Curate’s Chronicles

A while ago I mentioned 3 talks by Simon Gathercole on the Pre-existence of Jesus. I have now listened to them myself, and here is a very brief synopsis.

Talk 1 presents the dominant scholarly view, which is that at first Jesus’ followers considered him a merely human figure, albeit the Messiah, or some grand Prophet. Later he was viewed as a semi-divine figure, and only later (John’s gospel, Hebrews) is Jesus considered fully divine. The Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) stand mid-way along that progress of thought, which is why (it is said) they don’t really present Jesus as God. They have no doctrine of Jesus’ pre-existence, namely that a Person existed who was incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth. Simon Gathercole starts showing the weakness of this viewpoint.

Talk 2 focuses on various ‘”I have come” + purpose’ sayings. In the synoptic gospels there are 10 such sayings e.g. Matthew 10:35, Mark 1:24. Simon makes the point that “I have come” implies an existence before the coming. Now, perhaps this could be simply “I was in Galilee, but now I have come to Jerusalem to do…” However, the purpose sums up Jesus’ whole life - so the natural reading is that “I have come to do…” means “I was once not in the world, but now I am, and I have come to…”. I.e. Jesus exists before his birth. Talk 2 focuses mainly on “I have come + purpose” sayings in the OT and other ancient Jewish literature, showing that they refer to heavenly beings (e.g. Angel of the LORD or various angels in Jewish literature) who are sent / have come to do certain things. A heavenly existence prior to the event of coming is always assumed.

Talk 3 then looks in detail at the 10 sayings in the Synoptic gospels, showing that they indeed read most naturally as implying Jesus’ pre-existence and his coming into the world to achieve / do certain things.

Okay, fair enough - for many people it is transparently obvious that Jesus existed before his birth. But many theologians / scholars do enjoy writing about silly stuff, and it does filter down into the local church, so it’s good to be aware of their nonsense and a Biblical response.

One bit I enjoyed was a passing comment about some of the gospel passages that may be “the tip of the iceberg” of the view that Jesus is the incarnation of the Angel of the LORD. (NB just read Genesis to discover many appearances of the Angel, and remember that ‘Angel’ means ‘Messenger’ or ‘Sent One’ so it doesn’t have to mean shiny creature with wings and harps.)

Matthew 10:34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” could be an allusion to Joshua 5:13-14 (the commander of the army of the LORD who Joshua sees with drawn sword) and/or 1 Chronicles 21 (the Angel of the LORD who stands between heaven and earth with drawn sword) and/or Numbers 22:31 (Balaam and his donkey see the Angel of the LORD standing with drawn sword).

Also, Luke 12:49 “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!” could be alluding to Genesis 19:24, where the LORD on earth rains down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah “from the LORD-out-of-the-heavens.”

Simon didn’t really explore these in detail, although I’m very curious to know what he thinks.  Having done a lot of thinking about the Trinity in the Old Testament, I find it obvious that the gospels frequently identify Jesus as the Angel of the LORD / the Visible LORD who was so active throughout Old Testament times.  But it’s still lots of fun finding more passages to prove my case!

You are probably aware of the crisis that the Anglican Communion is in, but may be unclear about the details. Or maybe you’ve only vaguely heard of it. Dr Mark Thompson has written an article called ‘The Anglican Debacle‘ which gives a good summary of the story so far. It’s important to be familiar with the facts on the ground, because if one thing is certain - the next few months will have lots of stories about the Anglican Church, and very few of them will be accurate!

I have two great friends who were recently ordained in The Episcopal Church, USA - in South Carolina, which is the most evangelical Diocese in the States. This is not a remote issue!

This blog would have three times as many posts if I mentioned everything I came across that points to Britain being a society in free-fall.  (Here’s a good example.)  Romans 1:18-32 is playing itself out before our eyes.  Maybe I’m being misled by newspapers etc that prefer to mention bad news rather than good news; even so, the bad news is bad.

The thing about a society in collapse is that people are both culpable and victims.  Someone such as Karen Matthews (mother of the mercifully-found Shannon) has been through a horrendous time and our first reaction must be relief that Shannon has been found, and a desire to comfort the family.  Nevertheless, she has seven children by five different men, and sees no problem with this.  Mostly because she lives in a society that has no problem with it.  Melanie Phillips has a very good article about this, and be in no doubt that this is not a “oh those terrible poor people with their bad family life” rant.

I am no prophet, but it seems to me that all it will take is a financial crisis to make people realise that Mammon is no Saviour, and as the false comfort of material wealth and possessions is stripped away people are going to realise that this country is morally bankrupt.  My prayer is that, at that moment, the Church will be present in all areas of society saying “Come to Jesus and he will give you rest.  Take his yoke upon you and find life.”  Because if not Jesus then some other (false) saviour will be sought after.

St Patrick’s day is almost here.  Unlike so many early saints, we actually know a fair bit about Patrick - there are two surviving letters of his.  For a brief overview of his life, see the Wikipedia entry.  Although he probably didn’t drive the snakes out of Ireland, he was a great missionary with a real faith in Christ.  Go read his ‘Declaration‘ in which he writes about his life and faith as he defends himself against various charges.  Here’s an extract, which could be a creed he wrote himself; he is (basically) explaining why he was a missionary:

Here I cannot be silent … Because there is no other God, nor ever was, nor will be, than God the Father unbegotten, without beginning, from whom is all beginning, the Lord of the universe, as we have been taught; and His son Jesus Christ, whom we declare to have always been with the Father, spiritually and ineffably begotten by the Father before the beginning of the world, before all beginning; and by Him are made all things visible and invisible. He was made man, and, having defeated death, was received into heaven by the Father; and He hath given Him all power over all names in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess to Him that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, in whom we believe, and whose advent we expect soon to be, judge of the living and of the dead, who will render to every man according to his deeds; and He has poured forth upon us abundantly the Holy Spirit, the gift and pledge of immortality, who makes those who believe and obey sons of God and joint heirs with Christ; and Him do we confess and adore, one God in the Trinity of the Holy Name.

Amen and Amen!

Browsing the De Regno Christi site I came across a wonderful answer to the classic question “When you die, if God asks ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’ what would you say?” Anthony Crowley writes:

I like better the answer which my old pastor, Ken Smith, gave to [this question]:

When I die, if God asks, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” I’ll bow and be silent. Then I’ll hear a voice,
“Father, he’s mine.”

Some good resources available at the moment:

Reformed Confessions from ChristianAudio.com

This month’s free offer (add MAR2008 to the relevant box when your order) is audio files with the Augsburg, Westminister and Heidelburg Confessions. I have issues with many Reformed confessions but they could be useful. One day I’d like to write a catechism that is a) theologically in line with Christ The Truth, and b) suitable for kids. With a 3 year old daughter I don’t want to wait around too long!

Modern Parables - free (lo-res) download for personal use

Modern parables are modern cinematic re-tellings of Jesus’ parables, done to very high quality, with teaching material. Now you can download lo-res versions suitable for an ipod or anything that plays .m4v files - and they are FREE! For personal use only, and the site will remind you (quite correctly) of the 8th commandment. Have a look, and if you think they’re good let me know - I’d love to buy a set for use in church / youth group etc but I’d rather split the cost with someone and share the DVDs.

Here’s a trailer:
[HT: Challies.com]

Justin Taylor (of Between Two Worlds) wrote an article called “Love and Marriage: Luther Style” which can be found here.  It’s an enjoyable read; my two favourite lines:

1. “Luther didn’t believe in long engagements. In fact, he had one of the shortest engagements in history — he proposed to Katherine and they were married that very same day (June 13, 1523).”
2. “Luther’s faith was simple enough to trust that after a conscientious day’s labor, a Christian father could come home and eat his sausage, drink his beer, play his flute, sing with his children, and make love to his wife — all to the glory of God!”

I haven’t posted much about my views of the Old Testament and the many many times that Jesus Christ (before the incarnation) appears. You’ll have to check out Christ The Truth for more. It is my conviction that a lot of Jesus’ words and actions make sense when you realise he is saying, in effect, “Remember all those things the LORD God did, the things you read about in the Old Testament? That was me!”

The NT scholar Simon Gathercole has written a book outlining evidence for this in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). He gave some talks in 2004 that formed the basis of the book, which have now been posted online, together with two others:

[HT Between Two Worlds]