The Angel of YHWH an OT Enigma

Commenting on the appearance of "the angel of YHWH" in Exodus 3, D. A. Carson asks and oberves:

We might well ask if, when the text before us records that "God said," it really means no more than that God spoke through this angelic messenger: after all, if the messenger speaks the words of God, then in a sense it is God himself who is speaking. But the biblical manifestations of "the angel of the LORD" do not easily fit into so neat and simplistic an explanation. It is almost as if the biblical writers want to stipulate that God himself appeared, while distancing this transcendent God from any mere appearance. The angel of the Lord remains an enigmatic figure who is identified with God, yet separable from him—an early announcement, as it were, of the eternal Word who became flesh, simultaneously God's own fellow and God's own self (John 1:1, 14).

 —For the Love of God, Vol. 1 (Wheaton: Crossway, 1998), February 20.

O Lord, I Am the Straying Sheep, You Are the Shepherd

A Lutheran prayer to the Good Shepherd:

O God, these are your words: There is greater joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who do not repent. All the righteous and the angels will crush sin under their feet and will cover it. O my God, I feel my sins and am judged already. I am greatly in need of a shepherd to seek me. For this reason I rely completely on the gospel. O Lord, I know that I am a straying sheep and that you are the Shepherd and the One who seeks the lost. I want to hold to this assurance. In the mirror of your law I see that I am a scarred and lost sinner. Save me, O God, for the sake of your only begotten Son. Amen.

—Martin Luther, Luther's Prayers (ed. Herbert F. Brokering; Augsberg: Minneapolis, 1994), 72.

Your Tossings and Tears Amid Fears

Do you know God to be the kind of God who counts your tossings and keeps your tears? Do you know him as a loving heavenly Father who puts your troubled, tear-soaked sleepless nights in his book? (Ps. 56:8). Do you know him as the Almighty God who is assuredly for you? (v. 9). David did. Becaue he's that kind of God and Father. O know him this way, brothers and sisters! And enjoy the deep confidence and trust David knew, calling on God as gracious (v. 1), trusting him amid fears (v. 3), confessing confidently with David, "What can flesh do to me?" (vv. 4, 11). He will deliver your soul from death, your feet from falling, that you may walk before him in the light of life (v. 13).

A Diabolical Science

Calvin, commenting on Ps. 29, speaks this wisdom:

Philosophers think not that they have reasoned skillfully enough about inferior causes, unless they separate God very far from his works. It is a diabolical science, however, which fixes our contemplations on the works of nature, and turns them away from God.

We could substitute, today, naturalistic scientists (and those who unwaveringly bow before and follow them) in the place of naturalistic philosophers. But the same diabolical science is still practiced and believed, separating God very far from his works. Naturalism and functional deism, as I've noted before, have a stranglehold on our society. Sadly this all too often includes professing Christians who, reading the likes of Ps. 29, should know better. We should be ashamed of how little we acknowledge God's almighty hand in the created order. Those in his temple should be incessantly shouting, "Glory!" (Ps. 29:9). 

O show us your glory, thundering God of glory, O show us your holy majesty and might, that we might give you, YHWH, the glory due your name, and worship you in the splendor of holiness.

What We Really Know

"We speak much of God, can talk of him, his ways, his works, his counsels, all the day long; the truth is, we know very little of him. Our thoughts, our meditations, our expressions of him are low, many of them unworthy of his glory, none of them reaching his perfections" (John Owen, Works, vol. 6, p. 64).

The Spirit: The Third Person of the Triune God

Recently, in God's good providence, I've gotten to know fairly well a man who is a Jehovah's Witness.  And after speaking with him regularly for a number of weeks about Christianity, I'm more attuned to seeing crucial things in crucial passages of Scripture.  I'm noting awesome realities in my regular reading with greater sensitivity, things so easy to pass over.  Here's one from this morning's devotions:

"But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as he wills" (1 Cor. 12:11).  Remembering, not forgetting (as always), the context, we read here of the grace-gifts that the Spirit apportions to believers.  And how does he do this?  He does this "just as he wills" or "even as he desires."  The personality of the Spirit is obviously in view.  Only persons exercise volition.  And as John Owen points out on this text, only a person can exercise the choice and judgement and freedom requisite for distributing variously to individuals according to good pleasure.  The Spirit's deity is also in view, for only one who is divine may distribute supernatural gifts sovereignly, that is, as he pleases.  So here, in one, short little text, we have the deity and personality of the Spirit, seated in a broader context that affirms that there is one God (8:6).  In the more immediate context, the deity of the Spirit and the unity of God are affirmed: it is "the same God who works all things in all" (12:6).  So unitarianism is out.  Tritheism is out.  Modalism is out.  And ten thousand other heresies. 

And since theology is indubitably for doxology: All praise be to the three-in-one and one-in-three God, Father, Son, and Spirit, who lives and reigns forever, one God, world without end. Amen!

I love the Bible.  It's so clear, so bright.  Hold fast to its plain teachings, and you'll never be led astray.

Spurgeon on God's Absolute Sovereingty

I first heard the quotation below on God's absolute sovereignty in a lecture that John Piper gave on C. H. Spurgeon in 1995 at Desiring God's Conference for Pastors: Charles Spurgeon: Preaching through Adversity.  It's one of my favorite Spurgeon quotes, and Justin Taylor recently reproduced it on his blog.  I record it here mainly for my own soul to return to again and again--because it's so good, so right, so true, so solid.

Charles Spurgeon on the absoluteness of God's sovereignty:

I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes—
that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens—
that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses.
The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence—
the fall of sere leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.

This is exactly what I believe.  And I believe, exactly what Scripture affirms.  Which is why I believe it.  For from him and through him and to him are all things--to him be the glory forever!  Amen! (Rom. 11:36).

Intoxicated by Orthodoxy: Chalcedon

As a twenty-first century evangelical Protestant living in postmodern America who is a physical therapist by profession, I know that I'm not expected by most to care much about ancient creeds and confessions.  But I confess that I do.  I find creeds energizing, clarifying, stabilizing.  What's more, they get my blood boiling for the glory of the triune God.  Call it quirky.  Call it an odd primitive urge.  Call it what you will.  I love Chalcedon.  I get intoxicated by orthodoxy.  And today I savor this particular creed more than usual on account of recent discussions with a client who is a JW.  So much wisdom in the creeds!  What a heritage the Christian Church has!  Oh how we should give thanks to God for them!  We stand on the shoulders and walk in the steps of so many who've gone before.

Last week I posted the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.  This week you get the Chalcedonian definition:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [coessential] (homoousion)* with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial (homoousion) with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the disctinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

Praise God, Father, Son, and Spirit, from who all blessings flow, praise him all you creatures here below!  For this God, the triune Lord who reigns supreme, our Creater and Redeemer--and this God alone--is worthy to receive all power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! Amen.

* The parenthetical Greek additions are mine.  The text is taken from Philip Schaff's The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2.

(By the way, I am an infallibalist inerrantist who embraces sola Scriptura with every fiber of my being.  The Scriptures, not creeds, are our sole rule for belief and behavior, for faith and practice.)

Does God have Freedom of Choice?

As something of a corollary to the post two posts ago on God's inability to sin, I have another question.  If God is unable to sin because it is not in his nature to do so, can we (or the Arminians) say that he has freedom of choice?

Can God Sin?

In his Summa Theologiae, scholastic theologian Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) addresses a recurring question about God's omnipotence:  If God is omnipotent, can he sin?  Here's the nut of the answer:

"To sin is to fall short of a perfect action.  Hence to be able to sin is to be able to be deficient in relation to an action, which cannot be reconciled with omnipotence.  It is because God is omnipotent that he cannot sin." 

In other words, God cannot be both omnipotent and not omnipotent, for that would be a contradiction.  He cannot be A and non-A at the same time and in the same sense.