The Surprising God

Trinitarian theology speaks to all of life, art included. A wonderful example of a trinitarian artistic vision is the work of artist Farid De La Ossa Arrieta of Columbia. Below is one of his works which gives a contemporary, evocative presentation of the union of all creation with the Triune God. Enjoy.

This post was contributed by worship leader Mike Hale. Last week we began looking at what Andrew Purves describes in The Resurrection of Ministry (IVP 2010) as ministry that is centered in the reality of the redemptive, hope-filled ministry of the risen and ascended Jesus. He reminds us that …the resurrection of Jesus…[and his] ascension and ministry at the right hand of the Father and through the Holy Spirit, make Christian faith and ministry possible….as God the Holy Spirit joins us to him to share in his life. Joy and hope, therefore, mark Christian identity because Jesus the Christ is risen, reigns and will come again, and we, in union with him, share now in his life (p. 23). Purves, professor of Reformed theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, says the first step to ministering in the mood of Easter Sunday—in the hope of the Risen Lord—is simply to focus on the person that is Jesus. It’s all about Jesus, living and reigning—and not about some general concept of God. “Je...

Recently, GCI Pastor John Torgerson (who blogs at   http://notjustanotherreligion.blogspot.com/ ) conducted a wedding for two non-churched people. His wedding sermon addressed two realities: the "unreality" of the world as we know it (in its fallen state), and the new "reality" of the world as God has recreated it to be in Christ (a true, though often unseen reality). Pastor John's point was that it is in relationships (marriage in particular) that both unreality and reality are experienced. The "unreality" of our fallen world is expressed (and received) as conditional love : I love you if ... I respect you if... I forgive you if...  But God's reality is expressed and received as  unconditional love.  Pastor John urged the couple to embrace and express God's reality - his unconditional love. This is God's love for them, a love they may share with one another; and one day, with their children. Pastor John then reminded them that the ...

This post was contributed by worship leader Mike Hale. Those involved in music and worship ministries are typically serving as volunteers, but are ministers non-the-less. In The Resurrection of Ministry: Serving in the Hope of the Risen Lord (InterVarsity Press, 2010) Andrew Purves encourages ministers of every stripe to become committed to deeper theological reflection, and says if we are not centered in the redemptive, hope-filled ministry of the risen and ascended Jesus, we have no ministry at all. I find his latest short book (153 pp.) to be encouraging, thought provoking, and while theological, is readable, practical, and relevant for the planning of songs and prayers of thanks, praise, hope, petition and lament, and for considering exhortations, readings and testimonies. Purves aims to show us how in and with Jesus, ministry is to move beyond what he calls ‘the mood of Holy Saturday’ to ministry ‘in the mood of Easter Sunday’ -- the difference between "God help us"...

In notes introducing the Gospel of John in Renovare's Life With God Bible ,  Marva J. Dawn (teaching fellow in Spiritual Theology at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada, pictured at left), notes that the Apostle John, more than the other Gospel authors, emphasizes Trinitarian theology: Surely John, the beloved disciple, recognized more deeply than the other Gospel writers the intense intimacy of Jesus with his Father. Consequently, John records much more thoroughly Jesus' invitation through himself into the triune fellowship, for just as he is one with his Father, so we too can be one in him with the Trinity.... John's Gospel is crucial for reminding us how integrally connected the Persons of the Trinity are and how thoroughly involved the entire Tri-unity is in all dimensions of our creation, redemption, and sanctification.... It is essential that we recapture the love and grace of [the Father]...and recognize how profoundly Jesus carries us into his own intimacy with his F...

This post was contributed by worship leader Mike Hale. “I can’t explain it,” someone says after the worship service, “but I just know that something happened today while we were [fill in the blank here – singing, praying, testifying, listening to the sermon, etc.], and I had the distinct sense that God was in it, and that I could almost feel His presence!” It might have been during a particularly dramatic service, or surprisingly, it might have been in a ‘regular’ meeting in which nothing particularly dramatic had been presented. Or perhaps it was in a prayer meeting, or in small group, or even while reading or praying alone at home, or while talking about God with a friend over coffee. Or a person might experience such feelings in the course serving and attending to the needs of others. What happened? Was it just our imagination – just emotions? And since we can’t seem to explain exactly what occurred, was it real, or just a warm fuzzy feeling? We like logic and want to be sound-m...

The following quote is from an essay by Anglican minister Andrew Katay of Australia (pictured right). The essay, titled   Is Being Evangelical Enough? Or, How to Live among Imperfect Company , i s quoted here with Katay's permission. Thanks to Santiago Lange (GCI Germany) for sharing it with us. Trinitarian theology proceeds from the principle that we must start our theologising from the story of the gospel, in which we are initially presented with three agents: Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ, the Son of God and who came to be worshiped as God himself;  the Father of that Son, whose kingdom Jesus claimed to be bringing into effect; [and] the Spirit, given by the Father through the Son, who was immediate in the experience of the church. If the Christian conviction is that in the gospel God reveals himself so that we have to do with God as he is, not merely with another prophet or an angel, then the threeness of God stands as prominently at the ce...

In the Western Christian calendar, Sunday May 30, 2010 is  Trinity Sunday .  This celebration gives churches opportunity to focus on the central Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which proclaims that the one God is eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here are two resources for preparing a sermon on the doctrine of the Trinity: A Word From Our Sponsor video sermon  from Mike Feazell titled, The Doctrine of the Trinity: Does it Make Any Difference? A sermon manuscript  from Brian McLaren. His sermon, posted at Preaching Today.com is titled What About the Trinity? "

In " Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ ," T.F. Torrance makes frequent reference to the meaning and importance of Pentecost in salvation history. On page 263-264, he links Pentecost with the church in it's gospel mission: "In...its waiting and expectation [of Jesus' return] the church is commanded by its Lord to lift up its head in thanksgiving and joy, for its 'redemption is drawing near' [Luke 21:28]. The church of the risen Lord has no right to be a prophet of gloom or despair, for this world has been redeemed and sanctified by Christ and he will not let it go. The corruptible clay of our poor earth has been taken up in Jesus, is consecrated through his sacrifice and resurrection, and he will not allow it to sink back into corruption. Hence the whole creation groans and travails waiting for the manisfestation of the sons of God, looking forward with eager expectation to the hour of final liberation and renewal in the advent of its rise...

Matt Chandler The antithesis of the gospel of the grace of the Triune God given to us in the person of Jesus, is a moralistic deism (sometimes referred to as moralistic therapeutic deism ) that posits a distant God whose relationship with us is grounded in a system of moral religion. From this viewpoint, Jesus is our Savior in an historic sense, but now relates to us as a great moral teacher whose perfect moral example we are called to emulate. The Holy Spirit is then given to help us do so. I'm grateful that some well-known contemporary evangelical leaders, like Matt Chandler, are speaking out against this false gospel. To view videos of other leaders addressing this issue, click here .

This post was contributed by worship leader Mike Hale. Perhaps the most thought-provoking and unsettling book I’ve read about worship is The Dangerous Act of Worship , by Mark Labberton (2007 IVP). The book jacket presents the discomforting picture of a desperate figure sprawled on the cold stone walkway outside a church, seemingly neglected, forgotten, and out of sight and out of mind from those inside – those gathered to worship behind safe thick walls and heavy closed doors. The author points out that while the believers inside those walls want to be separate from the world, they also claim to be called to worship a God that reveals himself as a God of great mercy and selfless, sacrificial love for all humanity – including (and especially) the powerless, the poor, the prisoner, and the oppressed. So Labberton challenges us to learn to “live with a wise openness toward others, finding ways of being available and alert and responsive” to those in need. In Labberton’s view the Church...

On  Ascension Sunday  (May 16 this year) m any churches will celebrate Jesus' ascension from earth to the Father's right hand in heaven (see Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:1-2 ). What does Jesus' ascension mean for us? T.F. Torrance answers in "Royal Priesthood," noting the truth that Jesus ascended "in the fulness of His Humanity," remaining "bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh" so that in union with him, we are "bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh ( Eph. 5.30 )" (p. 43). Torrance exhorts the church to take this truth seriously: If Jesus Christ is not risen in Body, then salvation is not actualised in the same sphere of reality in which we are, and we are yet in our sins ( 1 Cor. 15.17 ). If Jesus Christ is not ascended in the fulness of His Humanity, then we have no anchor within the veil and there is no hope for us men and women of flesh and blood ( Heb. 6.19; Col. 1.27 ). To...dehumanise Christ is to make the Gospel of no...

This post was contributed by worship leader Mike Hale. What song is this? You’re the worship leader but suddenly you don’t recognize the piano intro, so the next few moments are, well, “interesting.” Or have you ever forgotten lyrics? Ever lose your place and need a few moments to find it again? Ever start singing the second verse instead of the first? Ever belt out the first two words of a chorus only to discover that everyone else is singing the bridge you have skipped? Ever start a song in the wrong key? If you’ve led worship for any time at all, you’ve run into some “interesting” situations. I’ve been there. Some are a little frightening or embarrassing, and some are humorous. I think my hair has turned a little more gray with each interesting episode, and now it’s nearly completely white. Once at our national pastors’ conference I was sitting on a wooden stool onstage between worship songs, when suddenly with a resounding “craaaack!” the stool broke apart, and I just barely c...

Trinitarian theology (with its doctrine of God) is the basis for a Trinitarian  ecclesiology (with its doctrine of the church) and a  Trinitarian  missiology (with its doctrine of the church's participation in the mission of the triune God) . For an in-depth look at all three, I recommend Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ , and Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ .  Both books  contain the lectures of T.F. Torrance as edited by  Robert T. Walker . Chapter 11 of Atonement  sets out Torrance's Trinitarian ecclesiology . He notes that the church, "formed in history as God called and entered into communion with his people," has three historical forms: A preparatory form before the incarnation (beginning with Adam and focusing on Israel under the old covenant). A new form in Jesus, through the Spirit (the present church under the new covenant). A final and eternal form in the new creation ushered in at Jesus' comin...

GCI elder Eric Wilding is working on his thesis for a DMin degree. He is researching the impact that the writings of Karl Barth, TF Torrance and JB Torrance have had on GCI ministers - particularly with regard to their views of theology (doctrine of God), anthropology (doctrine of man) and ecclesiology (doctrine of the church). Let's help him out by posting here our response to his query. Short bulleted points are fine. As with all posts on this blog, you can reply by signing in to Blogger and then clicking on comments below any post. Or you can email your reply directly to me at Ted.Johnston@gci.org.

I like the mission statement of Reality Ministries : Helping adolescents live into the loving presence and life-changing reality of Jesus Christ. I think they do a wonderful job of ministering out of a Trinitarian, incarnational vision. For them, it's about "being real." At issue here is understanding two competing "realities" that we might refer to as God's reality and fallen-human reality . God's reality is the truth of who God is (as Trinity) and who humanity is because God (in the person of the Son of God) has united humanity to himself. Through the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, all humanity has been reconciled to God. In Christ, humanity is re-born - given a new reality. Fallen-human reality is what most humans see and live by. Though God has reconciled them to himself, they do not "see it." They continue to believe and thus live in unreality . This has devastating consequences. What Reality ...

This post was contributed by worship leader Mike Hale. Invitation to Theology, A Guide to Study, Conversation and Practice , by Michael Jinkins, with Foreward by Alan Torrance (2001, InterVarsity Press) includes a discussion of God’s calling us out of isolation into community, along with the related issues of the myth of solitary religion and the dangers of being shut up in the solitude of our own hea rts. (Dr. Jinkins is a trinitarian theologian and Academic Dean and Professor of Pastoral Theology at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.) We recently quoted Dr. Julie Canlis [ see 03.22.10 post ] as saying that things done in the community of church – praying together, taking Holy Communion, and listening to scriptures (which were addressed to whole communities in the first place) – are things that “liberate me from myself.” Michael Jinkins provides additional detail to that picture in Invitation to Theology . Here are some quotes. “…the Holy Spirit creates community among ...

In presenting the gospel, many use  The Romans Road  - a presentation that uses certain verses in the book of Romans. Though I have used this presentation many times, I have come to see it as less than adequate. I find that it "cherry picks" isolated verses from Romans, leaving one with a truncated message that tends to be more  person-centered (focused on human response) than it is  Christ-centered . The net result is a message not fully faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ taught by Paul in Romans and elsewhere. Certainly, one can (and should) use Paul's epistle to the Romans to proclaim the true and full gospel. But these days, I tend to use Paul's gospel presentation in his epistle to the Ephesians. Trevin Wax (in  Holy Subversion ), refers to this presentation as The Ephesians Road .  It focuses on the finished work of the Father, Son and Spirit toward the salvation of all humanity. Here is that presentation in outli...

This post was contributed by worship leader Mike Hale. Christmas and Easter. Growing up, I remember our family photo album wasn’t complete each year without picturing the joy of both annual celebrations. So from toddler to teen years, there were pictures of us kids grinning from ear to ear by the Christmas tree in the living room, and a few pages later we were outdoors, dressed in Easter outfits and squinting in the sunlight of Spring. As years passed, each combination of pictures help show who we were and who we were becoming. Matthias Grunewald,  Annunciation and Resurrection (public domain via Wikimedia Commons) Of course we were not theologians—just a typical church-going family with three kids in the 1950’s and 60’s. But incarnation and resurrection really are inseparable, as T.F. Torrance makes plain in Atonement, the Person and Work of Christ (2009, InterVarsity Press): The teaching of the New Testament makes it clear that we cannot isolate the resurrection from the whol...

On Easter, followers of Jesus celebrate the central truth of the Christian  faith: Jesus is alive (and we are alive in him)!  Here is what T.F. Torrance writes (in Atonement, The Person and Work of Christ ): "The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead... is a stupendous deed, comparable only to the original creation of the universe. Indeed like the incarnation itself, when God himself entered the creation as one of the creatures he had made in order to operate within it, the resurrection transcends it in significance" (p. 221). "Jesus Christ rose...the new Adam who heads the race in the new creation opened up in the resurrection from the dead [see 1Cor 15:45ff; Rom 1:4, 5:12; 2Cor 5:17]. As such he rose clothed with the power of the resurrection and is spoken of as 'life giving spirit' [1Cor 15:45]. He was not only an Adam into whom God breathed the breath of life and made a quickened soul, but the Adam with such fullness of life in himself that even...

Nineteenth century author, poet, theologian and pastor  George MacDonald (1824-1905), influenced many authors and theologians after him, including C.S. Lewis, who wrote the following concerning MacDonald in the introduction to his book, George MacDonald: An Anthology: "This collection...was designed not to revive MacDonald's literary reputation but to spread his religious teaching. Hence most of my extracts are taken from the three volumes of  Unspoken Sermons . My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another: and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it acknowledge that it has given them great help-sometimes indispensable help toward the very acceptance of the Christian faith. "I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself. Hence his Christ-like union of tenderness and severity. Nowhere else outside the New Testament have I found terror and comfort so in...

Good Friday bids us reflect on what T.F. Torrance calls, "the paradox of the cross." Following are comments from Torrance in  Atonement, the Person and Work of Christ : "In the cross of Christ we have humanity's final rejection of God, and in that cross we have God's final rejection of humanity's sin. But in the cross we have behind it all the holy will of God to take upon himself human sin in rejecting God, and to take upon himself his own rejection of humanity, so that he makes the cross the most positive act of the divine love. The cross not only opposes the human will to isolate itself from God and so to reject God, but so takes that rejection, that sinful refusal by humanity upon himself, that God directs toward humanity the amazing act of assumption in which, in pure grace, he gathers men and women in spite of their awful wickedness into fellowship with himself and refuses to let them go. "The cross means that God does not let any positive decision...

This post was contributed by worship leader Mike Hale. Ever been embarrassed by your local church? Perhaps it’s small and unimpressive—a tiny group of common, broken people with limited means? The preacher does his/her best, but certainly isn’t a best-selling Christian author or a well-known televangelist. There’s no stellar music either—just a humble little worship service. Small, plain, common. And you wish it were somehow more “spiritually uplifting.” So why not stay home and avoid the whole messy business? Besides, you might even feel more satisfied and spiritually uplifted by downloading and privately listening to a nourishing sermon from Pastor Big Kahuna, the dynamic speaker at the regional mega-church down the road. Dr. Julie Canlis touches upon such notions in portions of a public lecture she gave in 2008 at Regent College in Vancouver ( click here to listen). She points to common confusion surrounding our expectations of “doing church.” She also describes historical e...

A Surprising God reader sent this question: What does Trinitarian, Christ-centered theology say about eternal security ? Or asked another way, Can one lose one's salvation ? In answering, Trinitarian theology begins with the all-important question, Who is Jesus? The Bible answers that Jesus is the permanent union of God with all humanity. On the basis of this truth (this personal union ) we can answer our immediate question: Can one lose one's salvation? Unfortunately, salvation often is viewed as a transaction  with God -- a sort of bookkeeping exercise in which we give God our faith, and in exchange he grants us forgiveness and justification (salvation). But what the nature of the incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ tells us is that salvation is a relationship  -- it's about fellowship  not transaction. Moreover, we are shown that this relationship-fellowship between God and humankind has been established and occurs in and through Jesus h...

Pastor, author and theologian Jule Canlis has written an essay titled, Calvin's Institutes: A Primer for Spiritual Formation ( click here to access the issue of Crux in which her essay appears). In her essay she notes that John Calvin emphasized the doctrine of the Trinity in his writings (including his Institutes ). Sadly, this emphasis was diminished by some of Calvin's followers as they further systematized Calvin's theology. One might say that some hyper-Calvinists "out-Calvined" Calvin! In the essay cited above, Canlis discusses Calvin's Trinitarian view on spiritual formation . Following is a representative quote. "Spiritual formation is all about entering this Father-Son relationship, about living out the truth of our adoption. It is the hard work of laying tasks aside in order to contemplate and receive the words, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). Only when we hear that word can our tasks have a...

This post was contributed by worship leader Mike Hale. We have been exploring Worshipping Trinity: Coming Back to the Heart of Worship , by Robin Parry, and last time we highlighted quotes in which the author describes our spirituality being shaped in community—especially in the dynamic of congregational worship. Below are more quotes about ‘doing church’ as the ‘living echo’ of the communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “In our lives together we are placed ‘in Christ’ by the Spirit and so relate to God the Father ‘in’ the Son, by the Spirit. We relate to Christ as the head of the body and we know the Spirit’s indwelling, empowering and gifting. Being church is about as Trinitarian as you can get!” (p. 56) “Many contemporary theologians see the community of the Trinity as a model for God’s community of the church. In God one finds mutual love between persons-in-relationship who recognize the equality and also value the differences of the ‘others’. Although human relationshi...