Happy Birthday Rachael

Happy Birthday Rachael

On March 29, 1995, Pamella and I ventured from our home in Luling, LA to the movie theater in Kenner (both burbs of New Orleans). We were to take in the special edition of Star Wars. It was great! Near the end of the film Pamella "informed" that she thought she had begun labor. That began our great adventure. We drove to Houma, LA (but I had to stop and get gas for my Geo Metro). When we arrived at the hospital in the middle of the bayou they were going to send us back home but then got really worried about Pamella's blood pressure which had gone through the roof. So they started a drip in an IV to make her continue in labor. Early the next morning, May 30, Rachael Nichole Valentine entered our world. The first person at the hospital was none other than Pastor Feelgude (Don Neyland) who preached just down the road, and still does.

That night I spent the night at Don's house and there was a terrible thunderstorm. I go early the next morning to go back to the hospital and there was the most beautiful and brilliant rainbow I had ever seen, I knew everything was going to be alright. I have been sitting here looking back over 12 years and wondering how in the world that much time has gone by.

I remember playing pony (I was the pony), bouncing, reading Go, Dog, Go! a billion times or Good Night Moon over and over and over again, playing doctor (I was the patient) or her first day of school, first time for summer camp ... she is getting big. Let me share a photo or two or maybe three ...

The Delight of a Child



Rachael's Eighth Birthday Party in our apartment in Milwaukee



Rachael in her ballet costume



Rachael ready for Halloween



At the Races Last Summer



With her sister in the land of Scorpions and Saguaros



Rachael you have come along way since 1995. How big you have grown. I have loved ever minute of having the honor and blessing of being your daddy. I am very proud of you and I love you dearly. You really do live out the meaning of your name ... you are indeed a little lamb of God. Happy Birthday.

Love,
Dad

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A Vision of Shalom through a Prayer on Memorial Day

A Vision of Shalom through a Prayer on Memorial Day

Yesterday was the magnificent Day of Pentecost. We explored Acts 2 together as a church family noting all the great themes that come together. Today is a day when the American flag flies at half mast in honor of those who have fallen. Yesterday was a day of the Christian faith and today is a day flowing from American civil religion.

If we really honor those who have fallen, however, it seems to me that we would strive to make their death's count for something that matter, not simply for Americans but for all humanity. We honor them by praying for a restoration of shalom ... we seek that by praying for our enemies as Jesus taught us to. What follows below is a magnificent prayer by a medieval Christian by the name of Anselm. I have found and still find the prayer to be beating with the pulse of Jesus' own prayer. May it bless you as we seek God's shalom in this fallen age.

"A Prayer for Enemies"

Almighty and tender Lord Jesus Christ
I have asked you to be good to my friends,
and now I bring before you what I desire in my heart for my
enemies.
For you see, O God, the reins and the heart,
you penetrate the secrets of my mind.
If you have sown in the soul of your servant
something that can be offered to you,
you see it there;
nor can it lie hid from you
if I and the enemy of mankind have sown there
that which will have to be consumed by fire
Most gracious God,
do not despise what you have sown,
but cherish and increase it, perferct and preserve it.

I can begin nothing good without you,
neither can I bring anything to fruition
nor maintain it, without you.
Merciful God, do not judge me
according to that which displeases you in me,
but root up that which you have not sown
and save the soul you have created.
For without you I cannot amend,
because whatever is good in us you have made
and not we ourselves.
My soul would not be able to bear it
if you should judge it accoring to its sins.

You alone, Lord, are mighty;
you alone are merciful;
whatever you make me desire for my enemies,
give it to them and give the same back to me,
and if what I ask for them at any time
is outside the rule of charity,
whether through weakness, ignorance, or malice,
good Lord, do not give it to them
and do not give it back to me.

You who are the true light, lighten their darkness;
you who are the whole truth, correct their errors;
you who are the true life, give life to their souls.
For you have said to your beloved disciple
that he who loves not remains dead.
So I pray, Lord, that you will give them love for you
and love for their neighbor,
as far as you ordain that they should have it,
lest they should sin before you against their brother.

Tender Lord Jesus,
let me not be the cause of the death of my brothers,
let me not be to them
a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.
For it is more than enough, Lord
that I should be a scandal to myself,
my sin is sufficient to me.
Your slave begs you for his fellow slaves,
lest because of me they offend
against the kindness of so good and great a Lord.
Let them be reconciled to you and in concord with me,
according to your will and for your own sake.

This is the punishment
that in the secret of my heart
I want to exact
for those who serve with me and those who sin with me --
this is the punishment that I ask
for those who serve with me and hate me -
let us love you and each other
as you will and is expedient for us,
so that we may make amends to the good Lord
for our own and for each other's offences;
so that we may obey with one heart in love
one Lord and one Master.
This is the revenge you sinner asks
on all who wish him evil and act against him.
Most merciful Lord
prepare the same punishment for your sinner.

Do this, my good Creator and my merciful Judge,
according to your mercy that cannot be measured.
Forgive me all my debts
as I before you forgive all those indebted to me.
Perhaps this may not be so
because in your sight I have not yet done this perfectly,
but my will is set to do it,
and to that end I am doing all that I can.
So I offer this to you here, Lord,
so that you may perfectly forgive my sins
and deal with me as gently as you can.

Hear me, good and great Lord,
for my soul hungers and longs
to feed upon the experience of your love,
but it cannot fill itself with you;
for my heart can find no name to invoke
that will satisfy my heart.
For no words have here any taste to me
when my love receives from you that which you give.
I have prayed, Lord, as I can,
but I wish I could do more.
Hear me, and answer as you are able,
for you can do all that you will.
I have prayed as a weak man and a sinner;
you who are mighty and merciful hear my prayer.

Fulfill my prayer, Lord, not only for my friends
and the enemies for who I have prayed,
but distribute the healing of your mercy
wherever you know it may help anyone
and not be contrary to your will,
both to the living and the departed.
Hear me always with your favour,
not according as my heart wills or as my mouth asks,
but as you know and will that I ought to wish and ask,
O Saviour of the world,
who with the Father and the Holy Spirit
lives and reigns God
throughout all ages. Amen.

(The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm, With the Proslogion, trans. Benedicta Ward, pp. 216-219). This is a Penguin Classic.

I realize this is a fairly lengthy quote but this is a rich prayer. The idea of the "punishment" to be received is that we "love" one another is, in my view, wonderful. Can you imagine what might happen in our divided churches, our divided communities and broken marriages... and nations if we prayed for our enemies like this? A revival might come!

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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The Resurrection of the Son of God: A Review of N.T. Wright

A Book Review: N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress Press, 2003). 817 pp.

A little over two weeks ago I found myself in Barnes & Nobles with Rachael looking for some book on dragons (Eragon or Eldest?). Somehow I ended up in the religion section of the store and N. T Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God caught my eye. I had wanted this book for the last couple of years but never got around to ordering it from Amazon, but now it was in front of me. So I picked it up and began to read through a few pages and could not put it down. So after shelling out 39 dollars (as I recall) I came for dragons and left with Wright. Being home alone in the evening has left me with a lot of quiet time for reading into the wee hours of the night. I finished all 738 pages of text Thursday night.

Who is N.T. Wright?

My first encounter with “Tom Wright” was as a student at IBC when one of our teachers, Stephen Broyles, assigned reading from a book called The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861-1986. Wright had recently updated the classic originally written by Stephen Neill. But I did not know who he was and honestly he had not attained the stature he has today. In the early 1990s I ran into him again in his excellent book The Climax of Covenant in Paul in which he really began to make a name for himself.

Today, without a doubt, “Tom Wright” is the most influential New Testament scholar on the planet. He has taught at McGill University, Cambridge and Oxford. Wright has published something like 40 books and over 120 peer reviewed academic articles. In the face of the Jesus Seminar hoopla (he is takes Burton Mack, John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg on and bests them soundly) Wright began work on a monumental six book series “Christian Origins and the Question of God.” The first volume of that series, The New Testament and the People of God is already considered a classic … and if there was one book I could force every Church of Christ preacher to read and digest it would be NTPG. This book caused not a ripple in NT studies but something on the order of a Tsunami. As surely as Rudolf Bultmann basically set the agenda for NT studies (either “liberal” or “conservative”) for much of the 20^th century so Wright has done so at the beginning of the 21^st.

N. T. Wright is more than an incredible scholar. He is a lover and disciple of Jesus the Christ. I had the privilege of hearing Wright speak in person while in Milwaukee and his concern for spiritual formation and Christian discipleship is plainly evident. But he is also a genuinely “approachable” person. I was impressed … and I am not easily impressed. I respect his work so much that I have a link on my blog to a website dedicated to his writings.

Wright’s love for the church finds expression in his not so new (now) role as Bishop of Durham. I have listened to and read many of his sermons and he does better than many who are far less informed in their “scholarship.” Recently Wright wrote a book called “Simply Christian” that has been hailed as the new “Mere Christianity.” Fellow blogger Bob Bliss has posted a review of that work on his blog in the last couple of days,

The Resurrection of the Son of God

This book won the Association of Theological Booksellers “Book of the Year” award in 2003 and it deserves that honor. I wish I had read this book before I started my series on “Heaven.” The book is divided into three parts with a total of 19 chapters.

Part I is called “Setting the Scene” and in two hundred pages that surveys the Jewish and Greco-Roman context of Jesus and the early church is explored in depth. Wright’s mastery of the primary sources of the ancient world is phenomenal. This man’s knowledge is incredibly broad but it is also deep. Do not let the word “depth” scare you away. Wright is hardly a difficult person to read. Martin Heidegger is hard to read. Karl Barth’s Epistle to the Romans is difficult to read. Wright is deceptively simple (kind of like a Gospel writer). One of the most stimulating parts was he exposition of the Wisdom of Solomon that I just ate up. He devotes a full two hundred pages in setting the scene, students this is an exercise in historical context. He concludes this section with this observation,

“We begin by reaffirming the preliminary definition with which we began. ‘Resurrection’, with the various words that were used to for it and the various stories that were told about it, was never simply a way of speaking about ‘life after death . . . Resurrection was, more specifically, not the redefinition or redescription of death, a way of giving a positive interpretation … but the reversal or undoing or defeat of death, restoring to some kind of bodily life those who had already passed through that first stage. It belonged with a strong doctrine of Israel’s god as the good creator of the physical world. It was the affirmation of that which the pagan world denied” (p. 201)

This is an important point for Wright. He believes it is imperative to nail down as best we can what the first century folks meant by the word. I happen to agree with that methodology and anyone who has ever had a discussion about the meaning of baptizo does so as well … even if we are not consistent in applying that method.

In the next section Wright explores Paul (he devotes a full 50 pages to the exposition of 1 Corinthians 15 alone), the early Gospel traditions (not the resurrection narratives per se at this stage of the book), then he makes the interesting move to look at what the early Church believed about the resurrection. Here he spends another hundred or so pages looking at the Ignatius, Polycarp, Athenagoras, New Testament apocryphal writings, he even looks in the earliest Christian writings in Syriac. Then he explores key Gnostic texts and demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that there is a radical difference in what NT writers affirmed and the “orthodox” writers affirmed and what the Gnostics did.

Finally Wright gets to the Resurrection Narratives. Wright’s method here is simply good critical scholarship. He is after two of the most fundamental questions that can be asked at this point in the ball game: 1) What exactly is it that the early Christians believed about the “resurrection;” and 2) WHY did they believe it? Why did the early Christians hold onto a belief that, as he shows clearly and convincingly, was so at odds with the culture … when the Gnostics showed that it was theoretically possible to affirm some kind of faith in Jesus without affirming a monstrous doctrine like the resurrection of the body. Further Wright asks how the affirmations of “Messiah” and “Lord” could have survived in early Christianity. The answer to these questions is that God did for Jesus of Nazareth what the Jews had believed about the word “resurrection!” The Creator God of Israel (a theme vital to the early post-Apostolic Christian writers) entered into history and reversed the verdict that Jesus was a fraud.

In my view The Resurrection of the Son of God is not simply a book that will exercise your brain, it is not simply a book that will open up the heart of the New Testament in ways that many of us never imagined possible but this is a book that when you are done reading it you will find that your faith has grown muscular and confident.

I am waiting (patiently?) for volume four of Wright’s series to come out. Wright has changed the way I read the Bible. I commend this book to your as one of the truly monumental books in print. In a sea of fluff passed off as insight this book shows that loving the Lord with your mind does not imply a failure to love him with your heart.

Shalom,

Bobby Valentine

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Heaven (12): Resurrected Lord, Resurrected Humans & The Resurrected Earth - Romans 8, Pt 2

“I understand this passage to have this meaning—that there is no element and no part of the world which, being touched, as it were, with a sense of its present misery, does not intensely hope for a resurrection. He indeed lays down two things,--that all are creatures in distress, and yet they are sustained by hope … [Creation] shall be participators of a better condition; for God will restore to a perfect state the world, now fallen, together with mankind” (John Calvin, Epistle of Paul to the Romans, pp. 303, 305)

The Text & Worldview Shifts

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved” (Romans 8.19-24a, NRSV).

Though a recent critic of renewed Earth eschatology implies that Romans 8 is an “obscure passage” and needs to “yield to the clearer;” there could not be a more clear and unambiguous statement by Paul. An obscure text in Romans may be found in 11 but Romans 8, I don’t think so. Profound does not mean obscure. And Romans 8 is indeed profound. And as we have seen, the language of Romans 8 is all over the Bible. God will redeem his beloved Creation of which humanity is but the crown.

In the history of interpretation the meaning of Romans 8.19-24 has been generally agreed upon until the Seventeenth Century. The Enlightenment with its secularization of creation witnessed many Christian thinkers retreat to the realm of (ironically) pagan and semi-gnostic “spirituality.” This movement is told artfully and compellingly (though non-theologically) by Peter Gay in his rich book, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, The Rise of Modern Paganism (Norton, reprinted many times).

Not all Christian thinkers caved in to the pressure to be an enlightened Christian with a scientific Christianity. Yet it is amazing how even those who resisted in the centuries that followed imbibed the poisonous well (in my opinion). But we should not, and are not, sitting in judgment on these saints because it is impossible to escape culture and its influence upon us. But we can become aware of its tendencies.

In previous installments I have attempted to demonstrate the continuity of contemporary expression of renewed Earth theology with historic Christian exegesis and interpretation. The very first sustained interaction with Romans 8 is in Irenaeus’ Against Heresies. From Irenaeus to the Reformation there is an amazing continuity in reading and interpreting Romans 8. In the Protestant tradition after the Reformation the “classic” interpretation held sway until the onslaught of the Enlightenment. Two examples about a hundred years apart will illustrate my point. Matthew Henry (1662-1714) a famous non-conformist English scholarly pastor thrived as the western world was going through its “shift.” Henry is cognizant of a new interpretation of the text. As he comments on Romans he notes

“By the creature here we understand, not as some do the Gentile world, and their expectation of Christ and the gospel, which is an exposition very foreign and forced, but the whole frame of nature, especially that of this lower world – the whole creation, compages of inanimate and sensible creatures, which, because of their harmony and mutual dependence, and because they all constituted and make up one world, are spoken of in the singular number as the creature” (Henry, An Exposition of the NT, on Romans 8:19-22)

A look at the ever popular Adam Clarke (1762-1832) shows the transition to the Enlightenment world view was almost complete. Clarke thrived more than a hundred years after Henry. He was born, bred and died as a child of the Enlightenment. Clarke bought completely into the more “spiritual” (socalled) interpretation of Romans 8. He comments on v.21 for example

“The sense, therefore, of the apostle in this place seems to be: the Gentile world shall, in time, be delivered from the bondage of their sinful corruption, i.e. the bondage to their lusts and vile affections; and be brought into such a noble liberty as the sons of God enjoy” (Clarke’s Commentary, 6, p. 99)

Clarke rejected the apocalyptic world view (see Kingdom Come for more on what that might be). Rather, Clarke is symbolic of the cultural shift that had swept through the Western world. It took time for this shift to take place but it did occur. The Eighteenth Century could be called the “Age of Reason” and Clarke and other thinkers did not want to seem ‘unreasonable.” For those looking for some great cultural analysis look no further than Stephen Toulmin’s Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (Free Press, 1990), find it at a good public library.

The classic Christian view was not lost however. Jonathan Edwards retained, as we have seen, a profound sense of the history of the biblical narrative and its story of redemption. Alexander Campbell had an equally profound grasp of God's plan for salvation (i.e. regeneration). Moses Lard, David Lipscomb and James A. Harding retained the apocalyptic category as a valid piece in the Christian worldview.

In the twentieth century with the rise of “critical” scholarship (especially following WW II) many began to realize they had imposed baptized European philosophical categories upon Jesus, Paul and other biblical writers. Some have even realized that a certain anti-semitism lay under the surface as well. And there is more truth to this than most want to admit. It is not to much to say that the study of the world of Jesus and the early church has been revolutionized in the Twentieth Century. Apocalyptic, as Ernst Kasemann has quipped, is the “mother of Christianity.”

The historic Christian interpretation of the resurrection of the human body and the redemption of the world by God has been shown to be historically, theologically and even exegetically firmly rooted in the Jewish apocalyptic worldview.

A Talk with James A. Harding

James A. Harding believed one of the secrets to right living for God was a proper understanding of the apocalyptic worldview. Likewise, Harding understood the import of such words as redeem, reconcile, regenerate and renew. Sounding very “un-Enlightened” (and J.C. Holloway and L.S. White even told him so!!) he wrote in 1898

“Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin,’ and far and wide has extended the curse that thus came through Adam. All briers, thorns, and thistles; all sickness, pain, and sorrow, all jealousy, enmity, and hatred; all war, bloodshed, and death, with every evil thing began with the fall in the garden … The earth itself, with every man, woman and child that has lived on it … has come under its blighting influences and suffered its awful power.

“But—thanks bet to God—through Jesus Christ grace came with a mighty hand to meet this great, dark, cursing, onrushing tide of woe and death, to roll it back, to free men from death and the earth from every curse of sin, and to give to it a glory and beauty never dreamed of by Adam and Eve in the midst of their Edenic home. This earth, with its surrounding heaven, is to be made over, and on the fair face of the new earth God himself will dwell with all the sons and daughters of men who have been redeemed through grace … through Adam we lost the garden of Eden; through Christ we gain the paradise of God” (James A. Harding, “Three Lessons From the Book of Romans,” in Biographies and Sermons, edited by F.D. Srygley, p. 249)

I think Harding has a good grasp of the text.

Concluding Reflections

This post has tried to trace ever so briefly how Romans 8 has been understood and how its interpretation has been affected by the Enlightenment. Hopefully the relevance of this exercise is self-evident. We are forced to ask ourselves the vital question of how, as heirs of the Enlightenment, do we still see Christianity through the interpretive binoculars of that cultural movement. I submit to you that the neo-platonic (and some neo-gnostic) views on Christian spirituality demonstrate that indeed we have drunk deeply from that well.

In my next blog I will offer my own exegesis of Romans 8, with the assumption that apocalyptic is a major strain of thought in Paul. What set of lenses we use is all important. As it is I think I have shown that Scripture sustains the renewed earth point of view but we shall see--and I am still learning.

As I have done in the previous posts I will also have a conversation partner that is yet to be revealed. These posts have involved a great deal of work, I am not sure that is truly evident in the final product but I have personally grown tremendously through this exercise.

Shalom,

Bobby Valentine

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Heaven (11): The Resurrected Lord, Raising Resurrected Bodies, Living on the Resurrected Earth - Rom 8 #1

“The teaching of the great philosophers Socrates and Plato can in no way be brought into consonance with that of the New Testament” (Oscar Cullmann, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?, p. 60, his emphasis)

Larger Contextual Issues of Romans 5-8

(What follows is by no means comprehensive) Exegetes for centuries have noted that chapters 5-8 form a tight rhetorical unit in the Epistle to the Romans. The magnificent opening in 5.1-11 anticipates the equally majestic closing in 8.31-39. The Creator God who acted in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus on behalf of humanity while they were alienated sinners will certainly act again at last to deliver them now that they are his People. Chapter 5.10-11 speak of having been reconciled to God. We will recall that from my Heaven (10) that Colossians 1 (and Ephesians 1.10) tells us that this reconciliation extends to “all things in heaven and on earth.” This will play out in Romans 5-8 as well. Also note that the language of “hope” and “glory” from 5.1-11 will reappear in Romans 8

Paul mines the rich traditions of Judaism especially Creation and the Exodus in framing these chapters. Drawing on the Creation and Fall narratives Paul indicates that Sin and death vandalized the shalom that filled God's good world through the First Man, Adam (5.12) producing the catastrophic results that every newspaper testifies to. (John Mark Hicks & I have argued, at length, in Kingdom Come that shalom was the fundamental characteristic of the state of Creation as it came from the hand of God. Sin is ultimately the vandalization of shalom and the rape of creation! Reconciliation, theologically is the restoration of shalom to God's Creation, human and non) The disaster that the first Adam brought into God's world is testified to again by Paul in 8.18-25. The world, creation, is groaning under the effects human rebellion against the Sovereign Creator. Shalom or being reconciled that presently exists through faith with God (5.1); yet we like all of creation live in the hope of our redemption that will be extended by the Second Adam ... to the same creation (all of it) the First Adam brought ruin to.

In Chapter 8 (anticipating 9-11) Paul argues that God has been true to his covenant promises in profound ways. Drawing on the rich mine of the Exodus traditions Paul shows that the church, made up of Jew and Gentile, are in fact the “children of God” (8.14, 17) inheriting the title given to Israel at the time of the Exodus (4.22-23, etc). We are not return to Egypt so to speak through the pain and suffering of this presently unredeemed place, rather we are to press through to the glory that is yet to come: the renewal/redemption (as a result of reconciliation) of the world (creation). This is a direct consequence of the resurrection of Christ and those who are in him (8.11,23,29). Thus 8 is filled with a note of “hope” and “glory” that we first encountered in the opening of this section in chapter 5. Those he foreknew, he predestined; those he predestined, he called; those he called, he justified; those he justified he also glorified. Creation itself Paul says “hopes” for the revelation of the “glorious” freedom of the children of God.

Paul, contrary to the Pagans and the charges of renewed earth critics, is not deifying creation—human or otherwise. Creation is not god. It is not worshiped. But Creation, both human and nonhuman are tied together by God’s design. While Creation is not god it was designed to be flooded with God: the Spirit who once pervaded this place will liberate and fill Creation with Life once again.

A Closer Look at 8.11

Romans is clear that the destruction of Creation was not and is not in the design of God. Death, or the disintegration of Creation, is the work of the First Man. Thus death is not and has never been a “good” thing. The chasm here between biblical religion and that of Platonists and Gnostics is unbelievable in width. For Platonists and Gnostics death is the great liberator, for we are then free to return to our eternal origin. Yet for Moses, Jesus and Paul death is the enemy of God. In the NT immortality belongs not to human souls but to God alone. Further Scripture never applies the term “immortality” to a human soul rather it says immortality will be applied to the body.

“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you” (8.11).

Here in this one verse we have an astounding declaration that the ruin of God’s creation (our human body) is reversed through the work of the God who breathed life into clay in the beginning. In this text Jesus is clearly seen as the new Head of the human race. He is the Second Adam just as Paul notes that the work of the New Man reverses that of the Old (5.18-21). Just as clearly Jesus’ resurrection is the prototype for all of us that is why Paul calls him the “firstborn” (8.29) of many from the dead to come.

The "one man, Jesus Christ" reverses what the "one man" Adam has wrought (note the emphasis by Paul on the word "man" (9x), see 5.15 (2x), 16,17 (3x), 19 (2x). It is important for Paul that the Man Jesus is where the miracle of reconciliation takes place. Paul is not calling Jesus a male here rather he is saying that reconciliation came through the HUMAN (anthropou) Jesus ... the one who is head of the New Creation.

For those who deny that that Holy Spirit actually dwells within them this text is a major thorn in the “flesh.” But our interest lies elsewhere. Paul begins with a statement of fact. The aorist participle indicates a historical fact here: Jesus of Nazareth was raised up in the flesh. The body of Jesus was not cast off, as the Gnostic Gospel of Judas holds, rather the body that went into the tomb is the body that came out. As Peter declared on Pentecost “you will not abandon [him] to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay” (Acts 2.27). Paul is emphatic in 8.11. Twice he says “ek nekron” that God called Jesus “out of death." Just as Yahweh called Israel "out" of bondage and suffering so the Creator God has called the New Adam "out" of bondage to the decay of the fallen world. No! the body was not abandoned for in it and through it (i.e. a material, physical body) our redemption and that of the whole creation (the body is part of creation) was wrought. We are thus wholly redeemed: body and soul!

Paul declares unambiguously that what the Spirit did to Jesus he will also do to our “mortal bodies.” Paul does not say that the Spirit will do this to our “soul” or our “spiritual nature” or some other immaterial substance. He states that the Holy Spirit will give new life to our mortal bodies.

The parallelism in this sentence leaves little doubt Paul is speaking of the resurrection. Any doubt, if there be any, is erased by the statement in 8.23 and 29. A straightforward reading of the text says that “mortal bodies” refers to our physical, human, body. But we must examine the “possibilities” (which are not endless) to make sure.

As far back as the second century there have been basically three possible meanings to “mortal bodies” given. The great Church Father, Irenaeus in his controversy with the Gnostics first enumerated these.

1) By “mortal body” Paul cannot mean “immortal soul.” Incorporeal souls being referred to as a “mortal body” would be a contradiction in terms.

2) By “mortal body” Paul cannot mean some other form of immortal substance (whatever that might be … the Gnostics had hundreds of immortal substances)

3) By “mortal body” Paul can only mean that which is flesh, that which dies, that which becomes breathless and inanimate. It is this that the Spirit will breathe life once again into as a sign of the victory of Christ Jesus at the cross. Restoration father, Moses Lard wrote on this passage in his Commentary on Romans, “He will make them alive in the general resurrection of the just at the last day. The identical body in which we now live is to be literally restored to life. No hope touches the Christian [sic] to the quick like this” (p. 260).

Paul has shown that the body of flesh dies because of sin that invaded the Shalom of God’s good creation. The body does not die because it is inherently unfit for communion with God.

Conclusions

In broad strokes through Romans 5-8, Paul develops a theology not far removed from Colossians 1. Death and ruin have invaded God’s world but the New Human, Jesus Christ has brought about peace and reconciliation through his atonement. The dreadful work of the First Adam brought decay into Creation (human and nonhuman) but the Second Adam through his faithfulness to God has reversed the curse. Thus when the Second Adam submitted to even death in solidarity with creation God, through his Spirit, raised him up in victory over the power of death. God's breathing new life into a dead mortal body, which was not only part of creation in the beginning but also OF creation in the beginning, God breathes new life into creation as a whole. The very name given to humanity, "adam" signals that we are part of the Earth. But with these last few sentences I have anticipated my next post. For now Romans 8, and especially v.11, is a magnificent statement of the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord over the curse that came upon God's good Creation.

Romans 8, in harmony with Colossians 1 (and dozens of other texts), that we long for the Resurrected Lord, the Spirit’s Raising Mortal Human Bodies, and Living on the Resurrected Earth in holy communion with the Triune God. These three wonders go together seamlessly in the biblical story.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine
Stoned-Campbell Disciple

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What I've Done - Linkin Park

Great video. Music from Spider Man 3 but scenes from our fallen world. I originally wanted this video as part of my post on Project Feed but it would not "appear" for some reason. Now a full day later it has, as if by magic, appeared. I think the song is compelling ...

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Project Feed

Project Feed

"[Yahweh] upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. Yahweh sets the prisoners free, Yahweh gives sight to the blind, Yahweh lifts up those who are bowed down, Yahweh loves the righteous. Yahweh watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked" (Psalm 146.7-9)

On Sunday and Thursday nites hundreds of homeless people in the city of Tucson assemble in an open, dusty, empty lot between a hotel and an auto parts store. Here a group of Christians gather to provide a meal, try to meet some clothing needs and try to get to know people from all walks of life. This past Thursday nite we had an old fashioned cookout and Palo Verde's own blue grass band for dinner and a show. Here are a few photos of this week's adventurous journey.



"Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied" (Luke 6.21a)



"All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do" (Galatians 2.10)

"I saw the tears of the oppressed--and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors" (Ecclesiastes 4.1)



"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother and sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in him?" (1 John 3.17)




"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Matthew 19.14)



"Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise" (James 5.13)



"At his gate was laid a beggar name Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table" (Luke 16.20-21)

"Supply him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you." (Deuteronomy 15.14)

It is our prayer that we participate in God's Year of Jubilee ...

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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Heaven (10): Christ the Creator, Conqueror, and Reconciler of His Cosmos

This current post builds upon previous ones but especially Heaven #5: God’s Love for His Creation and Heaven #9 on Matthew 19 and Acts 3. In reality though Colossians 1 is part of the grand biblical narrative of the Creator God, through Christ, reconciling everything to himself through the blood of Jesus.

The followers of the Way in the Lycus Valley are being troubled by some form of false teaching. This teaching has been called a “philosophy,” a “heresy,” “proto-gnosticism” and many other names. I lean toward the proto-gnostic hypothesis, or semi-paganism floating in the background, but at the very least the Colossian Philosophy is a view full of powers and angelic beings that demand some kind of homage on the part of the human beings. These beings are not friendly either thus the imperative of placating them. These beings each seem to have a “share” or a “cut” of what it means to be truly divine. Like a Troll that controls the passage of communication, supplies and movement these beings were believed to control the space between the believer and God. Each is paid his due or nothing gets through.

Paul addresses the theological issues underlying the Colossian problems through quoting one of the earliest extant Christian hymns. This hymn dips into the rich mines of Jewish tradition about Wisdom being the image of God and applies it to Jesus Christ himself. Verses 15-16 form the first strophe, with a link or “interlude” in v.17 and the verses 18-20 forming the second strophe.

Christ the Creator of His Cosmos

Paul does not seem to be one to beat around the bush as he wastes no space in Colossians. He cuts to the core of the “heresy” unwittingly adhered to by some believers by arguing that Christ is “the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation.” The genitive can easily be rendered “firstborn before all creation.” Paul is not simply talking chronology, though that is certainly there, but rather primacy. Paul emphasizes this point in a number of ways in the hymn: Christ is firstborn, he is the head, he is the beginning

The first verse of the “Christ Hymn” is sweeping in its claims about Christ. Indeed the claims are breathtaking. The Colossian Christians do not need to worry about the powers, thrones or angelic beings precisely because, Paul sings, Christ is the Supreme Creator of the Cosmos. Paul does not waste his time on arguing whether or not these being “exist” rather he says if they “exist” then they were created by Christ the Creator. Hear the melody of the apostle:

“For in him were created all things

in the heavens and on the earth,

the visible and the invisible,

whether thrones or dominions {not the Roman senate!!}

or principalities or authorities;

all things were created through him and for him.”

Paul had memorized Genesis 1 since he was a child. He had chanted Psalm 104 on many occasions … and Paul believed every syllable. But he makes the astonishing claim (or who ever was the original composer of the hymn and Paul agrees with it) that Christ was far more than a Man from Galilee … he was Yahweh’s instrument of Creation itself. Knowing that Christ created those angelic thugs makes them a little less intimidating, they after all are mere creations too. Christ’s initial work is cosmic in scope.

The goodness we see, and we do see it, in creation is there because Christ Jesus made it so. It is beautiful, powerful, and wonderful because he made it like that. When the lavish and generous beauty of the world catches your breath, remember (Paul claims) that it is like that because of Jesus.

Christ the Conqueror of His Cosmos

As beautiful as creation is it does not take long to learn that there is ugliness there too. Fear and death are the ultimate symbols of that ugliness. Something went awry in the created work of Christ. That is testified to by the Colossians themselves who lived, as did most Romans, in a perpetual state of fear of the world around them.

Basically what has happened is creation has rebelled. When God, through Christ, created the entire cosmos (seen and unseen) those angelic beings were not in rebellion. Paul does not stop to explain how or when (i.e. he does not give us the origin of evil) they became such but it is clear they are the enemy of God’s People. Thus just prior to quoting the Christ Hymn Paul uses Exodus language to talk about God’s great “rescue operation” of the Israelite people but he re-appropriates that imagery to the work of God in Jesus: “ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness …” (1.13). When God rescued Israel he destroyed the armies of his enemy. Christ will likewise destroy the power of the enemy of his people.

Leaving the Christ Hymn just for a moment we see what amounts to combat imagery ascribed to Christ and his work. Note that this work of Christ takes place in the cosmic realm. The enemies of God’s people used the cheirograph against them but Christ nailed it to the Cross (2.14). Then he “disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (2.15). The Colossians likely had pointed to the cross as evidence of what happens to the man who dares to oppose the “forces.” Paul, however, pulls back the curtain of time and says that far from being a defeat the Crucifixion was a stunning victory over the “powers.” As Yahweh had utterly defeated the “gods of Egypt” and the army of Pharaoh in the Battle by the Sea (Ex. 15); so Christ is seen as the one who conquerors the rebellious forces in his creation. This is the Christus Victor motif mentioned in our previous blog.

This imagery that surrounds the Christ Hymn is present within it. The last line of the second strophe says “making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (1.20). Thus the song moves from Christ the cosmic Creator to Christ who puts down cosmic rebellion. F.F. Bruce notes “the universe has been involved in conflict with its Creator, and needs to be reconciled to Him; the conflict must be replaced with peace. This peace has been affected by Christ, through the shedding of His blood on the cross” (“The Christ Hymn of Colossians” Bib Sac 141 {Apri-June 1984}, 109).

Christ the Reconciler of His Cosmos

Jesus holds both the “old” creation and the “new” creation together in himself. The second strophe begins with poetic symmetry that mirrors the opening line of v.15. Jesus is not only the first born of/over creation; he is also the first born from the dead. Elsewhere Paul says that Christ is the “Firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8.29) and the “firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15.20). Jesus’ resurrection is the harbinger of the great forthcoming resurrection harvest.

The resurrection mentioned in v.18 presupposes the death of Christ. Thus Paul continues to sing

“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

and through him to reconcile all things to himself,

whether things on earth or things in heaven,

by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.”

The claims of this second strophe are no less awesome than in the first. Just as Christ was the cosmic Creator now Paul testifies that he is the cosmic Reconciler of that same cosmos.

There are some who deny that Christ’s blood goes as far as the curse is found. But it seems evident to me that Paul makes that bold claim right here. Just as Adam’s sin had cosmic significance so Christ’s death and resurrection also has cosmic significance. If the first half of the song means that Christ actually created everything then how can the second half be claimed to be less cosmic in reconciliation?

Paul and the Colossians believers, however, lift their voices and sing that God was pleased to reconcile all things (ta panta) to himself. What things? Things that are on earth. Things that are in heaven. All things. All things that were created by Christ but went astray through rebellion. Creation is set free by the one who created it. In order to reconcile it to himself he had to conquer through his blood. As F. F. Bruce writes “in reconciliation as in creation the work of Christ has a cosmic significance.” Bruce further notes that the liberation of God’s people (in this case the Colossians) is linked to his liberation of the cosmos itself. “The liberty of the children of God is procured by the redemptive work of Christ, the release of creation from its bondage to decay is assured by that same redemptive work.”

In Colossians, Paul makes some astounding claims about Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus is the Agent through whom the invisible God actually created the cosmos. Because rebellion has vandalized God’s handiwork Christ Jesus took on the task of reclaiming that cosmos by Conquering the Evil forces let loose in the Cosmos (this took place through the cross). The result of the conquering work of Christ is the reconciliation of the cosmos to God. Paul does not say this is only people. “All things” things in heaven, things on earth, all things were reconciled by the blood of Jesus. What an incredible claim.

A Word from a Church Father: Irenaeus

The early church fully understood the ramifications of Christ being “creator” and what it would mean if Christ was not also “reconciler.” If the cosmic forces were allowed to go free (as it were) that would simply mean that it was God, rather than Satan, that was ultimately defeated. Paul clearly did not believe this, neither should we. Irenaeus was brilliant second century Christian who passionately defended the faith in resurrection against Gnostics of all shades. I close with a quotation from Against Heresies book 3.23.1. Irenaeus sees clearly the connection Paul establishes between creation and reconciliation/redemption:

“Man, who had been created by God that he might live, after losing life, through being injured by the serpent that had corrupted him, should not any more return to life, but should be utterly and forever abandoned to death, God would, in that case, have been conquered, and the wickedness of the serpent would have prevailed over the will of God. But inasmuch as God is invincible and longsuffering, He … by means of the Second Man did He bind the strong man, spoiled his goods and abolished death …”

Christ created the cosmos. He did battle with the “strong man” and defeated him at Golgotha. He did not abandon the work of his hands but reconciled all of it to himself. Thus we long to see the resurrected Lord, along with his resurrected people, on his resurrected and reconciled earth.

Shalom,

Bobby Valentine

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Heaven (9): A Place for the Resurrected Lord & His Resurrected People - 2

God created the world, a temple (see Heaven #4), as a place where deity and creatures could exist in harmonious love and shalom. That was the point. Humanity was created to care for and rule this temple on behalf of God. The trust God placed within humanity was betrayed and the temple, filled with divine presence, was defiled. God’s entire program through out the rest of the biblical narrative is the recovery and restoration of that which was lost. That is why we see those words so much at the heart of the biblical narrative like: reconcile, redeem, restore, recover, return, renew, regenerate, and resurrect. These words, all, point us to the work of God in reclaiming his handiwork from the Evil One.

Insight from a Restoration Father: David Lipscomb

The truth summarized in the previous paragraph was clearly grasped in previous generations among Restorationists. David Lipscomb writes with clarity and power on this theme. He says that the “leading aim and end of Christ’s mission” was to reclaim the Earth … not just human beings as God’s.

“The object of God’s dealing with man, and especially the mission of Christ to earth, was to rescue the world from the rule and dominion of the evil one, from the ruin into which it had fallen through sin, and to rehabilitate it with the dignity and the glory it had when it came from the hand of God; to restore man—spiritually, mentally, and physically—to the likeness of his Maker … to displace the barrenness and desolation of the earth with the verdue and beauty of Eden … to make this earth again a garden of God’s own planting …

The leading aim of and end of Christ’s mission on this earth was not to make man religious. He was religious before Jesus came. The specific object was not to make man moral or honest; this was a secondary and subsidiary concomitant and a means to the great end … The failure to appreciate the leading idea of Christ’s mission—leads to grievous mistakes … The one great purpose of Christ’s mission to earth and the establishment of his kingdom on earth and all of the provisions he has made and the forces he has put in operation to affect man’s course of life, were and are to rescue this world from the rule and dominion of the evil one, to deliver it from the ruin into which it had fallen through man’s sin, and to bring it back to its original and normal relations with God and the universe, that the will of God shall be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (David Lipscomb, “Ruin and Redemption of the World” in Salvation from Sin, pp. 114-115)

It is clear from previous posts that Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Augustine and Jonathan Edwards would have given a hearty “Amen” to what Lipscomb writes. Of course what Lipscomb writes was written before the war on the Nashville Bible School Tradition and the secularization of the faith by R. L. Whiteside, L.S. White and Foy E. Wallace Jr.

Lipscomb however understood not only the general flow of the biblical narrative but he grasped the significance of all those words in the biblical vocabulary of salvation. Lipscomb could point to such specific passages as Matthew 19. 28 and Acts 3.21.

Matthew 19.28

“Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, at the time of the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (NIV).

Most scholars agree that this is an eschatological passage and it seems fairly obvious from its context that this is the case. The point to be established from this text is what is meant by the “renewal of all things.” Various translations render the Greek as “regeneration” (NASB), “new world” (ESV), “in the world that is to be” (REB); and “new creation” (Anchor Bible), “regeneration of all things” (ASV).

It is important to note just what Jesus says for he ties directly into the “hope of Israel” in this text. He doe not say after the destruction of all things, or the abandonment of all things. This is not a minor semantic point. The very point of Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection is to rescue the world and all that is within it from the “ruin” it has fallen.

The Greek term, palingenesia, literally means “new genesis” or “coming back to life” (TDNT 1.686). The term is only used twice in the NT, here in Matthew and in Titus 3.5. Outside of the NT, the Jewish writer, Philo, uses the term three times in the exact same way that Matthew does of “everything” and Paul does of humanity. On the Life of Moses uses the term twice to describe the “new earth” that emerged after the destruction of the flood. And interestingly enough Philo uses the term in On the Creation of the World to describe restored creation after destruction by fire.

What Matthew reports Jesus saying here is that the world will be renewed, recreated, regenerated, or come back to life. W.F. Albright and C.S. Mann in their Anchor Bible commentary suggest that Jesus is promising the “new creation” to his disciples. “All things” the Lord says will be renewed … The Revised English Bible words it well,

“Truly, I tell you: in the world that is to be, when the Son of Man is seated on his glorious throne …” Perhaps even better is the Message, “In the re-creation of the world, when the Son of Man will rule gloriously …”

Acts 3.21

What we have just said about Matthew 19.28 is in harmony with numerous passages in the Hebrew Bible and totally consistent with Colossians 1, Romans 8 and Revelation 21-22.

It is the language of those prophetic passages and Jesus’ words that lie in the background of Acts 3.21. Peter stood up before the crowd and said,

“[Jesus] must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets” (NIV).

Surely Peter recalled something of his Master’s lesson. Again it is helpful to read this text in various translations as they try to convey the meaning of the Greek into English. The NEB, REB, NAB and NRSV read “until the universal restoration.” The ESV reads “until the time for restoring all things …” Today’s English Version reads “until the time comes for all things to be made new.” The CEV reads “until God makes all things new” And the first English translation ever (though of Latin rather than Greek) that of John Wycliff reads “until the restitution of all things” … not a bad rendering. Eugene Peterson renders the text in The Message as “until everything is restored to order again just the way God said it would be.”

The Greek term here is apokatastasis. The verb form of this word occurs 8x in the NT but the noun occurs only here in Acts 3. The word has a rich history, interestingly enough, in the LXX translation of prophetic texts that Peter says he is testifying too. It used for example by Jeremiah in 16.15; 23.8; 24.6 (LXX). Ezekiel uses the term in his poignant allegory of Israel in ch. 16.55 referring to being restored. The LXX uses the term in Daniel 4.33f and in 1 Maccabees 15.3.

Thus when Peter chose this particular word there is already a rich history (and we have not explored all of it) to it. Link in his article on the term in the third volume of Dictionary of New Testament Theology he notes “The apokatastasis panton does not mean the conversion of all of mankind, but the restoration of all things and circumstances which the OT prophets proclaimed, i.e. the universal renewal of the earth” (p. 148).

Peter explicitly roots this universal renewal of all things in the hope of the Hebrew Bible. Jesus is remaining in heaven until God brings about what the Prophets said he would do. Peter did not invent the renewal of the world … it has a long history in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish literature of the time. Thus what Jesus said would happen in Matthew 19 and what Peter says will happen in Acts 3 is what Paul says will happen in Romans 8 and it is what we see happening in Revelation 21-22. All of these things are in accordance with the hope of Israel. The hope that Peter says lay at the heart of the prophetic message … God is restoring everything to order again.

Conclusion

God has never given up on his dream for creation, if Jesus and Peter are to be believed. David Lipscomb seems to have been on target about the mission of Christ. The mission of Christ is to renew all of God’s creation to bring it back into the glory it had when he declared it to be very good. That place is the resurrected earth. That place is heaven. Thus we, as believers stand with the early Christians, when we long to see the Resurrected Lord, to live with his Resurrected Saints, on his renewed, restored and Resurrected Earth. A place where God will dwell with humanity … just as he did in Eden. I cannot wait.

Shalom,

Bobby Valentine

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Heaven (8): A Place for the Resurrected Lord, His Resurrected People, on His Resurrected Earth

From the earliest days of the history of Christianity there has been a summary of the faith that came to be called The Apostles’ Creed. No it was not written by the Apostles but it is apostolic in content. With slight variation the wording has been the same basically since the second century though it did not have the title “creed” as of yet.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

Creator of Heaven and Earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.

He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit

and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified and was buried.

He descended to the dead.

On the third day He rose again.

He ascended into Heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Holy Catholic Church,

the communion of the saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and life everlasting.

Amen.

This ancient confession has its origins in baptismal ceremonies. A candidate was asked three questions about God, Christ and the Spirit and immersed each time. Thus the Creed stands as a witness to the faith of the early Christians, most of whom never owned a Bible or NT. In fact the NT was not even “together” yet.

Everett Ferguson in his article on the Creed in the Encyclopedia of Early Christianity states that the Creed also took on a polemical nature against the Docetic and Gnostic groups that were arising in the Second Century. Note the stress the Father as Creator of all; the stress on the physical nature of Christ’s suffering and resurrection and finally note the hope that stresses “resurrection of the body.” I have said previously that the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of believers go hand in hand. The resurrection of bodies and the resurrection of the Earth also go hand in hand. In the history of Christianity this is true. Those who stressed the redemption of the body explicitly connect it with God’s redemption of his creation. Those who reject a literal, physical, bodily resurrection have also rejected the new heavens and new earth. During the days of the second and third centuries those folks had names like Platonists, Gnostics, Ophites and the like.

Wolfhart Pannenberg in his exposition of The Apostles’ Creed calls attention to this very polemical thrust in the Creed. He says,

“The contrast to the Greek way of thinking (which was only able to conceive of life beyond death as the continued life of the soul, separated from the body) is expressed by the particular stress of the creed’s formulation when it talks about the resurrection of the body.” (Apostles’ Creed, p. 170, his emphasis)

The stress on the identity of the body in spite of transformation is directed against a certain current understanding that some believers have unwittingly embraced. Pannenberg notes again,

“That is why the creed insists on the identity of the matter of ‘the body’ with a rigidity which must have already seemed barbarous to the Hellenistic world” (Ibid, p. 171)

Now the question for some contemporary Christians is this: does God resurrect our dead body and then destroy it? This is clearly not what the early church, nor the historic church, has believed. The Creed links our resurrected body with eternal life. We will spend eternal life in our resurrected body.

Vocabulary of Biblical Theology

This post is not trying to establish our theology from the Creed. Rather the Creed shows us what Christians have always believed. That belief could be mistaken yet I do not believe it is. The Apostles’ Creed bears witness to profound biblical theology. For example in previous posts we have seen how God is the Creator and Lover of his Creation; he created the world as a place where the divine and human could experience fellowship; he is about redeeming and reclaiming that world through the work of Christ on the Cross.

The last statement is of fundamental importance. What we think about heaven and earth is not some esoteric point. The Creed does not wrangle about instrumental music. No. What we believe about redemption tells a great deal of what we think God did through Jesus when he shed his blood. Did Jesus death undo the work of Satan? That is the question. The early church in fact understood the atonement primarily in terms of Christ's defeat of the cosmic forces of Satan, not substitutionary as the Reformers did (and most Evangelicals do) This ancient view is known as Christus Victor. Christ has conquered. The Latin fathers exclaim, "Vicit agnus noster; eum sequamur" (Our lamb has conquered; let us follow him.).

Have you ever noticed the vocabulary the Bible uses for “salvation?” We use it all of the time but do we reflect on what the words are actually saying? Here are some words: Reconcile. Redeem. Restore. Return. Renew. Regenerate. Resurrect. These words are the heart of the biblical doctrine of salvation. Each of the words begins with the re-prefix, each suggests a return to an original condition that was lost or ruined. How many times have we heard a preacher say “redemption means to buy back?” Or similar themes on reconciliation and resurrection. Now if we look in such passages as Matthew 19.28; Acts 3.21; Colossians 1.15-20; and Romans 8.11, 18-25 among many others we are confronted with the question … what is God redeeming? Reconciling? Restoring? Renewing? and Resurrecting. In fact it was these very passages (and more) that are the foundation for understanding the work of Christ … and its effect on God’s creation that he loves. The Apostles’ Creed understands this rhythm in biblical theology quite clearly. The early Church understood it too. They understood that if a Gnostic denied that Christ did not really redeem creation then Christ won a small victory indeed! Satan was able to poison more than the blood was able to cure! ... Perhaps this is why Polycarp curses those who hold that view and Irenaeus devotes hundreds of pages to the subject in the second century. Yet the early church believed that God redeems humans precisely because through Christ, the new Adam, he redeemed creation.

The early church looked forward to seeing the resurrected Lord; and living with God’s resurrected people; within God’s glorious resurrected Earth.

What is to Come on this Blog

In the next three days I will make three more posts: one on Matthew 19.28 and Acts 3.21 and their wider contexts; one on Romans 8; and one on Colossians 1. The plan is that next week we will take a hard look at 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 21 and 22.

Shalom,

Bobby Valentine

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Tribute to a Noble Wife & Mother

Tribute to a Noble Wife and Mother

"A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her ... Her husband is respected in the city gate ... Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her" (Pr 31.10-11, 23, 28)

Not only does she make her husband and kids look good in the city gate, more importantly she does so at the race and the game (Milwaukee Mile) ...



"Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me ..." (S of S 6.5,8-9, NIV)



Pamella watches over her children as they grow (like they have since this picture of Christmas 2004); Molding them to be lovers of Jesus and his kingdom.



Scripture must have had her in mind when it reads: "How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful ... your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely ... " (S of S 4.1, 3, 11).



She is wonderful to her family



Noble, loving and caring as she is, Pamella also reminds me of the heroine Judith. Judith was "beautiful in appearance and lovely to behold" (Judith 8.7). Soft on the outside and tough as nails on the inside. There is that subdued strength to do the unbelievable--in Judith's case it was to deal ever so boldly with Holofernes who threatened God's people. She is my own Storm (for those who read comic books).

"Your eyes are doves" (S of S 1.14; 4.1)



Rachael, Talya and I thank you very much for making us all look good. Thank you for teaching us, caring for us, protecting us, praying for us, playing with us, and loving us. For the record the girls picked each picture ... plus one with the belly button. I love you and am proud to say you are my wife and mother of my children.

Beauty and the Beast ...



On his wedding night, the young Tobias asked his bride, Sarah, to kneel in prayer ...

"Blessed are you, O God of our ancestors,
and blessed is your name in all generations forever.
Let the heavens and the whole creation bless you forever.
You made Adam, and for him you made Eve
as a helper and support.
From the two of them the human race has sprung.
You said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone;
let us make a helper for him like himself.'
I now am taking this woman of mine,
not because of lust, but with sincerity.
Grant that she and I may find mercy
and that we may grow old together."
(Tobit 8.5-7)

May it be so. Happy Mother's Day

Your loving Husband

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