Category: Theology

Pentecost: how far off?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

What will it mean for us? The promise is for those ‘afar off’. Peter prophesied it, probably had some measure of expectation, but the fulfilment was way beyond what he anticipated. The ‘afar off’ were of course the Gentiles. I have covered some of this material elsewhere so will not write extensively this time round.

Peter’s life was about to change the day he went on the roof top to pray before dinner. Three times (3 times!!) he had a vision and 3 times he responded holding his ground, the ground that he had stood on because he had followed the ways of God. He moves from the vision to the front door to be confronted by three people (3 persons!) on his doorstep. They came speaking of supernatural encounters that an ‘afar off’ person had had: an angelic visitation with an address and the name of who he should contact. Role reversal! The apostle had an encounter that left him needing to be re-educated, Cornelius has the ‘high’ level encounter.

Peter has to make the journey, literally, culturally, emotionally and spiritually. He comes through because he is willing to have a major conversion. Cornelius too needs a conversion, but in the context it seems that was fairly small.

I consider that in every wave of the Spirit there are three phases, or at least there could be three phases. The promise is for ‘you’ is where it begins; the promise is generational… and dependent on how we respond to the generational promise, it can also be for those who are afar off. The promise is not as simple as ‘and then the afar off will come to you’, to embrace that third aspect we have to be willing to undergo conversions and to go on a journey. To stand our ground and say ‘never have I’ might be OK as a starting point, but we have to be open to being taught. That re-learning process will only come as we walk the path.

Some strange reports lie ahead. Ones that do fit in the categories we have pre-determined. Such is the promise of Pentecost.

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Pentecost: two paths

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

The promise is for you, and for your children. A promise for the future and for the generations to come. Every generation has a responsibility to and for the future. We are of course linked to the past and so each generation comes with choices as to what should continue and what will no longer serve the journey, but with a key choice as to how to relate to the generation to come. I am sure there are some good parents out there, I certainly do not think I excelled at that, but in my cluelessness tried to maintain a relationship and an encouragement for them to be who they need to be. Any success in that is down to them not me for sure. Familiar generations is important, and spiritual generations likewise.

I entitled this post as ‘two paths’ because I consider there are two ways in which any current generation can relate to the next. Both paths seem to extend life (and at times I consider this to be in a literal sense) to the current generation. The first is to verbally value the generation to come and to give them a focus and a profile but… and there is a but, but to do so because of mixed motives. I am not saying the motives are all bad, but they also include the motivation that every movement needs the energy of the younger, and in reality they are profiled with the knowledge that they are needed to bring life into ‘the house’. The result is that the younger generation gain kudos through association, but fundamentally their life is feeding and extending the life of the former generation. The result is that former generation continues, but the next generation never reach their true destiny.

The other path is where the former generation truly release the next generation, making their wisdom available but do not demand conformity. Such a pathway threatens the current shapes and existence, is risky, but is the path that has to be bravely embraced. In doing so ‘life works in them’ but when one gives, something also returns.

In the former path, life is taken; in the second pathway life is given – and received. The former works from control and conformity, the second with release and relationship.

This whole aspect is an increasing challenge to likes of me – what was my date of birth again? I entitle this blog ‘3Generations’ so am consciously embracing the need of generations together; I had a dream that my future was dependent on how I aligned to Gayle – not how she aligned to me. I have, though, lived much of my life with a platform provided, hence am weak relationally, and not well equipped to input to a younger generation. In realising that, I have been privilege to make phone calls and to contact people who have been (past tense) the next generation after mine and make apology for any aspect where I had deliberately or inadvertently seen them as life-givers, rather than be a life-giver to them.

If, however, I truly imbibe a pentecostal spirit, this promise is for me and for a connection to the next generation. There is life on offer, and I for one want to grab that as part of the promise of pentecost. And maybe if I can set out some shape for the next 30 years…

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Pentecost: a recalibration

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Pentecost was a great festival for Israel, one in which they celebrated the giving of the law which shaped their whole life, not just spiritually, but socially. This is what gave them identity. Internally the debated the interpretation of the law but those who lived by it were included as part of ‘Israel’. They were led by the law. Post-Pentecost those who were the children of God were those who were led by the Spirit (Ro. 8:14).

The events in Jerusalem that first Pentecost were deeply challenging to the Jews who had gathered. Looking forward as they were to the ‘age to come’ marked by the two-fold marker of resurrection and the tangible presence of the Spirit of God, it is not surprising that many simply said ‘these are drunk’. The alternative had too many implications. God-activity always presents us with implications!!

The sting was that the One crucified and therefore a criminal or rebel in the eyes of Rome, but a blasphemer or cursed by God in the eyes of the Jew, had been exalted by God and now was the one doing what the God of Israel promised he would do, that he would pour out on them from on high the Spirit (Is. 32:15). Whether those listening made the jump that this human Jesus raised from the dead was God or not is a mute point, but those who came to faith in Jesus certainly understood that he was in a different category to Moses. Moses had gone up on a high mountain and come down with the law; Jesus had gone up on high and from there poured out the Spirit. On the day that Moses came down there was carnage in the camp and 3000 people died; on the day that the Spirit came down 3000 went through the waters of baptism. Another level all together. This was not a little more of the same, but had serious implications for how they as Israel had been shaped (and shaped by God) for the previous centuries.

Following Jesus was not mildly controversial. It was nuts!

Following Jesus challenges how we have previously thought. There is a revaluation of everything. The law the greatest gift from heaven is totally recalibrated by Pentecost. The law could no longer shape the future, nor define who is ‘in’.

We are off in a few days time in our ‘furgoneta’ which we have renamed as ‘el furgo de San Lorenzo’ (never sure if shortening furgoneta to furgo allows me to use the masculine definite article or not… and as if that is the only Spanish language question I have!!). San Lorenzo was martyred on August 10th 258AD in Rome. He upset the powers, was told that he had to bring the wealth of the church to the Emperor as he had not been a good boy in his criticisms of the Imperial power. He did just that, bringing in the poor, the beggars, the blind and those despised by power, saying in fulfilment of the Emperor’s request he was bringing God’s treasures to him. He had a way of valuing people which if Imperial power had adopted his means of valuation would have recalibrated the Empire. They did not adopt it and instead roasted him at the stake. We have tracked with this saint (August 10th is an important date) and as we drive through Spain travelling this time to the birth place of Franco (which is also the birth place of the founder of the Spanish socialist party) we will be calling for a recalibration to flow through the land. We cannot calibrate things by the right or left wing of politics. Both wings, particularly when they move to the extremes, simply view people as there to serve the system. Jesus refused to serve the system, but came as servant to all. San Lorenzo seemed to follow. I hope we can do more than drive a furgo with a logo on it. I hope we have some measure of authenticity in our lives that will produce a little result in the land.

Pentecost recalibrates everything. Pentecostal people have to do so likewise. Maybe it is time to renounce all other ideologies and flags? I certainly think San Lorenzo would encourage us to, and I suspect he is echoing what we read in Acts 2.

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Pentecost: margins

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

There has been a clear message of who is to be placed first coming out of certain quarters. Of course there can be wisdom in such advice – the airline message always says put on your own oxygen mask first then help others, otherwise there will not be a lot of helping that will be done! That though is a little different to setting ourselves to be first so that we will always be first and in the controlling seat. In Pentecost we note the expected follow on from something that was set in motion at the Last Supper. In that meal Jesus indicated there would be a huge shift of the mode of his presence. No longer centred on him, for he decentralised his presence. With his ‘all of you take, eat and drink’ his presence was going with the disciples. There are centres where God can be found and people can be refreshed but we have to be careful not to relate in such a way that we never discover what he wants us to discover – that every time I fall out of bed I fall into his presence. He is where I am, I do not have to find him. Pentecost re-enforces this. There is no hierarchy – Peter first, then James and John, then… and finally the 120. No pecking order, no one there to claim a monopoly.

It would seem that the real gifting of the apostolic and prophetic is to make visible the non-hierarchical nature of the body, further marked by the foundational (unseen) nature of those gifts whose task is to equip the body. In the Acts 2 Scripture Peter looks to Joel 2 to explain what is happening and in doing so there is such an emphasis on the margins. The gift is to all, not for the elite, is a theme, but it goes further when the ‘all’ that is explicated there is the complete opposite of ‘all, especially the important ones’. He picks out who the all are represented by (Acts 2:17,18):

  • sons and daughters
  • young
  • old
  • slaves
  • women slaves

The sons and daughters are important as it indicates the ongoing, not one-off, nature of a pentecostal experience, and I will come again to this aspect in a future post. Then though we have the extremities of the ages with the reference to the young and the old. The young who are not yet mature nor ready, the old who have missed their time. The young will see visions – relating to the future and pulling it in, while the old will dream dreams – those whose mouths were filled with laughter as they realised there is still life and fulfilments.

Slaves – the bottom of the class structure, and to double underline this he adds that this includes the women slaves.

It seems we are left with all doubts cast aside that the emphasis of the outpouring of the Spirit is focused on those occupying the margins in society. There is an inclusiveness in what God does, but we could even suggest there is a bias in where the Spirit will be found. Like water finding the low point. Trickle down is a hugely dubious perspective in the realm of economics (maybe trickle down as far as is beneficial until the power position is threatened?) but in Spirit presence terms this is not something that is backed up by Pentecost. There is a huge disturbance to the hierarchical ‘norms’ of society. Many years ago I read an article by Jurgen Moltmann challenging Pentecostal churches that if they did not advocate for an egalitarian approach for men and women then in what sense were they pentecostal? I appreciate for some there are difficult Scriptures to consider but his overall point remains. Pentecost was marked by a radical equalisation (and Azusa Street of 1906 was marked in the same way).

Quoting the author of this post (!!) pentecost pushes us to the multiplicity of the small and richness of diversity. No one is devalued; people are met where they are; the small is elevated; God is found at the margins. This is so revolutionary and is a challenge to the visionaries who often seem to advocate that success is found in following a centralised vision. Pentecost certainly does not start with ‘let’s get the top x% and change things from there’, but the focus is on the ‘not many mighty, nor wise, nor..’ nor male, nor white, nor wealthy. Maybe in the light of those last categories we might be needing another pentecostal outpouring – or maybe better to re-align ourselves to Pentecost.

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Pentecost: no towers here

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

So many OT themes come together in Acts 2 and one very obvious one is that of the tower of Babel (which then becomes the theological seedbed for an understanding of Babylon – the imperial power that is the antithesis of the New Jerusalem). Genesis 10 expresses the flow of fallenness: ‘make a name for ourselves’, ‘build a city / society’, ‘from here we conquer everything’…

There is such an irony in that chapter. A tower is being built, God the all-seeing one has difficulty in seeing it!

The Lord came down to see…

The tower was designed to be visible even in the heavens, and the one with 20/20 vision has to come down to see it!! Apparently it was not really that impressive and could not be seen from up there. Babel is not a threat to God at any level. It is however a threat to humanity fulfilling its destiny. Destiny is in the heart of humanity, but the direction and effect of the pursuit of its fulfilment is what becomes problematic.

Unity, working together enhanced by linguistic unity was going to be problematic in that context so a restriction is placed on it. Evil can never reach an absolute fullness, that is reserved for righteousness and the One who embodies righteousness. Pentecost is a crazy reversal of Babel. Unity is present, co-labouring together receives the seal of approval. Not only does each one speak but there is the wonder of universal understanding. In the same way that a restriction is placed on Babel’s future a release is given to those of a pentecostal spirit – and by that I mean those who have been touched by Pentecost so that they are not looking to ‘make a name for ourselves’, nor ‘seeking to build a city’, nor ‘looking to conquer everything’. Maybe that might be why we have never seen the full release indicated by Pentecost?

In contrast to building a tower, a city from here to there, we read the New Jerusalem comes down to where we are, it comes from the throne of God. It is not something we build, nor can build. We can help prepare both the ground where it can land and the materials that make it what it is, but build it we cannot do. Pentecost is not a promise of receiving ‘a conquer all’ blessing. It does involve the subduing of the powers that tempt the fulfilment of destiny by a self-promotion path, and certainly involves an authority over the works of the devil but not over people.

The path to Pentecost begins in the subsequent chapter of Genesis. Leave and walk. Leave security, do not bow to familiarity, wander and God will show – even though the sight of what is shown will be partial. That was the pathway prepared, and one that Israel travelled on both with great difficulty and also deviated from. Jesus walked the same pathway, leaving ‘his country’, ‘his father’s household’. We cannot walk the path he walked (his work is finished) but as the Father sent him, so in the same way he sends us, so the pathway cannot be so different and we now have a work to complete. Security and familiarity will not always be our companions on that pathway.

To the hidden ones, the humble ones there is such an implicit promise. If the restriction at Babel was so that they could no longer do whatever they propose, Pentecost is an invitation to abandon all tower building and release imagination about what the future will look like. I wonder if God does not have a vision for the future other than he wants to fulfil our vision of the future. Could be wrong (don’t jump on me – just a perspective!). Could be wrong but I think more right than a hard line predetermined plan. If so a tad frightening but it comes with a huge invitation to all tower abandoning, non-identifiable, meandering pentecostals.

A little postscript: I am not in the habit of dedicating a post to someone, but as Steve and Kathy Lowton have been with us while writing this post I will make an exception as they have taught us a lot about walking away from tower building.

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Pentecost: let’s speak

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

‘They all spoke’ and if there is a creational pattern we can also look at what God spoke into in Genesis as there is a pattern there. Creation has two issues, namely it is without form and it is empty. For three days God deals with the issue of the formlessness, he puts in boundaries so that there is shape, then for three days he fills the shapes he has prepared. Given the creational background to Pentecost this pattern is something we would be advised to follow.

The first aspect then is to create a shape in a hostile environment. When we do this we should not be expecting great success! The powers (institutional and heavenly) are hostile to the plan of God. The heavenly powers hostile by nature and the institutional ones hostile by default as they are hijacked by spiritual powers. If we enter those spaces assuming all we need to do is fill them we should not be surprised if at times we are overcome. Simply sticking the name ‘Christian’ or ‘kingdom’ to it will not make the difference. I have heard too many times (and also from Christians) ‘that’s the way it works’ when referring, for example, to business practices where an unfair offer is placed on the table and that is used to manipulate a deal. Really? A kingdom approach? I appreciate that we work from where we are to something more redemptive and there is compromise in the kingdom as we engage the powers, but there is redemptive compromise and there is being sold out to unethical and dehumanising practices.

What kind of shapes should we be pressing for in politics, medicine, health, education, farming / animal walfare etc.? In the current political realm it seems we have moved beyond simple lying, through denial to the predominant culture of denialism (Denialism what drives people to reject the truth.) The battle to enter that arena as a redemptive politician is enormous. Coming at things from a bias of prayer is there a pushing back in the spirit so that the spirit of denial does not take root? If we, the body of Christ, are responsible for the world we live in what world are we complicit in allowing to take place? The examples can be expanded to cover all the bases of our society.

If we embrace the implications of pentecost I will continue to speak in tongues, exercise the gifts of the Spirit, but will also need to push for something beyond that – or at least some within the body of Christ will need to do so. Into a business / financial culture of profit is the bottom line (and one that is normally aligned to the idolatry of the ‘invisible hand of the market’) what definition do we need to bring as those who embrace a pentecostal paradigm? The bottom line for us believers has to be some level of effort to provide a shape where the majority possible can be helped to see and step toward their destiny. How about a bottom line financially being a response to the question of how many people that we are able to benefit from our services… for free!! Maybe I am pushing it here, but that was an OT stipulation.

If Pentecost is about an imperfect people being empowered by heaven’s perfection so that there can be a transformative agent in the earth, we have a lot of ‘speaking’, of drawing lines in the midst of chaos and mixture. Only once God had drawn the shapes did he begin to fill them. And there is so much need for a filling of the shapes in society. This I understand to be the body of Christ’s responsibility, not a responsibility to fill the shapes but to ensure they are filled.

I am glad that at one level we fail, that is if we set perfection as the level. If however God is not expecting perfection but redemptive signs we have a lot to pull for with optimistic hope.

(Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash).

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Pentecost: wind and speech

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

There are so many resonances in Scripture to the opening verses of Genesis and Pentecost (Acts 2) is no exception. God is a Creator and there is a continual restoration and healing of creation and the gathering of the material for new creation. Here is a strong resonance:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said… (Gen. 1: 1-3).

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak (Acts 2:1-4).

Wind and speech. Into the formless void came wind and God spoke. That speech brought creation step by step to birth through the process of shape and then fullness. When Pentecost came (in the beginning?) there came wind again from heaven. God is signalling that there is a new level of creation beginning that will both impact this creation and prepare the ‘materials’ for the new creation, when the truly human one, the one who is in the image of the invisible God will be revealed. He, and then the bride will be revealed at the parousia (= presence).

There is a strong resonance, but there is also a difference. In Genesis God spoke, in Acts they spoke. Peter does become the spokesperson as the day progresses but it begins, the foundation of the day, with that they all spoke. There was no recorded order, nor hierarchy, each of them were filled, each of them spoke. Pentecost releases a sound, a corporate sound. In Genesis God’s voice was into the formlessness and emptiness of what was present to him and a process was released. If the body of Christ is to be pentecostal I suggest something similar has to happen. There has to be a voice that speaks into creation, into what is present to the body of Christ. There has to be speech into the formlessness and emptiness of what is apparent.

So what is the body of Christ speaking into at this time? What is the voice that is going forth? There will always be spokespersons but there has to be a foundation that undergirds that of ‘they all spoke’ because they had all been immersed in the Spirit of God. Maybe the only voice being heard is that of the spokespersons and if so are those voices reflecting the diversity that needs to come forth?

God goes where we go (‘even if I make my bed in sheol you will be there’ states this so strongly) and we can so reduce what he wishes to say through the body. If there is a creational dynamic to pentecost then we need to discover the formlessness and emptiness into which we are to speak. The church has to rediscover her voice – the corporate voice that comes through the diversity of those uniquely touched by the Spirit.

I had two experiences in fairly quick succession. I was in a place where I heard the voices of angels communing together. I could not hear a specific word, the volume seemed to rise and fall. I strained my ear and sought to listen, but there was an elusiveness to the sound. Some weeks later I was in an international gathering and the entire gathered people read in their own language the Lord’s Prayer, all at the same time. The sound was identical to the one I had heard previously. The volume went up and down. I thought I could recognise a word, but it was gone as quick as it had come as another person with another language spoke both alongside and over them. I then knew what I had heard before and this time – it was ‘the sound of many waters’. I was hearing the constant flow of water pouring forth from multiple springs. When the angelic and the human speak there will be sounds we try and grasp, but we will never be able to fully hold on to them. The sound is too elusive, too big, too dynamic, too flowing to be harnessed for the source is too diverse, too widespread.

Time to speak. Let there be light, let there be the light of God that enlightens everyone (John 1). Thank God for prophecy, thank God for preaching… but now is the time for the sound of many waters as we speak for example ‘let there be light in the dark place of immigration’. For this we were touched by the Spirit.

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We beheld his glory

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

We beheld his glory, full of…

John suggests that his glory had content. The glory was more than an existential experience. It was touchable and touchable in an observable way. So time to look up the Greek text and come up with a good translation? How about:

His glory was full of grey – and black and white…

Not really suggesting that is the translation, and I do not want to cheapen the word ‘grace’, so tentatively am going to run with ‘grey’ to make it very concrete. If we use the word ‘grace’ it can be religionised away and truth – well we all know what that is. In a recent post I suggested that we are better to be solution focused rather than answer focused and this is a kind of follow on. So forgive me for the translation!

The classic response of Jesus to the woman caught in adultery: ‘I do not condemn you’ shows a measure of greyness. Grey / grace was the solution to the situation that was a bad one from the start. The deck was stacked against the woman (where was the man?). There was probably the prevailing belief that the woman was the seductress and so what else was the man meant to do. That belief skews any judgement, even a judgement based on biblical texts. We face situations that should never have occurred, but we face them because they started out wrong. Our true judgement does not get us too far with many of those situations. The wealthy person walking past the person sitting on the street and refusing to part with a few coins as they will only use it to buy booze or drugs… yes we can walk past and then at the weekend go and buy some booze, and now even more sadly drugs as well. The black and white judgement against the ‘sinner’ just does not always cut it as there are so many other factors.

Tighten legislation against abortion might well be necessary, but when there is such a connection between abortions and social deprivation, we can tick the box of ‘right move’ but not go deep enough. Grey… not pretty.

I like the word ‘grace’, a nice theological category but grey – I just don’t like it. Yet so many situations that God comes to he comes into the situation that was started wrong, and the solution is sometimes a grey. He walked among us, he did not set out rules from a position away from us. He touched what was wrong, and in touching it solutions, ways forward were manifest. Glory is not to be pushed simply into the transcendent realm of out there and up there somewhere. Maybe though we think that is the only realm where glory is found because we are not able to allow it to manifest among us. He (Jesus) walked and we saw glory… we saw again and again a greyness to those on the margins. They did not face a strong ‘repentance’ call, but words of hope. Grey is not the colour of religion!

Grey, strangely a mixture of black and white. His glory full of grey, but stick with it and we will see that he is not pushing ‘anything goes’ as a response. In the midst of it all there was a black and white (truth). How anyone can hold that together is a mystery, and whenever it takes place, for sure, we see ‘glory’.

Show us your glory is a great cry. Show your glory through me is a most challenging pathway. Truth / black and white will be involved I am sure, but right at the forefront, the leading edge will be grey.

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Bless at all costs

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Quickly bless Israel or we will be cursed. Thank God the embassy has been moved (sigh of relief) now God can bless. The question of Israel, the chosen people, is a thorny issue and one that is sure to divide. The two polarised positions of the church as a kind of stop-gap and the future being that for Israel with Jesus reigning literally from Jerusalem, and that of Israel as chosen being over has divided Christians for ever. Terminology such as ‘replacement theology’ has been branded against the latter and the former is termed ‘Zionist’.

So up front: I am closer to the latter position than the former and do not consider simple support for the nation of Israel is warranted by Scripture. I do, however, acknowledge that there is a very real issue of Israel being marginalised with certain nations / ideologies committed to see it removed from the earth.

There has always been a critique of Israel within Scripture

The prophets – as they always should – challenged the ‘Israel exceptionalism’ that was prevalent. (This is why the prophetic voice is not going to sound patriotic in any situation!) Their challenge to Israel can be reduced to two main points:

Are you willing to trust God as your PROTECTOR – or the weapons of warfare?
Are you willing to trust God as your PROVIDER – or is it the trade and exploitation of others so that Israel is first?

Always within Israel’s history there was the challenge of ‘who is Israel?’. Only the most liberal were able to accept race as being the defining issue. Ask a Maccabean, a Pharisee, or an Essene and they would quickly shout another criterion – faithfulness to the God who called Israel. They denied that race gave a person ‘salvation’. The New Testament seems to follow along. Consider the very harsh words of Jesus:

“I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”
“Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” (John 8:37-47.)

Strong words in the extreme. It is hard not to read the above words as declaring that all Pharisees who opposed Jesus are not Abraham’s children but the children of the devil. No-one could get away with making those statements, but they are recorded as being from the mouth of Jesus.

Paul is maybe a little less polemic (other than when writing autobiographically saying that his pure racial inheritance was ‘dung / crap’) but picks up the typical intra-Jewish debate of who really can lay claim to being of Israel:

Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children (Rom. 9:7).

It was not considered enough to be physically descended from Abraham to be included as part of the ‘Israel of God’. Faithful Israel was less than physical Israel, and Israel suffered many times the judgement of God by foreign imperial captivity because of the unfaithful in the land. This is what drove the pre-Christian Saul / Paul to persecute (Jewish) believers in Jesus as the Messiah. He was totally justified in doing so as one faithful to the covenant. (Later he saw such behaviour as an indication that he was the ‘chief of sinners’.)

Jesus, born of a woman (human), born under the law (Jewish) laid claim to Israel’s calling as ‘son of God’. Out of Egypt he came (Matt. 2:15 / Hosea 11:1). It is little wonder therefore that post crucifixion (the Roman penalty for rebellion, and would in 66-70AD become the very visible penalty for Israel’s rebellion) the apostolic appeal was to all who were descended from Abraham to save themselves from this corrupt generation (Acts 2:40 quoting Deut. 32:5 – ‘They are corrupt and not his children; to their shame they are a warped and crooked generation’) through baptism into Jesus.

It is not sufficient to say Jesus replaced Israel, but an understanding that his death was the death of Israel, for their sake, and his resurrection was the resurrection of Israel on the third day (Hosea 6:2). He dies in Israel’s place, the mother hen willing to sacrifice its life when the fire comes so that the chicks could survive. There were those of Israel who survived – witness the 3000 on the day of Pentecost mirroring, and contrasting, the 3000 who died on the day when the Levites exercised judgement on all those who were unfaithful (Exodus 32:28).

Jesus, ultimately is the one true Israelite, the one true human. The future centres in on his work for Israel, for the world. The future does not centre in on Abraham and his physical descendants, thought without them there is no God incarnate as a faithful Jew.

The complexity of it comes out in Paul’s anguish in Rom. 9-11.

As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. (Romans 11:28-32.)

They are loved because of the patriarchs. Race counts for something, yet they (those who have not responded to Jesus) are now enemies and disobedient, but the result is salvation to the Gentiles. Indeed, Paul suggests we are all in the same boat: disobedient whether Gentile of Jew (all have sinned, both Gentile and Jew) with the result that all can now receive the mercy of God ( NB he states NOW, not at some future date).

Bless Israel? Well if that means no criticism of policies that does not seem to line up with Scripture. And to suggest that modern Israel as a secular state means that all those who are Jews within it by race are chosen – there seems a big weight of Scripture opposed to that, and if we were to draw a straight line from OT theocratic Israel to secular Israel today we would have to do with the critical lenses of ‘Provider and Protector’.

Disregard Israel? There still seems to be that ‘loved because of the Patriarchs’ element hanging there.

But there remains the chosen nature of humanity that only Jesus fulfilled. As servant to the nations, as suffering servant on behalf of one and all. Yes he took that on as on behalf of Israel, but that was only ever for the sake of the world. Israel was never chosen to condemn the world, but to enable the world to truly live and move within the Presence of God. Whatever we make of Israel’s current status I think is academic if we as the body of Christ fail to live up to our calling – to bless the world. To live knowing that a new creation is our habitat, one free of fear of the other, and one filled with faith for the future, the future that the one true Israelite, the one true human, the God-incarnate one came to release. That was the calling of Israel and is the calling of the body of Christ. Quite something to live out and something the nations are still calling for.

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But if he is not in control?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I have put up a few posts that have referred to Open Theology that suggested God not being in control. It has provoked a few comments and even an email or two so thought maybe I should explore it a little further in a post. I have always leaned toward what is known as Open Theology where the future is not fixed and that it is not known in an absolute sense by God. Arminianism holds to a future that is known and Calvninism a future that is fixed. The divergence is really over how foreknowledge and predestination interrelate. For Calvinism foreknowledge is because of predestination. God has set something in motion, the outworking is according to his will and divine purpose therefore foreknowledge follows as an absolute. Arminianism reverses those. God knows the future and so what is predestined is according to what he foreknows. If we add to that the possibility of God being outside of time suggesting that he sees the end and the beginning simultaneously. Outside of time gives me immense issues (so Greek and not Hebraic) as it means that everything that has taken place, is taking place and has not yet taken place is now at one given ‘moment’ taking place in God’s experience. Really? The God who thinks, responds, reacts, ‘repents’, waits to see what we will do is not presented as an ‘outside of time’ One. We can resort to those descriptions of God as being anthropomorphic (though I am not convinced by that) or that there are aspects of God we do not understand, and insist that we cannot say ‘man’ (sic) with a loud voice and result with the word ‘God’ – as Barth said. Yet this God is knowable so we cannot simply make him the wholly other to us.

I was first introduced to Open Theology through YWAM and one of their main teachers in their discipleship schools, Gordon Olson, then came the writings of Clark Pinnock, James Sanders, Greg Boyd and others. Perhaps then for me the book Uncontrolling Love by Thomas Jay Oord was one of the best I have read on it. Open Theology challenges the supposed core historic given that God is in control. Comforting as that is at a personal level, it opens up a huge charge against God in the face of natural calamities, human abuse and the tragedy of suffering. God in total control is a comfort to me when I don’t know which way to turn, and probably is of comfort for those displaced from their nation en route to the ‘safety’ of Europe, but for those whose ‘boat’ has just deflated on the Mediterranean and they cannot swim and there is no rescue at hand I am not sure they are comforted that what they are about to experience is the will of God.

At least the Arminian position is easier to sit with, though if God is all powerful and he knew certain events would happen why no intervention? For the Calvinist (and the Muslim) where the will of God is being fulfilled it is genuinely hugely more difficult to explain, other than resorting to the category of ‘mystery’.

Uncontrolling love does not mean:

  • everything is out of control. A parent or guardian who does not control their children in an absolute sense does not mean that without control all children run amok. Values and an inner conscience bring some measure of self-control.
  • that God is without power and can do nothing! However, it does put a far greater emphasis on the effect of prayer.
  • that God does not know us. He knows us better than anyone else ever could. He has been present with us from conception.
  • that he does not have a purpose for our lives. It does not mean that he cannot speeak prophetically to us about events yet to come (and bear in mind that prophecy is conditional).

Uncontrolling love begins with ‘God is love’ and that love is releasing, he travels with us, works for our good with whatever room we gives to him. It means that the tragedies in the world are tragedies to us and to him – there is no ‘mystery at work’ for some higher purpose, though God will work through all things and there can come incredible redemptive results. The redemptive results do not witness to how there was a higher purpose but to the everlasting, unchanging, redemptive love of God. Witness Joseph to see a God at work. Betrayed and sold into slavery, but at the end he more or less states ‘you did not do this, but God did it!’. I suggest that he is responding with a heartfelt emotionally healed statement rather than a theologically nuanced response!

Uncontrolling love means that to use the term ‘omnipotence’ in the sense that God can do anything (but does not seem to!) is meaningless. It is not to suggest that there are limitations to the power of God, but that love determines where that power is shown and that love is uncontrolling.

Uncontrolling love means that God looks for partnership (prayer / availability / faith) to intervene. The heavens ‘belong’ to God but the earth is in the hands of humanity (Ps. 115:16). This is the pattern from the beginning, with humanity as the stewards for God on earth. The situation is further compounded with the partnership between humanity and the fallen powers. To destroy the works of the devil as a human was the task set before the Son of Man. His mission was to see on earth as in heaven and he gave that prayer to the disciples.

To pray let your kingdom come, is to acknowledge that the manifest extent of God’s rule does not include creation. Creation itself sees it this way as it waits for a manifestation of the children of God. Hence prayer is vital. When we pray we do not know all that is involved. There are factors at times beyond ‘God come do this’ that we might not be aware of, yet it is that prayer and desire that releases the hand of God.

Unanswered prayer…!!!!!!! Sometimes it is that we were misguided and not clean in our motives, but there are times when prayer is not answered as we desired. Maybe we did not discern the resistance and remove it… and maybe a whole bunch of reasons that we don’t know why. Praying for healing and the result being premature death is a challenge. Scripture faces those things head on. Premature death is in Scripture and it is not expressed as the ‘will’ of God. One reason is the divisions and jealousies in the body of Christ – and it is not always the guilty ones who die!! Paul rebukes the Corinthians – ‘and some of you have died’ – no need to rebuke them if the guilty have already died. They seem still to be alive hence the rebuke.

For sure there are things we do not see clearly. There are disappointments in prayer, yet I do not see how we simply categorise all of them as the will of God. In and through all of them if we remain faithful he will pull through a higher purpose. He certainly works that way for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

The most positive aspect I find in the Open Theology field is that of partnering with heaven, of opening up a future that is good and healthy. I see nothing in it that minimises God, rather the opposite. A God who is never defeated, never depressed, always loving, always creatively calling, always longing for the partnership we can offer. There is no future that will take him by surprise, all possibilities and every permutation of it he knows. We are the ones who can create space for him, just as many throughout Scripture have before us.

However we work all this out God has us in his hands. ‘Cast all your anxiety on him for he cares for you… Be anxious about nothing, but in everything with thanksgiving make your requests known to him.’ So not controlling does not mean things are out of control and God can do nothing. He is with us and loves to hear us dialogue with him so that he can do those redemptive acts that do not cross the line of control. (The very real acts of judgement I consider have to nuance that limitation and there is an element to which judgement is an inbuilt result of behaviour.) He knows us intimately – from the mother’s womb and has been present throughout and will be.

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