A Historical-Biblical Exploration of Salvation

GORDON-CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, CHARLOTTE

SALVATION BELONGS TO OUR GOD: A HISTORICAL-BIBLICAL EXPLORATION OF SALVATION

SUBMITTED TO DR. DONALD FAIRBAIRN CH/TH 669: SOTERIOLOGY IN CHRISTIAN HISTORY

BY AUSTIN PFEIFFER MAY 2nd, 2012 INTRODUCTION

A historical study of soteriology is a fantastic way to see how words and ideas can spring from and pass through Orthodoxy, but still never fully capture the biblical truth. At the beginning of this reading, research, and reflection, I noted that most of my failures or blind spots are a result of poor language or an inability to define things I believe in fluent terms. I hope my exploration will broaden the periphery of my understanding of soteriology to outside my traditional biases built on the narrow explanation I have inherited. The development of Christian thought on soteriology through the early church, middle ages, up to the doorstep of the Reformation, proves the foundation of soteriology must rest on fully answering the question, “Who is the God who saves?” Without properly knowing the character, qualities, and nature of God, it is useless to propose a language for what the purpose of salvation is, how salvation is accomplished and why? In practice, this exercise honed my linguistic precision in theology. In thought, I have shed the desire to qualify my presupposition that I believe in salvation in Jesus Christ. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “I find no salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Christ.”1

These thoughts will begin with the early church's understanding of who God is. The pre-

Reformation writers enlisted are Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine of Hippo, John of Damascus, Anselm of

Canterbury, and Thomas Aquinas. After moving through the other establishing contributions of the pre-Reformation thinkers, I will call on Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Fredriech

Schleiermacher, J. Gresham Machen, and to a small extent Karl Barth. The third portion will appeal to

1 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans. John W. Doberstein (New York: HarperOne, 1954), 54. scripture, with the interpretive aid (either in collusion or in distinction) from these great minds, to develop an argument for what Christian salvation is and means.

PRE-REFORMATION DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN SOTERIOLOGY

Beginning with the “who” of salvation appears well established in the pre-Reformation writers.

It does not seem the rest of the questions are as necessarily telescopic. Who the God of salvation is undergirds all questions of what salvation is for and from, as well as how it is accomplished and why.

It is essential to start with “who” and logical to deal with the rest of soteriology following the outline given. Without dealing with each writer's perspective on each question, this approach will lead from

“who” to “what” to “how” then “why” in salvation thinking, touching on notable agreements or diversions in these historical thoughts.

Who

It is fitting then, to start through the words and phrases on who God is. Cyril of Jerusalem says,

“If your devotion is genuine, the Holy Spirit will descend on you too, and the Father’s voice will resound over you; but it will not say ‘This person is my Son’, but ‘This person has now become my son.’”2 Cyril recognizes the kindred relationships of the Trinity, which is precisely why it is so beautifully truthful when he goes on to note, “How inexplicable God’s love for mankind! They do not hope to be saved, and they are judged fit to receive the Holy Spirit.”3 In the First Millennium writers there is a strong sense of Trinity. Perhaps this was a result of the opposition voices with whom they were in conversation. Cyril of Jerusalem and Augustine were in the midst and on the downward slope respectively, of the Arian controversy. John of Damascus lived in the rise of Islam. Each of them was dealing with issues related either to the Incarnation or the Trinity, which seem in many ways inseparable issues. Cyril spends a great deal of time on answering questions of who God is. Perhaps 2 Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, ed. Edward Yarnold (New York: Routledge, 2000), 95. 3 Ibid. because of the mystical and cloudy nature of Gnosticism, he was fearless of accusations of polytheism and thereby emphatically clear on the relationships of the persons of God in the Trinity. It is very refreshing to see Cyril so plainly speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, without constantly qualifying these relationships through the lens of “essence” or even the justifiable language of

“Godhead.”

God is one, this truth is found in Deuteronomy 6:4 and throughout the Gospel of John.

Comparing Cyril and Aquinas, it is clear that how one illustrates this truth can greatly effect the way one perceives God. Aquinas' language of Trinity is definitively referential. In other words, the Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit are the objects of four clinically described relations.4 The Trinity is described in terms of the operative connections between the persons, rather than persons connected by relationships.5 Aquinas is accurate in his descriptions, for the most part6, but if one begins by describing the persons of the Trinity as objects of Godhead conduits, how does that change our perception of Ephesians 1:3-5? When Cyril says we become sons, we see the loving embrace of our

Father, but when Aquinas says we become sons, we see the judicial declaration of the sovereign judge.

This will come out again in Aquinas' view of predestination and the Atonement. Cyril's language of relationship is not mutually exclusive to Aquinas' objectivity. However, it is easier to fit Aquinas' perspective into Cyril's, the loving Father, who is also the sovereign judge. It is much more difficult to embrace Cyril if you begin with Aquinas.

Living, and for a period working, in a dominantly Muslim context, John of Damascus takes a hand-off from the Trinitarian emphases of Cyril and Augustine and deals exhaustively with the

Incarnation. John of Damascus affirms what his predecessors say about the three persons in whose interrelationships we share and uses this truth as the foundation for his dealing with the Incarnation. In his treatise on the Trinity, John says,

4 Paul J. Glenn, A Tour of the Summa (London: B Herder Book Co., 1961) 29. 5 Ibid, 36-37. 6 It could be argued his treatment of the relationships as objects and not the persons is incorrect, especially when he seems to make God's essence primary and the persons of the Trinity seconardy. Glenn, Summa, 89. “we cannot say that the Father is of one essence and the Son of another: but both are of one and the same essence. And just as we say that fire has brightness through the light proceeding from it, and do not consider the light of the fire as an instrument ministering to the fire, but rather as its natural force: so we say that the Father creates all that He creates through His Only-begotten Son, not as though the Son were a mere instrument serving the Father’s ends, but as His natural and subsistential force.”7

Any analogy in these contexts is difficult, so John does not escape the fault of making the Trinity the attributes of God (fire and light = God and son). However, he is well-intentioned in highlighting that the relational foundation of the Trinity must be coupled with the equality of Christ to the Father, as God the Son, living as man. This outline on the Incarnation from John of Damascus, makes it possible for

Anselm's breakthrough in understanding the Atonement. Before Anselm could deconstruct the Ransom

Theory of the Atonement and propose the Satisfaction view, the Incarnation needed affirmation.

Anselm contributes major clarity for how we understand the accomplishment of salvation, but this contribution owes roots in John's (and others) clarity on the who of the Incarnation. One cannot claim that only God can repay the debt the Atonement calls for, and that only man ought to repay, without first exhaustively substantiating that the God-man, who can repay the debt, existed in Jesus Christ.8

Aquinas does a great service to refuting Deism, Pantheism, and Dualism. He specifically addresses views of the state of creation as containing God. By refuting them, he then defines the specific identity of God.9 However, it must be asked, does emphasizing the “oneness” of the Creator, without dealing properly with the Trinity, come at the expense of a holistic definition of who God is?

When always referring to God as the One creator, distinct from the created, and Trinitarian through objective relationships do we miss an essential posture of God? This is a great example of why any explanation of salvation must begin by fully answering who the God of salvation is, in person, nature, and character.

7 John of Damascus, “Exposition of the Orthodox Faith”, in Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus, ed. Philip Schaff, vol. 37 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series. (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), 565-66. 8 Anselm of Canterbury, The Major Works, ed. Brian Davies and G.R. Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 314. 9 Glenn, Summa, 42. What

The primary view of what salvation is comes through sporadically in a few of these writers, with the exception of Augustine, who emphasizes it greatly in his The Enchiridion. Augustine, in this late-in-life work, blossoms fully into the father of Protestant theology on predestination through God's election and Catholic theology's sanctification through human use of grace. What is spoken of in

Augustine is “grace.” He speaks of grace early and often, but there is difficulty in how he does so.

Augustine's theology values (1) election and (2) the necessity of human merit for salvation. Augustine is very clear on the predestined work of the sovereign God electing the saved. He is also clear that he believes it is incumbent upon the Christian to muster a sanctified life up out of their own will and motivation. He lays the foundation for Luther on election and Aquinas on sanctification, while skipping justification as we understand it in inaugurating a life of sanctification. An issue arises out of this logic. A result of drawing a line directly from God's election to human-willed sanctification, is a theology that hints towards purgatory.10 If God elects people and people remain unholy in their character when they die, a theological solution must reconcile these.

None of the writers take a definitively exclusive tack on what sin is. The definition of sin seems to come by way of defining other aspects of what salvation is. In Augustine's treatment of grace, as an enabling agent for holy living, a sort of “helplessness” comes naturally because grace becomes treatment for something not curable by nature.11 This view appears heavily in Aquinas for much the same reason: grace as an enabling agent.12 Aquinas' view of salvation as from guilt adds another implicit facet to his view of sin also as guilt. In this view, Aquinas is building off of Anselm, who defines sin as guilt by way of a legal description of the Atonement, though for different reasons. Guilt for Aquinas describes sin in the plural “sins.” Instead of sin as a state or neuter plural of one collective of individual postures, he describes sin as circumstances, instances, each sin as a finite motive or

10 St. Augustine, The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, trans. J. B. Shaw (Chicago: Gateway, 1996), 128. 11 Ibid, 34-39 12 Glenn, Summa, 178-80, 182. action, and by implication not a state of relationship.13 The guilt in Anselm's definition is a legal debt we owe God by definition, as creatures who owe life to the creator whose honor we have insulted.14

These definitions become crucial in pastoral work. When the trajectory of soteriology travels from the One God before whom we stand saved or condemned, to a legal view of sin, it seems it would be difficult for the average Christian to look back at the Garden of Eden and ask why God would be so cruel to set in motion such a plan? Of course these are orthodox propositions, but they do not recognize the fullness of God's relational love for humanity and the reality of sin as separation from the

Trinity's fellowship. Further, why would God continue to create the Law, only to unveil the eyes of those in Christ, as 2 Corinthians 3:16 says? If God is one creator/judge and sin is a legal debt, and we are not shown the relationships of the Trinity, then might some ask why creation and the law are not snares of the Creator and the Atonement a strange remedy for a problem created by God?

How & Why

The legal language in Anselm, then Aquinas, is a major shift in atonement thinking. By

Anselm's proposal of the Satisfaction Theory, Christian thought shifted from the Atonement view that was frequently referred to as “ransom.” Again, definition is required since the Bible speaks of victory.

In the first millennium, it was believed that the Atonement was a ransom from God, through Jesus

Christ, paid to the devil. Cyril of Jerusalem, affirmed this view15 and John of Damascus was influenced by traces of it, though his view was more in the “victory” emphasis...that is God's victory over death.16

While there are legal/debt metaphors in play for all these definitions, the satisfaction of debt to

God, rather than a ransom to or victory over, the devil, was not articulated until Anselm. Anselm, by way of his fictional, literary conversation partner, deconstructs the Ransom-to-the-Devil view.17 His

13 Ibid, 153. 14 Anselm, The Major Works, 283. 15 Cyril, Catecheses, 146, 150. 16 John of Damascus, Exposition, 718, 769. 17 Anselm, The Major Works, 272. argument is that God rules, the Devil has no jurisdiction over God or man.18 Sin is “guilt”, Christ is a voluntary substitute, not a forced sacrifice…equal to the Father. He goes on to claim that only with the

Incarnation can we really embrace the Cross as both the suffering of an innocent man and the will of a good God.19

Aside from correcting the mistake that God would need to trick or pay the devil, the power of

Anselm's argument is that it sets soteriological thought on pace to realize that in Jesus Christ, who is the God-man who can pay our debt (both in nature and means), we can have union with God. In this,

Anselm is also the only one to directly address why God acts to save us. He answers that God saves us to restore the honor he deserves as the Creator. He does a wonderful service to Christian thought by noting the Atonement is necessary to restore man and God and for man to honor God, even if his answer to “why” derives from an unsubstantiated belief that humans were created to replace the number of fallen angels absent from the required number honoring God.20

John of Damascus' view of salvation differs a bit from the Western thinkers he is tied to in the historical chain of soteriological thought. Seeing salvation as a victory over death 21, he answered some of the “what” questions as he believed in infused righteousness, which saw salvation as almost mystical sharing in the righteousness of the Godhead. What is strange about John's view is that his entire work is a thorough treatment of Christology. His high view of Christology, for the modern reader, would logically lead to a personal/legal view of salvation, but it leans towards Christ's sacrifice being a victorious triumph over death, a “moral influence” to inspire personal/mystical union with the righteousness of God. Anytime righteousness is spoken of a substance of empowerment, the cross becomes less and less relevant beyond a metaphor of love or sacrifice. This is like a “two-act” view of the Atonement, drawing a line from the Fall to Salvation, leaving the Atonement as a blip. The middle point on the line is instead our acceptance of grace (inspiration or substance) for obedience or

18 Ibid, 274. 19 Ibid, 275, 279. 20 Ibid, 300. 21 John of Damascus, Exposition, 717-8. satisfaction of our original sin debt, followed by God's righteousness empowering us to reach out to him in holiness.

This view is developed differently, but to a similar end in Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas builds from Anselm and believes the Atonement is an act satisfying humanity's debt. However, he only seems to treat the Atonement in the sense of expiation, ridding a person of original sin, but not enacting salvation independent of their remaining life's sin. Aquinas' view of the Atonement only opens the door to an offering of grace to achieve the righteousness needed to commune with God. What is interesting about this in Aquinas, is that he refers to predestination as only to Jesus Christ. This sounds very similar to Karl Barth, however, they have different conclusions. Where Aquinas argues predestination refers to Christ only, he posits that the Atonement pays our past debt to God to expiate our sins.22 Barth instead argues that man has been unreliable since creation and should have been removed from every covenant, but instead Christ is the predestined prefigurement of our potential sonship.23

While Augustine's influence on the Catholic church's view of grace and righteousness is clear, he is surprisingly not in cooperation with a Catholic view of the Church's role in salvation. While both agree grace is infused for the purpose of being righteous, Augustine does not place the Church as the dispenser of that grace. For Aquinas, who is an excellent representation of the Catholic view of the role of the Church in salvation, the Church dispenses the sacraments, which are central to the dispensation of grace, which is the empowering substance of salvation. Aquinas defines the word “sacrament” as holy or sacred24, which differs from the Greek root mysterion, meaning hidden or secret. Referring to the sacraments as holy is not divergent from orthodoxy by any means, but by defining the biblical word differently than perhaps Augustine, it is evident behind the word, that his treatment of the Church's role of salvation is something different.

For Augustine, if the Church assists in salvation, and the Spirit is the agent of application in

22 Glenn, Summa, 332. 23 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (London: T&T Clark, 2004) 166. 24 Glenn, Summa, 363. salvation, then the Spirit and the Church would be co-equal and the Spirit would need to be part of the

Church, not the Godhead. This would make the Spirit part of creation, not creator.25 He says the

Church assists in how salvation is accomplished, but by bearing witness to the work of the Spirit, not working alongside the Spirit. Where Augustine might posit that the sacraments operate in the unseeable work of God, Aquinas might say the sacraments are the actual work of God.26 This definition may align Augustine too generously to later Protestant thought, but for the sake of argument, it defines the differences between these two views.

25 Augustine, 67 26 Glenn, Summa, 364. TRANSITION FROM PRE-REFORMATION TO POST-REFORMATION SOTERIOLOGY

At one point, Aquinas essentially argues that each decision by man is a means to an ultimate end, therefore each choice we make actually chooses an end. In other words, each choice of sin or holiness will add up to our salvation or damnation, but also each time we choose sin, we choose damnation.27 Carrying around the question of whether this view is biblical is frightening. In these trepidations, we can experience Luther's anfechtung. It is a treat to read chronologically through these writers, because I feel a fellowship with these time periods and can experience the feelings associated with the theological issues raised in each generation.

The most tragic outcome I have observed in post-Reformation soteriology is where the form of language landed in the 20th century. Unintentional oversights in semantics or underemphasized ideas in preceding theologies, led to the fusion of rational and romantic thought in Schleiermacher. The tragedy is not just Schleiermacher’s heresy, but also that the evangelical mind seems to have concluded the only remaining mode of response is unimaginative calculation. J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and

Liberalism is precise, clear, orthodox, but a far cry from the fragrant language of Calvin’s explanation of the Holy Spirit and union with Christ. Schleiermacher’s reckless use of Christian vocabulary to construct a spirituality of mystical awakening left the evangelical to think the only remaining tool for disputation was to create judicious systems.

Of course the pompous barking of Luther is no more sweet than Machen. But it does harness passion into theology, something not many Reformed theologians would be accused of in modern

27 Ibid, 111. times. Armed with a significantly wider awareness of language in soteriology, I hope to take the sequence of ideas I am more convinced of from reading these theologians and to communicate them down the chambers toward the future church with passion like Luther, Calvin, and Wesley, and precision like Machen.

In appraising post-Reformation confessions and theologians, I want to organize my reflection differently than the first evaluation, where I used the “Who, What, How, and Why” framework, appealing to the authors most influential or controversial in each subject. Recognizing that the first

1500 years of Christian thought were not working in the semantic framework of the Reformation and post-Reformation thinkers, I will not focus as much on the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement as primary. They are no less relevant, they are in fact foundational. After the Reformation though, the burden of the argument shifts to those who would challenge the consensus of orthodoxy on these topics. In no way am I saying the Trinity or the Incarnation are challenged less now. Challenges abound, but they must deconstruct the work of history first and this usually comes from outside evangelicalism, so I would like to focus on different topics.

As such, I would like to organize my reflection on post-Reformation literature in the following fashion. First, I would like to note some of the significant contributions to Protestant soteriology.

Second, I will evaluate the dangerous outworking of poor articulations on later generations’ theologies.

Lastly, I will end by pointing out a few threads of continuity through some of the theologians in the early and medieval church through to the 20th century.

Contributions To Protestant Soteriology

The contributions of the Reformers on Christian soteriology are also the great contributions to

Protestant theology. Obviously all of Christendom does not agree these contributions are constructive, but in the stream of Protestantism, they are the catalyst for the Protestant understanding of Christianity.

The most obvious, perhaps most revolutionary, is Luther’s sola fide, the declaration that salvation is by faith alone. If you are able to embrace Luther’s view of justification and election, his commentary can refresh the burdened in a sensational way. He is amusing, brash, and his stern poignancies feel like an authoritative father giving permission to the guilt-ridden and sin-stained to embrace grace liberally.

Luther is not careful or perfect in his theology, but he shoves theological issues into consideration, making salvation…a splendid privilege.”28

A great illustration of Luther’s tone is his analogy for chasing works-based righteousness and salvation. In Freedom of a Christian, after outlining a biblical argument for Christian freedom from works-righteousness, he claims the person chasing salvation through works will fail and perhaps be distracted from the liberating grace a Christian already possesses. He wittily retorts that such a

Christian is like, “the dog who runs along a stream with a piece of meat in his mouth and, deceived by the reflection of the meat in the water, opens his mouth to snap at it and so loses both the meat and the reflection.”29 Luther's insight on justification would be irrelevant if not coupled with understanding

Christ's incarnation. As great as this insight is, the crux of Christianity is Christ, so all theology must orbit the Trinity and Christology. Many thinkers across every generation have attempted to disagree, including confessing Christians. This is why the compartmentalization of theological subjects is dangerous, but I will address this later. In the mean time, it is important to continue looking at post-

Reformation soteriology by grasping not just the language, but the essence of Calvin's view of union with Christ.

Perhaps Aquinas' treatment of the Trinity is a good parallel for understanding the behavior of contemporary evangelicals on union with Christ. It seems Aquinas (and others, like the Augsburg

Confession), were fearful of hinting polytheism regarding the Trinity, so they overcompensated by emphasizing “one essence.” Union with Christ seems to be disregarded in a similar way in recent history. I would propose it is an overreaction for fear of evangelical Reformed theology being

28 Martin Luther, “Freedom of a Christian” in Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger. (New York: Anchor Books, 1962), 64. 29 Ibid, 65. confused with mysticism. Some might objectively characterize union with Christ as an emphasis of

Calvin, but this is not the same as incorporating Calvin's view into understanding salvation. In the systematic outline of an ordo salutis, it can seems too easily overlooked as the essential undergirding.

Michael Horton calls out the contemporary ignorance of union with Christ saying, “The mystical union of believers with Christ (and therefore his body) is the wider field within which the Reformers recognize the integral connection of justification and sanctification, the imputation of righteousness and the impartation of Christ's holy love in the lives of those united to him through faith. 30”

Horton, who frequently criticizes spiritual formation theology of people like Dallas Willard and

Richard Foster as being mysticism, uses the word “mystical” in a positive sense. This seems a deliberate attempt by Horton to recapture the personal intimacy of salvation that Calvin draws from scripture and is lost on Reformed theology in the modern-postmodern era. Even the most hermetic treatment of sin, the Atonement, and justification is useless without understanding union with Christ.

Before teaching this soteriological apex, Calvin rightly calls for examination of to the Spirit and Christ as co-eternal persons in Trinitarian relationship with the Father. Calvin models how sound theology must begin with who God is, before addressing anything else. He establishes the divinity and eternality of the Spirit and the Son well before treating union with Christ, freeing himself to exclaim clearly, “The whole comes to this that the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually binds us to himself.”31

When the Holy Spirit bonds us to Christ, as Calvin exclaims, we experience the liberating justification

Luther showed.

Subsequent Protestants have emphasized God's actions and the attributes of God and of salvation. This emphasis on verbs and conditions is more convenient in establishing a system of ordo salutis or a paradigm like T.U.L.I.P. The Reformers, rightly, were more focused on the person of God, not the secondary things of God's actions or attributes. The English translations of the Augsburg

30 Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrim’s On the Way. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 597. 31 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 349. Confession offered by Bethany Lutheran College and the Center for Reformed Theology and

Apologetics, show God's actions primarily, instead of his person. They translate the Latin phrase est

Mediator et Propitiatorium, “Mediator and Propitation.”32 The translation in the volume edited by

Philip Schaff says instead “the Mediator and Propitiatory.”33 Christ is not just the means of propitiation, his person is the Propitiatory.

The Latin Propitiatorium is linked to the Greek word hilesterion34 in Romans 3:25. Hebrews

2:17, 1 John 2:2, and 1 John 4:10, illustrate Christ's work as the means of propitiation. Romans 3:25 carries the weight of Christ being the person (point) of propitiation. Christians would be wise to look at the Augsburg Confession. It tethers not just Christ's work, but his person, to our faith and salvation, when it says, “First, that our works can not reconcile God, or deserve remission of sins, grace, and justification at his hands, but that these we obtain by faith only, when we believe that we are received into favor for Christ's sake, who alone is appointed the Mediator and Propitiatory.”35

Understanding Christ as propitiatory is central to Luther's view of justification by imputation and Calvin's emphasis on union with Christ. Christ, who is fully God and fully man, is united to

Christians by the Holy Spirit, justifying us by his personal righteousness. Calvin himself says he could not address “the whole” (union with Christ) without first presenting who the Father, Son, and Holy

Spirit are.36 Calvin and Luther owe a debt to previous explorations of who God is by Augustine and

Cyril of Alexandria, whom they both quote, as well as those like John of Damascus and his defense of the Incarnation. Without understanding Christ's incarnation, the enquiries of Luther and Calvin on imputation and union would be impossible. Despite the fact that Wesley's later theological formulations differed in ways from Luther and Calvin, he can be credited for carrying the torch of

32 The Augsburg Confession, http://www.blc.edu/comm/gargy/gargy1/AugsburgConfession.htm, http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html, (accessed April 23, 2012). 33 Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches , ed. Philip Schaff. “The Augsburg Confession”, Article XX, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds3.iii.ii.html, (accessed April 23, 2012). 34 This connection is from Dr. Donald Fairbairn's lecture, “Martin Luther and German Lutheranism.” CH/TH 699: Soteriology in Christian History, at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Charlotte, NC, March 27, 2012. 35 Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches , ed. Philip Schaff. “The Augsburg Confession”, Article XX, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds3.iii.ii.html, (accessed April 23, 2012). 36 Calvin, Institutes, 349. pronouncing the Incarnation as central to Christian theology, which will come into play in the next section.

The Dangerous Outcomes Of Poor Articulations

The Augsburg Confession's Trinitarian theology is not directly to blame for the mystical soteriology of Schleiermacher. A better way to phrase the case is to say that a better illustration of the

Trinity in the Augsburg Confession may have made it more difficult for Schleiermacher to co-opt

Christian language in proposing a view of salvation so distant from the core biblical truth. The first section of the Augsburg Confession does touch on the three persons of the Trinity, but barely. The comment on the Trinity is enveloped with lengthier attention to the essence of God and his qualities.

The Augsburg meets the minimum requirements of a Trinitarian notion, but its language evokes a view of God as an infinite substance. It is difficult to imagine encountering God in a personal way as the confession describes Him. There is no doubt the Augsburg Confession and Schleiermacher disagree on what is salvation. The confession's language however, is not superficially at odds with

Schleiermacher's mystical view of salvation.

Schleiermacher's view of salvation is relativistic. What he refers to as “God-conciousness” is essentially a mystical awakening through assimilation with the essence of God. Redemption is through

Jesus' earthly life, which avails the God-consciousness to the human consciousness. For

Schleiermacher, salvation is like a funnel and redemption is the procession from the wide opening of the funnel (human consciousness) to the finer end of God-consciousness.37 Since human consciousness is the broadly existential state of all people, Jews & Heathens exist on the same plane before redemption, but at different starting points. All people can begin in different philosophies and experience progressive God-consciousness.38 With this in mind, comparing the Augsburg Confession

37 Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, ed. H.R. Mackintosh and J.S. Stewart. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1948), 55, 58-59. 38 Ibid, 60-61. on God with the Methodist Articles of Religion on Christ, shows that clear exposition can make it more difficult for people like Schleiermacher to redefine Christianity.

The Augsburg Confession there is one divine essence which is called and is God, eternal, without body, indivisible [without part], of infinite power, wisdom, goodness, the Creator and Preserver of all things, visible and invisible; and that yet there are three persons of the same essence and power, who also are co-eternal, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And they use the name of person in that signification in which the ecclesiastical writers [the fathers] have used it in this cause, to signify, not a part or quality in another, but that which properly subsists.39

The Methodist Articles of Religion The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures—that is to say, the Godhead and manhood—were joined together in one person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for the actual sins of men.40

Schleiermacher's impersonal and ethereal view of salvation finds less resistance from a description of

God as “one divine...essence...without body.” The Augsburg Confession does go on to deal with the

Incarnation similarly, but the Methodist definition of “one substance...Christ, very God and very man, who truly suffered...to reconcile his Father to us” is still harder to place in the same belief system as

Schleiermacher.

Another interesting result of language/editorial choice impacting a later generation, is in the

Second Helvetic Confession. The foundational truth of sola Scriptura has empowered Protestant theology and fenced the boundaries of orthodoxy. This is probably why the first section of the Second

Helvetic addresses scripture before addressing the Doctrine of God. There is nothing wrong with emphasizing the veracity of scripture as the Word of God. Orthodoxy can only mine truth from scripture. The danger is to make scripture or doctrine the essential foundation of Christianity, instead of the well from which we draw the foundational understanding of the persons of God; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Machen, like the Second Helvetic, seeks to prevent pliability in Christian theology, sourced from experience or by loosening scripture's authority. A noble pursuit, but beginning here can send

39 Schaff, Augsburg, Article XX. 40 Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches, ed. Philip Schaff. “The Wesley Articles of Religion”, Article II, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds3.v.vi.html, (accessed April 23, 2012). inheriting generations farther and farther from the person of God who they are attempting to accurately represent in their doctrine. He says, “In another way also the teaching of Jesus was rooted in doctrine.

It was rooted in doctrine because it depended upon a stupendous presentation of Jesus' own Person.”41

Machen has said nothing incorrect here, but he has paved the way for Christian theology to be founded on two equal pillars...God and doctrine. God and theology cooperate to define the religion precisely in our confessions.

The dreadful end of this approach is strict confessional subscriptionism. Theology becomes a million tiny debates with binary answers and particularized schools. Separating theology into compartments, treating the Bible as a judicial arbiter, can lead to theologies obsessed with conceptualizing sin, grace, righteousness, ecclesiology, never forced to encounter the Holy Spirit, who unites us to Christ, who reconciles us to the Father. Then, when John Piper speaks of a “masculine

Christianity,”42 it can be differentiated from the Gospel of Thomas' call for women to become men for salvation. Reformed Christians can argue Thomas is dealing with soteriology and Piper is dealing with ecclesiology. The question is, what prevents the next generation, who have inherited a masculine ecclesiology, from creating a masculine soteriology like the Gospel of Thomas? This is why theology cannot subordinate or ignore the person of God as central to all theology, all the while sourced from the sole authority of scripture.

Threads Of Continuity

Each of the theologians we encountered can probably be placed in discord with another if the right topic is chosen. At the same time, not all of the coherent beliefs across Church history are accurate or productive. For instance, the “Payment to the Devil” Atonement theory in the first millennium. Another example is Wesley's view of sanctification. It shares Augustine's view of grace as

41 J. Gresham Machen, Christian and Liberalism. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1923), 33. 42 John Piper, “The Frank and Manly Mr. Ryle: The Value of Masculine Ministry.” Sermon, Desiring God Conference 2012 for Pastors, January 31, 2012, http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/conference-messages/the-frank-and- manly-mr-ryle-the-value-of-a-masculine-ministry, (accessed on April 24, 2012). enabling holy living. The difference is that Wesley inaugurated a third view of grace and sanctification.

The Augustinian view treats holy living as justification for salvation. The Lutheran/Reformed camp sees grace as a justifying gift of faith. Wesley could be said to believe that faith grants us grace for justification, which in the truly redeemed Christian inaugurates a life of holiness. Augustine and

Wesley agree that a Christian's life should naturally move away from sin, but for Wesley it is an outcome of justification, whereas for Augustine, it is justification.

With the nearly infinite moments of critique and divergence in theology through Church history, it is nice to take a moment and highlight the threads of continuity some theologians share. Calvin and

Luther drew heavily from Augustine on election and their foundation was carried on in Machen. The

Trinitarian theology of Cyril of Jerusalem, which included the Incarnation, was deepend in John of

Damascus, and carried on by Calvin, Luther, Machen, and with particular eloquence in Wesley. The satisfaction of humanity's debt and the penal substitution of Christ for humanity in the Atonement, began most clearly with Anselm, onwards through Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, and Machen.

Of course the question of who the penal substitution is efficacious for does not find a consensus in these post-Reformation theologians, as with many other questions. This leaves one task remaining: articulating my own understanding of soteriology from scripture. 21st century Christians inherit a rich vocabulary and pool of propositions from these thinkers, on the Trinity, the Incarnation, grace, sin, righteousness, faith, the Atonement, and more. The task is no less important though, because as was observed, no theology, however sound and thorough, is free from error and/or misinterpretation in subsequent generations, which is why we must take our inheritance of ideas and return to the Bible. A PROPOSED SOTERIOLOGY

All that remains is the opportunity to propose an understanding of soteriology born from scripture, with the guidance of generations past as they explored salvation in the Bible. Criticizing the categorical labyrinth of Protestant Systematic theology is not to be equated with a relativizing or loosening of the finite boundaries of truth. The danger of holistic subscription to a system is it can render salvation as a clinical exchange devoid of relationship and familiarity. The categories may be tightly screwed into a container with air-tight threads of articulate and correct doctrine. Even so, understanding the function is not the same as understanding the broad idea. For example, a young person might obtain a residentially zoned, permanent structure. The acquisition is complete when the young person offers an agreed monetary compensation in exchange for the structure. Does this capture the underlying intention and experience related to buying a home for your family?

So to criticize subscriptionism is not the same as criticizing all systematic theology and finite truth. When concepts, not person, become central to a theological conversation, we undermine the

Christian argument that God is real, infinite, and personal. The reaction is not to be relativistic, but so confident that Jesus is Lord, that our faith does not have to become a personal opinion, but something so real, it can face even the most hostile enquiry. The historical posture of Christians to write in categorical binaries has offered us helpful vocabulary to explain how we understand God through scripture. But the question remains, if we cling to the vocabulary as a means of interrogating other people's conceptions of God, are we simply acting insecurely about the God who conveys truth to us? Of course people have stolen this vocabulary to invent a new conception of Christianity.43 By starting out claiming that Jesus is Lord though, we should realize how much we have constricted the parameters of Christian faith. In the words of Stanley Hauerawas, “You get American Christians, often times who think of themselves as very conservative, saying things like, 'well I believe Jesus is Lord, but that's just my personal opinion...tolerance kills.”44 If Jesus is Lord, then soteriology is not a mere chapter in the volume of Christian thought. It is theology. There is no such thing as personal subscription to a theological school, nor the ranking or subordination of certain doctrines in relation to each other. Salvation relates to the Atonement, which relates to the Church, but these are completely irrelevant if Jesus Christ is not God. If God came to the Earth to live and die as a man, only to follow this extraordinary event by the resurrection of his human body, then the Gospel of this God is rooted in his person and cheapened by cataloging His person and his action into subsets.

Our part as Christians is to practice theology under the banner that Jesus is Lord, because the

Gospel is so real that someone witnessing the preaching of it would see what the city authorities in

Thessolinica saw in Acts 17, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” (Acts 17:6b-7 ESV) Calling Jesus the King, the Lord, is radically confining enough that we do not need impersonal categories and semantics at the core of our evaluation of truth.

Approaching soteriology should not begin with categorical imperatives on biblical salvation, but with naming who God is. Knowing who God is opens why we live in whatever state we do. Who is God?

How have we come into a familial bond with him from our helpless blindness?

God Who Saves

43 J. Gresham Machen's Christian & Liberalism argues this with Classic Protestant Liberalism. More recently Bock & Wallace (2007) have called the Historical-Critical Scholarship of Jesus, “Jesusanity.” 44 Stanley Hauerwas, “'Being A Christian Is Not A Private Matter!'” (2011), The Work of the People,http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2011/07/29/being-a-christian-is-not-a-private-matter-stanley- hauerwas/(accessed April 30, 2012). Belief Assumes

The foundation of soteriology raises two assumptions: (1) we are blind to, in bondage, and/or exiled from (2) something or someone. We can try to argue God’s existence and humanity’s depravity apart from scripture, by reason, but at what point does this venture veer off into speculation and invention? Frankly, we cannot escape our assumptions and in some ways. If faith supposes that the

Lord our Creator and Savior lives, then assumptions like the veracity of scripture and the reality of salvation are products of that supposition. As Psalm 25 says,

“Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. (Ps 25:4-5)

It is not scripture that teaches us about salvation, it is God, who uses scripture. We cannot escape our assumptions completely, nor should we pretend to shake our belief for the sake of rational argument.

Fredrich Schleiermacher attempted to empower humans with a belief that we can chase a consciousness of God, if only we can shed the hindrance of what he calls, “the evil condition of that consciousness… painted in the darkest colours.”45 He refers to Romans 1:18, where Paul talks about unrighteousness suppressing truth. Karl Barth seems to directly oppose Schleiermacher in his The Epistle to the

Romans, by pointing the two verses before, Romans 1:16-7. Barth comments,

the Gospel does not enter into competition with the many attempts to disclose within the world some more or less unknown higher form of existence and make it accessible to man…God does not need us. Indeed if he were not God he would be ashamed of us. We at any rate cannot be ashamed of him.46

So we must defend the truth of our belief in God, but without the insecurity that we must exhaustively prove his existence from reason to a fine point or all is lost. Understanding soteriology begins with the belief that Jesus Christ is Lord and as such we can trust the Bible to teach the truth of the God of

Salvation. At this point, “wild assumptions” of the existence of God and the veracity of scripture are no less vindicated to skeptical critics, but I believe Jesus is Lord and so begins my articulation of who

45 Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 55. 46 Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. E.C. Hoskyns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 35. is God.

The Trinity & The Incarnation

The Trinity and the Incarnation are inseparable because the core of Christian faith is that God relates to us and we root this in that He relates to Himself. He is our adoptive Father (Eph 1), a human brother (Matt 12:50), and a helper (John 14:16). At the center of this belief is that the founder of creation is also Jesus our saving brother (Heb 2:11) and the one who sends us the Holy Spirit (John

14:16). John 1:1’s allusion to Genesis 1 provokes the reader to awareness of God the Son’s presence at creation. When God the Son was born a man, it was not a point on a line in his existence, it was a moment in our existence, where he remained the Word and brought a human life into himself. The allusion is so plain, the human awareness of the Trinity (challenged by critics as it always is), is at least as old as the autograph of the Gospel according to John.

Jesus Christ is God and because God is Jesus Christ, God is essentially relational. Matthew

11:27 and many verses in John say so, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Matt 11:27) God is the Holy Spirit, placed in humanity’s presence through the Son,

“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. (Matt 12:18, citing Is 42:1-3)

So the concept is not new, but the reality may be lost on our feeble minds unless we recognize the person God, of whom the concept of the Trinity refers. John of Damascus puts teeth to the

Trinitarian relationship, where so many have placed mere lip service. He sees the Trinity as both mysteriously powerful, yet in no way ethereal. The Trinity is definite in relationship, he claims, “being essentially subsisting, endowed with free volition, and energy, and omnipotence: so also, when we have learnt about the Spirit of God, we contemplate it as the companion of the Word and the revealer of His energy, and not as mere breath without subsistence.”47 God is three distinct persons, definitely relating to one another, in ways beyond full human comprehension. In the words of Cyril of Jerusalem, “He is in everything and outside everything. Do not imagine he is smaller than the sun or its equal; for the one who made the sun ought rather to be, in the first place, incomparably greater and brighter.” 48 If one can believe God is really this extraordinarily desirable to know, as well as personal, it begs the question why we naturally do not?

Why We Are Exiled & Why We Are Reconciled?

It cannot be that God created man with a need for salvation. God did create man to relate Him and to understand God’s moral character. Adam was intended to spend his days reflecting that glorious character in his daily life in the meticulous and splendid garden. When Adam & Eve ate of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil however, they chased autonomy. They tried to experience creation and its order outside of the very creator of that beauty, which is wrapped in order.

Understanding sin properly has implications on understanding the Crucifixion. If Christ's death is the satisfaction of our debt and we understand that debt as a state of exile and elective rebellion, then the satisfaction is a holistic reversal, it cannot be in shades.

The danger with Aquinas' quantitative view of sin is that it obscures the absoluteness of Christ's propitiation. If sin is a singular infraction, are we to believe sin exists in degrees and that Christ's sacrifice is graded? This kills the liberating spirit of salvation that Paul describes, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom 8:15-16). We carry the same lust for autonomy and we have the illusion of it from birth.

Additionally, we are not born in Eden. Sin is not a genetic flaw passed on by generation. Instead, the 47 John of Damascus, Exposition, 558. 48 Cyril, Catecheses, 99. utopia of the Garden has already been destroyed, so when we are born, our homeland is a place separated from God.

Ephesians 1 says before the foundation of the world, God knew he would rescue us from our own mess. Yet he allowed us to know him by creating us? An apparent tension exists between Genesis

3 and Ephesians 1. The rational mind will always struggle to reconcile a belief in the fall and a belief that God’s all knowing, all powerful rescue of humanity is loving. It seems a trap, but 1 John says

“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 Jn 4:8-10)

The Lord is God (Deut 7:9) and God’s love is resolute and matchless (1 Kgs 8:23). Every human being lives in exile (Gen 3:23) from God's presence and love. No human, action, offering, assertion or effort, can bring a person closer to God (Heb 10:1). Or as Luther’s snarky jibe to Erasmus purports, “Let all the free will in the world, do all it can with all its powers, and yet, it never will give one proof, either that it can avoid being hardened where God gives not His Spirit, or merit mercy where it is left to its own powers.”49 If we do not initiate salvation, why then would God save even one individual of the rebellious collective He created? The reason God saves Christians is for the praise of

His grace (Eph 1:6). The praise of His grace is essentially the praise of the Father, who sent the Son, who prepared the way for the Holy Spirit, the giver of grace. God reconciles His estranged creations for His praise, but also to lovingly unite all things under the warmth of

His wing (Eph 1:10, Ruth 2:12, Deut 32:11-2).

HOW GOD SAVES ORPHANED CREATURES

49 Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, trans. Henry Cole (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishes, 2008), 158. Our human reason is a powerful instrument to mine the caverns of God’s person and purposes.

Theology is not a meaningless exercise in hypothetical categories if it can empower the body, mind, and soul, to draw closer and with more clarity, to the Creator. Thought on who God is, who we are, and the condition of that relationship, is steeped in personality. “How God saves” is a conversation that easily lends itself to clinical language. How anything is accomplished seems to require a formula or process, and how God saves is the same. There must be an overarching shift in our relationship to God for such a formula to find completion. For a father and mother to adopt a parentless child, court proceedings, paperwork, fees, and filings, must be made. Still, these are the underlying processes of an overarching reality…the creation of a family, the adoption of an orphan.

The challenge and sacrifice of adopting is not cheapened by the process, it is strengthened.

Were it easy and natural, it would not be so extraordinary. So to espouse for example, a solely Moral

Influence view of the Atonement, cheapens the reality of salvation. On the other side, focusing too heavily on the “paperwork and proceedings” under Penal Substituion, is a shortsighted labor in missing the wonderful end result. The overarching beginning and end of salvation is adoption by God the

Father, in union with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. It is a frightful unknown to be orphaned.

No infant could bring him or herself under the adoption of parents, so no human being can bring oneself under the adoption of God. Thankfully, the Lord draws us near to him (Eph 2:8-10.) This comforting truth is put best by the hymn writer John Newton,

I know the Lord is nigh, And would but cannot pray, For Satan meets me when I try, And frights my soul away. And frights my soul away.

I would but can’t repent, Though I endeavor oft; This stony heart can ne’er relent Till Jesus makes it soft. Till Jesus makes it soft.50

50 John Newton, Help My Unbelief, Hymn. The Atonement

Adam and Eve, through their lust for autonomy, launched the inescapable end for every person who enters this world, death (Gen 2:17, Rom 5:10). We are not just born into this, the book of Judges shows how we all aimlessly wander in this reality...wayfaring strangers doing whatever is right in our own eyes. Even if a person were able to resist their desire for independence, and of course no person ever has drawn him or herself to the face of God anyways (1 Jn 4:12), they could not fulfill the additional requirement of reconstructing the reality of Eden. No amount of personal piety can restore the Garden, it can only prevent deeper rift. There once was a gracious garden for communion between humanity and God, but Adam and Eve destroyed what was not theirs to disassemble. The destruction of God’s created reality is a debt of death that each of us owe (Rom 6:23). The undoing of the destruction of Eden’s community of God with his creation is impossible to repay. When in human history has anyone ever reconstructed a space for God and humanity to dwell in personal union?

Only once, because as Anselm revealed from scripture, only God could restore such a reality, but only man owed the debt. Such a conundrum required the Son of God to live as a man and for the

Son of God to die a human death. We are united as humans to the Son of God in death and we live in reunion with God in his resurrection (Rom 6:5). The place of propitiation is the person of Christ (Rom

3:25) whose bloody death on the cross finished our debt (John 19:30). In darkness he ripped open the separating barrier between God and humanity (Luke 23:45) and lit up the eyes of those blinded in the law (2 Cor 3:16). Christ rose from the dead, living on and on and on, as do we in union with him (1

Cor 15). The results of the resurrection are magnificent in breadth. First and foremost, is the satisfaction of a crushingly inescapable debt, but a myriad of results pour out of the payment.

The Atonement’s reward is not singular or one-dimensional. Nor is it for us alone. The song of

Moses in Exodus 15 declares that God is holy and deserving of worship and obedience. Christ's life is the human life that fulfills what Moses declares (Matt 5:17), but Israel could never offer to God: holy obedience. The Lord who is abounding in love and slow to anger restores his good dominion and inspires his creatures to do his will (Ps 103). What is called Moral Influence is a true consequence of the Atonement, paving the path for what Christ says to those he calls, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt 11:28-9). The victory over death is accomplished and the tears of orphaned humans are wiped away (Is 25:8, 1 Cor 15). The victory cry is songs of praise to God from the Christians of the flock of the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life

(John 10). The satisfaction of our debt relieves the past liability and prepares the way for our union with Christ, the God-man who lived perfectly, died sacrificially, and lives on fully in the resurrection.

Union With Christ, Adoption, And The Life Of The Christian

The Atonement is the means of reunion to God's intention, for now, a taste of the Edenic reality of communion between God and humanity. Christ breaks the bondage of death, pays our debt, and calls us family before the Father. John 14 shows Jesus claiming himself to be the one true God, the Son of the Lord. Jesus Christ is not just the human son of God, He has the authority to bring us to the

Father. He promises, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:18-20). He will send, “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” (John 14:26). Then in John 15 Jesus offers us much more than knowledge of God. He offers a union rooted in Him, the Vine, through which he, God of the

Universe, will call the Christian a friend. The functional terms of justification, regeneration, and sanctification are all consequences of relational union with Christ, as understood here in John 14 and

15. Union with Christ is the umbrella over all human connection to God and divine operations to facilitate reconciliation. As John Calvin puts it, This, indeed, is that secret and hidden philosophy which cannot be learned by syllogisms; a philosophy thoroughly understood by those whose eyes God has so opened as to see light in his light (Ps 36:9). But after we have learned by faith to know that whatever is necessary for us or defective in us is supplied in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom it hath pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell, that we may thence draw as from an inexhaustible fountain.51

The fountain's water is all the benefits and functions of salvation, like regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification, wrapped up in union with Christ. Union with Christ provides the benefits and assurances of Romans 8 and Hebrews 10.

We are adopted because we are Christ's brothers and sisters. Christ lived as a man, the only man to fully honor God with the obedience he deserves as Creator. Christ calls us brothers and sisters, placing us in his family, the little children of God the Father (Heb 2:10-12). Adoption implies estrangement from parents, God did not intend us to be estranged, but he adopts us because he always intended to be our Father (Eph 1:5). We are restored as his children. He is our Father and Creator, which is always how it ought be, but alas we all run-away and he is the adoptive Father of prodigal children (Is 56, Rom 9).

How “predictably typical” I am as a Protestant to quote Paul so much in soteriology. Even in trying to avoid systematic semantics, whether explicitly or implicitly, I elicit ideas crafted by man to explain truth. Ideas like Christ's active obedience, federal headship, satisfaction of debt by the

Atonement, Union with Christ through the active presence of the Holy Spirit, and adoption by the

Father are all present in my propositions. While attempting to refresh the language of truth, I cannot escape the old language completely. Part of the reason is because the truth has not changed and since our languages fail, we inherit the same ways of saying what is eternally true. After all, it is safer and arguably more responsible. God is not a theory, God is real and living. So on the spectrum of truth, the dry semantics are far more profitable than the poetic license Schleiermacher requested in his theology.

The Gospel happens to be true, so the goal of theology is so much more than the right ideas. It is right ideas for the sake of the actualization of a relationship with Jesus Christ. Right ideas about God

51 Calvin, Institutes, 563. are nothing but a meaningless clanging cymbal if we are not seeking and offering others a seat at the table with God, who is love (1 Cor 13, 1 Jn 4). Adoption by the Father, union with Christ through the

Holy Spirit, are means to the end of reunion, communion, with the splendid Creator, today as a taste and in eternity, like in the garden (Rev 22). The end of salvation is to be with the Lord, as Gillian

Welch puts it,

But the ties of kinship I have not known them I know no mother, no father No sister, no brother I am an orphan girl

But when He calls me, I will be able To meet my family, at God's table I'll meet my, mother my father My sister, my brother No more orphan girl52

52 Gillian Welch, “Orphan Girl”, on Revival, (Almo Sounds, 1996). BIBLIOGRAPHY

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