Tag: incarnation

Christmas comes- but how often?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

Always this time of year it is responded to with ‘I can’t believe it is Christmas in a couple of days’. Gayle and I will look for some chicken… or maybe ostrich(?)… and a little prosecco (we are in Italy after all) today or tomorrow to celebrate. But what a deep season – God incarnate, coming into the world the same way we did, so that there might be those who go through the world the same way he did, so that there might be those who come through resurrection into the new creation. What a story.

I had a dream last night that might be more for me than anyone else. I was seated with a group of people who were focused on transforming the world. Present were numerous different ideologies / theologies and I was asked what I saw for the coming year. I began with ‘in these next two years’ but then stopped as it would at one level be rehearsing all that I ‘know’ (dangerous to assume what we know). I stopped and said ‘we will need to give up our view of the kingdom of God at each step as fresh understanding replaces what we already know’.

I then thought (in the dream and subsequent) – ok so that is also present within Scripture. Abraham is blessed and his slaves increase. We can see he is blessed – just count what (and who) he owns. Solomon impresses the Queen of Sheba. The ‘kingdom’ exceeds that of Egypt or anywhere else.

I say to Gayle ‘if we only had the Quran or simply the Hebrew Scriptures I wonder how we would interpret what it meant to follow God’. If we took the Hebrew Scriptures and followed the example of one who was dedicated to them and declared himself (even with hindsight) righteous we should express our zealousness with opposition to all who fall short of our understanding – persecution and even killing. But we have Jesus to whom the Scriptures bear faithful witness.

Matt. 20:26-27, Mk. 9:35, 10:43-44 all make it plain. The one who is / desires to be great becomes the servant of all, and if pushed to the extreme, the one who is to be first then becomes a slave (doulos).

You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them It will not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many (Matt. 20:25-28).

Abraham’s greatness and sign of blessing was he had many slaves. Jesus said the sign of greatness is to be the slave. One understanding has to give way to the next.

And back to the dream… some of the ideologies in the room would be happy with a (maybe modified) view of ‘if we want to see the world transformed then the evidence will be we are in a place of power and influence’. This is why there are so many examples drawn for transformation from the Hebrew Scriptures but (as I have written before) the One we follow who was in the form of God became a slave (doulos). He did not become a slave in spite of being in the form of God but being in the form of God he became a slave. Jesus is God-like… God is Jesus-like.

It is for this reason our understanding of the kingdom has to give way in an ongoing way.

And finally – why does God not stop all the evil? (And what follows is an inadequate response to ‘why does a loving God allow suffering?’)

Wrong question I think. We are asking it of God. I think God asks it of humanity – for the heavens are God’s dwelling place; the planet is ours. And one day that binary divide will find unity, until then the critical part resides with the followers of Jesus. And that raises the question – what Jesus do we follow?

The lion might be a biblical image, but we have to see the Lamb and to be ready to follow where he goes.

Christmas is here again. We remember. Can Christmas come on a regular basis day by day beyond December 25th? And God was incarnate… Past tense or ongoing present.

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Is Jesus really like God?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Jesus is loving, God (and by this we normally mean, the ‘first’ Person of the Trinity, and so the one who is really God(!!)) we just are no sure about. It can also be underlined by such passages as the hymn of Philippians 2 – the ‘humbled himself’ lines.

Here are a few translations. First my favourite translation the New Revised Standard Version:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited (NRSV).
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage (NIV).
Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what (The Message).
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (ESV).
You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had,
who though he existed in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped (The NET Translation).

In all the above the NIV does the best! I have emboldened a word that really snuck in with some of the translations – the word ‘though’. That word subtly gives the impression that he acts somewhat different to the divine nature. A bit like ‘Although I am a law-abiding citizen, I chose to break the law…’ An ‘in spite of’ phraseology. So let’s dig just a little:

ὃς ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ – literally BEING IN THE FORM OF GOD, not though but if one were to add a word of emphasis it would be the word BECAUSE he was in the form of God. His act of self-humbling is because he was God not in spite of being God. This early hymn is so deeply significant; God was ‘re-defined’ forever through the incarnation of Jesus. The high and lofty one is the humble one, always has been and always will be.

Another similar passage is in 2 Cor. 8:9

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

Here again the word ‘though’ creeps in. John Barclay has argued that if we add a word here to bring out the meaning it really should be the word ‘because’. There is no ‘though’, we simply have ‘being rich’ (πλούσιος ὤν), hence Barclay’s argument – and as these clever people can be, rather a large argument on the grammar construction – is for the sense of BECAUSE.

Jesus does not act ‘in spite of’, there is no ‘though’. His action is the action of God. Never is there a divided Trinity. Jesus is the way he is, because God is that way. God is the kenotic God.

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Mistakes… learning… perfect

The making mistakes gift

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

‘In the image of God’… perfect? No, but good. Humanity was never ‘created’ perfect (aside: nor ‘given’ an immortal soul). Such ideas are not formed from the earthy theology of the Bible, but the ‘ideal’ world of the Greeks. The theology that looks for a way out; God is always searching for a way in.

The incarnation. Jesus is sinless, but not ‘perfect’. Or, at least, he is not intrinsically perfect in the sense the word is used of humans in Scripture, the sense of ‘mature’. To arrive at maturity is a process. And it was a process also for Jesus.

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings (Heb. 2:10).

Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him (Heb. 4:8,9).

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour (Luke 2:52).

A growth in wisdom, a path toward maturity. True humanity, that which Jesus exhibited, is not ‘perfection’ as suggested to us from our infected-by-Hellenistic-philosophy theology, but it is one that embraces mistakes, of holding to a position that has to be later abandoned, and moved on from it. We are all influenced by our culture, the wider cultures and the closer culture of the faith we have embraced.

Jesus learned.

Perfection is not the measure of true humanness, but learning, adapting, changing is the measure.

We know the classic example of Jesus learning from the Syro-Phoenician woman’s response; or when we consider the ‘who knew better?’ question related to Jesus or his mother in John 2! Or maybe the washing of feet of the disciples (John 13) was provoked by the washing of his feet by Mary of Bethany earlier (John 12).

Did Jesus learn in those situations? I reply with a resounding ‘for sure’. For sure, not simply because I wish to affirm his humanity, but because I wish to affirm his (sinless) true humanness.

This post might only be for me… To learn to embrace mistakes, not to see them as ‘sin’, as ‘failure’ but as the door provided to enable me to mature.

One of God’s good gifts to humanity is the ability to make mistakes.

God is God, and sadly we project on to God our humanity. ‘Anger’, ‘slow to forgive without proper repayment and forgiveness’; we tend to make God in our image, or the ‘idealised’ image of humanity (with all our imperfections). The two above examples are classic: wrath, but never are the anger of humans and the anger of God compared… and forgiveness… hence we end up with a transactional cross and a divided Trinity. Then we tend to make Jesus, as human, into ‘our’ God as human, so true humanness becomes something that provokes us to become even less human than we are! As if!!!

In the Garden we were tempted to become ‘as God’… the problem has always been a desire to become like the ‘God’ we perceive! Hence the purification we go through to act with power. The theology that sanctifies getting to the ‘top’.

It is all cut down when God becomes like us, the incarnation. Here is the image of God; here indeed is God.

(And the get to the top ideology is somewhat mocked in the tower of Babel story. The tower will reach heaven… God in heaven has to come ‘down’ to see it. Not so high after all. Hence, all the centres of power are not what they seem, they will all be unfinished, they will not reach the heights they proclaim. The small stone is always more effective than the great image that is created.)

The incarnation. And God in human form learns.

Long live mistakes. (Again written for me.) I guess it is not likely I hit the bulls eye today.

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