Selection: The Church Dogmatics II/2:63-76, The Foundation of the Doctrine.

Although Barth applauds the christological focus the Reformers brought to their discussion of election, he is not yet satisfied, for the Reformers’ focus is pastoral rather than theological; there remains behind and before Jesus Christ, the decision of the electing God apart from Jesus Christ. In a dozen probing questions Barth lays bare his central concern: it is not sufficient to speak of Christ as the mirror, the medium or the instrument of the election, particularly so if behind Christ stands the inscrutable decision of a hidden deity. If the decision of election is that of the hidden God, it will inevitably overwhelm and subvert the pastoral focus on Jesus. If so, can one truly obtain the assurance sought by the Reformers?

Barth canvasses and compares the doctrine of the Lutherans, the Calvinists, and the Remonstrants, arguing that there can be no ground ceded to Pelagianism in the doctrine of election. Beginning with the Remonstrants, Barth argues that they were semi-Pelagian, pre-cursors of modern Neo-Protestantism who make humanity the criterion of the knowledge of God, of God’s relationship to humanity, and of Christian doctrine. As a result, they refuse to acknowledge divine sovereignty in election for the human agent is independent over against God (67). Although the Remonstrants spoke of Jesus Christ as the “foundation of election,” they did not mean by this that he was the subject of election (68).

As directed against the decretum absolutum the statement (“Jesus Christ is the [foundation of election]”) does not contend for the dignity of Jesus Christ, but for the dignity of man standing over against Jesus Christ in an autonomous freedom of decision. … What they did want to say, and what they actually did say in this statement, was that in the distinctive sense of the word there is no divine decision at all. There is only the establishment of a just and reasonable order of salvation, of which Christ must be regarded as the content and the decisive instrument (68).

The 17^th century Lutheran doctrine also sought to correct Calvin’s proposition by locating the origin of election in the universal mercy of God. Jesus Christ is the decreed means of salvation for the Son in all eternity pledged himself to be the perfect satisfaction in the stead and place of all. God foreknows those who will obey his call to faith and obedience, and so those who will be saved. Thus God’s election is determined by his foreknowledge, and therefore “by the actuality of an object which is distinct from God” (71).

Barth finds much to affirm in the Lutheran correction: the emphasis on divine grace and mercy as the ultimate ground of election; the Son’s self-offering in the eternal and secret counsel of the trinity; the object of election as the whole of humanity without exception; and the necessity of human faith and obedience. He laments the refusal of Reformed theology to allow the Lutheran correction to inform its own “unsatisfactory and dangerous doctrinal forms” (72). Yet, Barth ultimately rejects the Lutheran proposal even while affirming their intent to avoid the decretum absolutum. He does so because they have abstracted a theological principle—divine foreknowledge—and applied it to God. In so doing they also abstract the elected man, whose decision thus precedes and so conditions God’s election. The Lutheran position therefore reduces election to salvation—there is no election as such, and opens the door again to Pelagianism. Thus it is hardly surprising that the Reformed did not follow this Lutheran path. In this view, God is no longer truly and freely the electing God. The initiative of God’s election has been lost, and with it, God’s freedom, and so also, God’s grace.

If we inspect it closely, their teaching has nothing whatever to say about the fact that God elects. It says only that God has determined to actualise, and has actualised, His general redemptive purpose in such a form that in its operation it does necessarily give rise to a selection from amongst men. Naturally God knows about this selection from all eternity. He also affirms it by fulfilling His purpose in this particular form. But He affirms it only secondarily, and the fact that He affirms it does not mean that it is His selection in the strict sense of the word. This construction excludes the initiative of a free divine election. And at this point, in spite of all other differences, in spite of its intended and avowed anti-Pelagianism, the Lutheran teaching occupies common ground with the Arminian doctrine rejected at Dort. For this reason, and quite decisively, it can never be acceptable to Calvinists (73).

The Calvinists decisively rejected the tenet of praevisa fides (foreknowledge of faith), and with it the whole Lutheran doctrine of predestination. As they saw it, it is at this decisive point in the whole relationship of God with man that the complete freedom of grace should always be maintained. They thought it better to cling to the decretum absolutum than in attempting to avoid it to enter on a path which seemed as though it must ultimately endanger the basic interest of the Reformation (74).

Thus Barth wants to retain God’s election as election and not simply as salvation. It must be true, free, and so gracious, election. There must be no Pelagianism in salvation. All abstraction with respect to God and humanity is denied. Election must be gospel, and so also Christological. Jesus Christ is not merely the instrument or mirror of election but the subject of election. That Jesus Christ is the electing God means that there is no decretum absolutum. That Jesus Christ is the elected human means there is no praevisa fides.

Every once in a while I am invited to preach at Mt Hawthorn Baptist Church here in Perth, something I always enjoy. The worship leader there, Gordo,  is a passionate guy who plays a fabulous bluesy guitar, and it seems that, each time I have been there, he includes this old hymn in the service. Last time I was there I challenged him in front of the congregation, “So, what does Ebenezer mean anyway?” He rose to the challenge coming straight back with his answer: “It’s a pile of stones, meant in the Old Testament as a memorial to God, usually remembering some great thing God did, or one’s commitment to God.” Great stuff!

I love the third verse, especially, and these lines always hit close to home:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

This version is not as good as the Mt Hawthorn version, especially when the whole congregation is in full voice, but it will have to do!

I came across this quote while writing my post on Sunday and thought it worth sharing. It is a reminder of Nouwen’s prophetic insight and gift.

The last week has been somewhat different for me: I have been home on sick-leave.

Last Monday I had surgery to remove a small skin cancer on my left lower eyelid. The surgery itself, although occurring under the hand of two different surgeons in two different locations, was relatively simple and surprisingly pain free. For that I am grateful. The worst I have experienced is an itchiness under the dressings: an annoyance, but nothing substantial.

I have had skin cancers removed on previous occasions, and usually, it is not a big deal. The difference this time was its location: being on the eyelid made its removal somewhat tricky. Not the removal exactly: that was quite straight-forward, although, in accordance with the particular procedure I was having it involved two excisions and two periods of waiting for pathology results. But because the extent of the growth was unknown prior to its excision, I did not know how much repair or reconstruction of my eyelid would be required. Worst case scenarios involved skin grafts from another part of my body, as well as cutting a “flap” from my upper eyelid and folding it down and stitching it onto the remains of my lower eyelid, thus effectively stitching my left eye shut for a month or so.

I am quite fussy about my eyes, and quite protective of them. I do not use contact lenses because I am queasy with the thought of poking around in my eyes. I am very careful these days if I am using a drill or an angle-grinder or something similar. You might say I am a bit of a wuss. So the thought of the surgeon dicing and slicing, pricking and prodding all around my eyes—I would be awake and fully conscious for the entirety of the excisions—was quite anxiety-inducing. Not serious, debilitating anxiety, but a back-of-the-mind nervousness and apprehension.

Fortunately it all went smoothly. I ended up with a quite minor repair to the eyelid apparently; I will see for myself when the dressings come off in another two days. Yes there will be bruising and scarring, but all in all, I am very fortunate. The options, you see, were not at all good. Even though the kind of skin cancer I had (a basal cell carcinoma) is the kind to have if you must have one, they still grow.

How long would it have been until I had an unsightly lump on my face causing my eyelid to droop, and the function of my eye to be impaired? Might the cancer had spread its roots into the eye itself? These possibilities would have caused me serious, debilitating kinds of anxiety, I think.

But I live in Australia, and I have health insurance. These two facts give me timely access to some of the best medical practitioners, treatment and care in the world.

The whole experience has been good not just for my body, but for my soul. I am blessed, and now also more aware of this blessedness in contrast to many others around the world who may have the same condition but without the same access to treatment and care. And along with the sense of blessing is an increased awareness of the responsibility which is also mine, to share this blessedness with others in practical ways.

I have renewed appreciation for the gifts, skill and dedication of so many others who have made this treatment possible: from the surgeons and other medical professionals, to the tax-payers and governments who plan and fund hospitals, to the architects and builders, and so on. God has given such a vast array of gifts and many have used them for the common good. I have been the recipient of this grace through the involvement of others.

And my week at home has been good for the soul. I haven’t been very prayerful, I must confess. But I have been mindful of God’s goodness and presence. I have had the use of only one eye and so am reminded of the blessing of two. The remaining eye did not function very well for the first few days after the surgery, and it is difficult to focus with my glasses perched on the tip of my nose! I am self-conscious about my appearance with a large dressing covering half my face. But I have also realised that it is not that big a deal.

I have slept more, rested more, browsed the newspaper, watched some TV, gone on long walks; it has almost been a holiday. And that too, has been good for the soul, and a timely reminder not to lose my life to my work no matter how much I enjoy my work. The enforced rest has been good for me body and soul. I must do it more often, and voluntarily.

Romans 3:25
Whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed (NRSV).

In his discussion of Romans 3:25 Douglas Moo, like C.E.B. Cranfield, also supports a traditional understanding of the text, including the idea of propitiation as a decisive turning aside of divine wrath. In fact, Moo argues that, “the conclusion that hilastērion includes reference to the turning away of God’s wrath is inescapable” (Moo, The Epistle to the Romans NICNT, 235).

Moo bases this conclusion on two primary arguments. First, the linguistic evidence is clear that the word group in common Greek usage undoubtedly meant the “means of propitiation,” referring, of course, to pagan practices which sought to appease otherwise hostile gods. Of course Moo rejects the idea that propitiation in Paul’s thought was in any way the same as that practised in the pagan contexts: God’s wrath is neither vindictive nor capricious but just, and further, it is God who is the subject of this propitiation, not sinful humans seeking to assuage the wrath of an offended deity (235-236).  Moo contends that it was precisely this common meaning, however, that the editors of the Septuagint had in mind when they appropriated the term in their translation of the Hebrew Scriptures:

Dodd is almost certainly wrong on this point. The OT frequently connects the ‘covering,’ or forgiving, of sins with the removal of God’s wrath. It is precisely the basic connotation of ‘propitiate’ that led the translators of the LXX to use the hilask– words for the Hebrew words denoting the covering of sins. This is not, however, to deny the connotation ‘expiation’; the OT cult serves to ‘wipe away’ the guilt of sin at the same time as—and indeed, because—the wrath of God is being stayed (235).

Second, Moo appeals to the context of Romans, especially chapters 1-3 where the wrath of God is an overarching theme. Together, these strands of evidence support the idea that propitiation is as least part of what Paul intended when he used the term hilastērion.

It is also apparent that Moo is not arguing that this is the sole connotation of Paul’s use of the term. Moo acknowledges that the translation of hilastērion as ‘mercy-seat,’ and so as the place where atonement is effected,

Has an ancient and respectable heritage [and] has been gaining strength in recent years. It is attractive because it gives to hilastērion a meaning that is derived from its ‘customary’ biblical usage, and creates an analogy between a central OT ritual and Christ’s death that is both theologically sound and hermeneutically striking (233).

Moo is satisfied to accept this translation so long as the term ‘mercy-seat’ is understood in a semi-technical way as referring to the atonement as a whole. Allowing this perspective meets Cranfield’s objection that the mercy-seat could be analogous only to the cross rather than to Jesus himself.

Turning his attention to the phrase “in his blood” (en tō autou haimati), Moo notes that the blood of Jesus is the means by which God’s wrath is propitiated, though the term itself is expressive of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice. Here, again, we are confronted with the question as to whether God required a payment, a blood-price, the sacrifice of an innocent victim, before he could or would extend forgiveness. Like Cranfield, Moo turns in a trinitarian direction to address this objection to his interpretation of this key text:

While the persons of God the Father and God the Son must be kept distinct as we consider the process of redemption, it is a serious error to sever the two with respect to the will for redemption, as if the loving Christ had to take the initiative in placating the angry Father. God’s love and wrath meet in the atonement, and neither can be denied or compromised if the full meaning of that event is to be properly appreciated. ‘Our own justification before God rests on the solid reality that the fulfilling of God’s justice in Christ was at the same time the fulfilling of this love for us’ (230-231; Moo cites Philip E. Hughes, The True Image, 360).

O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)

The use of a word in a student’s paper ‘peaked’ my interest today. Or did it ‘peek’ my interest? Or did it ‘pique’ my interest? The word used by the student did not seem correct so I went looking and found this happy little article at vocabulary.com. Hopefully this might pique your interest, but in the right kind of way!

PS. Don’t let the picture lead you astray!