Church Doctrine, Volume 5: Redemption

By Paul C. McGlasson

The present volume is the fifth in a five-volume study of church doctrine. The multivolume set covers the major parts of church doctrine: Canon, God, Creation, Reconciliation, and Redemption. The first volume begins with an introduction to the entire project on why doctrine matters, which stresses the ecumenical, global, and above all biblical horizons of church doctrine as a primary expression of Christian witness.
The purpose of this fifth volume is to explicate the full reality of God's redeeming love for the whole creation. In the doctrine of redemption, the church looks forward in hope. Through the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost the church is gathered out of all nations and peoples of the earth, and looks forward to the coming day of final redemption for the whole cosmos. Yet even now, the promise of God's coming is active in the world, rendering the church into a new humanity, establishing a new society, calling every individual to a new life of joy in discipleship.
Church doctrine is not a luxury, but a necessity for the living community of faith, by which its witness in word and deed is tested against the one true measure of Christ the risen Lord.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jul 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781498288651

Paul C. McGlasson

Paul C. McGlasson received his MDiv from Yale Divinity School, and his PhD in Systematic Theology from Yale University. He is the author of numerous books, including the multi-volume work, Church Doctrine. He currently resides with his wife Peggy and their dog Thandi in Athens, Georgia.

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CHURCH DOCTRINE

The Faith and Practice of the Christian Community

VOLUME V: REDEMPTION

Paul C. McGlasson

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CHURCH DOCTRINE

Volume Five: Redemption

Copyright © 2018 Paul C. McGlasson. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-62032-698-5

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-8722-7

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-8865-1

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: McGlasson, Paul C., author.

Title: Church doctrine : volume five : redemption / Paul C. McGlasson.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018 | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-62032-698-5 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-4982-8722-7 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-4982-8865-1 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Theology, Doctrinal.

Classification: BT75 M155 2018 (print) | BT75 (ebook)

Manufactured in the U.S.A. July 9, 2018

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

Part V: Redemption

Chapter 1: The Gift of the Spirit

a. Creator Spirit

b. Pentecost

c. Gifts of Grace

d. Freedom of the Spirit

Chapter 2: The Kingdom of God

a. Patterns of Reflection

b. The Shape of the Kingdom

c. The Mystery of the Kingdom

d. Response to the Kingdom

Chapter 3: The Church

a. The Identity of the Church

b. The Life of the Church

c. Mission

d. Visible Words

Chapter 4: The New Society

a. Civil Society

b. Human Dignity

c. Human Rights

d. Democracy

Chapter 5: The Return of Christ

a. Already

b. Not Yet

c. Between the Times

d. Hope

Chapter 6: The Joy of Discipleship

a. The Humble

b. The Merciful

c. The Peacemakers

d. The Despised

Bibliography

To Peggy, the kindest, wisest person I know.

With deep gratitude.

Preface

The gospel is God’s redeeming love for every human being, for the church, for the world, indeed for the whole creation. Redemption points us forward; the gospel of God’s redeeming grace is the promise which even now directs our steps and makes us whole. The promise of God is the hope of the whole world.

We live by hope! In the church, we yearn for the unity that is ours in Christ to be made visible in our midst. We lift up our eyes to the crucified and risen Lord, and know without doubt that he is our future together, for in him God’s new world is already here. He who even now rules all things; he who even now guides the nations of the earth; even now, he gathers into one his lowly people, and keeps and comforts us. We do not, and will not look back; we always look forward in hope to him who is the future of our life together.

We live by hope! Not only is there hope in and for the church, there is hope for the whole creation. Even now, Christ the risen Lord works salvation in the midst of the earth, forming a new society of peace and justice. It comes as promise; it comes where we least expect it; but it comes with the almighty power of the resurrection, which brings life from death. Even now, we look forward in society, never backward; we seek a new justice, a new peace, a new world of human rights which reflects the glory and majesty of the risen Lord.

We live by hope! For every individual Christian, there is always hope. We come to the end of a path, only to discover that a new way is already opening up in front of our eyes. We run completely out of resources in life, only to realize that God himself is our refuge and strength, who richly supplies every need in abundance. We think we have everything figured out; only to realize that a vast new reservoir of wisdom is opened before us as we turn to the Scriptures afresh. We may fail; but Christ will not fail us, and therefore our failure is transformed by his grace and mercy working his will in the world.

Hope. The doctrine of redemption surveys the content, and the attitude, of hope in the church. As disciples of Jesus Christ we are called to be a city on a hill; we are to shine our light in the world. That has meant many things in various times of the life of the church. It has meant going to death in the arena rather than recanting the faith in ancient Rome. It has meant preserving the faith through careful study when the light of truth would otherwise have been easily extinguished in the Middle Ages. It has meant standing up against the centers of power in protest in order to make the gospel plain and clear to all people during the Reformation. Surely to shine our light, to be a city on a hill, means all these things and more even now.

But at the very least, it means living a life of steady and confident hope in the freely given promise of God. We will not give in to discouragement and despair, when the world seems so deeply troubled; how can we, if the world is already surrounded by the promised redemption of God? We will not join the voices of division and hatred looked back to the past for validation; how can we, if the future is where Christ himself calls us to follow, to obey, to rejoice. We will not turn, one against the other; how can we, if our hope is centered in the risen Lord Jesus Christ who died for the sins of the whole world, and will come again to redeem all creation?

The present volume on the doctrine of redemption stands on its own. However, it is also the final part of a five-volume work on church doctrine. I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the time, energy, and opportunity to engage in and complete this work, which has brought me enormous joy. I also wish to express again my deep thanks to Rodney Clapp, the editor of this multivolume set, for his insight and encouragement all along the way.

This final volume is dedicated to my wife, Peggy A. McGlasson, with all my love.

Abbreviations

BTONT Brevard Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments.

NTC Brevard Childs, The New Testament as Canon.

CCFCT Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss, eds., Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition.

CNTC John Calvin, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries.

GNET Emanuel Hirsch, Geschichte der Neuern Evangelischen Theologie I–V.

HDThG Handbuch der Dogmen-und Theologiegeschichte 1–3, 2nd Edition.

LCC Library of Christian Classics.

LW Luther’s Works (American Edition).

TCT Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition 1–5.

TRE Gerhard Müller, Horst Balz, and Gerhard Krause, eds., Theologische Realenzyklopädie. 36 volumes.

Introduction

We come now to the part of church doctrine on redemption.¹ The redemption of the world means the final, definitive, manifestation of God’s redeeming love for all humanity, when every eye will see, and every ear will hear the glory of his love. Redemption means the promise of his future coming, therefore in the doctrine of redemption the church looks forward in hope. Yet already, the promise is active in the present, shaping the church, transforming the world, entering the lives of every individual who believes in hope. For the future of the world is Jesus Christ; the promise of the world is the living Lord, Jesus Christ, who even now holds the world in his hands, calls the church as his own body, and gathers into one all nations of the earth.

In several parts of church doctrine there is a body of deeply reflective tradition upon which to rely as basic instruction in the questions posed to Scripture, and the answers received. While all the various aspects of the doctrine of redemption are familiar themes in the history of church thought, the fact is that in this final part we come up against an anomaly. There is no definitive shape to the doctrine of redemption, whether in ancient, medieval, Reformation, or modern theology; whether in Roman Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern Orthodox dogmatics. There is certainly agreement that the doctrine of redemption is essential to the witness of the church. But where does redemption begin and end? What content does the doctrine of redemption include? What is the interrelation of the various elements of the doctrine? It is not that there are no answers to these questions; rather, there are many answers, often within the same doctrinal tradition over time.

We can and must of course listen to the answers given by the great theological work of the church in both the past and the present. To ignore the help given by tradition is the way of the fool. But in distinction from other parts of church doctrine, we must here do the hard work of turning more directly to theological exegesis of Scripture with a view toward direct theological construction. We are not trying to proof-text; our aim is far otherwise. We are seeking to move from the witness of the text to the reality of which it speaks; and there to discern the inner logic of our faith. Scripture, as canon, is itself shaped to guide us toward understanding; but it is only in the church at prayer and mission, only under the guidance of the Spirit, that we come finally to gain understanding of the faith which we believe. All Christians believe in redemption; our task here is to discern the rule of faith that guides that belief. As always, our method is faith seeking understanding. It is simply made more difficult by the fact that the tradition of church reflection is less clearly demarcated on this than on any other part of church doctrine. But that is a challenge and an opportunity, not necessarily a hindrance.

It is helpful very briefly to orient ourselves to the contemporary debate on redemption. And on one issue there is quite full agreement; the modern era begins in 1922 with the publication of the second edition of Karl Barth’s The Epistle to the Romans. Breaking radically with the various options flowing from the nineteenth century into the nascent twentieth—and without doubt still hearing the anguished screams of millions dying on the battlefields of Europe during the Great War, almost always in the name of Christianity—Barth shattered the consensus, or rather argued that the gospel attested in Scripture itself enters our world and breaks everything apart. Instead of redemption being a process of Christian influence in society, Barth hear the notes in Romans speaking of a radical event, a victory that cannot be seen, which he calls eschatological: If Christianity be not altogether thoroughgoing eschatology, there remains in it no relationship whatever with Christ.² Barth pours scorn on those who would see the vaunted progress of human culture as the direct mode of divine redemptive disclosure: All that is not hope is wooden, hobbledehoy, blunt-edged, and sharp-pointed . . . . There is not freedom, but only imprisonment; not grace, but only condemnation and corruption . . . no God, but only a mirror of unredeemed humanity.³ The true Christian posture is simply to wait: We ask nothing better or higher than the Cross, where God is manifested as God. We must, in fact, be servants who wait for the coming of the Lord.⁴

Now, of course Barth would go on to write a massive Church Dogmatics that included parts on the Word of God, God, Creation, and most of Reconciliation. But Barth died before he could turn to the part on Redemption. His theology developed over time, so there is every reason to expect it would have been extraordinary; but we can only wonder. He certainly would not have gone back behind the position he held in 1922, but there is also little doubt that he would have presented a fuller vision of the church’s eschatological witness.

At any rate, the figure who has dominated the last generation of theological discussion on eschatology is certainly Jürgen Moltmann. His position is laid out already in Theology of Hope, and despite a wide-ranging series of works, it has retained its fundamental stamp. Moltmann reacts against what he perceives to be the trend to push eschatology to the margins of the gospel, and instead makes eschatology the gospel itself: From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving . . .⁵ Eschatology, for Moltmann, is an outlook, a principle of interpretation, which in fact guides the fundamental understanding of every aspect of Christian witness. To his credit, Moltmann moved eschatology back into the mainstream of Christian discussion. However, as we search to understand the rule of faith, the shape of our faith as attested by the norm of Scripture, there is room for deep concern. Other figures at other times have taken one Christian doctrine; converted it into an abstract principle; and interpreted all other elements of our faith in its light. The results have been uniformly disastrous. Thus, the gnostics, for example, made the mystery of salvation the principle doctrine for interpreting everything else; it took Irenaeus to point out that creation too is part of the Christian witness, that indeed creation and salvation both serve the same Lord Jesus Christ who is over all and in all. By contrast, the Deists abstracted the doctrine of creation from the rest of church doctrine, as if the whole of the gospel could be reduced down to the divine guidance of the universe toward a preestablished good. What about the cross, what about the resurrection, Wesley responded. It would seem that there is an almost ontological temptation to abstract one element of Christian truth and turn it into a principle for understanding every other; and uniformly the results are not only disappointing but lead astray. I remain unconvinced that Moltmann can give church doctrine the needed help in finding its way forward.

On the other hand, conservative evangelicalism can certainly offer no better. In his well-known handbook of theology, Wayne Grudem does indeed shove eschatology to a final, small part, just as Moltmann had bewailed. There he considers the various elements of conservative evangelical speculation concerning the timeline of the return of Christ originally laid out in the nineteenth century: will it be sudden? How does the rapture relate to the millennium? How does the millennium relate to the actual return and appearance of Christ? How many resurrections, and how many judgments will there be? Who is going to heaven, and who is going to hell? And so forth.⁶ Against Grudem, and conservative evangelicalism generally, several points must be made. Firstly, we are warned by Christ himself to avoid the baroque timelines and charts so typical of this school when it comes to the return of Christ: But about that day and hour no none knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father (Matt 24:36). Of course the warning is regularly cited in this approach, but then regularly ignored. Secondly, there is the assumption that the new age of God’s redeeming love only begins at the end of time. The very clear testimony of Scripture is otherwise, as we will see: God’s new world bursts forth into reality at Pentecost. And thirdly, in pushing the boundary of eschatology to the end of time, conservative evangelism ignores the crucial witness of the Bible: that the church itself is an eschatological community that already now tastes the first fruits of the Spirit. We can find no help in discerning the rule of faith as mirrored in the content of Scripture from a theology so skewed and simply unbiblical.

Moltmann and his legion of followers on the left; conservative evangelicalism and its countless representatives on the right—how are we to proceed? We will argue that redemption, or eschatology is, contra conservative evangelicalism, an essential part of Christian witness which includes a wide ranging number of elements according to the shape of the biblical witness; it is not simply a timeline delivered in the last chapter of theology. We will however argue, against Moltmann and others who follow his lead, that eschatology is not a free-floating principle by which the Bible must be interpreted, but a part within the inner logic of our faith alongside other parts. There is Canon, God, Creation, Reconciliation, and then finally Redemption. The one criterion of interpretation is not a principle, but a living person: the risen Lord Christ.

Redemption is, like the other parts of church doctrine, a multidimensional aspect of the truth of the gospel, requiring careful unfolding in a series of subjects. These will include Pentecost, the kingdom of God, the church, the new society, the return of Christ, and the call to discipleship. In my judgment, it is these dimensions of the pattern of truth contained in the Bible that properly belong in the part on Redemption. Our standpoint for interpretation will be consistent throughout, following the rule of faith as attested in Scripture: we do not understand Jesus Christ in the light of redemption; rather, we understand redemption in the light of the crucified, risen, and exalted Lord, Jesus Christ.

And so we ask: what is our hope, as disciples of Christ?

1. Throughout this volume, we will use the doctrine of redemption and eschatology to mean the same thing.

2. Barth, Romans, 314.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., 315.

5. Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 16.

6. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1109–67. It is no secret that virtually the exact set of questions and answers can be found in innumerable conservative evangelical handbooks.

Part V: REDEMPTION

1

The Gift of the Spirit

In 1537—during the transition from Easter to Pentecost in fact—Martin Luther preached a series of sermons on John 14 to 16, the so-called Farewell Addresses of Jesus to his disciples. In these chapters, according to Luther, Christ himself gives what amounts to a sermon on the Holy Spirit.¹ The sermon of Christ contains, as it were, three points, spread across these three chapters in the Gospel of John.

First of all, the Spirit gives comfort. Without the Spirit, there is the smug self-righteousness of the world. By sharp contrast, those who struggle before God will be wretched and subject to despair because of the world and of themselves, unless they are especially preserved by strong and divine comfort from heaven.² The Holy Spirit is not a Spirit of anger and fear, but always brings grace and sheer consolation. Indeed, the Spirit is more powerful than one’s own unique feelings of anxiety and self-accusation. When God’s Word of free grace, and one’s own experience of one’s self, come into conflict, the Christian is called to believe in God’s gracious Word, not in the dictates of experience. And it is the Spirit alone who works this power in the human person: He is the one who can fill a saddened heart with laughter and joy toward God, bids you to be of good cheer because of the forgiveness of sins, slays death, opens heaven, and makes God smile upon you.³ Indeed, according to Luther, the Spirit is the comforter, in this way, of all the weak, not only for us but for everyone in the whole world.⁴ Thus, the scope of the Spirit’s work of comfort is focused on the church, but certainly not limited to it.

Second, the Spirit is also a Spirit of Truth.⁵ He is reliable; he will not deceive or fail. Because of this dimension of the Spirit’s work it is the mark of the Christian to live with boldness, intrepid before the threats of the world. Luther makes clear that he does not mean—that Christ in his sermon does not mean—a kind of foolhardy defiance, a daredevil display that has nothing to do with Christian confidence inspired by the Spirit.⁶ Such fearless defiance is in fact the worst kind of reliance on one’s own strength. Christ gives us the courage of truth, which is to put one’s confidence in those things that are genuinely reliable, things that do not fail or deceive.⁷ Thus, for Luther, truth is defined in reference to the absolute reliability of God in all things; so much so that the Christian can say, in desperate times, for his sake I will cheerfully suffer what I can. If anyone does not like it, he can lump it!⁸ This is the true, genuine defiance of the Holy Spirit, which is based, not only upon human pride or strength, but upon the absolute truth of God. If we must suffer in the truth, there is nothing for it but to let Christ worry about it, for he will by his Spirit without fail give us courage to endure.⁹

And third, the Spirit will renew in the hearts of God’s children the power of the gospel, the word of Jesus Christ. Sadly, the devil is an excellent theologian;¹⁰ a master at manipulating and distorting the teaching of Scripture to the hurt and terror of the sinner. The Spirit preaches Jesus Christ in the very heart, so that the Word of Christ is not only heard, but with the result that you need no longer have any doubt regarding the truth of this or that article pertaining to your salvation.¹¹ Every Christian will become a doctor and master in matters of faith, simply because the Spirit alone is the Teacher of the church. Where there is uncertainty, where the church is set against itself in schism and despair, the Spirit speaks: This is the truth; that is fabrication, no matter how long it is adorned with the name of the church and of Christ . . . .¹² Indeed, the crucial role of the Spirit in deciding the Truth in sovereign authority over the church is the Holy Spirit’s own specific office; by means of it one must discern all other doctrine.¹³ So, Luther, in his own sermons, on the Sermon of Christ concerning the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel.

Comfort, confidence, certainty; these are signs of the Spirit’s work in the community of faith. Without the presence of the Spirit, there is no church, no faith, no life for the Christian. Through the presence of the Spirit, there is peace without measure, hope without end, love without limit. We turn now to the church doctrine of the gift of the Spirit. The grammar is intentionally ambiguous. The Spirit is God himself present as gift to the church, and to the individual Christian. Likewise, the Spirit evokes a new creation as gift in the life of the community, and in the individual Christian life. The Spirit is the Giver and the Gift, and we now consider both dimensions of the Spirit’s work.

a. Creator Spirit

A brief survey of the church’s reflection upon the gift of the Spirit reveals slow growth, flashes of enormous insight, inexorable decline in understanding, profound misunderstanding, and badly missed opportunities along the way. As always, any notion of steady progress in the teaching of the church is betrayed by the periodic crises which both afflict and stimulate theological reflection, in this doctrine as in others.¹⁴

Much of the theological labor of the early church regarding the Holy Spirit was given to the task of simply asserting, once and for all, the deity of the Spirit, within the full matrix of the emerging doctrine of the Trinity. From Origen through Cyril of Jerusalem, and finally reaching full expression in Athanasius, the fully divine reality of the Spirit—coequal with the Father and the Son—is demonstrated from the witness of Scripture. The pinnacle of this trajectory of early church reflection is only finally reached in a sermon preached in 380 by Gregory of Nazianzus, the so-called Fifth Theological Oration. Gregory not only summarizes the issues which preceded his work, and many other theological positions that were still alive in his day, he uses the confusing picture presented to ordinary Christians to illuminate and clarify the content of the biblical witness in a brilliantly persuasive way, with influence far into the future. Some in Gregory’s day are still speaking of the Spirit as an impersonal force, still others as one of God’s exalted creatures, still others withholding any designation at all on the grounds that Scripture itself is ambiguous. Gregory will have none of it.

It is not enough, according to Gregory, merely to take a lexical approach; that it, merely to count up and catalogue the number of times Spirit is used in the Bible. In that kind of biblicism they fight for the letter, all the while failing to understand that it is the letter itself which is pointing to the eternal Spirit: "We will get us up into a high mountain, and will shout, if we be not heard,