works?  Where are they advising Christians how far to enter into it?  How much of a role is the sin of greed at fault here and how much was poor decision making?

I think this is yet another example of a place where the church could step up to it’s calling and be involved in bringing God’s kingdom to the world, but instead will choose to continue in irrelevant pursuits (I’m building a growing list). I believe I’ve bemoaned the fact that the church has embraced a dichotomy that separates it from every “non-religious” concern enough that I don’t need to get into why it’s happening or why it’s wrong again, but it still saddens me when I see such an opportunity go to waste.

Forgiveness and the Love of God

Published by Chris A September 4, 2008 in Religion and Theology. 5 Comments

Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of Christian is the reconciliation with God that comes as a result of the forgiveness of sin. This forgiveness is made available through Jesus Christ, the perfect, sinless Son of God, who willingly gave his life to redeem mankind for the glory of God. Although he was innocent, he became the substitute for guilty humanity, taking upon himself the retribution for the sins of the whole world to satisfy God’s righteous judgment.

Agape
What, might we ask, is the central motivating force behind the Just dying for the unjust? Was there some redeemable quality in man that God thought was worth saving? The answer is found in John 3:16.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

The primary motivation for God sending Jesus was love. This divine love is the supreme character by which God is defined, the very substance of his being. God, who is love, sent Jesus to die for us while we were still in open rebellion to him (Romans 5:8). In fact, Jesus being driven by God’s love, asked for the forgiveness of those who were crucifying him (Luke 23:33, 34).

More than Forgiven
Notwithstanding the fact that forgiveness is provided to all who receive Christ, believers are more than just forgiven.  Although believers in the Old Testament were able to receive forgiveness, their spiritual nature was not changed. They were only forgiven sinners who had to meet the legal requirement of continual sacrifices to be forgiven again. This is in sharp contrast to the New Covenant – a better covenant based on better promises - in which believers are made new creations in Christ, who by one final sacrifice did not merely cover (atone for) sins, but took them away forever (2 Corinthians 5:17; Hebrews 8:6).  Much of the tenth chapter of Hebrews is devoted to the explanation of this. It is recommended that the reader take time to read the entire chapter, but for now, here is an excerpt:

9then He said, “BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. 10By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; 12but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, 13waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET.
14For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
15And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying,

16″THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THEM
AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD:
I WILL PUT MY LAWS UPON THEIR HEART,
AND ON THEIR MIND I WILL WRITE THEM,”
He then says,
17″AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS
I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE.”

18Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

The establishment of the New Covenant carries the added benefit of being born of God’s Spirit, which involves receiving God’s love nature. This signifies the death of the old sin nature and the passage from spiritual death to spiritual life.

3Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?  4Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  5For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;  7for he who has died is freed from sin.  8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,  9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Continue reading ‘Forgiveness and the Love of God’

Stepping Back - What Is A Sacrament, And Does It Do Away With “Faith Alone”?

Published by Bryan June 24, 2008 in Essays, Religion and Theology. 10 Comments

About The Series In General
This will be the final entry directly on the subject of sanctifying grace being given in the Lord’s Supper. In past entries we have looked at: The Frequency Of The Lord’s Supper, If The Lord’s Supper Is Magic?, and Calvin’s View Of The Lord’s Supper. In the next few entries we will be turning to other aspects of the Lord’s Supper before moving on to baptism. Today we will examine the objection to the view that sanctifying grace is given in the Lord’s Supper which argues that such a view does away with the Protestant doctrine of “Faith Alone”.

Stating The Objection
The objection has been stated on here in the following form:

Our FAITH is what bestows grace (and that faith is also a gift from God). Belief in magic rituals that “force” God to bestow grace is unbiblical. Grace is not something we do acts to earn, it is a gift granted despite our complete inability to do anything to deserve it…

And summed up as

Grace granted as the result of an act isn’t grace, it is a wage that was earned.

Since sacraments have already been distinguished from “magic” in a previous post in which were given biblical examples of acts brining about God’s grace not being considered magic, I will first only briefly address the magic comment before moving onto the main trust of the argument.

What Is Magic?
Magic is the act of relying on a supernatural force to bring about some desired end. The supernatural force is under the command of the magician and in popular cultural is usually brought about by some kind of ritual.

A Christian sacrament on the other hand is a gift given by God to help the church perform it’s mission on earth. It is God who brings about the result of the sacrament, it does not rely on any power in the one who performs it. Whereas magic attempts to either appease or control of a supernatural power or being into performing the whim of the magician, there is no appeasement or control in a sacrament. Man does not force God to given grace in a sacrament, God freely gives it because it is a gift to the church.

A Comparison To Prayer
Why sacraments are accused on being magic, and doing away with “Faith Alone” and not prayer confuses me. One way to think of sacraments are prayers of physical matter. In prayer Christians ask for grace to be given them (Lord give me the strength to overcome XYZ so I can conform more to Christ) and in the Lord’s Supper one takes the bread and wine expecting help to become more like Christ. The only major difference in this respect is that one is spoken, and the other a physical action. If sacraments are magic rituals, then prayer is magic enchantments. We will return to this comparison of prayer later.

The Doctrine Of Faith Alone
No Protestant will argue with the importance of faith in the life of the believer. No Protestant will argue with the statement that “It is by faith alone that one is justified.” However, Protestants will differ on what that statement means. The first Reformers who championed the doctrine saw no contradiction between that doctrine and the belief the the sacraments bestow grace.

As we saw in the last entry, that was Calvin’s view, and it was also Luther’s, the greatest champion of the doctrine to to mention the hundreds of other Reformers who held similar views. One could argue, and it often is, that those Reformers were still caught up in some Roman Catholic doctrine and it was left to others to shed the remaining Roman Catholic doctrines. While such an argument may be made, futility I believe, all I wish to point out is that historically we need not see a break between sacramental grace and the doctrine of faith alone.

How Is That Possible
One modern evangelical writer who has bucked the trend of seeing the Lord’s Supper only as an act of remembrance, and has made room for grace being given in it is Wayne Grudem. Chapter 48 of Grudem’s Systematic Theology is entitled “Means of Grace Within The Church” and will be used to explain why sacraments and the doctrine of “faith alone” are not mutually contradictory.

Grudem begins by asking the question:

All of the blessings we experience in this life are ultimately undeserved - they are all of grace. In fact, for Peter, the entire Christian life is lived by grace (1 Peter 5:12).
But are there any special means that God uses to give additional grace to us? Specifically, within the fellowship of the church are there certain means - that is, activities, ceremonies, or functions - that God uses to give more grace to us? Another way of formulating that question is to ask whether there are certain means through which the Holy Spirit works to convey blessings into the life of the believer. Of course, personal prayer, worship, and Bible study, and personal faith, are all means through which God works to bring grace to us as individual Christians. But in this chapter we are dealing with the doctrine of the church, and we are asking specifically within the fellowship of the church what the means of grace are that God uses to bring blessing to us.

Grudem identifies 11 activities, ceremonies and functions that God uses to bestow grace on the believer (For example; teaching the word, prayer, worship, giving…etc). Two of them are ceremonies (Baptist and the Lord’s Supper) which are which are the sacraments. It is important to note that in Grudem’s understanding, and all orthodox Christians, these means are only avenues that the Holy Spirit uses. The ritual in and of itself does not bring about grace, but it is the Holy Spirit working through them that does.

On the Holy Spirit working through the sacraments Grudem is lock step with Calvin who said in section 19 of his Short Treatise On The Lord’s Supper:

But to understand this advantage properly, we must not suppose that our Lord warns, incites, and inflames our hearts by the external sign merely; for the principal point is, that he operates in us inwardly by his Holy Spirit, in order to give efficacy to his ordinance, which he has destined for that purpose, as an instrument by which he wishes to do his work in us.

Not Ex Opere Operato
Ex Opere Operato is a Latin term that means that the work of the sacrament being performed confers the grace to the recipient, for the sake of our discussion, regardless of their faith. Such a belief would do away with the Protestant doctrine of “faith alone”, but Grudem is clear that this is not what he means:

But on a Protestant view, the means of grace are simply means of additional blessing within the Christian life, and do not add to our fitness to receive justification from God (However, the Anglican Church teaches that baptism is “generally necessary” for Salvation [My Note: We will deal with this in a later post if we get to baptism]). Catholics teach that the means of grace impart grace whether or not there is subjective faith on the part of the minister or the recipient, while Protestants hold that God only imparts grace when there is faith on the part of the persons receiving these means.

Once again we can turn to prayer to see a correlation. Prayer must be made in faith, in fact prayer is an act of faith. It must be made by someone who is trusting in God, and they put that trust into action by, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism says “…offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies.” The fact that the faith of a person is acted on in a way commanded by God to receive grace does not do away with the supremacy of faith in prayer just as it does not do away with it in the Sacraments. In the sacraments the faith of the person is acted on through the means that God has ordained (Baptism or the Lord’s Supper) and it is because of faith that the grace is given, just as in prayer.

Why Then External Ritual?
The obvious question at this point should be; “If it is faith that is what matters in the sacraments, why bother with the external sign?” This is a huge question and one that I can only deal with in part in this entry. For an excellent extended answer see Evangelical Is not Enough by Thomas Howard The simple answer, and one that I heard given this past weekend, is because God commands it, but such a view seems to make the sacraments into a burden instead of the gift that they are. Yes God commands participation in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but He does it for our own good. To base participation in them on a command is akin to saying the reason your use a gift is because your dad who gave it to you our of love forces you to. God knows that humans enjoy ritual, that the physical is something that humans need to connect with, and there is so much meaning locked up in the sacraments that participating in them makes the gospel come alive in ways that reading about them can not bring about.

Conclusion
Are sacraments magical? No, they are means that the Holy Spirit use to bring grace to the Church. Do sacraments do away with faith? No, faith is the heartbeat of them. They are nothing without faith on part of the recipient. Is there nothing then to the external ritual of them? No, God has ordained the rituals of the sacraments, they are the means that our faith is expressed. Will this explanation satisfy everyone? No the debate that been going on in Protestant churches since Luther and Zwingli, but I hope at least to have done away with some misconceptions on the topic.

Calvin On The Lord’s Supper - Or What I Mean By Sanctifying Grace

Published by Bryan June 10, 2008 in Essays, Religion and Theology. 15 Comments

Continuing the ongoing discussion of the Lord’s Supper (Part One, and Part Two) we will be looking at John Calvin’s view of what happens in the Lord’s Supper since there is much in it I share.

John Calvin, in section 4.17.3 of The Institutes of Christian Religion says the following regarding what the body and blood of Christ does:

As bread nourishes, sustains, and protects our bodily life, so the body of Christ is the only food to invigorate and keep alive the soul. When we behold wine set forth as a symbol of blood, we must think that such use as wine serves to the body, the same is spiritually bestowed by the blood of Christ; and the use is to foster, refresh, strengthen, and exhilarate.

This is the best explanation of what I mean when I use the term “sanctifying grace”. The grace that is given by the eating the body and blood of Christ is not grace that saves a person, but the grace that works like physical food does. It renews us, gives us energy, and keeps us healthy, not physically like ordinary food does, but spiritually. This is what feeding on the body and blood of Christ does.

But is this feeding on the body and blood of Christ what happens in the Lord’s Supper, or is it something that happens only spiritually through relying and trusting in Christ? Most evangelicals would agree with Calvin if he was referring only to what happens through trusting and relying on Christ through faith with no connection to the Lord’s Supper, except perhaps through some disjointed symbolism. But it is clear that Calvin is not only referring to what happens only when one trusts in Christ, but what happens when one trusts in Christ through the Lord’s Supper as section 4.17.10 discusses.

Section 4.17.10 begins by repeating section 4.17.3 in a condensed form which shows it is the same line of reasoning continuing:

The sum is, that the flesh and blood of Christ feed our souls just as bread and wine maintain and support our corporeal life. For there would be no aptitude in the sign, did not our souls find their nourishment in Christ.

Calvin then goes on to answer the question of how Christ, being far away from us (sitting at the right hand of God) can be connected to us, allowing us to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Although this question has not been a point I have dwelt on in my discussions of the Lord’s Supper it is an important point of which the Reformed and Lutherans have historically disagreed on.

This could not be, did not Christ truly form one with us, and refresh us by the eating of his flesh, and the drinking of his blood. But though it seems an incredible thing that the flesh of Christ, while at such a distance from us in respect of place, should be food to us, let us remember how far the secret virtue of the Holy Spirit surpasses all our conceptions, and how foolish it is to wish to measure its immensity by our feeble capacity. Therefore, what our mind does not comprehend let faith conceive, viz., that the Spirit truly unites things separated by space.

Calvin then enters into discussion of the question we have here been considering in the past blog entries; what happens in the Lord’s Supper. His answer is that exactly when was said in 4.17.3 is what happens:

That sacred communion of flesh and blood by which Christ transfuses his life into us, just as if it penetrated our bones and marrow, he testifies and seals in the Supper, and that not by presenting a vain or empty sign, but by there exerting an efficacy of the Spirit by which he fulfils what he promises. And truly the thing there signified he exhibits and offers to all who sit down at that spiritual feast, although it is beneficially received by believers only who receive this great benefit with true faith and heartfelt gratitude. For this reason the apostle said, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10: 16.) There is no ground to object that the expression is figurative, and gives the sign the name of the thing signified.

Calvin believes scripture connects the Lord’s Supper to what is symbolized by it. When we drink the wine we are participating(ESV)/sharing(GNB) in the blood of Christ, likewise when we eat the bread we are participating(ESV)/sharing(GNB) in the body of Christ. If this is the case, then when we take the bread and wine we are in fact taking the bread and blood of Christ and the benefits that come with it. This is not to say that the bread and wine are the literal body and blood of Christ, Calvin would deny the Roman Catholic doctrine, but they are connected. How are they connected?

I admit, indeed, that the breaking of bread is a symbol, not the reality. But this being admitted, we duly infer from the exhibition of the symbol that the thing itself is exhibited. For unless we would charge God with deceit, we will never presume to say that he holds forth an empty symbol. Therefore, if by the breaking of bread the Lord truly represents the partaking of his body, there ought to be no doubt whatever that he truly exhibits and performs it. The rule which the pious ought always to observe is, whenever they see the symbols instituted by the Lord, to think and feel surely persuaded that the truth of the thing signified is also present. For why does the Lord put the symbol of his body into your hands, but just to assure you that you truly partake of him? If this is true, let us feel as much assured that the visible sign is given us in seal of an invisible gift as that his body itself is given to us.

The bread and wine symbolizes the body and blood of Christ, but the symbol is not a mere symbol. Through the taking of the symbol what the symbol represents is given. The benefits of the body and blood of Christ are given in the Lord’s supper because by receiving the symbol, one receives what is symbolized. To steal an explanation of this consider the example of a wedding ring. The wedding ring is a symbol (among other things) of the marriage, but when the ring is placed on the finger what it symbolizes comes into being. The ring is not the marriage, but it is so connected to the marriage that it is not an empty symbol; it truly represents the truth of the marriage and one who receives it receives the benefits of the marriage covenant through it.

How then shall this all be summed up? According to Calvin the Lord’s Supper gives the Christian sanctifying grace, that is grace for the Christian life, because the bread and wine are the symbols of the body and blood of Christ, and through those symbols we participate with what they symbolize.

Oh No, It’s Magic… Or Maybe Not.

Published by Bryan May 27, 2008 in General, Religion and Theology. 11 Comments

Usually the first objection that is brought up when a person who holds to a memorialist position learns that I hold to the view that some kind of sanctifying grace is imparted to a participant in the Lord’s Supper is that I’m believing in magical elements. To quote a commentator on a previous thread, where I introduced this idea:

The Bible does NOT teach that magic rituals obtain grace, but rather that faith is rewarded with grace.

I believe there are two reasons that this, and similar responses I’ve heard from many people, occur. The first, and one I will only touch on here, is that it comes from a lingering rejection of the Roman Catholic Church. Having “grown up” in Baptist churches, where the memorialist position was the norm, all other positions were pretty much lumped together as being the Roman Catholic view, or at least on the way to it. I don’t believe this was done intentionally, by most, but was done simply for lack of knowledge on other traditions in general and lack of thought on the Lord’s Supper particularly.

As an example to this, I was talking with a friends dad the other day who use to be a pastor in The Christian And Missionary Alliance (Not to put either the dad [who I enjoy talking with] or the CMA [which I am attending a church of and enjoying it very much at the moment] down but only to illustrate the issue) and the fact that I think grace is imparted in the supper came up. His first reaction was to call it a Catholic view and begin to discuss what is wrong transubstantiation. The fact that I didn’t mention the topic of Christ’s presence, but only wished to talk about what happens in the Lord’s Supper didn’t seem to matter. It was a deviation from the memorialist position and therefore must be Catholic and include the whole of the Catholic teaching. This is of course absurd, but it happens often. The only way to combat this is education on the fact that protestants have historically had varying views on the Lord’s Supper and not everything different is Catholic. Of course a better understanding of what the Roman Catholic Church actually teaches and why would also help.

The second reason that any grace position is rejected as magic, and I think the more pervasive one, is that the vast majority of people today have in their minds a radical separation between the spiritual and physical world. We can chalk this dichotomy up to gnosticism or enlightenment philosophers, but the fact is that it’s there and it’s undeniable. The idea that God would use an object to give grace, seems so very strange to many because of this.

Today’s average Protestant Christian has simply accepted the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and never actually looked to see what it means. It has therefore morphed into something much closer to a doctrine that says “justification by faith in faith alone” eliminating any physical connection and bringing in the nebulous idea that it is faith the saves a person and not something or someone. When pressed on it, every protestant worth their salt will respond that it is Christ that saves, but in the abstract, the fact that He was a physical person whose action we put faith in to accomplish what scripture promises putting faith in Him will, is not considered. The physical actions of Christ are often overlooked on account of faith. We are not saved by faith, but saved by a person who in faith we trust in to do what He promised.

To bring this a bit away from the abstract, we could ask the question: If Christ did not go to the cross, commit a physical action, would salvation still be open to people even if they had faith? The answer I think is no, Christ needed to go to the cross, and He needed to be raised again or else our faith would be in nothing.

This is all well and good you say, but that was Christ committing a physical action, your speaking of us performing a physical action of receive grace. Isn’t that works salvation?

Works is the funny thing in Protestant theology. I was once asked long, long ago, how I could say I didn’t believe works saved and then say that faith was needed to be saved. Wasn’t faith a work? The question perplexed me for a while, I was a very new believer, but the answer is quite simple; faith may be a work, but it is one that is done not by our own power but by God’s (Ephesians 2:8).

The Protestant argument against works is, or at least should be, that the person is trying to save themselves. They are doing works of their own power to get a spiritual result. They think that by doing something they are storing up merit that counts towards them in heaven. These are not views I want to put forward as what happens in the Lord’s Supper at all.

When I say sanctifying grace is given in the Lord’s Supper I mean that God uses the elements of it to give us grace. It’s the avenue which He sends His grace to us through. There is no inherent quality in the bread and wine that gives grace to any eater of it, but God sends His grace through it to those who take it in faith. As we saw earlier God uses the physical Christ to bring saving grace to us, and we see other examples in scripture of Him using physical objects to bring grace to people.

Consider Numbers 21:9:

So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

There are several questions to ask with a passage like this. Was it a work for the people to look at the snake? Did they heal themselves? Was it the snake that healed, or was it God? Of course we will say it was not a work, that God healed them and it wasn’t the snake that did but God working through the physical object. The same questions should be asked with Mark 8:23-25 where Christ used physical objects to heal a man of his blindness.

None of this is proof, or even an argument, that sanctifying grace is given in the Lord’s supper, thats not the point here. The point is to give the person pause who rejects that view out of hand because it comes across as magic. God can, and does, use physical means to distribute His grace. He did it with Christ, with the serpents on the pole, and with mud and spit. The absolute dichotomy between physical and spiritual is not one found in scripture. Our God works in mysterious ways, and through mysterious objects, and we should embrace that!

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