Category: Theology

Universal or particular

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Jesus died for all (Universal). Thank God. I also think Jesus died for males and for Jews (particular). We all betrayed Jesus, but the Scriptures and the creeds (not many names in there) tell us that Judas betrayed Jesus. Both are true, and in that sense Judas ‘acted for us’. Judas is the particular betrayer; we all universally betrayed Jesus.

Jesus was male, born of a woman, born under the law… so that he might redeem those who were born under the law… This makes his death have a very specific application for Jews. Now let me add what certainly is not explicitly written in Scripture, so I am going beyond Scripture (more of that below), to redeem males, masculinity, or maybe the perverted form of masculinity exhibited in patriarchy and dominance.

Why born a Jew? Because Jews were the problem… hang on, nothing anti-Semitic there, just hang on. They were the problem simply because they failed to be the solution. If we had a camp of people who were sick but there were no doctors able to come, we might well say the problem is ‘we have no doctors’… but the real problem is that sickness has gripped the camp. Sickness has gripped the world, a contagious disease, a pandemic is present throughout creation, and we can call it sin. The doctors though are not available… don’t blame them, they too are sick. Their (Israel’s) sickness was to make chosen to mean ‘them’ and ‘us’, to transform ‘life’ into ‘separation’, to failing to see that ‘we want to be like them (give us a king)’ means we are also ‘them’, that there is no effective ‘us’ but we are all in a mess together, hence Paul’s words ‘all (Jew and Gentile) have sinned and fallen short…’ of being truly human.

That is the strong ‘when’ to the cross. The Jews have to be set free, and the grace of God was to give them a clear generation gap to get on board with such statements as (to Jews) ‘there being no other name under heaven by which you may be saved’ – not Abraham, nor David, nor ‘I am of Israel’. Only in Jesus, the one who died for Jews. ‘Save yourself from this crooked and perverse generation’. There is salvation – in Jesus; salvation from the Romans and salvation for the sake of the world. A restored Israel and we have hope for the nations (Gentiles).

And I also think Jesus is male. Certainly not because of some superiority or creation order. And although I do not read the early chapters as history, history bears witness that the patriarchal nature of the fallen world is a source of deep distress. Maleness, as patriarchy, goes to the cross – maybe the last to be seen at the cross, the first to see the resurrection pushes us to consider that perspective? Jewishness goes to the cross for all divides are nailed there, with the biggest of all divides being revealed as an ultimate wrong (or at least inadequate) perception when the Temple curtain ripped in two. God is not behind the screen. God is with us. Emmanuel. The divide does not exist, and how could it for the two were united in Jesus, fully God, fully human?

Jesus came to his own, but his own did not receive him… yet a few chapters later we read that Jesus sat down with his own and ate with them; he put a towel round his waist and got down… washing the feet of his own. God with us, with those who can receive this God.

Yes, I do believe Jesus died for all. Yet there he is – male, Jewish flesh on the cross. He died that there might no longer be the divide that we who had the power to draw the lines that divide can continue to make. The sharp end of the cross should not be ignored, for in it is salvation for all.

Beyond Scripture? Not in the sense of seeking to understand a story that is unfolding, a story that takes us from Creation to New Creation. A story that presents the cross as the roadblock to total destruction; a halt in that path, and the opening of a new path, a new creation that we are not simply walking toward but one that is coming this way. Beyond the pages but within the story of Scripture.

A new creation is here. God is with us. Always was, was present in the cross, identified and embodied sin, embodied it in a concrete way, embodied flesh that used (fallenly created) privilege to exclude and divide, embodied that flesh in order to include and unite.

He died for Jews and males; he died for all.

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Cannot look at sin

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Jesus was a friend of sinners, not simply a friend of ex-sinners. Paul was a friend of those who had not responded to the Gospel he was passionate about (or at least had not responded to the ‘personal salvation’ part of it). But God? And Jesus was like God but God was not like Jesus? Really?

He cannot look at sin, he turns away, we see that ever so clearly with the cry of Jesus:

And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  (Matt. 27:46).

God-forsakeness. Psalm 22:1 being quoted by Jesus, the words of David. So God abandoned David? David certainly had many moments when that is exactly what he felt but God did not abandon him. Jesus certainly felt and expressed that on the cross, the cross where God was (present) in Christ. Thank God for Scriptures that mean we are not alone. Scriptures that even indicate we have been abandoned by God, but then we discover that others have gone this way before, and they have found that God was with them. There is a cloud of witnesses that testify to the ever present Presence of God, in and through all circumstances. Indeed we need to keep reading the Psalm, for almost certainly Jesus is using that Scripture while on the cross. Read on, read on… Come to verse 24:

For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.

He did not hide his face from me. Did you feel abandoned? Yes, desperately… the feeling was real, it was overwhelming, but the reality is the cross is not an evidence of a divided Trinity but of a Unified Trinity, unified for humanity. Human experience and despair (abandonment) meeting Trinitarian undivided commitment and love to go through whatever is necessary to achieve reconciliation.

It is possible that those final words on Jesus’ lips ‘It is finished’ is his reflection on the end of Psalm 22:

his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.

He has done it. He, the God in Christ, has done it, has brought deliverance to a people yet unborn. It has been done, it is finished. Whether Jesus words are reflective of that final verse or not, we rejoice that God is the friend of sinners. No appeasement necessary. Only humanity needs to turn their face to God, for his face has always been turned this way.

Afflicted by God, punished even by God, is a common understanding of the cross. But Isaiah 53 a chapter that was taken up in the New Testament of being totally exemplified in the death of Jesus said that this was our perception, not the reality:

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.

We saw this as God afflicting the Servant, this is how we reckoned it, how we saw it… ‘yet’ shows how it was understood, but the reality is something is going on for us. Jesus is not killed by God – the universal witness of Acts is that ‘you crucified him’. Sin, in all its forms, crucified Jesus. This does not mean that I am suggesting the cross is not an act of God, but it is not the anger of God in any personal sense that sends Jesus to the cross, it is our sin, our estrangement from God, our inability to know him, hence our failure to represent him, to be the glory of God.

It might be a simple way of putting things. Sin brings about God’s anger; we can do nothing to pay for the sin(s) committed, Jesus pays and takes the rap. Believe in that substitution in your place and you can be forgiven, never needing to pay. Simple to present. Simple does not mean either adequate nor right.

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Back in the day

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

It is often assumed that any view of the cross must have at the centre the idea that the human race is to be punished, Jesus took the punishment, and so we go free (penal substitution). It works as an explanation though it raises serious questions if it is not nuanced extremely well about the inter-relationship of God (the Father) and Jesus (the Son). At worst it gives us a loving Son and a more-than-overbearing Father; a loving Son and a holy God who cannot look on sin, who turned his face away from his Son, abandoning him on the cross (thus ‘My God, My God why have you forsaken me’). It divides the Trinity. Not only do I distance myself from such views, even the more nuanced ones, it might come as a surprise that the penal substitionary view is not the most ancient view – unless one ascribes it to the pages of the New Testament itself.

The two oldest views (developed soon after the NT period) seem to be what could be termed ‘Recapitulation‘ and ‘Christus Victor‘ (the defeat of the powers, though that term really owes itself to a certain Swedish Lutheran theologian / bishop who published a book with that title in 1930). Recapitulation was simply that Jesus assumed every aspect of humanity, ‘retraced’ the steps of Adam, so he redeemed what was lost, and sin was killed in the Son. There is a great emphasis on the reality of the humanity of Jesus, and also on the nature of two humanities – one in Adam and one in Jesus. The conquering of death for all is essential.

With Christus Victor we see how they wrestled with the idea of ransom. For those who suggested the ransom was paid to Satan, there was an acknowledgement that the devil had certain legitimate claims over humanity. The debt is paid for the release of humanity, and now with Jesus in his grasp the overwhelming goodness and holiness of Jesus just proved too much to hold and the devil having already lost the hold over humanity just could not hold on to Jesus – hence salvation for humanity and resurrection for Jesus.

In neither of the above views – which I consider historically are the two most ancient strands – are there any discussion of Christ appeasing the Father nor of the Father punishing the Son. Those discussions come later.

A big shift takes place with a certain Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm (1033-1109) who using the framework of his day put forward the ‘debt’ that is owed due to the universal failure to honour God, to pay him what is his due. The debt is paid by the one who honoured God, all offence is removed. The culture of the day is the background, with landlords and serfs, and in the case of God a supreme king. The debt is one that can never be paid. With Anselm there is a shift, and a further shift comes as the culture moves on to the time of the Reformation. Debt language can continue but justice and guilt become central. The innocent one dies in the place of the guilty, so the guilty go free. This shift has essentially made this, or a modified version of this, the central understanding.

As I consider further aspects in future posts here are a few thoughts:

  • Does God need appeasing? Can God not forgive without someone (Jesus) standing in the gap? Is forgiveness from God to be understood along the same lines as we understand forgiveness? In one of my books I suggest that ‘wrath’ when applied to God is righteous in Scripture, but we do not find such a description of human anger – thus we should not look to human anger to help us understand what the Bible means when it talks of the ‘wrath of God’. Likewise with forgiveness… Forgiveness at a human level is ‘I choose to let the offence (and therefore the person) go’, ‘You owe me nothing’. If we can do that without asking for recompense, why can God not do that… And if forgiveness is to ‘let someone go’ (the Greek being also a term used for example of untying a ship to let her sail) what is being forgiven, from what are we being untied? Untied from God and the need to pay back… or untied elsewhere?
  • Assuming we want to avoid an automatic Universalism, we will find it harder to do with the concept of a payment, or any ‘in the place of humanity’ as they seem to me the most likely follow through. If it is ‘the cross’ plus repentance in what sense is it ‘the debt paid in full’? Of course there are universalistic texts and one might be happy with that understanding. The solution of a ‘only died for the elect’ of course does not do it for me… hence I find debt payment, universal guilt condemnation not to wash.
  • Any view of the cross must take seriously the unified work of the Trinity. ‘God was in Christ‘ Paul says… God is not apart from Christ, and the work was one of restoration, for ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’. The cross does not reconcile God to the world, it does not change God (wrath to acceptance) but it changes the world. It restores a broken relationship, it restores all breaches, hence the ‘restoration of all things’ is the hope. In Genesis the issues are relational breakdown and alienation.
  • And finally (but far from the final post) the cross will never be worked out theoretically. Maybe the men are not seen at the final scenes of the death of Jesus (other than one… who was characterised by love) because it is the heart, the emotions rather than the head and logic that will grasp what takes place. That for me is sure, for something of heaven and earth meet, history and new creation, humanity and divinity all meet there.
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When might help us understand why

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Sitting here with some thoughts buzzing through my head I plan to start a slow set of posts on the cross. I plan to start – will I finish? They will be slow, cos I got a lot to think about.

Understanding what took place at the cross is gladly beyond every theory, and there is not a single theory that can adequately sum it up. The New Testament employs metaphors, different metaphors, and because they are metaphors we cannot treat them as literal. The ‘ransom’ metaphor is drawn from the slave market, but is situated within the ‘ransomed from Egypt’ (in the Exodus) narrative. In that narrative there is no payment made… indeed the Egyptians ‘paid’ Israel to leave! Some early church fathers wrestled with the payment, asking to whom was it paid. To God? Or to the devil, and as a sort of trick payment, with the devil grabbing the payment (life of Jesus) and finding that this was simply his downfall. There is no need to go for the payment at any literal level when considering the ‘ransom for many’ texts.

I think a starting point is to ask ‘when does the cross take place when it does?’, for if we can get some sight on the when it should open up some ideas about the why.

Paul, quite a thinker that guy!, suggests that Jesus comes in ‘the fullness of times’. Although I take Adam and Eve as mythical (no literary reason to suggest otherwise, though I think Paul probably thought they were literal, or like me, consider them theologically as real) why do we not have the cross at the time of the fall? Why all the sacrificial system, the law, all of which are rendered redundant post-the-cross?

The cross is central and we often reason that Abraham, et al, is saved through the cross, though I think that can be questioned, for we can legitimately ask if God needs the cross to forgive. Without exploring the finer points let us accept the centrality of the cross. Why the delay? Why the thousands of years before the Incarnation?

In short we have to assume that before the time of Jesus we were not living in the fullness of times. So to my read…

Israel is not chosen to be saved and by contrast all Gentile nations to be damned. Israel is chosen to come into relation with God for the sake of the Gentile nations. If we borrow Adam and Eve language (and a number of Rabbis saw the creation story simply as an Israel story – fruitful garden, promised land flowing in milk and honey, expulsion from the Garden, expulsion from the land in the Babylonian exile) Israel is uniquely in the image of God, an all-but replica of God. What is God like? Look at the image, placed at the heart of the temple, placed within creation for the heavens are the place where God sits, and the earth the place where his feet are displayed.

I read a fall, a series of falls in the life of Israel. In brief, a nation that was to be a priestly nation for all others, adopt a priestly tribe for themselves; a nation who had no king but God rejects that path and asks for a king to be like all the other nations; this leading to a building of a Temple that really weakened the image that was then visible of the God who does not dwell in houses made by hands. By the time of Jesus we read,

Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but the emperor.” Then he handed him over to them to be crucified (John 19:15,16).

No king but Caesar… just like the other nations. Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. what a strong word ‘then’ can be. The extent of the fall is revealed: no king but Caesar. The good news (euangelion: gospel) of Rome; the kingdom (basileia) of Rome; the peace (shalom / eirene) that Rome brought to the world through military rule etc… The image has gone, or the image of Rome has now come to bear on the nation that was to be set apart. Then… if Jesus is not crucified we can say ‘good-bye’ to any hope for humanity. The ‘then’ signifies also that in a very real sense Jesus is dying for the nation of Israel. How ironic is the ‘prophecy’ of Caiaphas:

So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to put him to death (Jn.11:47-53).

If Jesus does not die (is not sacrificed) they will lose the Temple and the nation destroyed. Jesus is sacrificed for the nation and for those beyond… and within 40 years the Temple is gone and the nation dispersed.

If the nation that was to be the image of God, the priest for the world, the ‘redeeming’ nation has fallen to the extent it is now one of the nations we have a problem! We can summarise this as Israel being under a curse, a theme that was familiar from Deuteronomy (I set before you blessings and curses) with the rabbis. I consider that is exactly the view that Paul shows in Galatians 3:13, 14.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

He redeemed those under the curse of the law – this has to refer to the Jewish people and explains why a crucified Messiah was a stumbling-block. A ‘cursed’ person as the Messiah? Yet without that intervention from heaven the Gentiles could never be included. They will be blessed through the blessed nation (Abrahamic promise), but the nation is cursed, under foreign rule.

The when, the fullness of times, for me, then is the ultimate time when there was no hope. No hope for the Gentiles because there was no hope for Israel. Jesus travels Israel’s path, just as they were condemned to 40 years in the wilderness because the refusal to go into the land when the spies had been 40 days in the land, so now Jesus will travel 40 days in the wilderness. Thrown into (same word as casting out demons) the wilderness he confronts the three powers – economic, political and religious – as summed up in the temptations that came from the adversary. He binds the ‘strong man’, the one who by now had become the ruler of this world.

The when… when there was no hope, when the world lay in the grip of the evil one. when there was no hope for the fulfilment of human destiny (read Rev. 5 in this context). At the full height of demonic power Jesus comes. If that is the ‘when’ a strong indication of the cross has to be to set us – Jew or Gentile – free.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father (Gal. 1:3,4).

To set us free…

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The house is burning?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

When I come to the chapter on Cornelius in our book zooms we look at the obvious, is it about Cornelius’ one off conversion to Jesus, or is it about yet another conversion of Peter (us)? Seems to be about both. In that chapter, of course, is also raised the question of ‘salvation’. A challenging word for we have reduced it to mean ‘getting our ticket’, whereas in Scripture it is very concrete. ‘You have saved me from my enemies’ did not have anything to do with ‘eternity’ but everything to do with the here and now. ‘Save yourself from this perverse generation’ is in line with this. Certainly there is not a great emphasis on ‘saved from (future) fire’ though one could pull a few texts that way, with a big twist and pull. The emphasis is from ‘powers’ that enslave and for ‘purpose’ that restores.

The chapter sits before the one on ‘witness’ which I contrast with what is often labelled evangelism. A big question how we approach all this I liken to our consideration of the situation that people find themselves in. If they are all (analogy following) sitting inside a building feeling safe but we know that the building is on fire and they are existentially in grave danger then an appropriate response will be to run in the building and shout at them, provoke them, warn them to get out, informing them that there is a fire exit that they have to run to. The fire exit of course being the cross of Jesus, and due to the urgency there is no value in developing relationships, nor wasting our time with those who really do not believe our good news story. Leave them, get the next person out. Persuade them even if they struggle to believe you, cos they’ll thank you later.

The burning building scenario.

Maybe the building is not now burning but will catch fire at any moment, there is an imminent fire. Maybe then we can operate a little slower, nevertheless the scenario is pretty much the same.

I do not believe such an approach merits the name ‘evangelism’ and I seriously question whether it comes close to what Paul was up to in the Imperial context, or what he hoped the various ekklesiai would get up to.

What if the ‘burning building’ scene is more something we have created than a reality, and that our job in faithful witnessing is to introduce people to Jesus (through what they observe in us and through our conversations) thus giving them an opportunity to meet the bridge between the Father and humanity. What a privilege and how much good news is located in that connection. Not presenting a set of facts, but a Person not so that they can then meet God (as if Jesus was the way to God) but so that they might come to rest in the intimacy of love. That love that was already present. And in that encounter discovering that whatever gap (and it is a huge one!) there is between the divine and the human that there is both an inspiration and an empowerment to become who I was meant to be because the joining of human and divine in Jesus closed those gaps.

Beliefs. So essential as they shape us. The world is indeed condemned, but the people?

In spite of a sneaky suspicion that God might just turn out to be a Universalist, I am not. But the burning building just does not stack up.

I wonder if Jesus prayer to the Father was answered? ‘Forgive them…’ Maybe he should have prayed as we do, ‘lead them to repentance, so that you can forgive them’. Just a thought.

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Economic, religious and political rule

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

There are many ways in which the temptations of Jesus can be viewed. We can certainly learn from them at a personal level, but the temptations are the temptations that the agent of the kingdom had to face. Although ordered slightly differently in Matthew and Luke the same three are recorded.

  • Turn the stones into bread.
  • Throw yourself down from the Temple.
  • Bow and you have all these kingdoms (and Luke specifically the ready-made Imperial system).

The response to the ‘stones into bread temptation’ was that Jesus was called to a deeper source of sustenance – to every word that came from heaven; the response to the ‘throw yourself down’ was not to put the Lord to the test; and the response to the ‘offer of the kingdoms’ was to worship and serve God’.

I suggest we can look at the first temptation as an economic one, to gain sustenance and resource through an abuse of miraculous power; the second as a religious temptation with God serving the pre-set agenda with protection; and the final one as a political rule temptation with the marrying into the system to exercise a ‘godly’ agenda.

What a trio, and a trio that are intertwined, a three-fold cord that is not easily broken. A trio that one could argue could have served the ‘kingdom’ agenda and enabled the message to be spread quickly and efficiently.

I have heard too many times ‘that is just the way it is in business / economics’. Yes, I guess it often is, but if to that statement is brought the ‘every word’ that comes from God we really do need to see an adjustment. From the exposure of (all varieties of) ‘consumerism’ in Gen. 3: ‘I saw, I desired and I consumed’; to the prohibitions not to maximise profits; to the command to care for the ‘widow, alien and orphan’; to the appointment of Judas to look after the money bag. Every word seems consistent, and Jesus certainly hit that big one on the head.

The religious agenda is where we have a vision and God will back it up. And back it up he often does, with the very clear example of the anointing of the king for Israel so that they might be like the other nations. He backs it up cos he goes where we go (after all he also walked out of Eden with them), and then there comes a time when he does not back it up and we end up perplexed. When he does not we are to open our eyes to where we have served religion and the ever so polished up religious agenda.

Of course, politics and what I have written on the political nature of the Gospel is so key, and I consider that Jesus broke the economic power structures so that he could then clearly observe the economic exploitative system that ‘robs widows of their houses’ was being undone when it sought to swallow also the last coins of a widow, leading him to prophesy the end of an era that had deteriorated into religion and exclusivity (rather than faith and inclusivity) so that the likes of Paul ‘apostle to the nations’ could spend the last days in Rome. From economics through religion (that had swallowed the economic exploitative system) to the ungodly marriage of religion and politics being pulled apart… so that there might be the hope of ‘the kingdom of this world becoming the kingdom of our Lord and Messiah’.

In Ukraine all three of these powers are manifest. A re-ordering of the world of economics is at hand, with the big ‘winner’ being the Imperial power of China who has no need to enter the current conflict at a military level, but is winning the war economically. Sanctions are a response, but we as body of Christ, have to pull deeper, drop down lower. Economic sanctions imposed by a Western ideology that has bowed at the feet of ‘the invisible hand of the market’. I am pro-sanctions (but what do I know?) but as always I consider there are keys within the body of Christ, and those keys are closer to home than we might realise.There is a battle religiously, with views of Christendom being at the forefront, and of course that of political rule.

We need great help from heaven. Angels coming. Angels holding back advancing forces; causing confusion, opening prison doors. (Thanks to this understanding through a conversation with Elly Lloyd.) Unashamedly ask the Lord to send angels, for Jesus was attended to by angels in that wilderness battle.

We are in global shifts. We have to lift our eyes as well as express the pain. And as we lift our eyes we will see body of Christ shifts. Not pushed to the margins. Nor seated at the centre. But both hidden and visible within the place that has sought to displace God with economic, religious and political rule.

The big questions of Ukraine and what are we to do are beyond me. The personal questions are present as always.

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Return of the King

But what is the nature of the kingdom?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

At times of international crisis people can be quick to jump to Matthew 24 (wars and rumours of wars) to shout ‘end-times’ and for some the one sure and certain thing is Jesus is coming back to reign, from Jerusalem, and a ‘millennial’ rule. One sure thing? I think not!

As I was walking (the dog) I thought, out of the blue, hang on a minute… the OT hopes and Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, being proclaimed as king.

[An Aside: I do have difficulties with the theology of a millennial rule that is drawn from a book that is unapologetically symbolic. Why take things literal in a book that has dragons, beasts rising out of the sea, stars falling to the earth (a little too hot to handle I think) etc. To try to make it fit a pre-, a post-, or even an a-millennial approach seems a big stretch. Anyway, leaving on one side the apocalyptic genre of Revelation I’d like to probe a little deeper.]

There are some OT themes that sit alongside each other, themes that gave hope for the future but were not fulfilled in the history of Israel. We could pick out a few such as:

  • The Lord God will return to Zion (Isaiah 40-55 (so-called Second Isaiah) focuses on this, and given that Isaiah is quoted and the many implicit references to these texts in the NT should alert us to an understanding of fulfilment. The very name ‘Emmanuel’, being ‘God with us’ indicates a fulfilment in the life and work of Jesus).
  • Ezekiel knew the glory had departed but spoke of God returning to the Temple.
  • The Psalms have a repeated declaration that God will come to judge the world.
  • Haggai, with all the pain of the new temple being but a shadow of the old, still holds out hope of a new glorious temple.
  • Zechariah has the return in cloud and fire to defend people; and the well-known text of the feet of the returning Lord standing on the Mount of Olives.

Such ideas as Jesus coming to reign from Jerusalem at some future date seem to me to be taken from a literalistic line drawn from OT prophetic hopes without any journey through the life and times of Jesus.

Luke 19 seems to radically adjust that ‘straight line’. Here comes the Lord God, the king back to Jerusalem, back to the Temple; the One embodying the Presence of God, the glory of God, the one who does indeed place his feet on the Mount of Olives and return to Zion… as king. As king riding on a donkey (again quoting Zechariah – 9:9),

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey.

In Luke we read that the people shouted out:

Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven! (19:38)

Jesus comes to the city saying that they were not recognising that on this day (the day of entry) shalom was coming (Luke 19:42). Here is the future fulfilment of the Lord returning to Zion, the glory has returned, I don’t think we should look any further. What a fulfilment, but greater than the fulfilment is the God who is returning that is revealed. The cross and the throne are one. And from the history we know that Pilate entered with all the pomp and military power through one gate while the king, God incarnate enters at the opposite gate on a donkey. Contrasts, and who embodies kingship? Fulfilments and a challenge to our view of how God comes, of what is the nature of that kingdom.

Where is God? If we have a ‘God of all power with whom nothing is impossible’ the question hangs in the air and we will have a hard job to find God; if we realise that God is still calling for a people who follow the Lamb wherever he goes, we will have eyes that go higher than troubles and oppression, and we will receive strength to follow.

In the current troubles it is tempting to resort to ‘we are living in the end times’, and to do so in a way that does not remind ourselves that such terminology is used biblically of all time post-Pentecost. Yes we are living in the end-times, living in the same era of time alongside the saints who have gone before us.

In Jesus all things change. The Imperial world is turned upside down; even with regard to OT hopes we are given a new set of lenses to read them through. We see this with the (mis-)quote by Paul of Isaiah 59:20. There we read (with emphasis added):

The Redeemer will come to Zion…

In Paul he feels the liberty to change it to:

The deliverer will come from Zion (Rom. 11:26).

Jesus has come, the king has arrived, the glory has returned, his feet have been on the Mount of Olives… The geography that was the focus becomes the place from which God can embrace the whole.

Maybe, there is a ‘return to Jerusalem’, not because of a set of biblical texts, but what place on earth could truly bear witness the ‘wolf lying with the lamb’. Racial harmony, human embrace, shared resources… shalom. The king who came there on the donkey is not about to come with his true identity, as the king with the chariots. He was in the ‘form of God’… so humbled himself. Past, present and future.

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A little discipline

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Books on ‘discipline’, ‘how to bring up kids’. Those are the kind of books I would not have clue where to start… or books on almost anything practical. So maybe I should read what the good book says and receive some gentle instruction:

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. They shall say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid (Deut. 21:18-21).

Yesterday’s post on gift or title still does not make the calling of ‘city elder’ too appealing! A gift to live up to?

All designed to make sure Israel will be kept in order, everyone will ‘be afraid’. Such a tough old book to understand. I am coming to the end of Deuteronomy, Joshua will be something to look forward to though not sure what to make of all the blood in there, not to mention the lack of archaeological evidence for so much of what is claimed… Anyway I have got through some of this law stuff by also reading Psalms – though one or two tough bits there too!

I like Jesus. He told a story that is a bit of a challenge to the law about ‘discipline’ that I quoted above. He told the parable of the very outrageous father, the ‘prodigal’ father, and I don’t think it is going too far to suggest he probably intended us to understand something about God through the parable, the God who gave the Deuteronomy instruction.

The so-called prodigal son certainly qualifies for a good old stoning. It starts with his ‘I wish you were dead’ attitude and speech to his father, for to ask for one’s inheritance in that culture, something given at death, was to say just that. He went off, rebellious, disrespectful, lived a life of debauchery including being with prostitutes.

WOW… he decides to come home! Any decent father knows exactly what to do, and it has to be done otherwise law and order, society itself would be undermined.

So yet again God is going to break his own law. He runs – shock, this is not in the script. In that very act he is undermining, disrespecting the status quo. It just carries on. Party time. Party time to the extent that it offends the ‘good son’. The explanation is at the end:

But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.

The correct behaviour would have been to let the son come back then inform all that ‘this brother of yours has been put to death’; rather we read ‘he was dead and has come to life’.

Life triumphs over right and wrong. The law just does not cut it, and when applied is a strong statement that something bigger is amiss. Choose life…

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Gift not title

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

The Ascended Christ gave out some titles so that everyone might know who is above them, order might be preserved… That might not be the first time I have misquoted the Holy Book.

A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves…” (Lk. 22:25-27).

No misquote this time, and strong words: I am one among you. The incarnation truly lived out. That has to be the foundation, modelled in the breaking of bread / the Lord’s Table, where everyone is equal, it not being the ‘table of the xxx movement’, and where we are careful not to fall into the trap of giving the person arrayed in rich apparel (or higher status) the better seat… (Those references only make sense when we consider the politically subversive nature of what the Last / Lord’s Supper (deipnon: banquet) stood for. Subversive to the Jewish world of the day, where Jesus instructed who to invite to a meal, and deeply subversive in the Graeco-Roman world where the banquet was part of the activity that held the Imperial system of everyone in there place intact.)

Even in the parable that maybe gives some indication of ‘order’ in the age to come Jesus indicated that he would do the serving! Serving is not something for this age and then we lay it down and get our position!

Jesus gave gifts, not titles. Not even ‘Apostle Paul’. But we have Paul (by the grace gift of heaven) an apostle. A title sets me in position and will commission me to do things ‘to’, and if I am a goodish sort of person release me to do things ‘for’ you. But a grace gift, releases me to be ‘with’ you, and holds me in check to be accountable to God for the gift given. Paul as an apostle had a commission to fulfil, one marked by signs and wonders with great patience, in other words he truly had to sow the subversive seeds of the Gospel in the direction of the eschatological future, that was opened when Jesus rose – that new creation direction.

If we are to see real breakthroughs in our hierarchical world, if we are to model the end of all divisions, then we really need to drop the titles. I think that would be a good move.

Jesus was one among us, but he was not simply one among us. We do not read, OK here we all are, time for the annual meeting, who do we want to appoint now as the Messiah, maybe we pass it round… how about you Peter? After all you are pretty rockish. Or, how about you Judas, you do seem to carry a clarity about this kingdom issue?

One among – the foundation. And standing in the gift that God has given, that is not given to allow for position ‘over’ but alongside to bring that gift for the sake of the release of others. Leadership / gifting is to be recognised and to do so is not a vote for hierarchy; it has to be first self-recognised. It is not contributing to hierarchy, not when there has been time spent in the wilderness and temptations have been refused (and there is a direct tie in this Scripture to that of the offer of the oikoumene to Jesus… become the one over the kings of the Gentiles – talk about order and delegated authority perfected!!).

From that foundation there is no shouting nor declaration of how great one is, but the embracing of a leadership that does not advance itself in status but increasingly disappears, increasingly empties itself, carries the ‘better I go away’ attitude, recognises that the function is ‘until’.

Leadership is not to control order, but to release exploration and then in the wake of the explosion to try and keep up!

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God votes: the word ‘with’ tops them all

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Relationships… (please remember that I like to think, but thinking is in my head, that I really both know what I write about and incarnate it…)

Incarnate. God with us, you shall call his name Immanuel: so begins Matthews Gospel; ‘I will be with you to the end of the age’: so ends Matthews Gospel, the Gospel that is self-consciously written as the fulfilment of all that has gone before. All of the before was to lead to ‘God being with us’ and it was never to end but simply to increase.

The incarnation was not something done TO us. I have tried to stay clear of that in my relationships. Maybe there is a time when we need to do something TO someone as there is no alternative, but sadly most often the TO aspect is a strong me (powerful) / they (object of my power).

The incarnation did have some element of FOR us. The cross certainly did, and the cross is part of the journey from the incarnation. Jesus, being in the form of God; Jesus because he was rich became poor for us. Yes there is a FOR us element there, and I am thankful for that.

But really the incarnation is a WITH scenario. ‘I am one among you’ so undercuts the Imperial model – that system that claims it is FOR us but really is only doing something TO us in order that we can be there FOR the Imperial system.

WITH is a challenge. I am pondering why I have many who offer friendship but I am not truly friends to anyone. I think there is something here that I am missing. WITH. I guess a WITH scenario opens up all kinds of possibilities. Maybe I should explore that… or if not I could continue to write about it.

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