Author: Jason Goroncy

Names and the Name – 6

God has a name – 5

The sanctuary was a place where God’s name was ‘remembered’ (Exod 20:24) and where God caused his name to dwell (Deut 12:11), although Psalm 119:55 seems to suggests that to remember God’s name is no more than to keep his law and Psalms 45:16-17; 83:4 and Isaiah 26:8 may indicate a connection between remembering and posterity (survival), that is to forget the name is to, as it were, cause existence to cease. So Absalom complained, ‘I have no son to keep my name in remembrance’ and so had to name a pillar after himself (2 Sam 18:18; cf. Isa 66:1; Acts 7:45; 17:24-25; 2 Cor 6:16).

The name the Israelites were to remember ‘throughout all generations’ was ‘YHWH (LXX = ku,rioj) the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ (Exod 3:15). But although this was the ‘remembered’ name, what did it actually mean to the ancient to know that Abraham’s and Isaac’s and Jacob’s God had a name? And did that name actually reveal anything?

It is my contention that the revelation of the name ‘YHWH’ in Exodus 3 ties God down neither in his nature or conduct. Rather, the response to Moses’ question maintains the freedom, independence and ‘self-determining existence’ of the Answerer to be who he chooses to be in the future. Everything is left ‘open’. I’ve appreciated Thielicke words here (as elsewhere):

[God] himself will make it plain in the future who he is and will be. I will be – but it is still to be revealed who I will be. There is thus expressed here the freedom of this self-revealing God for the future self-disclosing and self-imparting which will take place in history. If the name were meant as a concept embracing the nature of God, we should have definitive information with this self-declaration. Instead, the name simply denotes the one with whom we have to do or who is under discussion. It leaves it for him to disclose himself. It leaves it for him to interpret his name by what he makes known by word and work in his self-disclosure. The only definitive thing that this name Yahweh lays down is that this self-disclosure and self-impartation will follow, so that Yahweh had at his command an incalculable multiplicity of ways of acting and working … The being in the name of Yahweh is to be construed, not as being in itself, but as being for.

What stands out to me is that the name given in Exodus 3 in the seemingly evasive divine response is perhaps not so much as revealing God’s name (for they already knew his name) as it is a revelation of divine character. As an OT scholar notes:

The term itself, as the J source affirms, is doubtless pre-Mosaic … What emerge as distinctively Mosaic in the name formulas are the qualities and attributes of the Creator God of the Fathers revealed in the unique historical setting of the Sinai covenant, between the past event of the Exodus, and the future prospect of the Conquest. These are grace and mercy, patience, great kindness and devotion, all of which mark the action by which he delivers his afflicted people, creates a new community, – and not least the passionate zeal by which he binds Israel to himself in an exclusive relationship of privilege and obligation, of promise and threat, of judgment and mercy.

Until the next post …

BTW: Jim Gordon has an exciting and encouraging (not least because he is the principal of the Scottish Baptist College) post here on what it means to do theology as community. And Jim West, in typical tongue-in-check style, has posted here on the evils facing America today.

Trinity Sunday: Some Thoughts

‘Have you an infant child? … You have no need of amulets or incantations, with which the Devil also comes in, stealing worship from God for himself in the minds of vainer men. Give your child the Trinity, that great and noble Guard’. – Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 15, 365.

‘Worship the Trinity, which I call the only true devotion and saving doctrine’. – Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, 405.

‘The impotence of which many complain in the Church of the hour is not unconnected with the relegation of the doctrine of the Trinity to a theological appendix, even when it is not denied … And, on the other hand, the joy and the up–lifting that we have in meditating on the revealed depths of the Triune God is part of the blessedness which is the Church’s consummation; and it gives us that self–possession of the holy which both inspires and preserves us among our best activities for man’s weal. Such a doctrine, full as it is of difficulties for mere thought, when it is taken with serious depth by a Church of faith answers more difficulties than it creates. And such truth should be matter of adoration rather than criticism to an intelligence which is not merely exercised in speculation, but itself converted to the manner and movement of the Eternal Mind as it is revealed in Christ’. – PT Forsyth, The Principle of Authority, 230-1.

‘Not although God is Father and Son, but because God is Father and Son, unity exists [in the Godhead]. So God, as He who establishes Himself, who exists through Himself, as God in His deity, is in Himself different and yet in Himself alike. And for that very reason He is not lonely in Himself. He does not need the world. All the riches of life, all fullness of action and community exists in Himself, since He is the Triune [One]. He is movement and He is rest. Hence it can be claimed to us that all that He is on our behalf – that He is the Creator, that He has given us Himself in Jesus Christ and that He has united us to Himself in the Holy Spirit – is His free grace, the overflow of His fullness. Not owed to us, but overflowing mercy!’ – Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, 44.

1. God is love! The Father is love and the Son is the Son of His love,
The Son in this true love wants only to do all that pleases the Father above,
The Spirit of love from the Father above pours out all of this love in the Son—
So the Father, the Son and the Spirit all love and together in love they are one,
Yes, the Father, the Son and the Spirit all love and together in love they are one.

2. God is love! A river of fire that can never be quenched or run dry,
A love full and free that for eternity could not be just kept up on high:
The Father, the Son and the Spirit all love and together in love they are one,
And the love was spilled over to make all creation so others could join in the fun—
Yes, the love was spilled over to make all creation so others could join in the fun!

3. God is love! Now look at that love in the earth and the sky and the sea!
All of God’s creatures in wondrous profusion all being what they’re meant to be:
The plants and the animals, fish and the birds, and the wonderful woman and man.
All in order and harmony, working in love to partake in God’s glorious plan!
Yes, in order and harmony, working in love to partake in God’s glorious plan.

4. God is love! And in that great love which God had before all things began,
The Father of love with the Spirit and Son set out on this glorious plan:
To make a new Heavens and Earth and a Family full of the fire of His love
Where the children of God in the Spirit and Son would be one with the Father above.
Yes, the children of God in the Spirit and Son would be one with the Father above.

5. God is love! And sure of that love He created in love you and me
So whatever happened His love would prevail and we still could His Family be.
In spite of God’s love and against His goodwill we determined from God’s love to stray.
So then through all the pain God’s love could come again in a deeper, more wonderful way.
Yes, then through all the pain God’s love could come again in a deeper, more wonderful way.

6. God is love! And through all the ages of sin and of shame and of fear
God’s judgements on evil and words of His grace made all of His purposes clear:
To raise up a people to honour His love and declare all His praises on high
Till the children God promised to Abraham’s offspring outnumber the stars in the sky—
Yes, the children God promised to Abraham’s offspring outnumber the stars in the sky.

7. God is love! And when the time came as foretold in God’s glorious plan
The Son of His love from the Father above became everlastingly Man:
Poured all of Himself into our humble flesh so with us He would ever be one
As the brightness and image and fullness of God in the Father’s beloved only Son—
Yes, the brightness and image and fullness of God in the Father’s beloved only Son!

8. God is love! Messiah has come and God’s glory shines out from His face
As Christ by the Spirit goes driving out evil and pouring out grace upon grace
Till hung on a cross and abandoned by all, bearing all of the guilt of our sin,
There He glorified all of the love of the Father to bring all the Family in—
Yes, He glorified all of the love of the Father to bring all the Family in.

9. God is love! And out of the darkness God causes His brightness to shine,
Gives life to the dead and raises them up by the power of His Spirit divine.
He raised up Christ Jesus and lifted Him up to the heavenly places above
To make Him the firstborn of many such children redeemed by the power of His love.
Yes, to make Him the firstborn of many such children redeemed by the power of His love.

10. God is love! And see now His people forgiven and made all His own,
And see now Christ Jesus as Lord over all bringing everything up to His throne!
The Spirit is given, the word is sent out, earthly kingdoms now tremble and fall.
And the children stream in through the heavenly gates for the Father to be all in all—
Yes, the children stream in through the heavenly gates for the Father to be all in all!

– Martin Bleby, New Creation Hymn Book Volume 2, 281

The Painting: William Blake’s, ‘The Sketch of the Trinity’. God the Father, under the wings of the dove-like Holy Ghost, accepts the Son’s offer to give his life for man. The figure of Satan hovers below the clouds. Image taken from Notebook of William Blake. Originally published/produced in England; circa 1787-1818.

Names and the Name – 5

God has a name – 4

Although the text of the Hebrew Bible reveals that Israel’s God is referred to by a number of epithets, names and titles, OT scholars are quick to assert that this is an indication of the development in Israelite religion. So just as there was a move to use the divine name (YHWH) at one time in Israel’s history to distinguish YHWH from the other gods, there also came a time when this move was reversed. Rose notes that ‘the loss of this obviousness of a living relationship with God is compensated by an explicit confession of faith’, of which he cites as an example Deuteronomy 6–16. There seems to be two reasons for this: (i) the name as a distinguishing mark was no longer necessary; and (ii) the later Jewish custom of not pronouncing the name at all for fear of violating the Third Commandment. This is evident especially in the postexilic texts (for example, Esther, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes do not use the name ‘YHWH’ at all.) Although YHWH was still considered the only God, the use of ‘Elohim’ became synonymous with, and often replaced, ‘YHWH’.

Furthermore, Baumgarten notes that ‘Among the Essenes the awe surrounding the divine name was apparently extreme. It appears also to have carried over to other sacrosanct names, such as those of the angels and that of the lawgiver, “any blasphemer of whom is punished with death” (Josephus, War 2.142 and 145). This tendency was not, however, confined to the Essenes, as is evidenced by the complaint of a “Galilean heretic” against the Pharisees for permitting the names of pagan rulers to be written in the same document with the name of Moses (mYad 4.8).’

Coffin notes that in the post-exilic prophets and in the later historical books the holiness of the divine nature continues to be emphasised and the sin of profanity to be condemned. Any word or deed that seems to detract from the glory due to God or to manifest a disposition to deprive him of the honor rightly belonging to him, is deprecated. Since Israel is his people, any act that tends to minimise his exalted character as their God is profanity. This was made evident in the growing sanctity of the divine name and the increasing tendency to drop the use of it altogether and replace it with Elohim.

This raises the question, as we shall see, of how Jesus understood the divine name, and whether or not he reinvented it, as did Qumran, to serve Israel’s use and his divine mission. The answer to this question awaits a future post …

The Painting: William Blake’s ‘Elohim Creating Adam’ (1795/circa 1805). For Blake the OT God was a false god. He believed the Fall took place not in the Garden of Eden, but at the time of creation shown here, when Adam was dragged from the spiritual realm and made material.

Names and the Name – 4

God has a name – 3

There has been no shortage of attempts by biblical scholars to ascertain the etymological roots of the divine name (YHWH). Beitzel notes that ‘The Exodus discourse between Moses and his God bristles with a number of virtually insoluble philological and theological problems, and one is not surprised at the inability to forge a common scholarly concensus regarding the linguistic and theological meaning of the ineffable tetragrammaton’.

G. R. Driver, and others, relying heavily on Greek analogies have posited the opinion that the divine name did not originally have a readily intelligible form, but was rather ‘an emotional cultic outburst, such as dervishes might cry out ecstatically.’ Unsurprisingly, this view has not gone without critique.

It seems to me that it is not without significance that there was very little interest in the etymology of the divine name in Israel, nor in the ontology of her God. Jenson is right here: ‘What the word “Yahweh” may once have meant we do not know. Since historical Israel did not know either, the loss is not theologically great.’ More important is the truth that Israel’s interest in her God’s name lay in the actions of power which he performed on their behalf. Few have stated it better than von Rad. Commenting on Exodus 3:14, he accuses scholars of seeking to reduce the divine name to ‘a final axiomatic formula’. He continues:

… nothing is farther from what is envisaged in this etymology of the name of Jahweh than a defintion of his nature in the sense of philosophical statement about his being (LXX evgw, eivmi o` w;n) – a suggestion, for example, of his absolute aseity, etc. Such a thing would be altogether out of keeping with the Old Testament. The whole narrative context leads right away to the expectation that Jahweh intends to impart something – but this is not what he is, but what he will show himself to be to Israel.

Pablo Picasso and Romans 5:1–5

Hope and despair. Few themes have elicited as much attention by artists. Does hope require despair for its existence? In the past, theologians have been quick to connect the two. ‘What oxygen is for the lungs, such is hope for the meaning of life’, wrote Emil Brunner. Likewise, Martin Luther once wrote, ‘Everything that is done in the world is done by hope’. Why else would Zacchaeus climb up the tree?

In the first verse of her 1891 poem, Hope is the Thing with Feathers, Emily Dickinson expresses this enduring deathlessness of hope:

‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.

Of course, just three chapters on in Paul’s Roman epistle, the Apostle gives voice to the truth that hope is not only that which humanity knows, but indeed is that ‘eager longing’ which the Word of hope finds its groaning echo of in creation. So poet Jenn Habel asks,

I don’t know why another Monet tacked to some-
one’s wall makes me think

the world will go on. Why one stunted daffodil
outside a rental house and I’m

alive.

Renowned novelist and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, once wrote: ‘I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings’. Ultimately, both the ‘moral’ answer and this ‘other’ human being is Jesus Christ, our hope. The truth is that no matter how rich the gifts of God in creation are, humanity cannot live without a sense and an experience of that which is above nature. That is why the Scriptures describe Christian hope not as mere desire but of real expectation which finds its telos in a person (a telos which is grounded in this person’s past action; see 4:25) who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

I am reminded of Picasso’s 1903 Blue Period painting Tragedy. This period (1901-1904) in Picasso’s life manifested itself in sympathy for social outcasts that was duly reflected in his work, both in subject matter (blind beggars and destitute families were common themes) and in his melancholy blue colour schemes. Reminiscent of the work of Doménicos Theotocópoulos (better known as El Greco) and Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (better known as Diego Velázquez), Tragedy depicts three skeletal, barefoot, elongated and shabbily clothed figures (two adults and a boy) standing on the seashore as a humiliated trinity. Has someone died, or is about to? Have they lost their home? Imprisoned in their wretchedness, are these family members unavailable to one another? One does not have to think too hard to recall Picasso’s own dislocation and physical deprivation which he experienced as he struggled to establish himself as a young artist and penurious foreigner in Paris. Exemplifying the depths of the human condition, Tragedy conveys a sense of spiritual alienation in keeping with the intellectual discontent of his bohemian milieu, capturing the mood of melancholy and isolation. Yet, in this simulacrum of despair, there is also a seed of hope. While the two ‘grown ups’ stand with heads bowed looking defeated, the boy begins to look up. Simultaneously, he begins to push the older man away with his right hand, while turning his left palm upwards. Is this just youthful confidence or could it be that he has begun to grasp the truth that ‘suffering produces perseverance’ and that ‘hope does not disappoint us’? Is he reaching out in solace, or looking for support? He would not be the first child, or the last, to ask in the midst of family crisis, ‘Did I cause it? Will I die? Who will look after me?’. Could it be that he has come to know something that that Fourteenth Century Persian-born, and Sufi-inspired, poet Hafiz, who himself was described as physically not unlike the boy in Picasso’s Tragedy, knew? In his poem, The Day of Hope, Hafiz writes:

The days of absence and the bitter nights
Of separation, all are at an end!
Where is the influence of the star that blights
My hope? The omen answers: At an end!
Autumn’s abundance, creeping Autumn’s mirth,

Are ended and forgot when o’er the earth
The wind of Spring with soft warm feet doth wend.

The Day of Hope, hid beneath Sorrow’s veil,
Has shown its face – ah, cry that all may hear:
Come forth! the powers of night no more prevail!
Praise be to God, now that the rose is near
With long-desired and flaming coronet,
The cruel stinging thorns all men forget,
The wind of Winter ends its proud career.

It is hope, given to us by God, that enables us to endure. The hope of completion. The hope of the ‘not yet’ being the ‘now’. The hope of the glory of God. For this, Jesus enters into the wilderness, into the god-forsakenness, bearing our shame, bearing the wrath of God, and brings humanity to the end that was always God’s purpose for us — communion with him as children of the Father and servants of the King.

On this Trinity Sunday, we would do well to recall our great hope in Christ—his coming, and our participation in him in the divine perichoretic life. This is hope that strengthens us to live, for it is God’s own hope as well, secured in the death and resurrection of the second person of the Trinity. Whilst Western Society is marked at every level with deep-seated despair, the goal of the entire people of God is God himself. It is a hope that involves the healing of the nations—warring will be no more—and its shalom dynamic encourages the daughters and sons of God to the very end. Life can only be fully lived in the knowledge that there is no (ultimate) death. Most of all it is ‘the God of hope’ who is revealed to us. It is his Son, our hope laid up in heaven, and his Spirit, the one who evokes hope by in-flooding the love of God, who sustains us in love, faith and hope.

Tomorrow’s post: We return to the series on ‘Names and the Name’.

The Painting: Pablo Picasso, The Tragedy, 1903, Oil on wood, 1053 cm x 690 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection

Names and the Name – 3

God has a name – 2

My hope with this series of posts on the Name is to fill out the significance of what we mean when we pray ‘Hallowed be Thy Name’. This first petition of what is commonly called ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ (perhaps better entitled ‘The Disciple’s Prayer’. It seems to me that the Lord’s Prayer is best exemplified in John 17) is probably the most ignored part of the prayer. It follows on from what can only be described as the very climax of the Gospel itself – the gift to humanity that we should know and call on God as ‘Father’ – and is also directed to what follows – ‘Your kingdom come’. My agenda: that we might better know, reverence and hallow God’s name before the nations to his glory. So that’s where we’re going with these posts. Before we get to the first petition of the prayer, however, we must spend some time understanding the meaning and significance of the Name in the Hebrew Bible. This will be the purpose of the next few posts.

The three main independent names for God in the MT, based on Israel’s experiences of God’s blessing and redemption, are Elohim, YHWH and Adonai. Most biblical scholars and theologians are quick to identify ‘YHWH’ as the unique self-named and self-revealed designation of Israel’s God on the basis that there are no certain occurrences of its use outside Israel prior to Moses. Certainly, the relationship between this Name and Israel was never lost thereafter.

Most OT scholars identify that in Israel’s thinking, God’s name was thought of in the larger context of the world of the ANE and its divinities. What Israel came to see at Sinai was that they had a unique God with a unique name. The name of the God of the fathers was YHWH. In the MT, this is God’s ‘proper name’. In Israel’s biblical tradition, this name alone was cultically appealed to (Israel called ‘on the name’) and closely connected with the Ark of the Covenant. This should come as no surprise, for as Eichrodt notes, ‘It is through her worship of this God that Israel is marked out from all other nations’. This also makes sense liturgically where we need to use God’s name not to talk about God but to and for him. This is no less true for how the trinitarian formulas were first utilised in the Early Church. And it is no less true for how we ought to address God today. More on this to come.

Note: For those preparing sermons for this Sunday (and the coming 3; ie for June), I’ll post some thoughts on 4 lectionary readings for the next 4 Sundays. The first one, on Romans 5:1–5, will be posted tomorrow.

Names and the Name – 2

God has a name – 1

One of the great gifts that the people of God enjoy is knowledge of God’s name. The God who claimed Abram and that nation to be birthed from his loins has a name. The God who has claimed humanity in Jesus Christ has a name. God is no abstract ‘ground of being’. In latter posts we shall see that God’s name is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. But the economy of revelation is such that this tri-fold name was not always known. Nevertheless …

God has a name. The misery on this earth is nameless, the evil among men is nameless, for the powers of darkness love to be without a name. Nameless, anonymous letters, letters without signatures are usually vulgar. But God is no writer of anonymous letters; God puts His name to everything that He does, effects, and says; God has no need to fear the light of day. The Devil loves anonymity, but God has a name. He did not get this name by chance; in fact He did not receive it at all: He gave it to Himself because He wants to have a name. For him, name does not mean noise and smoke that cloud the splendour of Heaven; His name is His sign, the sign that shows that He is the true God; His name is His signature, so to speak, His monogram, His seal, His stamp (His trademark, if you will!) – whatever bears His stamp is God’s. God would certainly have had the power to be nameless; but because He loves clarity and hates obscurity He preferred not to be a nameless God. (Walter Lüthi)

Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the NT demand that God have a proper name. In the MT, God’s self-revealed name is YHWH, the meaning of which is filled out in Israel’s experience, primarily that of liberation from Egypt and the coming into their own land of promise. When we come to the NT, we learn that God’s proper name is ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’. Again, the believing community is given to know this name, and so God, in the experience of redemption, this time final. This name-knowing and redemption both happen in the one place. More specifically, they happen in a person, Jesus Christ.

Robert Jenson notes that the NT understands by God ‘whoever raised Jesus from the dead’. This identification by the Resurrection, Jenson argues, ‘neither replaces nor is simply added to identification by the Exodus’. Rather, ‘the new identifying description verifies its paradigmatic predecessor … Thus “the one who rescued Israel from Egypt” is confirmed as an identification of God in that it is continued “as he thereupon rescued the Israelite Jesus from the dead”’.

Fiery Dove, what are You doing here?

A hymn by Martin Bleby

1. Fiery Dove, what are You doing here?
Is it love, or do You come with fear?
Have You come to unsettle our soul?
Are we done? Or can You make us whole?

2. We are lost in a hell of our own.
We are tossed, weather-beaten, wind-blown:
Will You sink us, so we are no more?
Will You bring us safe home to the shore?

3. ‘I have come to convict you of sin
And to run all the unrighteous in;
Let you know that the judgement is past,
And to show you the kingdom at last.

4. ‘There is He, who has suffered your shame!
Come and see how He wore all your blame!
He’s now Lord, with the Father above—
I’m outpoured to fill you with His love.’

5. Holy Dove, come and set us on fire:
With that love, burn up all wrong desire!
Let us rest in the Father and Son,
In the best, that their victory has won!

6. In Your praise let us take up our part
All our days, with clean hands and pure heart!
For Your comfort has settled our soul—
We were done for, and now are made whole.

7. Fiery Dove, what are You doing here?
Is it love, or do You come with fear?
Have You come to unsettle our soul?
Are we done? Or can You make us whole?

Names and the Name – 1

For different reasons, I’ve been thinking of late about names and their significance. So over the next few posts I thought I’d share some of my reflections on these things. Specifically, names in Scripture and the significance of God not only ‘having’ a name, but of God ‘giving us’ his name, and to what end.

O be some other name! What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for thy name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself. (Juliet, in William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2)

‘What’s in a name?’ A lot it would seem, particularly if you lived in the ANE where names served as distinguishing markers. Their role is neither to define nor describe, but to identify. They work to differentiate, to structure, and to order. So the naming/designation of the animals by Adam in Genesis 2:19 not only ‘represents something wholesome and salutary’ but also ‘opens up specific human dimensions for communication and for fellowship’. Compare this to Babylonian creation epic in which time preceded the naming of creation: ‘When on high the heaven had not been named … when no gods whatever had been brought into being, uncalled by name.’

The other use for such a distinguishing mark was linked with hope, namely the endurance of one’s family line, and the related securing of family assets (so Deut 25:7; 2 Sam 14:7; 18:18; Ruth 4:5, 10), or the hope of exploitation and abuse (as in Genesis 11:4): ‘let us make a name for ourselves’ (cf. 2 Sam 8:13. In 2 Sam 7:23 God seeks make a name for himself.)

In the OT world, the name also served as an expression of being itself. ‘The name is the soul’. So Origen noted, ‘A name is a term which summarizes and manifests the personal character of him who is named’.

Whereas in modern practice the meaning of a name functions as little more than ‘mere tags’ which pick out an object that ‘by any other name would smell as sweet’ and is generally unknown and irrelevant to its choice, Hebrew names ‘are readily “readable” by those who hear or see them.’ In so far as it does this, naming ‘assumes, rather than justifies, the existence of an object to be named.’ So, for example, we read of Dan in Genesis 30:6, ‘Then Rachel said, “God has judged (or ‘vindicated’, NIV) me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son.” Therefore she called his name Dan’, where Dan sounds like the Hebrew word for ‘judged’. Another example is Nabal (‘foolish’, ‘senseless’) in 1 Sam 25:25 where his character is reflected in his name.

But this is not always the case, even in the Hebrew Bible. So, for example, ‘Absalom (2 Sam. 13) means ‘my father is peace’, when neither he nor David seemed to know much peace, though they offered it to others (1 Sam 25:6, 35; 2 Sam 3:21-23; 15:9, 27; cf. 2 Chron 14:6).

A person’s name not only expresses their identity, but also defies definition by an abstract concept. As Thielicke notes, ‘Any attempt to identify a man with his role or subsume him under a concept leads necessarily to the falsifying of his uniqueness. This uniqueness always contains a transcendent element, a free possibility which cannot be pinned down. The name expresses this transcendent content. It eludes any concept.’

In itself, it seems, one’s name tells us nothing. In itself, it is only an invitation to know more of what might be revealed. The name-bearer is never defined, only introduced, presented. The name can be filled out and interpreted but only by its bearer. But this naming is only ever done with a view to relationship, i.e. for the sake of others; I tell you my name that you and I may enter into discussion. An example of this is when God says to Moses, ‘I know you by name’ (Exod 33:17). As Shults has noted, the point here is ‘not the prepositional content of the divine intellect but the faithful intentionality of the divine promise’. This promise relates to being known by God. In this case, to God’s intention to know Moses. ‘Being known by God’, Shults says, ‘is an experience of the intensive Infinity of divine faithfulness, and the unspeakability of the divine name came to signify this infinite qualitative difference between Creator and creature.’

When we come to the NT, there is little unusual about most of the references to a person or place’s name, especially in Luke-Acts. This does not mean that there is not, as Hartman notes, the widely held belief lurking behind the text that ‘the name communicates something essential or characteristic about the bearer of the name’. Particularly significant is the indication in the name itself of some task given by God, as in the names given to Jesus (Matt 1:21, 23, 25; Luke 1:31-33; 2:21), the Baptist (Luke 1:13, 59-63), Peter and Boanerges (Mark 3:16-17), or something essential about their bearer, as for Legion (Mark 5:9; Luke 8:30), Elymas (Acts 13:8) and various characters in the Book of the Revelation (6:8; 8:11; 9:11; 13:1, 17; 14:11; 15:2; 17:3, 5; 19:11-13, 16).

Connected to knowing the name of a person is the ability to control them, as in Legion (Mark 5:9; Luke 8:30) or those marked with the name of the beast, who are subsequently shaped by its nature (Rev 13:17; 14:11; this becomes particularly significant when we think about God making his own name known). In the case of Jesus giving his followers new names, this amounts to them being given new identities, status and character (Mark 3:16-17; John 10:3; Rev 2:17), identities which are then written in the Lamb’s book of life (Luke 10:20; Phil 4:3; Rev 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:15; 21:27).

Also, in the NT, one’s name is also linked to one’s reputation (Mark 6:14; Luke 6:22; 1 Tim 5:14; Titus 2:8). This is true even for God (1 Tim 6:1; Titus 2:5).

A final thought: No one introduces themselves to themselves. Hence God’s giving of his name to humanity is only ever with a view to fellowship with us. Hence God’s hallowing of his name is with a view to securing the same.

Another final thought: Perhaps this is why I feel odd whenever I read a posted comment from ‘Anonymous’. I recognise, of course, that Mrs or Mr Anonymous must be either (i) a very important person or (ii) meant to be doing something else at the time and so wanting to allude detection, or (iii) not a person at all.

Latest IJST is coming

The forthcoming issue of International Journal of Systematic Theology contains the following tempting articles:

The Precarious Status of Resurrection in Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre
NATHAN D. HIEB

Barth’s Criticisms of Kierkegaard – A Striking out at Phantoms?
PHILIP G. ZIEGLER

More Haste, Less Speed in Theology
JEAN-YVES LACOSTE

Exclusivist or Universalist? Origen the ‘Wise Steward of the Word’ (CommRom. V.1.7) and the Issue of Genre
TOM GREGGS

Calvin’s Christ: A Dogmatic Matrix for Discussion of Christ’s Human Nature
R. MICHAEL ALLEN

Non-Penal Substitution
OLIVER CRISP

God’s Attributes as God’s Clarities: Wolf Krotke’s Doctrine of the Divine Attributes
CHRISTOPHER R. J. HOLMES

Redeeming Bitterness – An Interview with Miroslav Volf

Miroslav Volf, director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, recently published The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World. As Volf calls Christians to remember with redemptive purpose, he recounts his personal struggle to cope with memories of interrogations by Communist officials in his native Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia.

What makes memory an especially urgent theological topic?

Part of the interest in memory is because we live in such a fast-paced culture, in which we have a hard time remembering what’s transpired only a few days or a month ago. We’re glued to this ever-shifting and changing present, so we feel that memory is slipping away from us. We want to hold onto memories, because we rightly believe that part of our identity is what we remember about ourselves and our interactions with others. Part of our identity as a nation depends on what has happened to us in the past.

Why is this topic especially important to you?
Much of the conflict in the world, whether between individuals or between communities, is fueled by memory of what has happened in the past. So on the one hand, we have to remember to preserve our identity. We have to remember in order not to allow similar violations in the future.

Yet when we remember, our memory is not innocent in our hands. I use the term “shield of memory.” But so quickly, the shield mutates into a sword. Memory played a significant role in the recent conflict in my native Croatia. My interest was to find ways in which we can prevent memory from mutating from a shield into a sword—indeed, finding ways in which memory can become a means of reconciliation. That’s why I’m interested not just in memory, but in remembering rightly.

The book is both theological and personal—why?
The narrative backbone of the book is my interrogations by the secret service of Yugoslavia and the Communist army. Immense suspicion arose from the sheer facts that I was a theologian, I studied abroad, and I was married to an American. They had to find out whether I was a subversive element. I narrate the story of my interrogations and my relationships with my interrogators in order to illustrate what memory does to us, how we can deal with memory, and what the light of Christ’s truth and Christ’s person can do to help us remember and reconcile in healing ways.

What is the biblical purpose of remembering?
God’s purpose with humanity as a whole is reconciliation with God and reconciliation with one another in a new heaven and new earth. Given that we have sinned, reconciliation is what needs to happen to get us there. That’s also the goal of remembering rightly. Memory ought to serve that grand vision of reconciliation God is working to create—as Jonathan Edwards has said, the “world of perfect love,” love of God and love of neighbor.

What is Christianity’s unique contribution to remembering rightly?
To remember rightly we need to put on certain glasses. We put on glasses of the memory of the Exodus of the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt. Christians in particular remember the death and the resurrection of Christ. The apostle Paul says one has died for all. Now what does that mean for the wrong that a person has done to me?

Well, I have to remember it as a wrong of a person for whom Christ has died, even if that person isn’t receiving that redemption personally. Then I look at myself. Christ died for my sins, too. I can’t remember transgression against me as one who is purely innocent. It’s not as if I stand in the light and the other person [stands] in the darkness, and he or she has to do all the changing, while I bask in my self-righteousness.

So Christ’s death frames my remembering and reminds me of my own sinfulness and of the love of God toward a person who has injured me.

How do we remember without getting bitter?
In the present discussion about memory, we tend to emphasize remembering what has happened to us, what others have done to us, or if we are more virtuous, what we have done to others. But it’s not about our actions and our sufferings. Now, I don’t want to disregard our deeds and our sufferings, but in Exodus, the Israelites didn’t just remember what they had suffered at the hands of the Egyptians. That was the backdrop to remember what God did for them. It’s a hopeful memory of liberation, a memory of salvation. If you emulate that, then you can remember rightly.

How might right remembering affect church practice?
We have a ritual of remembrance, the Lord’s Supper. We break bread and remember Christ’s broken body. We drink from the cup and remember Christ’s suffering and his spilled blood. If we remember Christ’s suffering rightly, that liturgical act also can serve as a means of fostering reconciliation. I will celebrate the Lord’s Supper by remembering myself as a sinner and not as a saint. I will celebrate the Lord’s Supper by remembering my enemy not as this despicable person who has to be thrown into the pit of darkness, but as one for whom Christ has shed his blood. Therefore, I will be taken up into this action of Christ and hopefully emulate Christ in how I remember and treat the other person.

When can we forget the wrongs committed against us?
In a sense, forgetting is given to us as the gift of a healed relationship. It’s a gift of the new world, which God gives us. Then we can not remember. And then our experience is like a person who is sitting in a concert hall and listening to a wonderful piece of music. Even though just two hours ago she was experiencing hell at her job, she’s taken up into that music. It’s not that she tried to forget so that she could be in the music; it’s that the music took her out of the remembrance of the past. God gives us the gift of a healed self, healed relationships, and a reconstituted world, and then we can not remember.

This is taken from an interview by Christianity Today associate editor Collin Hansen posted here.

Freedom and Power

There is a sense in which the nature of God’s own Godhood is such that God had to become incarnate. However, far from being a limitation, the Incarnation is the supreme act of God’s freedom and the concentration of God’s power in one person. God’s power is never aimless or wild. And no other limits God’s power. Divine power, true power, is limited insofar as it is always concentrated toward one goal or end. Any limitation is a self-limitation, and that for one end. For Forsyth, that end is the securing of holiness for God and for creation. Unlike the (super?)powers of this world, God’s use of power is ever with a view to love – to love the other, to love his enemies – a love that takes cruciform shape, dying even for those who would wish him dead.

… limitation is a power of Godhead, not a curtailment of it. Among the infinite powers of the Omnipotent must be the power to limit Himself, and among His glories the grace to bend and die. Incarnation is not impossible to the Infinite; it is necessary. If He could not come incarnate His infinitude would be partial and limited. It would not be complete. It would be limited to all that is outside human nature. It would be limited by human nature in the sense of not being able to enter it, of being stopped at its gates. God would be curtailed to the extent of His creation. And that would be a more fatal limitation to His power than any He could suffer from being in it. He may be in without being locked in. (PT Forsyth, God the Holy Father, 33)

Painting: Rembrandt’s Holy Family (1640); Oil on wood, 41 x 34 cm; Musee du Louvre, Paris.

Biography in Brief – Calvin

Continuing on with my recent ‘Biographies in Brief’ series (here, here and here), we come in this post to Calvin. It is difficult to think of a theologian (and his ideas) who has been the object of more grotesque distortion than Protestantism’s greatest: Jean Calvin. For all the attention he has rightly received, there is, oddly, a dearth of biographical material available on Calvin. Up until recently, we have had little more than Theodore Beza’s classic, The Life of John Calvin. In 1993, Alister E. McGrath offered his most readable biography, A Life of John Calvin (London: Blackwell, 1993). Even with the recent gem on Calvin by Randall Zachman (anything this guy writes is worth reading!), John Calvin as Teacher, Pastor, and Theologian: The Shape of His Writings and Thought, McGrath’s A Life of John Calvin remains the best biography available. Here’s a taste:


[Calvin’s] importance lies primarily, but by no means exclusively, in his being a religious thinker. To describe him as a ‘theologian’ is proper but misleading, given the modern associations of the term. A theologian is one who is generally seen to be marginalized as an irrelevance by church and academy alike, whose public is limited to a severely restricted circle of fellow theologians, and whose ideas and methods are generally derived from other intellectual disciplines. The originality, power and influence of Calvin’s religious ideas forbid us to speak of him merely as a ‘theologian’ – though that he certainly was – in much the same way it is inadequate to refer to Lenin as a mere political theorist. Through his remarkable ability to master languages, media and ideas, his insights into the importance of organization and social structures, and his intuitive grasp of the religious needs and possibilities of his era, Calvin was able for forge an alliance between religious thought and action which made Calvinism a wonder of its age.

Feeling death

‘If we are to feel death, realise the deadliness of it, and yet master it, it must be by Faith, for we are beyond the help of imagination. Imagination, thank God, may carry us through death if it supply visions of heaven and glory vivid enough to submerge its most hideous fears. But it is only faith in God that can master it in its ultimate form, its most desolate, squalid, benumbing and panic form, death in a moral waste, in spiritual solitude, impotence and failure, death with just enough feeling left to feel itself dead’. – Peter T. Forsyth, God the Holy Father (Blackwood: New Creation, 1987), 51.

Biography in Brief – Luther

There have been no shortage of biographies written on Luther. Nor should there be. Like his Master, the Augustinian’s life and gospel could never be contained in a book. Furthermore, while there is no biography available in ink to match the fire of Luther’s own words, the Lord has given us some great books to help ignite the flame. While my two favourites on Luther remain Gerhard O. Forde’s On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 and Alister McGrath’s Luther’s Theology of the Cross, probably the most accessible (and cheapest) biography remains Roland H. Bainton’s Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1950). I love this quote:

Katie soon had more than Luther to think about. On October 21, 1525, Luther confided to a friend, “My Katherine is fulfilling Genesis 1:28.” On May 26, 1526, he wrote to another, “There is about to be born a child of a monk and a nun. Such a child must have a great Lord for a godfather. Therefore I am inviting you. I cannot be precise as to the time.” On the eighth of June went out the news, “My dear Katie brought into the world yesterday by God’s grace at two o’clock a little son, Hans Luther. I must stop. Sick Katie calls me.” When the baby was bound in swaddling clothes, Luther said, “Kick, little fellow. That is what the pope did to me, but I got loose.” The next entry in Han’s curriculum vitae was this: “Hans is cutting his teeth and beginning to make a joyous nuisance of himself. These are the joys of marriage of which the pope is not worthy.” On the arrival of a daughter Luther wrote to a perspective godmother, “Dear lady, God has produced from me and my wife a little heathen. We hope you will be willing to become her spiritual mother and help make her a Christian.”

Talks on Adolf Schlatter

The following talks on Adolf Schlatter by Robert Yarbrough are available for download. Schlatter was an enormous influence on Forsyth, not only on shaping his thinking on holiness, but Forsyth was also grateful for Schlatter’s engaging of Scripture and Theology, and for his healthy pietism.


Adolf Schlatter and the Future of Christianity – Part 1
Schlatter’s Life and Legacy
Robert Yarbrough
Download MP3 Audio


Adolf Schlatter and the Future of Christianity – Part 2
Schlatter’s Life and Legacy – Q & A
Robert Yarbrough
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Adolf Schlatter and the Future of Christianity – Part 3
Schlatter’s Interpretation of Scripture
Robert Yarbrough
Download MP3 Audio


Adolf Schlatter and the Future of Christianity – Part 4
Schlatter’s Interpretation of Scripture – Q & A
Robert Yarbrough
Download MP3 Audio


Adolf Schlatter and the Future of Christianity – Part 5
Schlatter’s Methodological Genius
Robert Yarbrough
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Adolf Schlatter and the Future of Christianity – Part 6
Schlatter’s Methodological Genius – Q & A
Robert Yarbrough
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Adolf Schlatter and the Future of Christianity – Part 7
Schlatter and Prayer
Robert Yarbrough
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Adolf Schlatter and the Future of Christianity – Part 8
Schlatter’s Promise for the Church and Theology
Robert Yarbrough
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Adolf Schlatter and the Future of Christianity – Part 9
Schlatter’s Promise for the Church and Theology – Q & A
Robert Yarbrough
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God’s one need

The word: ‘God concentrates Himself on Christ. The whole light of Eternity is poured forth upon us through the single soul of Christ. The one thing needful for God was lost man’s salvation, and so He humbled Himself in the Cross. All the world belonged to Him, all stars, all powers, but not Man. This one thing had to be done, and Christ alone, who was the Presence of God, could do it. What shall it profit God if He win the whole world and lose Man?’ – PT Forsyth

The painting: ‘Jonah’ (c. 1885-95)
Albert Pinkham Ryder
Smithsonian American Art Museum

Praise for Forsyth’s Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind

‘It is like the Word of which it speaks so much, ‘living, powerful and piercing. If the first three pages of this book were digested, believed, worked out and acted upon by the men [sic] in all our theological colleges today there would ensue a revolution in the ministry and in the pulpit work of tomorrow’s clergy’. – FD Coggan

‘Master this book and the tone and quality of preaching cannot but be enhanced. Here the author stands out as a greaf diagnostician of the soul, the Church and society, a prophetic seer with an uncanny discernment of spirits’. – WL Leembruggen

And some general praise from James Denney, ‘Forsyth had more true and important things to say than any other man writing theology’.

Biography in Brief – Aquinas

G. K. Chesterton’s biographical portrait of Aquinas, Saint Thomas Aquinas – “The Dumb Ox” (New York: Doubleday, 1933/1956), is masterful. Aquinas, medieval Christianity’s most significant figure, is brought to life by Chesterton who harnesses his knowledge of St. Francis to provide a concise and useful comparison between the two theologians.

Though far from being any authority at all on Aquinas, Chesterton has given us arguably the most accessible introduction to Thomas of Aquinas that we have. Etienne Gilson, a leading Aquinas scholar has noted regarding Chesterton’s book, ‘I consider it as being without possible comparison the best book ever written on St. Thomas. Nothing short of genius can account for such an achievement … Chesterton was one of the deepest thinkers who ever existed; he was deep because he was right; and he could not help being right; but he could not either help being modest and charitable, so he left it to those who could understand him to know that he was right, and deep’.

A quote:

Of the personal habits that go with the personal physique, we have also a few convincing and confirming impressions. When he was not sitting still, reading a book, he walked round and round the cloisters and walked fast and even furiously, a very characteristic action of men who fight their battles in the mind. Whenever he was interrupted, he was very polite and more apologetic than the apologizer. But there was that about him, which suggested that he was rather happier when he was not interrupted. He was ready to stop his truly Peripatetic tramp: but we feel that when he resumed it, he walked all the faster.