Jew or Greek, barbarian or Scythian

If you've been acutely tuned in to global news, you've probably noted the rise of conflict over recognition of the Armenian "conflict" (read: genocide) in the Ottoman Empire that peaked in 1915 with the deaths of some 800,000 of the two million Armenians living with Turkish borders.* You've probably heard about how France and even the U.S. are attempting to pass bills demanding that these events were recognized as massacres. You may have heard how Hrant Dink, an Armenian journalist living in Istanbul who was tried in national court for speaking about the "genocide"--a "crime against Turkishness"--was gunned down in broad daylight by an ultra-nationalist.

Turkish Daily News writer and political author Elif Şafak wrote the following in a recent editorial: "Imagine an exquisite dinner scene in Istanbul. A long, long table; at least 30 people. It is kind of breezy outside, the infamous lodos is blowing incessantly, as if to remind you that life in this city is far from quiet and orderly. Inside the room, the variety of the food served reflects the multicultural roots of today's Turkish cuisine: Albanian meatballs, Greek seafood, Kurdish spices, Armenian pastries, Turkish pilaf. People drink and eat and laugh and from time to time, they toast friends long departed.

"Then somebody starts to sing a song. Other guests join in and before you know it a string of songs follow, most of them sad but none disheartening. The songs switch almost effortlessly from Armenian to Kurdish, from Turkish to Greek. Where one stops another one picks up. Imagine, in short, a cosmopolitan setting where everyone is welcome no matter what their ethnicity, race or religion. Imagine a country where we are all equal, friendly and free."

Why do we partners in humanity have this longing? Because, I believe, this is part of the life of Paradise, of the Kingdom of God, where people from "every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues" will feast in the joyous presence of the Triune Savior, drinking from the water of life with every tear wiped away, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb" (Rev. 7:9-17). In Christ Jesus--and nowhere else--is there "a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew [or even the Greeks' long-standing enemies, the Turks], circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3:11). God has planted an echo of eternity in everyone's heart for which we all long (Ecc. 3:10), but only by accepting the work of the Lord Jesus will we ever enter into that joy.

The beginnings of such a beautiful thing did happen at Dink's funeral, though: thousands of people--Turks, Kurds, and Armenians alike--marched in the streets chanting "We are all Hrant Dink! We are all Armenians!" Was this a demonstration of the intrinsic goodness of man? Or did it have something to do with the fact that Hrant Dink and his wife were faithful Christians, through whom God was spreading a vision of redemption? I've heard that at the funeral, which received national television coverage, Dink's wife truly spoke of her hope in the gospel of Christ. May her prayers be answered.

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*This began in 1874, when invading Russian forces sought and secured the aid of Armenians in defeating the Ottomans from within. Were there religious overtones, with the Armenians and Russians standing both as Orthodox Christians, and the Turks as Muslims?

Jesus Christ is the miracle of all miracles

Thinking more about the gospel--or, more so, the Gospels (I'm reading St. John's account right now)--I can't help but notice the primacy of miracles (testifying "signs" to John). What are these all about? Are they merely proof-texts of Jesus' deity, showing that as the God-man he can make satisfaction for our sins upon the Cross? Or are they part of the message itself, the Kingdom of God? Karl Barth--and I think rightly so--says that they are also foretastes of the new and radically blessed order that has become "at hand" in Jesus (Mark 1:14-15). The promises given to Israel by their covenant God are finding their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

"When the biblical miracle stories excite serious and relevant wonderment, they intend to do this as signals of something fundamentally new, not as a violation of the natural order which is generally known and acknowledged." (Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963. p. 68)

"According to the biblical testimony, what happened following such statements [e.g., "Rise, take up your bed and go home" and the miracle commands of Jesus] was always a change in the ordinary course of the world and nature which threatened and oppressed man. Though these changes were isolated and temporary, they were nevertheless radically helpful and saving. What took place were promises and intimations, anticipations of a redeemed nature, of a state of freedom, of a kind of life in which there will be no more sorrow, tears, and crying, and where death as the last enemy will be no more. What is communicated under the form of these little lights is always the reflected brightness of the great light which draws near to the end of the present in the form of hope. What is at stake is the summons, "'Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near'" (Luke 21:28). This kindling of the light of hope is what is really new; it is the really surprising element in the biblical miracle stories." (pp. 68-69)

"What is really and decisively new is the new man.

"According to the biblical witness, Jesus acted by these miraculous deeds in the midst of other men as the Lord, servant, and guarantor for them all. In these deeds he proclaimed both himself and the righteousness and judgment of God. In them he revealed his glory. He himself is the new event, the great light of hope that has already come and will come again after having shined provisionally in these little lights [presumably referring to his miracles; see previous quote]. The new event is the world's reconciliation with God, which was announced in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament by Jesus Christ. The new event is the fulfilling and perfecting of the covenant between God and man. The new event is love, free grace, the unfathomable mercy with which God took up the cause of Israel, the criminal contender against God, and the cause of the whole rebellious and corrupt human race. He took up their cause by letting his Word become flesh, miserable and sinful flesh like our own. The execution of his eternal counsel took place in a concrete act within time and space, not on the lofty pinnacle of some idea that might be easily comprehensible and persuasive for man. The Word became flesh in our place and for us, to overcome, take away, and eradicate the sin that separates us from God, the sin that is also the sting of death, the old element of our old nature and world. The new event is the name of God which is hallowed in this one person, in his obedience, service, life, and death. It is the kingdom come in him, established and active in him, God's will that in him is done on earth as in heaven. The new event is the pathway of children to their father, the way opened through him to all men and traversable for them all through the power of life of the Holy Spirit.

"The new event, according to the biblical witness, is the history of Jesus Christ that concludes the history of Israel. Christ the Saviour is there! In a real and decisive sense, therefore, he is the miracle, the miracle of all miracles! Whoever takes up the subject of theology finds himself inevitably confronted with this miracle. Christ is that infinitely wondrous event which compels a person, so far as he experiences and comprehends this event, to be necessarily, profoundly, wholly, and irrevocably astonished." (pp. 70-71)

The job hunt has begun

With plans to return to the U.S. in early July and begin an indefinitely long teaching career (that is, unless--or until?--something else calls, perhaps a role in Church education at home or abroad), I've begun hacking my way through the jungle of job hunting. Forget the Amazon; this is far worse. You see, I'm at a slight disadvantage, with nothing less than the Atlantic Ocean (plus the Mediterranean Sea to boot!) between me and those lovely faces representing schools from across Michigan and the rest of the U.S. at the education job fairs that sprout like mushrooms every April.

So, like Jesus' teaching, "Behold, there went out a sower to sow" (Mark 4:3 KJV), I'm e-mailing tons of school districts to let them know I exist. I figure that at three schools per day, I can catch some 250 schools before I return. I have yet to find a single job posting for the 2007-08 school year, but this is normal, and it'll be even crazier and more last-minute with the funding cuts and whopping 8% unemployment in Michigan. Shall I perhaps end up living outside the bounds of my beloved Mitten? O Pleasant Peninsula, may it never be!

Well, if New England weren't so outrageously expensive (Massachusetts, southern NY, Connecticut) or shrinking and underfunded (Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire), then maybe it would be a good location. Besides, how cool would it be to say I live in a town called Schenectady? There are plenty of jobs, however, in the South: the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia, where school districts are growing rapidly.

But in the midst of retraining my mind to the world of science--particularly biology and chemistry--I'm finding that, in fact, I am excited about getting back into the classroom. First off, there's the coolness contained in discovering how batteries work (which do not get lighter after use), the mysteries of tree growth (whose mass does not come from the soil), and diving into the complex web of interactions between man and the rest of nature (sorry, Al Gore, but it looks like global warming has been a historically present and cyclical phenomenon--though we are exacerbating it). But alongside that are even greater enigmas to be explained: teenagers. I think it's quite fitting that the Turkish word for "teenager" is delikanlı, which means "crazy-blooded."

So from now on, more news and thoughts about my soon-to-be life as an educator will be cropping up from time to time. My apologies to all who hated science; you didn't have me as your teacher!

Sexuality, man, and the Trinity

I found this beautiful meditation on human sexuality by Peter Leithart, and though I'm not married (shoot, I'm not even dating anyone!) I thought it was full of such beautiful yet succinct insight that it's worth passing on.

Exhortation, Third Sunday Of Lent

When God created the land animals, He created them male and female. The earth brought forth sexed living creatures, both male and female arising from the ground. God did not create the human sexes in the same way. He formed Adam from the dust of the ground, but in a separate act He formed Eve from Adam. None of the animals from the ground was a suitable helper to Adam. He needed a helper who came from himself.

This difference highlights the basic differences between animal and human sexuality.

Animals are created male and female, simultaneously. "They do not require each other for the fulfillment of their lives’ calling, and only for the purposes of breeding, and for the time necessary for perpetuating the species, do they seek and find each other" (Hirsch).

Human sexuality is a different matter entirely. Man is first created male, and then divided into male and female. Nowhere are animals described as becoming "one flesh," but man is divided into male and female in order to be reunited. Sexuality for human beings is about unity in diversity, about imaging the God who can say both "I" and "we."

Modern views of sex usually assume that human sexuality is the same as animal sexuality. If animals mate in order to survive as a species, then human beings must do the same. If animal sexual desire is no more than a biological instinct, human sexuality is the same. If animals can get along without lifelong partnerships, so can we.

All these are lies, and they are fundamental lies. Once Adam is divided, he can no longer fulfill his calling by himself, but only with his wife. Once Adam is divided, his life as a whole is bound up with his union with his bride. For human beings, sexual difference is not just about sex. It's about man's life and calling as a whole. In every phase of his life, Adam cleaves to his bride so that they become "one flesh."

Repentance and justification by faith

"There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, 'Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.' " (Luke 13:1-5)

According to F. F. Bruce in his New Testament History, two events may be in reference to what Jesus said here. (1) In response to his demand that the Temple coffer partially fund his newly-built aqueducts—Pilate argued that the Temple shared in its benefits through its water supply for priestly cleansings—a protest occurred over this sacrilege, this mingling of Rome and Temple and the wielding of Pilate’s power over the Jewish religion. This attack of Galilean pilgrims in the Temple courts would have (at least figuratively) meant that their blood was mingled with that of the sacrificial offerings.[1]

(2) The event at Siloam (SE corner of Jerusalem), though it may well have been simply a natural disaster, in Jesus’ context in Luke 13:4 may indicate that it, too, occurred when a military insurrection against Rome was upset, and the insurrectionists’ tower pulled down.[2]

If these are in fact the events surrounding Jesus’ warning, the message may be something like this: “If their minds remained bent upon resistance to Rome, then ruin would befall their city and themselves. Why not rather follow the way of the Son of Man, the way of submission and service, and thus establish the new kingdom—not as a result of obedience to God’s will but in obedience to his will?”[3]

No matter how much the Jews (or anyone else, for that matter) wanted to bring about the kingdom’s promises of peace, prosperity, and freedom for Israel, it was never going to happen on their own accord, by their own action, on their own terms. Instead of trusting God to fulfill his promise and make it happen himself, they were trying to seize it through their own actions. Many hoped that their obedience to Torah and their opposition to the nations would inaugurate God’s saving work. In essence, they didn’t believe God’s promises nor his power to fulfill them. Instead of waiting patiently for him (Ps. 46:10), they tried to do God’s work in their own ways, effectively removing God from their lives and setting themselves in his place. They became directors of their own history, gods themselves. Directors of their own lives and history, the King is supplanted by self—a grievous and blatant transgression.

And yet the truth was that Jerusalem, representative of all Israel who rejected the Messiah, never learned “the things that make for peace” (Luke 19:41), failing to see that in Jesus God their Savior had truly visited them to bring his salvation and judgment: in him God’s kingdom was already present, apart from anything they had ever done. All they had to do was open their eyes to him and believe it—believe him. In an eerily similar rebuke to Israel that their disobedience of God’s will shall bring about the utter collapse and destruction of Jerusalem (Isaiah 30:8-17), the prophet offers this call to simply trust in Yahweh: “For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In repentance and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength. . . . Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him’” (30:15, 18).

Even if these two events as described by Bruce were not in fact what Jesus was referring to, the call stands: Unless you keep trying to direct your own life and achieve good, blessing, and joy, or “heaven” or anything else you desire, by your own means, under your own effort and apart from trust in God and his Messiah, you will likewise perish. You will never participate in the kingdom of God, the new heavens and the new earth. Unless you simply trust that in Jesus of Nazareth God reigns and has done away with all that plagues us—sin’s corruption, guilt, and shame, death-separation from God as a result of our sin, the swaying powers of the devil, and the oppression of world powers—then you will surely die.

Thus justification by faith alone still wholeheartedly accords with the call, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel,” for it is only when we stop trying to see things happen by our works, whether those of the Law (Torah) or by being a good person according to the law within our own hearts (Rom. 2:15), that God will act to save us.

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[1] F. F. Bruce, New Testament History (New York: Doubleday, 1969), 36-7.
[2] Ibid., 37, 188.
[3] Ibid., 188.

What is the gospel?

Lately my roommate Ryan and I have been thinking and trying to figure out, "What is the gospel?" As a result, I hope to put some of my/our scriptural "conclusions" (as if I could ever achieve some sort of closed, final understanding of the matter!) online here. Right or wrong, messy or neat, I hope we see that the gospel is more than we often think it is (see here also).

“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God [concerning his Son] and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:14-15; Rom. 1:1-6).

Former Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) pastor Rolf Preus contends that the center from which all church fellowship develops is “the gospel of justification by faith alone.” Yes, that would certainly be a fitting definition of the gospel by Lutheran standards, and justification by faith alone is certainly good news, amazing news for us condemned sinners. But is the gospel itself justification by faith alone? We know that all who believe the gospel are justified by faith alone. But does that mean a person becomes justified by faith by believing in justification by faith? In other words, was Jesus preaching, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in justification by faith”?

Or are we justified—that is, declared forgiven of all our sins, “in the right” with God, and included in God’s promised kingdom blessings—by faith in Jesus as Messiah and Lord and all that this encompasses? This message naturally begins with the news that God reigns (Isa. 52:7; Rom. 10:15) and that God, incarnate and active in Jesus of Nazareth, has inaugurated his reign, the basileia tou theou, “the kingship of God.” (Psalms 2 and 110 provide this as the framework for the teachings of both Jesus and the apostles, and they are the most-quoted OT texts in the NT. Likewise Psalm 72, recognized by Jews and Christians alike as messianic, directly attaches to the Davidic king the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.) The gospel of Jesus as Lord means not that Jesus is some indomitable force we must all bow before (though that’s quite true enough), but that he has triumphed over all his enemies—Sin, Death, and the Devil—and, through our receptive trust in this, brings us into all that this victory entails and provides.

Naturally, the news that God reigns means that against all opposition (both human and demonic), he is the one who has made good on his promises to Adam and Abraham, David and Israel. When all the fulfilling, saving work comes from God and not from us—for we only get in the way, screw things up, and even try to vehemently defy him—this of course means that we don’t have anything to add to it, can’t take credit for any of it. We simply enter into it this salvation and receive—inherit—the kingdom by faith alone. Sola fide.

Of course, God cannot have fellowship with sin and the wicked whose hearts desire self-reign rather than God-reign. (That’s every one of us humans.) Human autonomy is the very thing contradictory to the kingdom of God itself. But in Christ Crucified God has already removed from us both the guilt of our sins (Isa. 53; Jer. 31:34; 1 Cor. 15:1-3) and the very power of sin itself, putting our old selves to death in Christ and raising us to live in the newness and re-creation of Christ’s resurrection (Rom. 6:1-11; 1 Cor. 15). We are now fueled and freed by the Holy Spirit to love God (and others) instead of trying to please him and bring his promises into fulfillment by our own puny, self-righteous moral strivings (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:24-28; Rom. 6:13ff; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Gal. 2:20-21).

Quoting Psalm 110:1, Paul speaks also of Christ’s lordship over Death in 1 Corinthians 15:25-27a: “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’”

Ultimately, the gospel is God himself, that we get to live in fellowship with him as God-with-us and God-for-us every day, no matter what our stumblings and difficulties may be. We now get to experience but the “firstfruits” of his presence through the Spirit and are able to “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Ps. 34:8). But one day, in the new heavens and new earth, where death, sin, and the devil will be no more, we will stand in our glorified resurrection-bodies and see him “face to face” and “know fully, even as [we] have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12; cf. Jer. 31:34; Rev. 7:13-17). And we shall cry, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just. . . . Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory” (Rev. 19:1-2, 6-7).