No time to comment on this, but I think it is worth thinking about in light of the authority that scientists possess in modern society.

Maybe like this.

Hat Tip: Paul Duggan

Let us start here with an observation: When people feel guilty or ashamed, they can become the most ready to judge and accuse others. Feeling vulnerable to accusation themselves, they become defensive and are easily prone to implement a strategy based on the idea that the best defense is a good offense. They snap at others. They tend to raise their voices. And most of all they find fault in others around them. Those who feel accused, rightly or wrongly, can easily become zealous accusers.

In effect, a common part of human depravity is a widening circle going from sin to guilt to more sin to deal with the guilt.

The Gospel directly addresses that human problem. That sin and that temptation to sin results from a desire for justification, and the Gospel declares that in Christ we have that vindication. As a result, we can be freely forgiven for all our sins and can leave them behind us in the past. That fact results in new possibilities in how we behave toward others.

The Gospel breaks the cycle of sin to guilt to sin by eradicating the guilt and removing the temptation.

The Precondition for Generosity
Before I go any further, let me make another observation. People who believe themselves to be wealthy are those most likely to be generous. If you have a great deal of money, it is or should be, easier to give some away.

More than Gratitude
We often hear that God has chosen us and saved us so that we should be grateful. This is true, but it is often treated as the one true key to Christian behaviore and obedience to God.

Believe it or not, gratitude can become a form of bondage to the law. Yes, God has been generous to us. But we need to be careful about being motivated or motivating others by the obligation to be grateful. It can become, unless kept in perspective, a desire to repay God and end up all the more legalistic even as it speaks of God’s grace.

Now, I’m sure that there is some Biblical basis for sometimes relating gratitude to good works. Paul speaks of children making repayment to their parents by taking care of them in their old age. It certainly seems possible to have some similar motivation toward God. But the fact is that while the New Testament is filled with exhortations to live by faith, we see virtually no exhortations to live by gratitude.

We can never pay God back, and a debtor’s ethic could easily foster pride and arrogance. Our primary motivation according to the Gospel has to be faith—confidence in what God has given to us and has promised to give us.

Don’t “Gut It Out”
What this means is that we, as Christians, are never supposed to merely “gut it out.” We don’t tell ourselves that we need to simply endure because of our obligation to be grateful. No, we endure because we hope in what God promises in the Gospel.

Hebrews 11, among other passages, makes this extremely clear. It speaks of what the saints do “by faith” and makes quite clear what that means. Noah didn’t come home to his wife one day and say, “Well honey, I know life has been good. But God has told me we have to build a big boat in the middle of dry land, and become a laughingstock to everyone around us. It will take time and money and destroy my credibility but we should do it because we should be grateful to God for making us and besides, he’s God and it is always wrong to disobey God.”

No, he came home, and said, “Honey, God is going to destroy all flesh on the earth, but he’s granted us forgiveness and a way of escape. He’s given me the plans for a boat so that we can float safely on the water until he brings us to a new world!” Noah didn’t gut it out. Noah trusted God and hoped in what was promised to him.

Likewise, when God called Abram to leave his home. Abram didn’t roll up his sleeves and say, “Well this is awful, but if God tells us to leave our home, we’ve just got to do it no matter what. After all, since God’s done so much for us, this gives us a chance to show we’re thankful. No! Abram left his home because he trusted God to do a lot more for him!—to give him a better home and a better future. When God ordered him to sacrifice his son, his only son, he didn’t do it simply by gutting it out and obeying God at the cost of all his hopes. No, Hebrews 11.19 is quite clear: He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead. Abraham’s hope was based on God promise and that is what motivated his obedience.

Likewise Moses did not side with Israel because he thought God was ordering him to be destitute. He did it because of a confident faith and hope in the Gospel. Hebrews 11.24-26:

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.

And even Jesus himself operated by that same faith. Even Jesus, believe it or not, gave himself because of his trust and hope in the Gospel.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.

Now, if anyone should have been able to simply gut it out, to simply obey because God ordered him to do so or simply out of gratitude for past blessing, it should have been Jesus Christ, the Divine Son of God. But that’s not what the inspired word of God tells us is it! No, he did what he did because he hoped in God and new that the path God had for him to trod would leave him infinitely better off than any other course of action.

The Flow
Let me simply walk through this passage and make sure we all grasp the flow.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

This is not simply about imitation but about giving what you’ve been given. You have it to give because God in Christ has been so generous with you. Remember Paul’s earlier words in Ephesians: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us.”

We are rich! We have received kindness. We have received and are receiving the tenderhearted care of God. We have been forgiven. Paul only explicitly states the last as being something we have received from God, but it implies all three things. God is kind to us in Christ; God is tenderhearted toward us in Christ; God forgives us in Christ. As a result, we can afford to be kind to one another, tenderhearted to one another, and forgiving to one another.

Now, let’s not lose sight of those other words “kind” and “tenderhearted.” It is all too easy to claim that you forgive other people when in fact you are really apathetic about what those people say or do. If you don’t really care about someone, it is not too difficult to say “no problem” or “don’t worry about it,” when they seek your forgiveness about something they said or did against you.

But the Gospel calls people not to be apathetic. We are to deeply love one another, which means in the case of sinful human beings, become vulnerable to being hurt by one another. What Paul writes to the Ephesians should be true of every Church, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints” (1.15). In that context, in the context of being genuinely kind and tenderhearted, we are exhorted to forgive.

I said that it is all too easy to ignore what people do to you if you are apathetic. I should also warn that it is very difficult to genuinely forgive people unless you care for them. If we aren’t cultivating kindness and tenderheartedness toward each other, then we are fooling ourselves if we have some sort of confidence that we will forgive them when they do manage to hurt us.

Do you find it hard to reach out beyond your own household toward others? Remember that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were completely satisfied with the love of one another and had no compelling need to reach outside themselves in creation and providence. Much less, did they have any reason to reach out in redeeming sinners. Do you realize the amazing inversion of values that occurred at the cross! The Father gave up his only Son to death for the sake of sinful outsiders, strangers and enemies of his family. One can almost see why someone would think of the Gospel as perverse when they realize what it really means.

But that’s your calling. Eventually, Paul will give directions for domestic relationships–husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves. But here he is talking about the congregation as a whole, the new family of God in which we are brothers and sisters to one another through Christ.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

The “therefore” refers again to what God has done for us, not simply to remind us that we are obligated to live in gratitude, but also to remind us of what we have. If we are God’s sons, then nothing can touch us and no one can ultimately harm us. Paul says here that we are God’s children and that Christ was given for us. He writes the Romans about those same themes and there he says:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If you really believe that about yourself, as God has declared it to you in the Gospel, then does it make any sense at all to hold a grudge against someone else?

God has given you his son–Christ has offered himself up as a sacrifice for us–who can really take anything important away from us?

God is your faithful guardian who promises to avenge every wrong, how can we possibly hold grudges if we trust that promise?

God is the one who sent his son to die for the sins of your brothers and sisters. How can you possibly demand anything more for their sins against you?

Conclusion
We can forgive others because we have been forgiven. We don’t need to prove ourselves better because God has declared us better than we ever could have imagined. We can be generous and care for others because God is generous with us and has made us heirs of all things.

If you have problems forgiving others, what you need is not simply a reminder of your duty to obey God, though that is a factor. You need to also remember that you can afford to forgive others and that God given you the resources to do so. You need to remember what is promised to you both now and at the resurrection in glory.

Believe the Gospel; forgive others as you have been forgiven.

I haven’t read A Generous Orthodoxy yet, but I can endorse Frame’s values in this book review.

Hat Tip: Between New Worlds

I thought this observation from a friend of mine was rather well put.

Since holding an opinion opens oneself to all sorts of attacks let me state from the outset that I affirm that Christ’s active obedience (both past and present) is imputed to believers. The question is whether the Heidelberg Catechism and/or Zacharias Ursinus taught this idea.

One might think that question and answer #60 present this doctrine:

How are thou righteous before God?

Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.

If this taught the imputation of Christ’s active obedience, it would be a fine statement. And, if this were some sort of committee document, or in some other way obscured authorial intent, I wouldn’t have a problem with the words being taken in this sens.

But the problem is that the author of the catechism lectured on it and approved a commentary from those notes. Everytime I find Ursinus explaining himself he refers to Christ’s sufferings as the merit which is imputed to believers. To his mind question #60 said nothing about the active obedience of Christ. We need to be honest and say that Ursinus was improved upon by later theologians.

Here are some comments from Ursinus on queston 61 of the Heidelberg Catechism:

The righteousness with which we are here justified before God, is not our conformity with the law, nor our good works, nor our faith; but it is the satisfaction which Christ rendered to the law in our stead; or the punishment which he endured in our behalf; and therefore the entire humiliation of Christ, from the moment of his conception to his glorification, including his assumption of humanity, his subjection to the law, his poverty, reproach, weakness, sufferings, death, &c., all of which he did willingly; yea, whatever he did and suffered to which he was not bound, as being righteous, and the Son of God, is all included in the satisfaction which he made for us, and in the righteousnoss which God graciously imputes to us, and all believers. This satisfaction is equivalent to the fulfilling of the law, or to the endurance of eternal punishment for sin, to one or the other of which the law binds all. “I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” “Ye are complete in him.” “By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” “With his stripes we are healed.” “He was bruised for our iniquities.” “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” “Being justified freely, by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven.” “Being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” “We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” “Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” “He redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” ” The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 Cor. 2: 2. Col. 2: 10. Rom. 5:19. Is. 53: 5, 6. Luke 22: 20. Rom. 3:24, 25; 4:7; 5:9, 10. 2 Cor. 8:9. Gal. 3:13. Eph.1:7. 1 John 1:7.) Christ fulfilled the law by the holiness of his human nature, and by his obedience, even unto the death of the cross. The holiness of his human nature was necessary to his obedience; for it became our mediator to be holy and righteous in himself, that he might be able to perform obedience, and make satisfaction for us. “For such an High Priest became us, who is holy,” &c. (Heb. 7: 26.) This obedience now is our righteousness, and it is upon the ground of this that God is pleased with us. The blood of Christ is the satisfaction on account of Which God receives us into his favor, and which he imputes unto us, as it is said, the blood of Jesus Christ his Son Cleanseth us from all sin, [emphasis original here] both of commission and omission. The shedding of his blood is the complement of his satisfaction, and is for this reason called our righteousness.

The questions, How can a rational creature be righteous before God? how can man, being a sinner, be just before God? and whether a rational creature can merit any thing at the hands of God? are to be distinguished from each other. We reply to the first question, that a rational creature may be just before God by an inherent conformity with the law, as the angels, and those that are blessed. To the second question we reply, that man as a sinner can be regarded as righteous only on the ground of the imputation of Christ’s merits; and this is the question of which we speak when treating the subject of justification. That man cannot be declared righteous upon the ground of his works is evident from this, that his works are unholy before his justification–that after his justification they are also imperfect, and that if they were perfect as they will be in another life, they could nevertheless, not satisfy for those sins which are past, and which still stand against us. To the third question we answer that man can merit nothing from God, for it is said, “When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do.'” (Luke 17:10.) Nor is the obedience of Christ meritorious in this respect, as though it added anything to God, but it is called meritorious on account of the dignity of his person, because he who suffered was the Son of God.

Notice that Ursinus explains “the satisfaction which Christ rendered to the law in our stead” as “the punishment which he endured in our behalf.” For Ursinus, the righteousness sinners receive in Christ by faith is a righteousness from Christ’s “passive obedience.” He does call it “obedience” to be sure, but nowhere do we find this obedience to be anything other than his willing suffering. When Ursinus calls Christ’s obedience meritorious, he immediately defines that obedience as suffering: “it is called meritorious on account of the dignity of his person, because he who suffered was the Son of God.”

I certainly agree that “subjection to the law” could be used to refer to “active obedience.” Maybe Turretin or others picked up that idea from the term. But that is obviously not what Ursinus meant. He says what he means several times: he means sufferings.

How “subjection to the law” would count as passive obedience in Ursinus’ mind is readily explained in his comments on the creed’s “He suffered” as found in question 37 of the Heidelberg catechism. His sufferings included “the temptations of the devil; ‘He was in all points tempte like as we are, yet without sin.’ (Heb. 4:15.)” (p. 213). Ursinus’ makes an initial comment on Christ’s sufferings that show how far active obedience was from his mind:

The passion or suffering of Christ is place immediately after his conception and nativity; 1. Because out entire salvation consists in his passion and death. 2. Because his whole life was one continued scene of suffering and privation (emphasis added).

Finally, Ursinus does deal with Christ’s active obedience in relationship to his passive obedience and this is what he says about it:

Q16: Why must He be a true and righteous man?
A16: Because the justice of God requires [1] that the same human nature which has sinned should make satisfaction for sin; but one who is himself a sinner cannot satisfy for others.[2]

1. Rom. 5:15
2. Isa. 53:3-5

It behooved our Mediator to be man, and indeed very man, and perfectly righteous…

Thirdly, It behooved him to be a perfectly righteous man, one that was wholly free from the least stain of original and actual sin, that he might deservedly be our Savior, and that his sacrifice might avail, not for himself, but for us: for if he himself had been a sinner, he would have had to satisfy for his own sins…

If the Mediator himself had been a sinner he could not have escaped the wrath of God, much less could he have procured for others the favor of God, and exemption from punishment: neither could the passion, and death of him, who did not suffer as an innocent man, be a ransom for the sin of others.

Ursinus then quotes Second Corinthians 5.21 as one of his prooftexts that only a righteous man could have suffered to obtain “exemption from punishment”: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

But the next paragraph (bottom p. 86 to top of 87) is even more interesting. Ursinus writes that “The man Christ was perfectly righteous, or has fulfilled the law in four respects,” which he then enumerates. The third fulfillment in the law is its fulfillment in us by his Spirit. The fourth fulfillment is his correct teaching of the law that frees it from errors that were being taught. Regarding the first two fulfillments, he writes:

1. By his own righteousness. Christ alone performed perfect obedience, such as the law requires. 2. By enduring punishment sufficient for our sins. There was a necessity that this double fulfillment of the law should be in Christ: for unless his righteousness had been full, and perfect, he could not have satifisfied for the sins of others; and unless he had endured such punishment as has been described, he could not thereby have delievered us from everlasting punishment. The former is called the fulfilling of the law by obedience, by which he himself was conformable thereto; the latter is the fulfilling of the law by punishment, whe he suffered for us, theat we might not remain subject to eternal condemnation.

Finally, Ursinus’ view of the requirements of the Law would lead us to expect him to find it impossible to conceive of a need for both Christ’s passive and active obedience imputed to the same person. He wrote:

This satisfaction is equivalent to the fulfilling of the law, or to the endurance of eternal punishment for sin, to one or the other of which the law binds all (emphasis added).

In Ursinus view one either needs to be perfectly obedient or one needs to have suffered eternal punishment.

Of course, Ursinus could simply be wrong and Turretin right. I happen to like a more positive definition of righteousness than simply escaping condemnation, though I suspect if we look at what Ursinus says about Christ’s resurrection and ascension as well as about our adoption we might find that the substance is much closer than appears above. Still, the point here is not to say who is right but to simply to point out that they are not the same in these specific formulations.

People want to believe they are rational and that people they respect are setting out rational positions. Thanks to various turns in philosophy, sociology, and even theology and apologetics, many are much more aware of how conclusions are never reached from a position of “neutrality,” but rather involve premises that are themselves a part of the conclusion. Circular reasoning is, broadly, inescapable.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean discourse must stop. Broadly circular arguments in a conversation can remain forceful. Claiming the Bible is true because it says so won’t help anyone; but evidence as understood within the Biblical worldview may well help despite the inescapable circularity.

Critics of N. T. Wright and the so-called Emergent Church should keep this in mind. When someone who is obviously in the grip of a highly negative opinion of both uses the association of one with the other to prove something negative, he has pretty much limited himself to the members of his own group who already share his convictions. To say that Wright is suspicious because he appeals to Emergents, when everyone knows that, had the impulse struck differently, you could have just as easily have claimed that Emergents are suspicious because they appreciate Wright, and that you have in fact done so in other times and places, is not an argument.

It is simply an opinion pretending to the authority of an argument.

Addendum: Wright & Emergents

This led me to Denny Burk’s review of Wright’s latest on Paul. Even though I agree that there is not much of substance new, I’m still glad I received my own copy. First of all, even if you’ve heard it or read it before, it is still helpful to possess it and have it at one’s disposal.

Also, one still runs into gems. This, for instance: “there are such things as texts; however much we deconstruct them, they bounce back with renewed challenge,and Paul’s texts have a particularly stron track record in this respect.” Or this,

I do believe in the mysterious, unpredictable and usually hidden work of the Holy Spirit. It would be odd to omit this from a discussion of Paul of all people; rather as though one were to discuss Beethoven’s sonatas while dismissing fromone’s mind the possibility there there might actually be such a thing as a piano.

And again:

But if our own positions are thus to be relativized, it may be high time to enquire about some of the supposed “fixed points” of scholarship which, growing as they did out of a very different era to our own, may perhaps have been allowed to remain more by fashion (and the fear of being though unscholarly if one challenges such fashion) than by solid argument. Take, for example, the widespread assumption still common in many quarters that not only Ephesians but also Colossians are not written by Paul himself, even if they may contain some material that goes back to him. There are, of course, many interesting points to be made on this subject. But our suspicions ought to be aroused by the fact that such consensus as there has ever been on the subject came from the time when the all-predominant power in New Testament scholarship lay with a particular ckind of German existentialist Lutheranism for whom any ecclesiology other than a purely functional one, any view of Judaism other than a purely negative one, any view of Jesus Christ other than a fairly low Christology, any veiw of creation other than a Barthian “Nein,” was deeply suspect. The false either/or, as I would see it, of justification or the church, of salvation or creation, hovered as a brooding presence over the smaller arguments (which are in any case always unconvincing, given the very small textual base) from style. The extremely marked stylistic difference between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians is far greater than that between, say, Romans and Epheisans, but nobody supposes for that reason that one of them is not by Paul…. Much of the “new perspective” writing on Paul has simply assumed and carried on the critical decisions reached by the old perspective, without noticing that the new perspective itself calls several of them into question. In an image suggested by Rober morgan thirty years ago, there comes a time when the chess pieces have to be put back on the board so that the game may restart. I suggest that when it comes to the extent of the Pauline corpus we may have reached that time. The same goes, I suggest, for the question of the Pauline material in Acts.

(This last is rather bittersweet, aside from being delightful. I heard a conference speaker speak of the WrightSaid list as if it represented some sort of threat to PCA orthodoxy–one preposterous claim in what seemed an infinite series. As much as mission creep has occured in that list, I originally started it because an RUF minister assured me as absolute truth that Wright denied the Pauline authorship to Ephesians and Colossians. Where he picked up this certitiude is a depressing story.)

As wonderful as these sorts of statements are, there would be many more wonders if the long-awaited “big book on Paul” would eventually come out. In another direction, Wright’s schedule and the hysteria surrounding him have kept me more or less constantly thinking about Paul and perhaps the Gospels. How stultifying! That’s not even a third of the Bible. I need to spend some more quality time in the Old Testament.

My response to Carl Trueman on Catholics v. Evangelicals elicited this discussion.

The opposition is coming from an Anglican friend of mine.

Hat Tip: Jeff Steel

I have to say, if I could get John Franke or Brian McLaren to write a blurb for my book I wouldn’t hesitate to beg and plead for it and then use it prominantly.