Monthly Archives: December 2009

Great Commission & Romans

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations (1.1-5)

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed (6.12-17)

But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ (15.16-19)

For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you… Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. (16.19, 25-27)

Tolkien: better than Klingon!

YouTube – J.R.R. Tolkien reciting “Namárië”.

Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,
yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!
Yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier
mi oromardi lisse-miruvóreva
Andúnë pella , Vardo tellumar
nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni
ómaryo airetári -lírinen.

Sí man i yulma nin enquantuva?

An sí Tintallë Varda Oiolossëo
ve fanyar máryat Elentári ortanë,
ar ilyë tier undulávë lumbulë;
ar sindanóriello caita mornië
i falmalinnar imbë met, ar hísië
untúpa Calaciryo míri oialë.
Sí vanwa ná, Rómello vanwa, Valimar!

Namárië! Nai hiruvalyë Valimar.
Nai elyë hiruva. Namárië!

“Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind,
long years numberless as the wings of trees!
The long years have passed like swift draughts
of the sweet mead in lofty halls
beyond the West, beneath the blue vaults of Varda
wherein the stars tremble
in the voice of her song, holy and queenly.

Who now shall refill the cup for me?

For now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the stars,
from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds
and all paths are drowned deep in shadow;
and out of a grey country darkness lies
on the foaming waves between us,
and mist covers the jewels of Calacirya for ever.
Now lost, lost to those of the East is Valimar!

Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar!
Maybe even thou shalt find it! Farewell!”

Romans, certainty, and the fear of Protestant disloyalty

One can’t read Evangelical commentaries on the book of Romans, with few exceptions, without wondering (if one allows oneself to wonder such things) how they can be so confident about conclusions that allegedly follow from arguments that don’t seem to warrant that sort of confidence.

But the answer probably lies in a fundamental Protestant principle.  One finds that Protestants don’t only hold that Romans supports distinctively Protestant beliefs; they host that Romans clearly and plainly supports such beliefs.

Even to justify Protestantism from the content of Paul’s letter to the Romans is not enough.  One must do so in a way that indicates that there are no hard choices and no close calls.  Otherwise, one is subverting the faith.

This is an odd position to be in:

But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Tolkien on Oxford: A Factory for Fees

Years before I had rejected as disgusting cynicism by an old vulgarian the words of warning given me by old Joseph Wright.

“What do you take Oxford for, lad?”

“A university, a place of learning.”

“Nay, lad, it’s a factory! And what’s it making? I’ll tell you.  It’s making fees. Get that in your head, and you’ll begin to understand what goes on.”

Alas, by 1935 I now knew that was perfectly true.  At any rate as a key to dons’ behavior.  Quite true, but not the whole truth. –Letter to son Michael Tolkien on November 1, 1963.

What Paul Should have Written

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you covet other people’s belonging in your heart or allow yourself to be unsatisfied with what you have? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you lust in your heart or have you ever done so even once? You who abhor idols, do you commit idolatry in your heart? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law without sinning once, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law without sinning once, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law (all of this being entirely hypothetical and unrelated to, say, Judah’s confession that Tamar was more righteous than him or any other example in the Bible where Gentiles were better than Jews). For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,

“That you may be justified in your words,
and prevail when you are judged.”

But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:

for there is no man who does not sin;
If you, LORD, marked iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?

And do not enter into judgment with your servant,
For in your sight no man living is righteous

Who can say, “I have cleansed my heart,
I am pure from my sin’?

There is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good
and who never sins

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

[Note: the “catena” above comes from First Kings 8.46; Psalm 130.4; 143.2; Proverbs 20.9; Ecclesiasties 7.20]

Questioning Romans

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

When were “we” weak?  Who is “we”?  When was the death of the son which reconciled us?

When did Christ die for the ungodly?

Is this all a shorthand for saying that we were weak and enemies before our own conversions throughout human history before and after the actual death and resurrection of Christ?

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

It is fairly typical to point out that “not under law but under grace” refers to a shift in ages.  We’ve gone from the age of sin and the law to the age of grace and the gospel.  The transition was the death and resurrection of Christ.

So when was “our old Adam/Man/Self (anthropos) crucified with Jesus?  When Jesus was actually crucified?  What is the old Man (singular) that we all possess (plural)?  And what about “the body of sin”?  What is that?  Each person’s body?  Or one corporate body?

ut thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So if Cornelius, or Zacharias and Elizabeth (pretending they lived long enough) or anyone else who was by childhood nurture or by proselytization a believer in God who then heard the Gospel and was baptized, to assume that Paul was not talking about them?  Was he only talking about the experience of converts from apostate Judaism or paganism?

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Does this only happen at conversion or did this happen to the whole world when Jesus died and was raised, when the Temple Veil was torn in two?

I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

When does the Torah come to each individual to make them “die”?  Hasn’t Paul already said that the law came at Sinai (Romans 5), referring to the age previous as being without law?

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Why is there “now” no condemnation?  Now that I am converted?  Now that Jesus has died and risen and ascended and sent the Spirit?  If Paul if referring to something that happened in history (the death of Jesus and his Resurrection by the Spirit), how can we not conclude that the “wretched man” was the Church before that event?

From Abraham’s faith and hope to our certainty

In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

It seems to me that there is a deliberate comparison and maybe contrast in the transition from Romans 4-5.  Abraham had faith that God would do what he promised and as a result we know that our sufferings will produce glory.

Because Anna was not a false prophetess

Since we’re in the Christmas season, here’s something for you from Luke 2:

And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the deliverance of Jerusalem.

Why not “redemption”?  Because the word has been spoiled by religion.  And because Moses was not the redeemer of Israel in the sense that we think of.

J. R. R. Tolkien on the Air Force

But I fear that an Air Force is fundamentally irrational thing, per se.  I could wish dearly that you could have nothing to do with anything so monstrous.  It is in fact a sore trial to me that any son of mine should serve this modern Moloch…  In any case, it is only a kind of squeamishness, perhaps, like a man who enjoys steak and kidney (or did), but would not be connected with the butchery business.  As long as war is fought with such weapons, and one accepts any profits that may accrue (such as preservation of one’s skin and even “victory”) it is merely shirking the issue to hold war-aircraft in special horror.  I do so all the same… –Writing to Christopher Tolkien on December 18, 1944

So where then is boasting?

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

via Passage: Romans 11.17-24 (ESV Bible Online).

When I looked at what Schreiner wrote about this passage, I wasn’t surprised that he dealt with the warning better than N. T. Wright did.

I was also pleasantly surprised that the compared the boasting being warned against here with the boasting Paul refutes and condemns in Romans 1-4.  He is right to do so, but it felt like I was reading a different book by a different author.

In his comments on Romans 1-4, Schreiner seems quite intent of proving that the “boasting” is more about bragging in one’s moral accomplishments rather than one graciously-given standing with God.