Theology of the Turning Seasons

Each season has the potential to be either a joy or an inconvenience.

Snow, for instance, is beautiful. Kids are especially excited to see the snow falling, and are disappointed when it doesn't stick. Snow brings joy to families all over the world. Snow reminds us of Christmas. For many people snow is a nostalgic joy. Yet at the same time snow obstructs our labor. When the winter approaches, my hard-working brother always comments, "How can anyone like snow? It ruins everything!" And he's right. Snow is, in reality, a cause for car wrecks and a roadblock to good, hard-working citizens.

Then springtime comes. The melting ice is an apt picture of redemption. The sun rises and declares the faithfulness of God. But at the same time the sun brings a parched land, and rain is an image of the providence of God. His grace is like rain. "He turns the desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water" (Psalm 107:35).

But Portlanders are quite aware of the misery of rain. Rain is simultaneously an image of the providence of God and an image of misery. Everyone knows the cliché line, "At least it can't get any worse..." which is followed by thunder and rain.

Each season has the potential to be a joy and an inconvenience.

How quickly snow changes from a picture of the grace that covers our sins to a mess of inconvenient ice and slush.

There is something interestingly parallel between the search for the coming seed in the Hebrew Bible and the turning of the seasons. Take Noah, for instance. The reader is refreshed to arrive at Lamech, who lives 777 years, whose son Noah will "bring us relief out of the ground that Yahweh has cursed"(Genesis 5:29). But, like any given season, the story ends disappointingly with a mess of ice and slush, a drought, a miserable drizzle of rain, i.e. Noah gets drunk. He was not the coming seed after all.

Yet the story quickly comes to Abram, a new season. And the Hebrew Bible continues this search, this turn of seasons, as prophet after prophet, judge after judge, king after king are each a hopeful light of salvation, but each story ends disappointingly like Noah.

But the beauty of stories like Noah and seasons like spring is that they are a proclamation of the redemption of Messiah; they are by no means the Messiah themselves. And there is a bittersweetness in the life of Noah and the end of a good season; the bitterness is that they are not God, they are not Christ, but it is precisely this bitterness that provides the sweetness. They have done their work, they have proclaimed Christ, and have assured us that they themselves are not salvation, just as John the Baptist was obliged to say, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" when the people thought that he might be the Messiah.

Not only is the Old Testament entirely Messianic, in fact, the entire universe is Messianic. The four seasons are prime examples, main stage performers in the drama of this universe, which proclaims the salvation of Christ. But they are not exceptions. "All things were created through him and for him" (Colossians 1:16).

"All things" does indeed include everything.

Enjoy the snow that reminds us that he has covered our sins, enjoy good food that reminds of the sustaining grace of his Word, and enjoy honey that reminds us of the sweetness of Jesus. These are not God; Jesus is.

Circles of Sanctification

The Church can never hold on to its humility or sincerity. It is not ours. It is the righteousness of Jesus. In the moment that the Church realizes its own humility it is condemned. But in its condemnation it is faced with its end, with its death in baptism with Christ, and thus given the prospect of resurrection with Christ, whose resurrection is the firstfruits. These patterns of humility and false-humility are the cycles or circles of sanctification that make up the very fabric and reality of the history of the Church. These circles of salvation are the weaving and working of the Holy Spirit, and must be received with thankfulness. "Is anyone among you sick? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise." Because it is the Spirit who sovereignly shapes the Church in the highs and the lows; he is sovereign to bring us face to face with our shortcoming and also the face of Jesus, who is true humility and sincerity.

Probability, motion, and faith

This world offers no stability. We are governed by the reality of probability, tension, and faith. Nothing is sure, nothing is sound. We drive to work and school knowing that nothing guarantees the safety of our commute. We are perpetually out on a limb, so to speak. In every motion, decision, advance, commitment, investment, we are governed by faith, by trust, by counting on something outside of ourselves. Metaphysics is drama. Watching musicians and actors perform puts us on the edge of our seats; there is always great potential for failure and disappointment, but this is precisely what excites us; it is the thrill of motion and relationship. Indeed, it is the thrill of this universe. And as we dramatize this tension we testify and bear witness to a Triune God who is both tension and faithfulness. The eternal rest of God is motion, and the torment and agony of hell is stagnancy.

Presuppositions about Nature in Edwards and the Transcendentalists

One of the most interesting subjects this semester has been our discussion on the transcendentalists in American Literature with Dr. Shaak. What made an impression on me was the similarities and contrasts between the transcendentalists and the Puritans. Transcendentalists assured their readers that human beings are best off trusting their own intuition: "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string" (from Emerson's "Nature"). And yet both groups hold to a fundamental presupposition that life, nature, history, have inherit meaning within them. For anyone interested, I wrote a paper on the topic comparing Edwards and Emerson particularly. Herewith.

Presuppositions about Nature in Edwards and the Transcendentalists

Jonathan Edwards was convinced of his wickedness, expressing in his “Personal Narrative” that its appearance was “an abyss, infinitely deeper than hell” (“Personal Narrative” 395). He believed in the Puritan understanding of total depravity and was determined to look away from self to Christ. In contrast, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-reliance” has played a key role in shaping the thought of many transcendentalists who have followed in his footsteps such as Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. These two perspectives represent opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to personal identity. Robert Milder, in his essay “From Emerson to Edwards,” refers to the distance from “quasi-omnipotence to a Calvinist sense of dependence and limitation” (Milder 100) to illustrate the difference between these two views.

However, both Edwards and the transcendentalists rejected the notion that life was arbitrary and random; both assumed a metaphysical order rich with meaning. Observing Edward’s notes in “Images of Divine Things” and his various other typological writings in comparison with Emerson’s “Nature” as well as other transcendentalist writings will reveal these similarities. In spite of their often drastically different conclusions, Edwards and the transcendentalists operated with nearly an identical presupposition regarding inherit meaning and spiritual significance in metaphysics, that is, the entire natural world.

Towards the end of his life, Edwards’ planned to write a work on “the Harmony of the Old and New Testaments,” which he never finished. However, many of his personal notes on the subject were left behind. Understanding his method of linking OT types to a universal meaning and ultimately to Christ is the key to grasping his view on the meaning of the natural world and history. His note in “Miscellanies” on types offers a summary: “Very much of the wisdom of God in the creation appears in his so ordering things natural, that they lively represent things divine and spiritual, [such as] sun, fountain, vine” (“Miscellanies” 284) Here Edwards is intentionally using examples that the Bible has used to represent Christ. For Edwards, the OT witness did not simply use historically constrained images that the NT authors then applied to Christ without warrant, but rather he saw these images as eternally representative of Christ, and therefore felt entitled to the same freedom that the NT authors did as he applied the imagery to Christ.

Edwards’ typological methods were not restricted to the OT; this method obviously implied a universal truth regarding the fundamental nature of things both inside and outside the textual world of the Bible. Edwards “believed that the various departments of learning were mutually supportive, and it never occurred to him that when unified by the theological intellect, they would fail to confirm biblical verities” (Cherry 263). In other words, Edwards saw no need for a forceful application of doctrine to real life; in his view doctrine and real life were absolutely consistent. He proceeds smoothly from biblical images to real life: “much of the wisdom of God in his providence, in that the state of mankind is so ordered, that there are innumerable things in human affairs that are lively pictures of the things of the gospel, such as shield, tower, and marriage, family[1]” (“Miscellanies” 284). In his “Personal Narrative” he describes an increase in sensitivity towards divine things as he grew in his knowledge of Scripture, doctrine, and God: “There seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost every thing” (“Personal Narrative” 389).

Edwards made the spiritual interpretation of nature a regular discipline. His work “Images of Divine Things” is a collection of 212 notes in which he interprets various events in life, some of which are intertwined with biblical imagery such as marriage being representative of Christ and the church, others being entirely his own interpretation of the real world: “When we first get up in the morning, we rake open and kindle up the fire. So Christians, when they awake out of a spiritual sleep, re-enkindle their graces” (“Images of Divine Things” 99).[2] The typological illustrations of Christ were fitting in view of “man’s natural delight in the imitative arts” (“Types of Messiah” 191).

There is much parallel to Edwards in Emerson’s section on “Language” in his essay “Nature”: “The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history” (“Nature” 1118). Emerson sees a great significance in details, namely, that nothing is mere detail, nothing is mere chance, and that “it is easily seen that there is nothing lucky or capricious in these analogies but that they are constant, and pervade nature” (“Nature” 1119). In great similarity to Edwards, Emerson viewed the nature of the way things work - the rules which govern nature - to “have a much more extensive and universal sense when applied to human life than when confined to technical use” (“Nature” 1121). Both Edwards and Emerson would denounce those who view life as a collection of arbitrary, random events that humanity must begrudgingly deal with: working, sleeping, sitting in traffic, brushing teeth, showering, studying, etc. Rather, they would both agree that “Space, time, society, labor, climate, food, locomotion, the animals, the mechanical forces, give us sincerest lessons, day by day, whose meaning is unlimited” (“Nature” 1122).

Notice the similarity between Edwards and Emerson as they both discuss the meaningfulness of rivers; Edwards says that as rivers “empty vast quantities of water every day and yet there is never the less to come,” so is the “goodness of God”; the reason rivers exist is because of the goodness of God (“Images of Divine Things” 54). [3] Emerson asks, “Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of the flux of all things” (“Nature” 1118)? Although they find different conclusions, both operate with precisely the same notion of significance and inherit meaning.

Thoreau, in his book “Walden,” describes men who “are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them” (“Walden” 1874). And clearly Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself” teaches the reader to find and savor meaning in “the blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the promenaders” (Song of Myself 2215) and a plethora of other perhaps overlooked scenarios in everyday life. This pattern of listing everyday events and themes of nature is quite similar to Edwards’ method of gathering notes in “Images of Divine Things.” Edwards, Whitman, and Thoreau demand that human beings observe those things that might became mundane in routine and reconsider their meaning. It is not difficult to imagine Edwards applauding the transcendentalists were he not aware of the self-reliant backbone supporting their work. As Conrad Cherry points out, Edwards “sought to live in the typical or literal meaning in such a way that he was carried to its antitypical or symbolic meaning” (Cherry 266) Both Edwards and the transcendentalists were not content to push through the routine of life without examining its deeper, spiritual meaning.

However, Edwards would be appalled at Emerson’s conclusion that “no man touches these divine natures, without becoming, in some degree, himself divine” (“Nature” 1130) and that “the use of the outer creation is to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation” (“Nature” 1118). For Edwards, the meaning, or the end for which God created the world, was “So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God, and God is the beginning, middle and end of this affair. (“The End for Which God Created the World” 255)” Edwards “believed that creation’s symbolic structure was grounded in history’s central symbol, the Christ” (Cherry 270).

While Edwards and the transcendentalists have drastically different motivations and conclusions, both presuppose nature to have inherit meaning and significance; both seek to savor this meaning and to not become lost in a mindless routine, to not be “so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked,” (“Walden 1874) as Thoreau puts it.

Works Cited

Cherry, Conrad. "Symbols of Spiritual Truth." Interpretation 39.3 (1985): 263-271. Print.

Edwards, Jonathan. The "miscellanies": entry nos. a-z, aa-zz, 1-500. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1994. Print.

Edwards, Jonathan. Typological writings. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Print.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Nature." The Norton anthology of American literature. 7th ed. New

York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007. 1110-1138. Print.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Self-reliance." The Norton anthology of American literature. 7th ed.

New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007. 1163-1180. Print.

Milder, Robert. "From Emerson to Edwards." New England Quarterly (2007): 96-133. Print.

Thoreau, Henry David. "Waldo” The Norton anthology of American literature. 7th ed. New

York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007. 1872-1914. Print.

Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." The Norton anthology of American literature. 7th ed. New

York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007. 2210-2254. Print.

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[1] Miscellanies #119: Types.

[2] Images of Divine Things #137

[3] Images of Divine Things #15

Categories and Beauty

We look at the world through the blurry lens of categorization. When we observe a building we do not examine every window as it is; instead, we give the building the property of having a good number of windows. In literature, words are buildings; they are skyscrapers, in fact. We may see the phrase "everlasting life" in the Epic of Gilgamesh, but we neatly categorize it without looking at the details provided in the text. We must dig deeper, observing every window, the color of the paint, the doors, the material, in order to acquire a deeper knowledge of the building (phrase) "everlasting life" in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

But here a problem arises. For although we have successfully broken down the category of “building,” for instance, now we must deal with the categories of “window,” "red," “door,” “wood,” etc. And once we have freed ourselves of our presuppositions regarding these categories we must once again categorize “glass,” “chemicals,” “color,” etc. When you look up "heaven" in a dictionary, you will not find heaven; rather, you will find other words, which point to even more words. So the categories - the skyscrapers, the words - are lost in an infinite chain of signs pointing to other signs, and never arrive at actual reality and truth.

So how do we know truth?

I will make a suggestion.

The above demonstration of categorization only deals with cognitive knowledge rather than relational knowledge. The above demonstration proves that if we are left to sheer cognitive ability one could never really know what beauty actually is. But does this mean beauty is then lost? Does this mean - in regards to beauty - there is no difference between genocide and justice? After all, genocide and justice are words, which similarly get lost in an infinite system of categorization.

Here is my suggestion: whereas cognitive knowledge alone leaves us doomed to an infinite chain of signs, relational knowledge provides a standard for actual reality and actual truth. As an example, a husband's knowledge of beauty is not lost in the infinite maze of categorization and culture; rather, it is very tangible as he knows his wife and loves her. All knowledge proceeds from relationship. The only standard for sound epistemology then is the Triune relational God of the Christian religion from whom knowledge proceeds.

The Way God Works

Theology must speak holistically. The most essential truth about who God is must hold the universe together in a common thread without detached caveats, tangents, or exceptions. This is theology proper; it is the Truth and Word that God is a loving Father, the Truth and Word born in the person of Christ, the Beloved Son, the man who died on a cross assured of the Father's love for him by the Holy Spirit.

There is either infinite joy experienced by human beings who are in that man Jesus and experience love of the Father and Son, or infinite hell for those in the first Adam who live in resistance to the Spirit's assurance of the Father's love in Christ. Both heaven and hell relate either positively or negatively to the message of God the loving Father; this message defines them, for Christ is a fragrance of life to life and death to death. There is no human being who escapes the Word, for there is no world that is not created by the Word and Spirit.

Christian theology must explain everything as relating to the Father and Son who love each other by the Spirit. This is theology proper, namely, theology about who God is; and God is a Triune God of love. Life is beautiful because it was created by this Word. Life is ugly because of the denial of this Word by humanity. But the ugliness is only ugliness because it is not in conformity with the Father who loves his Son by the Spirit. A father who abuses his child is only ugly because the Father who loves his Son is beautiful. Furthermore, there will be a time when all things are summed up in Christ, who is this Word. At this time the wheat will be separated from the tares. And those who continually reject the Word will live away from the brilliance and beauty and love of the Word forever, while the redeemed will know fellowship of the Father and Son by the full assurance of the Spirit.

God is a God who loves and works and moves. Before the creation of the world, when there was only God in existence, he was neither alone nor stagnant and unmoved. Before the creation of the world, the Father and the Son loved each other in the Spirit. The love of God is agape. The Son glorifies the Father and the Father glorifies the Son. The Father loves the Son just because he loves the Son. This love is not selfish desire; it is not eros. God is agape love. This is the essential and fundamental truth of who he is.

There is no greater love than a man lay down his life for his friend. Therefore, the cross - the Gospel - is not just an arbitrary nice act that an unmoved holy God decided to do, but rather, the Gospel proceeds from the most essential truth of who God is.

The phrase "the way God works" is not so much a way of explaining or articulating by formula who God is and how he must work; the sense of the phrase "the way God works" is doxology. As we observe that God has worked and has defined himself as agape love, and has glorified the holiness of his love by the grace and mercy of the Son, we must respond in doxology, "the way that God works!" Or proclaim with Paul, ^"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!"

Introduction to Genesis and the Pentateuch

Introduction to the Pentateuch

The Pentateuch is the first five books of the Bible.

Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy

These have always been read as one book. We refer to it as the Pentateuch, but the Scriptures refer to it as the “Torah.” Torah means instruction or teaching and is probably derived from a verb that means “to point [in the right direction].”

Torah is the first section of the Hebrew Bible (see table below). The next sections (Nebiim and Kethubim) refer back to the Torah, starting in Joshua 1 when Joshua is commanded to Meditate on the Torah day and night. Similarly, Psalm 1 - which begins the third section of the Hebrew Bible - describes the righteous one of God who meditates on the Torah day and night.

Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)

Torah (Teaching) --- Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy

Nebiim (Prophets) - - - Joshua Judges Samuel Kings Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel Book of the Twelve

Kethubim (Writings) - - - Psalms Job Proverbs Ruth Song of Songs Ecclesiastes Lamentations Esther Daniel Ezra-Nehemiah Chronicles

I. Finding the big idea in the Torah.

What does it mean to follow Torah? Does it mean to keep the Mosaic law? Was Joshua supposed to follow all the rules of the Mosaic law in order to keep Torah? Did the man in Psalm 1 keep all the Mosaic law?

All of this is summed up in the question, “What is the teaching (Torah) teaching?”

In Genesis 6 there are instructions for building the ark. But clearly, Joshua and the righteous man of Psalm 1 did not follow these instructions. So what does it mean to follow the Torah?

It is helpful to notice a parallel between Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17. Psalm 1:1-2 is almost exactly the same as a Jeremiah 17:7-8. Psalm 1 describes the righteous man who meditates on Torah day and night. But Jeremiah 17:7 describes the man who “trusts in the LORD” in contrast to the cursed man “who trusts in man (v. 5)”

The Psalmist, drawing from Jeremiah 17, seems to believe that meditating on Torah is equivalent to trusting in Yahweh. This gives us a significant pointer as to the meaning and teaching of Torah. The Torah is ultimately teaching the importance of trusting in Yahweh.

Therefore, the big idea of the Pentateuch is very much similar to that of Romans or Galatians.

II. The eschatological mission of the Pentateuch

1) The seed

In Genesis 3, humanity embraces pride and destroys the image of God. The consequence is death. But Eve is promised a seed who will “bruise the head of the serpent (3:15).” In other words, the work of the serpent has brought about sin and death, but there will be a descendant from the woman who will put an end to the work of the serpent.

The Pentateuch is constantly searching for this seed. Story after story, genealogy after genealogy, is looking for this descendant. In the very next story, in Geneis 4, Eve has a child and exclaims, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD (4:1)." She seems to think that by her effort she has brought about the coming seed who will fix things. Similarly, when Lamech fathers Noah he says, “"Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands (5:28)." Clearly the text is looking for the coming seed. But while the descendants - one after another - show us a picture of salvation, each story ends somewhat disappointingly. Abel is killed by Cain, Noah gets drunk, Joseph is buried in a coffin in Egypt, etc.

This theme runs throughout the whole Pentateuch, and throughout the Hebrew Bible, which ends pointing us forward to the one who will rebuild the temple (2 Chronicles 36).

2) The coming prophet

Every section of the Hebrew Bible ends pointing us forward. The Pentateuch is no exception. In Deuteronomy 18 there is a prophet promised to come who is like Moses. Deuteronomy ends mentioning that “there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face (Deut 34:10)”

Not only does the Pentateuch tell us that there is a prophet coming who is greater than Moses, but it shows us what prophecy is and what a prophet does. A prophet is one who speaks the words of Yahweh.

Perhaps most crucially, the creation account shows us that God, with his words, speaks creation into existence.

Next, the people are given the law through the reoccurring phrase, “The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the people of Israel, saying...” This is all for the sanctification of the people. They are made holy through the prophetic work of Moses.

God speaking through Moses is sanctifying his people, but the Pentateuch says there is another prophet coming greater than Moses who will bring this work of sanctification to completion.

3) Pointing to the Messiah

In Genesis 49, there is promised a coming king in the line of Judah, to whom the obedience of all the people will be.

All the pictures of priests, prophets, rulers, seed, is all pointing forward to the Messiah in the Pentateuch.

The Torah, is therefore teaching us to have faith in God, but it is specifically showing us to have faith in the Messiah.

Jesus, in Luke 24:44 shows his disciples “everything written about him in the law (Torah), the prophets (Neviim), and the Psalms (kethuvim)”

He is saying, “I am the guy that this is all written about.”

This makes the Torah very precisely a book about faith in Jesus Messiah, just like Galatians or Romans. All the imagery of the tabernacle, the sacrifices, the priests, is all pointing us toward Christ. This is the faith that the Torah is teaching.

What is the teaching teaching?

It is teaching us faith in Christ.