Football and Interpreting Scripture

 

Imagine someone's exposure and understanding of American football being composed solely of watching highlight videos of just the kicker and punter.  There would be scenes of punting on fourth down, the kick-off, extra-point kicks, and field goals.  This would allow a person to understand some things about the game of football.  A person could understand how the ball moves (sometimes) and how points are scored (at least some of the time).  But this, of course, would not be a full understanding.  Such a de-contextualized "understanding" of football would miss many of the details and connections between actions in the full game of football.  Even the significance of the actions viewed in the highlight reel would not be weighted properly--being either over-valued or under-valued.  Such a limited understanding of football would miss the center and weightiest part of scoring in football, namely the touchdown.  It would all miss the central movement of the football, namely the movement of the ball by running and passing.

This is good analogy for how some people cherry-pick a few sayings or deeds from Jesus' life without placing them in the larger pattern of his thought and life.  This is to fundamentally misunderstand Jesus.  A "pick-and-choose" approach to Jesus will miss the center of his teaching and misunderstand the connections and significance of Jesus' teaching and actions.  

To focus on the love of Jesus or his concern for the poor to the exclusion of the larger contextual themes of the Kingdom of God and the person of Christ Jesus himself is to fundamentally misunderstand Jesus and his message.  D. A. Carson's words on "love" in the Scriptures are relevant here:

I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God—to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity. 

The result, of course, is that the love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable.  The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized.[1] 

---------------------

[1] D. A. Carson The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Crossway, 2000), 11.

The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God

* A selection from D. A. Carson's wonderful little book The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God.

If people believe in God at all today, the overwhelming majority hold that this God—however he, she, or it may be understood—is a loving being. But that is what makes the task of the Christian witness so daunting. For this widely disseminated belief in the love of God is set with increasing frequency in some matrix other than biblical theology. The result is that when informed Christians talk about the love of God, they mean something very different from what is meant in the surrounding culture. Worse, neither side may perceive that that is the case. 

….

To put this another way, we live in a culture in which many other and complementary truths about God are widely disbelieved. I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God—to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity. 

The result, of course, is that the love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable. The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized. This process has been going on for some time. My generation was taught to sing, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love,” in which we robustly instruct the Almighty that we do not need another mountain (we have enough of them), but we could do with some more love. The hubris is staggering. 

It has not always been so. In generations when almost every- one believed in the justice of God, people sometimes found it difficult to believe in the love of God. The preaching of the love of God came as wonderful good news. Nowadays if you tell people that God loves them, they are unlikely to be surprised. Of course God loves me; he’s like that, isn’t he? Besides, why shouldn’t he love me? I’m kind of cute, or at least as nice as the next person. I’m okay, you’re okay, and God loves you and me. (pp. 9-12)

The Heart of God

Does God ever seem remote and distant?  At times we may even think thoughts like these—“He is high and exalted but far removed from our lives.  He takes care of the big things and only interacts with my life when I do something wrong.”  I fear that for many of us we often see our heavenly Father this way.  Recently in reading some of the prophets I noticed some striking imagery about God’s love and care for his people.

In Jeremiah 30-33 there are promises made to Israel concerning the release from exile.  Israel’s sin had brought them to a place of exile but God would again have mercy.  Here are some words which speak of God’s “heart” in the matter.

“Is Ephraim my dear son?  Is he a delightful child?  Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him, I certainly still remember him; therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him,” declares the Lord.  Jeremiah 31.20

God’s heart “yearns” for his people—this is no passive or disinterested deity!  Consider these words which speak of an “everlasting covenant” to be made with God’s people:

I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from me.  I will rejoice over them to do them good and will faithfully plant them in this land with all my heart and with all my soul.  Jeremiah 32.40-41

That last phrase—“with all my heart and with all my soul”—captured my attention.  That language is used of our requirement to love God (Deuteronomy 6.5; Mark 12.30).  But here the language of heart and soul is spoken of as God’s commitment to us—his desire to do good to his people!  This is a portrait of God’s gracious and tenacious commitment to the good of his people.  Our God is not “half-hearted” in his commitment to love us.  He demonstrates his whole-hearted commitment to love us in sending his only unique Son, Jesus Christ to die for our sins.  The New Testament speaks of these realities in this way:

But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5.8

Look to Christ and his cross—see the great full-hearted love of God for his people.  In this rejoice and trust—for our God is a God of whole-hearted love!

The Love of God

* Notes from a Bible study.  Part of a series on the attributes of God.

Love of God

A.     God is love: 1 John 4.8-10

a.     God, not culture, defines what love is

I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God—to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity.

The result, of course, is that the love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable.  The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized.[1]  –D. A. Carson

b.     Love defined by God’s giving of his Son to be the propitiation for sins

                                               i.     Propitiation presupposes God’s wrath against sin

                                              ii.     “[P]ropitiation is not a turning of the wrath of God into love… It is one thing to say that the wrathful God is made loving.  This would be entirely false.  It is another thing to say the wrathful God is loving.  That is profoundly true.”[2]

B.     God’s love for sinners

a.     John 3.16

b.     Romans 5.8

c.      Galatians 2.20

C.     Exodus 34.6-7: “the John 3:16 of the Old Testament” (VTS: Vacation Torah School)

Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.

a.     Placement in Exodus à Ex 32-34: Golden Calf episode

                                               i.     Exodus 25-31: instructions for building tabernacle

                                              ii.     Exodus 35-40: people build tabernacle per instructions

It is easy to overlook the profound theological significance of its place in the literary structure.[3]

The emphasis to this point in Exodus has been on the holiness of God and the demand for the holiness of God’s people.  But here terms of love and grace are piled one on the other to reassure Israel that God will dwell among his people as a gracious, loving, compassionate, patient, faithful, and forgiving God.  The name Yahweh is now associated with his covenant love (hesed).  This term is “normally translated as ‘steadfast love,’ ‘covenant fidelity,’ or the like.  This becomes the word which from this point onwards summarizes the divine commitment to the relationship.”  God binds himself to Israel in love.[4]

b.     Passages where this complex of attributes appears

                                               i.     Numbers 14.18

                                              ii.     2 Chronicles 30.9

                                            iii.     Nehemiah 9.17, 31

                                            iv.     Psalms 86.15; 103.8; 145.8[5]

                                              v.     Jeremiah 32.18

                                            vi.     Joel 2.13

                                           vii.     Jonah 4.2

                                         viii.     Nahum 1.3

D.    D. A. Carson’s list of different ways the Bible speaks about the love of God[6]

a.     The peculiar love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father

                                               i.     John 17.24

                                              ii.     John 3.35

                                            iii.     John 14.31

b.     God’s providential love over all the he has made.

                                               i.     Genesis 1—everything is “good”

                                              ii.     Matthew 6.25-30—birds and flowers: “common grace”

If this were not a benevolent providence, a loving providence, then the moral lesson that Jesus drives home, viz. that this God can be trusted to provide for his own people, would be incoherent.[7]

                                            iii.     Acts 14.17—“he did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

c.      God’s salvific stance toward his fallen world

                                               i.     John 3.16

                                              ii.     1 Timothy 2.4

                                            iii.     2 Peter 3.9

·      We will look at this more closely when we look at election.  Does God love all people or just the elect?

d.     God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect.

                                               i.     Deuteronomy 7.7-8: God’s election of Israel

                                              ii.     Ephesians 5.25: “loved the church”

                                            iii.     Romans 8.35-39

e.     God’s love is sometimes said to be directed toward his own people in a provisional or conditional way—conditioned, that is, on obedience.

                                               i.     Jude 21: “keep yourselves in the love of God”

                                              ii.     John 15.9-10: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love”

                                            iii.     This is a common notion in Reformed/Calvinistic theology but not in Lutheran theology. 

                                            iv.     “The distinction between amor benevolentiæ and amor complacentiæ, used by almost all of the Reformed orthodox, explains how God loves us unconditionally in Christ, apart from works, and conditionally in Christ, in light of our obedience or lack thereof (see Jn. 14:21). In other words, God loves us, despite our unworthiness with the love of benevolence; but he also loves us because of our close communion and obedience with him with the love of complacency. He delights in certain graces (e.g., acts of faith).”[8]

                                              v.     “Behind this emphasis lies a distinction with which we are not too familiar, that between the love of God’s benevolence or mercy, and his love of complacence or delight. Why is this distinction unfamiliar to us? Is it because we think of God’s mercy, and the life of faith, of sanctification, as solely motivated by gratitude for what that mercy has procured? But there is more to it than this. God delights in his people. (Ps. 147.11, 149.4) How so? When there is evidence of their Christ-like renewal. So Christians are to ‘walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him,’ following Christ who pleased his Father (2 Pet. 1.17, Col. 1.10; 3.20, I Thess. 2.4,  2 Thess. 1.11). God does not delight in his people 'just as they are' but insofar as they come, fitfully and imperfectly, to take on a Christian character. Are there conditions required to qualify people in coming to the Cross? Certainly not. The Lord receives us just as we are. Are there conditions for divine delight in his people? Most certainly. Is the pleasing of God the ambition of Christians today?”[9]

---

[1] D. A. Carson The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Crossway, 2000), 11.

[2] John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 31.

[3] Michael W. Goheen A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story (Baker, 2011), 44.

[4] Michael W. Goheen A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story (Baker, 2011), 45.  Goheen is quoting Dumbrell Covenant and Creation.

[5] The word “lovingkindness” appears 125 times in Psalms in NASB.

[6] D. A. Carson The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Crossway, 2000), 16-21.  Available online: http://s3.amazonaws.com/tgc-documents/carson/2000_difficult_doctrine_of_the_love_of_God.pdf

[7] D. A. Carson The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Crossway, 2000), 17.

[8] Mark Jones in his review of the work of Tullian Tchividjian’s Jesus + Nothing = Everything.  See online: http://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2014/03/tullian-tchividjians-jesus-nothing.html. 

[9] Paul Helm, “Mark Jones’ New Book.”  Available online: http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2014/03/mark-joness-new-book.html.  Helm is reviewing Antinomianism: Reformed Theology’s Unwelcome Guest? (P&R, 2013).  Also see Wayne Grudem’s essay “Pleasing God by Our Obedience: A Neglected New Testament Teaching.”  Available online: http://www.waynegrudem.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Pleasing-God-by-Our-Obedience.pdf. 

The Strong and Faithful Love of God

How secure is the love of God?  How strong is God’s will to save his people?  Reading through the prophet Isaiah there are a number of poetic portraits of God’s saving power.  Consider these words from Isaiah 51.6:

Lift up your eyes to the sky, then look to the earth beneath; for the sky will vanish like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will not wane.

It’s as if God says, “Look at the most stable things that I have created—the sky and earth.  These will disappear before my salvation love disappears!”  Our God makes promises to bless his people and nothing will stop him from keeping his word!  A similar thought appears in Isaiah 54.10:

“For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, but my lovingkindness will not be removed from you, and my covenant of peace will not be shaken,” says the Lord who has compassion on you.

The earth may shake but there will be no shaking of the covenant-love of God for his people! 

Stepping into the New Testament we have even more reason to be confident in the love of God.  The great measure of the love of God is seen in the giving of the Son of God for us sinners.  The apostle Paul notes:

What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who is against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?  (Romans 8.31-32)

God has spared no expense—he has given his greatest gift, his Son.  We can be confident in this love no matter what circumstances we face.  God will give us everything we need to love him and live for him.  He has already freely given his Son—surely nothing else will be withheld from us that we need for us to be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8.29).  We can be confident in the love of God.  He tells us how strong his words of love are and then he backs up his words with the greatest act of grace ever—the free gift of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Trust in his love and rejoice in his grace!

God's Covenant Love: He Provides the Blood

Imagine! The Creator of the universe, the holy and righteous God, was willing to leave heaven and come down to a nomad’s tent in the dusty, hot desert of the Negev to express his love for his people. 

“Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram…along with a dove and a young pigeon,” God told Abraham. Then, when those animals had been sacrificed and laid out on both sides of their shed blood, God made a covenant. To do that, he walked “barefoot,” in the form of a blazing torch, through the path of blood between the animals. 

Think of it. Almighty God walking barefoot through a pool of blood! The thought of a human being doing that is, to say the least, unpleasant. Yet, God, in all his power and majesty, expressed his love that personally. By participating in that traditional, Near Eastern covenant-making ceremony, he made it unavoidably clear to the people of that time, place, and culture what he intended to do. 

“I love you so much, Abraham,” God was saying, “and I promise that this covenant will come true for you and your children. I will never break my covenant with you. I’m willing to put my own life on the line to make you understand.” 

Picturing God passing through that gory path between the carcasses of animals, imagining the blood splashing as we walked, helps us recognize the faithfulness of God’s commitment. He was willing to express, in terms his chosen people could understand, that he would never fail to do what he promised. And he ultimately fulfilled his promise by giving his own life, his own blood, on the cross. 

Because we look at God’s dealings with Abraham as some remote piece of history in a far-off land, we often fail to realize that we, too, are part of the long line of people with whom God made a covenant on that rocky plain near Hebron. And like those who came before us, we have broken that covenant. 

When he walked in the dust of the desert and through the blood of the animals Abraham had slaughtered, God was making a promise to all the descendants of Abraham--to everyone in the household of faith. When God splashed through the blood, he did it for us. 

We’re not simply individuals in relationship to God, we’re part of a long line of people marching back through history, from our famous Jewish ancestors David, Hezekiah, and Peter to the millions of unknown believers; from the ancient Israelites and the Jewish people of Jesus’ day to the Christian community dating from the early church. We’re part of a community of people with whom God established relationship in the dust and sand of the Negev. 

But there’s more. When God made covenant with his people, he did something no human being would have even considered doing. In the usual blood covenant, each party was responsible for keeping only his side of the promise. When God made covenant with Abraham, however, he promised to keep both sides of the agreement. 

“If this covenant is broken, Abraham, for whatever reason--for my unfaithfulness or yours--I will repay the price,” said God. “If you or your descendants, for whom you are making this covenant, fail to keep it, I will pay the price in blood.” 

And at that moment, Almighty God pronounced the death sentence on his Son Jesus.

--Ray Vander Laan with Judith Markham, Echoes of His Presence: Stories of the Messiah from the People of His Day (Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family, 1996), 8-9.  

D. A. Carson's book "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God"

D. A. Carson's book The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Crossway, 2000) is small--about 75 pages of text--but very profound.  In this slim volume Carson has packed a great deal of content.  He touches upon lexical studies regarding the word "love" in the New Testament, the doctrine of impassibility, limited atonement, different aspects of the love of God, and the importance of seeing God's love in light of the fulness of all of his attributes.  Here a few comments I was again skimming today:

I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God—to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity.

The result, of course, is that the love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable.  The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized. p 11

Carson also has a great discussion in which he recognizes five different aspects of God's love.  His five categories are:

a.     The peculiar love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father

b.     God’s providential love over all the he has made.

c.      God’s salvific stance toward his fallen world

d.     God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect.

e.     God’s love is sometimes said to be directed toward his own people in a provisional or conditional way—conditioned, that is, on obedience. pp 16-21

The great news is that Carson's book is available for free online HERE.  Take up and read!