Posts Tagged ‘Evangelical Calvinism’

Evangelical Calvinism- Part 3: Election

{ October 5, 2009 @ 8:12 am } · { Uncategorized }
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This is where we really start to get to the good stuff. What is perhaps the most distinguishing mark of Evangelical Calvinism is its doctrine of election. Following a basic christologically conditioned doctrine of election as advanced by Barth, Evangelical Calvinism advocates a universal atonement, even a universal pardon. However it maintains a traditional reformed emphasis through the doctrines of the carnal and spiritual union with Christ which we shall outline in the next post. The purpose of this post is to outline in brief the way in which Evangelical Calvinism thinks of election as christologically conditioned.

Basic to the Evangelical Calvinist understanding is that Jesus Christ acts as the elect one. Jesus acts as the elect man on behalf of humanity. Election is then a pre-temporal act of God in which God determines that he will enter into creaturely existence to bring glory to himself in the glorification of his creatures. This act of God is the foundation of all other acts of God. As Barth states:

The doctrine of election is the sum of the Gospel because of all words that can be said or heard it is the best: that God elects man; that God is for man too the one who loves in freedom. It is grounded in the knowledge of Jesus Christ because he is both the electing God and the elected man in One. It is part of the doctrine of God because originally God’s election of man is a predestination not meerely of man but of Himself. Its function is to bear basic testimony to eternal, free and unchanging grace as the beginning of all the ways and works of God.

There is a very interesting logic to Barth’s approach to the doctrine of election. He places it as a part of the doctrine of God, something which, as far as he can see, no one else has done. There is good reason for this however. 2/1 deals with God as he is in his perfections. Having done this, Barth then moves to tell us about this election of Jesus Christ as God-man. This is the foundation of all God’s ways and works ad extra. Barth will then move into the doctrine of creation, then reconciliation and redemption having laid the ground work for this all in the election of Jesus Christ for us. God has then determined himself to be God for us before the act of creation. God is wholly invested in becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ. However, in grounding this is the divine perfections, Barth does not want to say that election is constitutive of God’s being, but rather that God in his divine perfection can stretch forth and act in the creation on behalf of the creature. (This is of course tied up with recent debates over election and triunity which I do not want to enter into here. If you want to know what I think there, email me.)

It is interesting to think biblically here. If we understand Israel as elect on behalf of all nations ‘you will be a light to the nations’ Gen 12:1-3, Israel’s election was never just for itself. God was in fact bringing all of humanity into his purposes by electing Israel. And we see glimmers of hope in their history, but through their failure light does not go forth, but rather they are destroyed by God and taken into exile. Jesus then comes along and acts as the true Israelite. We see in Matt 1-5 this pattern of Jesus as the true Israelite who God calls and sends to Egypt (Matt 2) then brings him back through the waters (Matt 3) and into the desert for temptation (Matt 4) and then he gives his Law through this new Israelite (Matt 5-7). There is a pattern which Matthew is working with which suggests Jesus is in fact the true Israelite, the elect one. Jesus has then come to act as Israel was always meant to: ‘as a light to the nations’. But this man is not just a man, this is the visitation of Yahweh himself. Yahweh has come to do what we could not do; Yahweh has come to redeem us.

Barth was concerned in his construal of election to safeguard against an abstract divine decree which, quite apart from the act of election, condemns some to hell and others to eternal life outside of Christ. What Barth’s construction of election does however, is allow us to say that both eternal life and destruction are found in the person of Christ. As the elect one, Jesus acts on behalf of all humanity as we have already seen. However, not all are saved. Judgement then takes place on the basis of rejection of Christ, and in the phrase of TF Torrance ‘repeating the sin of Adam all over again’. But at this point i have gone beyond my intention for this post.

The next post in this series will deal with the carnal and spiritual union. Having outlined in brief the way in which election is re-framed for the Evangelical Calvinist, I will turn to see how this then accounts for the fact that we still have both reprobate and saved.

Evangelical Calvinism- Part 2: Vicarious Humanity

{ September 29, 2009 @ 8:26 am } · { Uncategorized }
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What I have already said will form the basis of this post. So please if you find yourself confused, read the previous post and hopefully it will illuminate this one. This post will concern our next step into the world of Evangelical Calvinism, that being the vicarious humanity of Christ. The vicarious humanity, as argued by T.F Torrance, comes with a rather impressive historical pedigree. Torrance argues that the doctrine finds its roots in the patristics, particularly Athanasius, through into Calvin, Barth etc. The doctrine is quite central for understanding the way in which Evangelical Calvinism begins to think theologically aswell as practically. It is this line that I will try and walk here. While I hope to show the underpinnings to the doctrine and how it functions, I will attempt to show the way in which this works itself our practically :) Lets give it a go…

Fundamental to understanding the way in which the vicarious humanity of Christ works is coming to grips with the homoousion. Torrance argues that “The homoousion is the ontological and epistemological linchpin of Christian theology. With it everything hangs together; without it, everything ultimately falls apart.” The homoousion signifies the relationship between Jesus and the Father. That is, Jesus is of the same being/substance as the Father. This is why Jesus can say “if you have seen me you have seen the Father”, “I and the Father are one” etc. Without this ontological unity between Jesus and the Father, and indeed the Spirit, we can have no knowledge of God and Jesus is not suitable to be our representative.

The reason Jesus would not be suitable as our representative is explained by the next key concept, that of the hypostatic union. This is the idea that in Jesus Christ God and man are one, as we see in the Chalcedonian Creed: “to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son”. This happens in such a way, along with the homoousion, that Jesus is the one who stands on both sides of the covenant. Jesus is God, Jesus is man. Jesus is God as man.

Because Jesus stands on both sides of the covenant he is able to act as our representative as well as just a substitute for our sin (as has been argued previously concerning incarnational redemption). Because of this Jesus’ whole life is offered to God as the one perfect human response to the covenant. Jesus then acts before the Father as our representative human. As such, our humanity is tied up with his humanity. This is the vicarious humanity of Christ. All of Christ’s human activity on earth and now before the Father, is ours vicariously.

We shall take the example of Faith to understand this a bit better. Torrance argues for what he considers a more biblically and theologically faithful understanding of the nature of faith. He argues that faith itself is not something which is an “autonomous, independent act which we do from a base in ourselves.” Rather he states,

Jesus steps into the place where we are summoned to have faith in God, to believe and trust in him, and acts in our place and in our stead from within the depths of our unfaithfulness and provides us with a faithfulness which we may share.

Jesus is the one who steps into the gap between God and Man as the God-Man, and fulfills the faithfulness of God but also our faith is tied up with him in his humanity. Colyer notes that, for Torrance, faith does entail a ‘polar relation’ between God and humanity; however instead of the human pole being Man, it is Christ in his vicarious humanity who steps in and has faith. “Therefore when we are justified by faith, this does not mean that it is our faith that justifies us, far from it – it is the faith of Christ alone that justifies us…”

Torrance translates the infamous ‘subjective genitive’ passages in the NT as ‘faithfulness of’ rather than ‘faith in’. This provides something of a direct biblical basis for the doctrine of faith in particular. For example Gal 2:20 is translated “the life I now live is lived by the faithfulness of the Son of God”. There are numerous other examples of this type of construction in the NT. An interesting thing to note historically is that Calvin, in his commentaries, also translated these passages as “faithfulness of” rather than “faith in”.

So the question is then how do we participate/respond to this? Torrance uses the analogy of himself teaching his daughter to walk. She was not dependent upon her own weak grip in his hand in order to stay balanced but rather on his strong grip on her hand. So he argues that “Jesus takes hold of out faltering faith and holds it securely in his own hand.” This is what it means for Jesus to be human on behalf of humanity. He has and continues to respond to God, in faith, for all humanity.

Habets helpfully notes that Torrance’s doctrine of faith never aims at depersonalising the human response but rather attempts to enhance the ‘humanness’ of it. He states, “because the incarnate Son of God is fully human (enhypostasis), his response personalises ours.” Torrance then argues that our faith is implicated in the faith of Christ in such a way that rather than the human response being depersonalised and diminished it is made to “issue freely and spontaneously out of our own human life before God.” So there is a personalising and humanising activity always at work in the vicarious humanity of Christ so as to never diminish the human person but to uphold the dignity of the response of faith.

There is a human response of faith, the call to faith in the New Testament from Jesus and the apostles is not redundant, but this faith is not understood as being independent from the person of Jesus and his vicarious faith. Torrance argues that without this vicarious faith the human response cannot take place: “Regarded merely in itself, however, as Calvin used to say, for in faith it is upon the faithfulness of Christ that we rest and even the way in which we rest on him is sustained and undergirded by his unfailing faithfulness.” This prevents any kind of evangelical faith in faith or belief in the fact that I believe. It relocates faith in the person of Christ so that “Our faith is altogether grounded in him who is ‘author and finisher’, on whom faith depends from start to finish.”

The example of faith is an interesting one, but Torrance equally applies the vicarious humanity of Christ to all areas of human life before God: evangelism, worship, baptism, repentance, etc… The vicarious humanity of Christ is then key to how we understand the way in which we live before God. There is no more guilt and fear that I do not have enough faith, I don’t worship hard enough, pray hard enough etc. My life is now in Christ, and I find my humanity by participating in his. This truly is all of grace. As I have already noted from Myk Habets, this never attempts to depersonalise our response, but rather it upholds our humanity as we now find ourselves in Christ, and his humanity personalises ours. This is absolutely key for understanding the way in which Evangelical Calvinism functions. The emphasis upon the vicarious humanity of Christ distinguishes Evangelical Calvinism from scholastic/classical Calvinism because not only do we see Christ as a penal substitute for sin, but he also acts as a human representative before God, and as such there is no sense in which we are left to ourselves, but we have a high priest who is able to sympathise with us and help us in our every weakness. If I lost anyone, please ask and I will do my best to explain myself :)

Evangelical Calvinism- Part 1: The Atonement

{ September 27, 2009 @ 1:08 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Now this is a dangerous exercise. I post this tentatively and as a work in progress. I am about to post a several part series on Evangelical Calvinism. Now, what I say here is very much a work in progress but I hope that we can think this through together. I will start with the atonement and incarnation, two things which are inextricably linked in Evangelical Calvinism. I hope to write this in such a way that you do not have to be an academic theologian to understand what is going on… we will see how that goes. Easier said than done :)

Federal Calvinist visions of the atonement have often been guilty of not taking into account the full implications of the incarnation for forming an adequate atonement theory. Evangelical Calvinism-following T.F. Torrance thinks though the atonement in terms of the incarnation as well as the death and resurrection.

In dismantling what Torrance calls the “Latin Heresy”, he attempts to show the way Jesus acts in solidarity with fallen humanity. What has so often happened, Torrance argues, is that Jesus’ humanity has been understood as some kind of ‘ideal’ or perfect humanity which is unaffected by the sinful human condition. But in assuming a fallen human condition Jesus acts in solidarity with us in our humanity, yet of course remains without sin. Thus, there is an ontological union between Jesus Christ in his humanity and us in our humanity. This explains the way in which Jesus can act as the second Adam; the one who acts on behalf of all humanity. Thus, Jesus acts from within the ‘ontological depths’ of the fallen human condition to bring us back to God. He acts as the one who is faithful to God through all the trials of life and even to death. The incarnation is then ‘inherently redemptive and redemption is inherently incarntional’.

All this is of course not held in isolation from what is going on in the death and resurrection. In the death of Christ we have the climactic clash of sin and life, of Jesus and the world. As Jesus is the one Light of the world, the one in whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily, sinful humanity rebells against the Light. This climaxes in the death of Christ. Christ is put to death as the one who claimed he was the King of the Jews, Yahweh himself. As such, he represents the clash of God with the world. Thus according to Torrance:

This means that ‘the joyful atonement made between God and man by Christ Jesus, by his death, resurrection and ascension’, is not to be understood in any sense as the act of the man Jesus placating God the Father, but as a propitiatory sacrifice in which God himself through the death of his dear Son draws near to man and draws man near to himself. It is along these lines also that we must interpret the statement of the Scots Confession that Christ ’suffered in body and soul to make the full satisfication for the sins of the people’, for in the Cross God accepts the sacrifice made by Christ, whom he did not spare but delievered him up for us all, as satisfication, thereby acknowledging his own bearing of the world’s sin guilt and judgment as the atonement.

So while we still understand the atonement in terms of Penal Substitution, this is reframed around what is going on between Jesus and the world. Jesus is not ‘placating’ the Father for anything, but is rather enduring the death which is the full consequence of sin, as one who need not endure it. It is in this light that we should understand the words of Jesus on the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” this must be read in light of the entire Psalm (22) which culminates in hope that God will not, and ultimately never did, abandon Jesus in this moment. It is to be understood as Jesus standing at the depths of the fallen human condition, facing the ultimate trial: death. Yet he overcomes, and so “into your hands I commit my spirit” is the perfect response. Jesus does not give up on the Father’s love, even in the depths of death and pain and seeming abandonment. There is no Father heaping wrath upon Jesus at this point. It is not a picture of the Father unleashing on Jesus to make himself feel better, but rather Jesus is acting in solidarity with us to bring us back to God.

I am sure to have left a many things out which others will correct me on. But I think that this is the way in which Evangelical Calvinism begins to think about the atonement. In trying not to drive a wedge between the life of Jesus and the atonement, it becomes an understanding which is centered on the whole Jesus, his whole life, death and resurrection. What do you think? The next post will examine the vicarious humanity of Christ, which should elucidate this further.

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