Postmil

So creation was simply God being God, although in a new and mysteriously free way, wherein He made an other to bring into His love. This has all been said before but it will take some explaining for us:

If, however, any one say, “What then? Could not God have exhibited man as perfect from beginning?” let him know that, inasmuch as God is indeed always the same and unbegotten as respects Himself, all things are possible to Him. But created things must be inferior to Him who created them, from the very fact of their later origin; for it was not possible for things recently created to have been uncreated. But inasmuch as they are not uncreated, for this very reason do they come short of the perfect. Because, as these things are of later date, so are they infantile; so are they unaccustomed to, and unexercised in, perfect discipline. For as it certainly is in the power of a mother to give strong food to her infant, [but she does not do so], as the child is not yet able to receive more substantial nourishment; so also it was possible for God Himself to have made man perfect from the first, but man could not receive this [perfection], being as yet an infant. And for this cause our Lord in these last times, when He had summed up all things into Himself, came to us, not as He might have come, but as we were capable of beholding Him. He might easily have come to us in His immortal glory, but in that case we could never have endured the greatness of the glory; and therefore it was that He, who was the perfect bread of the Father, offered Himself to us as milk, [because we were] as infants. He did this when He appeared as a man, that we, being nourished, as it were, from the breast of His flesh, and having, by such a course of milk nourishment, become accustomed to eat and drink the Word of God, may be able also to contain in ourselves the Bread of immortality, which is the Spirit of the Father.

So we could say that mankind was created with a natural attraction to and movement toward the Good. Humans are “wired for grace,” and thus a “true human” is one who images God as closely as possible. A complete human is one in union with the divine.

Sin, then, is a rejection of the good and a falling away from humanness. Sin is a rejection of love and hospitality, a despising of grace and a love of violence and cursing. As privation, of course, there is no such thing as “absolute evil.” This would be self-annihilation and non-existence, and God simply cannot tolerate this, since His good always outweighs our evil.

God doesn’t have to change to deal with evil either. Redemption is not a “new” habitus for God, even if it looks like it from our side of things, but rather it is simply God continuing to be the Highest Good, of which can allow no room for evil. The reason that God doesn’t zap it instantaneously is much the same as what Irenaeus says of creation.

And after such an introduction, we can move on to our point, which is to say that the only true humanity is Jesus Christ. He is the second Adam and fulfillment of the race. He is the seed that went into the ground to produce the fruit of glory. He is the man fully alive.

So the only true human is a Christian.

And thus the only true human society is a Christian society.

God Can Be Challenging

It is often remarked that conservatives build their theology off Paul, whereas liberals build their’s off Jesus.

We, of course, rightly respond that the two are in harmony, but usually we still use this as a defense of using Paul to interpret Jesus. The more clear interprets the less clear and all.

But at some point, the concept of “more clear” receives the additional “for my paradigm.” It becomes highly subjective. It becomes an excuse. Jesus’ words are challenging, but I do not think that you can seriously say they are “less clear” than Paul’s. (Not that there is a difference, but you know…)

Josh is meditating on these things, and he has some fine thoughts.

It is a wonder that we constantly want to make salvation hard. I understand the problem of “cheap grace,” but that’s not what I’m talking about. And besides, for Bonheoffer that didn’t mean “Get your theology straight.” It meant “Go be a martyr.”  Instead, we manage to be Pharisees of the German Idealist school.

I wonder if our reaction to universal salvation, of which I am not a proponent, isn’t sometimes way too similar to a sinner’s natural reaction to grace. We are outraged that God would save everyone, no matter what. We are outraged that the most unreligious could find grace.

How different, though, is that from an outrage that Jesus would associate with prostitutes?

Mark Horne preached a sermon called “Why Faith?” which I just came across on my iPod. He made the remark that the depraved mind is as offended by the gospel as he is by the law. “Who are you to forgive me?” he might remark out of pride. “I don’t need forgiveness!” he might say. But from another perspective, he might say, “I don’t deserve forgiveness.” He might say, “Forgiving me would be wrong, and I won’t allow it.”

Both responses are sin.

Both responses are unbelief.

2 Kingdomz 4 Life

Andrew has been taking it pretty hard to the neo-two kingdoms socio-political theory. I can’t say that I would use the scatological language anymore (I’m trying to do better), but it is hard to say that folks who are personally opposed to abortion but cannot be so politically are anything other than fools in the Biblical sense of the term. This isn’t a straw-man either. Folks really get into this schizophrenic Christianity. I think there is some sort of misinterpretation of the extra nos going on here…

And of course, one can only promote the neo-two kingdoms view if he is a product of classical liberalism, or in other words, a product of Christian and Reformation societies. I doubt the Christians in Burma are so trusting of their civil magistrate’s ability to interpret the rights of man. They would probably be up for a dose of Christian culture here and there.

I also wonder how Covenanters can hold to this position. Psalm 72 says, “Grant the king your justice, O God.” “He will judge the people with righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice.”

And before you tell me that the New Testament has made this all a spiritual reality, as if judging the afflicted is now just a way to say “Study Committee,” look at verse 4:

He will defend the afflicted among the people
and save the children of the needy;
he will crush the oppressor.

The New Testament doesn’t forget about this idea.  In Paul and James, not to mention Jesus, we have several references to feeding the poor and taking care of the children in need.

And while we’re at it (though we won’t sing this one), how about the words of Micah 3:

Hear, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know justice?– you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin from off my people and their flesh from off their bones, who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin form off them, and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot like flesh in a cauldron.

The gospel brings political and social reform. Missionaries come into dark lands, and they say, “Hey guys, how about we not eat people anymore.”

They, much like Paul, demand an audience with the greatest ruler in the land, and they say, “Hey, could you see to it that folks, like, stop eating people.”

And you know what? The local people LIKE THIS! A lot!

And one last thing, natural law does not mean the law of the wild. It does not mean, as one friend once put it, that we go out and deduce from the mountain streams that it isn’t good to rape and pillage. Rather it means a law in accordance with one’s nature, in accordance with man’s creational reason.

In other words, it means the image of God.

And for fallen man, the best way to understand one’s natural faculties is not to look within, but rather to look to God’s nature. Thus natural law is God’s law. How could it be otherwise?