Theology Thoughts

These thoughts are a compilation of answers to theological questions for a class in my Master’s program. These are not complete thoughts, but only thoughts of reflection.

What is the intended end of Christian Theology?

The intended end of Christian theology is spiritual formation. In Christian theology, we are retelling the story of the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to the written text of Scripture in a culturally appropriate way to bring people to a mature relationship with Christ. Christian theology involves the discussion of theological ideas using words, symbols, and actions. Thus, many things that we do at church fall into Christian theology. We portray symbols on the walls and through the ordinances, we sing, preach, and discuss God’s Word, and we take specific actions in our services. In creation we see God create humans for the purpose of relationship and then to grow in maturity in this relationship. God intends for us to grow in our relational knowledge of Him as we participate in communion with Him. This growth comes through spending time with God through His Word and spending time with other believers. God has given us His Word and community to point us back to Him. Specifically, God’s Word reveals the Son and tells us the story of the Gospel. This allows us to see God because those who have seen the Son have seen God. Thus, when we meet the Son, we meet God, and when we place our trust in Him as Savior and Lord, we enter the divine relationship that God originally intended for us. In Matthew 28:18–20 we see how God has given all authority to the Son and with that authority the Son sends believers out to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and teaching them to obey all Jesus has commanded us. Here, we see that part of our purpose as believers is to make disciples and to help lead others to spiritual maturity. We have been commissioned by the Son with lasting words to go and do these things. And in the end, the Son will be with us always through the power of the Holy Spirit. Some might say that the intended end of Christian theology is to find all the right answers to our doctrinal questions. Yet, this end points us to knowledge for intellectual sake, and this knowledge puffs up. This kind of knowledge does not bring us relationally closer to God in and of itself. This kind of knowledge allows pride to creep in, thinking that we know as much as God and that we have figured out all the answers to the questions. At this point, we might not need God anymore. So, we must acknowledge that the intended end of Christian theology isn’t intellectual knowledge, but spiritual formation in relationship with Christ. The difference between the two types of knowledge is small, but the result is two different places. In Ephesians 4, we see how God has given us the church united by Christ so seek maturity together. We as believers are meant to live in community and not isolation. Our theology cannot be siloed. Thus, Christian theology must be done in community using words, symbols, and actions. We grow together when we exchange ideas and when we understand how to be precise with the words we use. As we see God working in other’s lives and their spiritual maturity, we can grasp how to seek spiritual maturity ourselves. Walking alongside other believers who display maturity helps us to see what maturity might look like. Yet, none of this can be done without God or His Word. Spiritual maturity and Christian theology must not be separated from the Bible, because without the Bible, we would not be doing Christian theology, we would just be doing theology.

What is the starting place of Christian Theology?

The starting place of Christian theology is the Bible. The Bible is the written Word of God, and we hold it to be completely inerrant. As believers, we hold that the entirety of the Bible is true and that nothing inside it is false. To do Christian theology, one must turn to the Christian book, because it is here that one learns about the Christian God. Apart from the Bible we cannot find any new information about God. Thus, to do Christian theology, the starting place must be the Bible. But the Bible is so big! Where does one start when they go to the Bible? What about Genesis? What about Isaiah? Revelation? The Gospels? How do we know where to begin? In class, we talked about how Matthew 28:18–20 is a summary statement of the whole Bible. So, in class, whenever we introduced a new doctrine, we turned to this passage first to see what Jesus had to say and then expanded our scope to the greater body of the Bible. Matthew 28:18–20 goes from creation (heavens and earth) to recreation/Revelation (I am with you always to the end of the age). It only seems proper to start here when talking theology because these are Jesus’ last words and the whole Bible is encompassed in this statement. Some might say that we can look to nature to learn about God’s character. Well, this would be looking for truth outside the Bible and this would be wrong. A person might be able to look at creation and say that it serves as a marker to remind them of something about God, but a Christian cannot learn something about God from nature itself. Our starting place also cannot be other believers, even church fathers. Commentaries, church fathers, and other believers might be interpreting the Bible accurately, but we don’t want to look at their words first. We might look at their words later, but this cannot be where we start to form our theology. If we start here, we can easily be swayed by flowery words that are not actually true. In Christian theology we also must start with the Christian God. If we start with a concept of God that is first mover or an absolute good, then we are not talking about the Christian God. One might be asking a theological or philosophical question, but that person is not answering the question in a Christian way because they are not talking about the Christian God. So, to be doing Christian theology, one must be talking about the Christian God (Father, Son, Spirit) and finding answers in the Christian book (Bible). If we are talking about a different god or reading from a different book, then we won’t be doing Christian theology! Another point in this discussion is that all our arguments when debating Christian theology must be backed by the Bible. Now, proof-texting might not get us very far because we often come to the Bible with basic assumptions and impose those assumptions onto the Bible. An example of this is the word work in Genesis 2. We all have an image that comes to mind when we think about work and so when we read Genesis 2, we impose this image and definition into this word. Yet is this how the Bible is using this word? Does the author intend work here the same way we read the word work? Most likely not! Thus, our ideas, images, and definitions of biblical words must also be defined by the Bible. This enables us to start with the Bible when it comes to the formulation of ideas in Christian theology!

Is the Bible the record of revelation or is it the revelation of God?

The Bible is the revelation of God, not the record of revelation. To accurately defend this answer, we must define record and revelation. A record is a report of something that happened in the past. It is a historical account of events with minimal intention by the author to make meaning apart from the events themselves. A record normally goes chronologically, giving details and recounting what took place. By revelation, we mean the unveiling of an account that points to a greater mystery or entity. The Bible is a revelation because it reveals to us the Christian God. The Bible is God’s way of revealing Himself to humanity. The Bible states in 2 Timothy 3 that all of Scripture is breathed out by God and is useful teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. Scripture also makes us wise unto salvation by introducing us to the Son. Thus, the Bible is the revelation of the Son, who is the image of the invisible God. So how come the Bible can’t be both revelation and record? These two seem compatible. Why can’t the Bible be a record of the revelation of God? By saying that the Bible is a record of revelation we would be admitting that the Bible is a mere report of events that happened and that it might not hold meaning for us today. By adding record here, we are admitting that the Bible was written for specific people at specific times and that it might not have any benefit for those who are outside of Israel or who did not live during the time of Jesus. However, we cannot admit these things and hold firmly to the Word of truth. The Bible is still applicable in our lives today. The revelation of God is appropriate for every person and every moment in history and never changes. The Word itself is timeless and inerrant. The Word of God is meant for all people and never for just Israel. God has crafted the Bible through human hands to create cohesive meaning and putting forth a grand narrative of redemption through the Son. The Bible is not just many stories put side by side, but one whole revelation of God through the Son. God intentionally wove the Bible together as author to create meaning that is still relevant for us today. But didn’t human authors write these books? Yes, and at the same time God is the author. God working through the Holy Spirit inspired human authors as they wrote so that they ultimately point to the Son. In Old Testament, we talked about how the Bible is not a window for us to look at the events in the past. Moses did not walk around with a video camera recording everything that occurred. He intentionally chose to write about events that would point those who read to trust in Yahweh, the one true God and to show that it is only through trusting in God that we would be blessed. God used Moses to reveal to us truth about the Son and to point us to the greater fulfillment of the Son in the New Testament. This methodology can be applied to the whole Bible when it comes to authors. God used the human authors to craft meaning through their own styles to reveal the Son. And through revealing the Son, we can come to know God and participate in divine life alongside the Trinity. Ultimately, for Scripture to be applicable for us today, it must not be a record of revelation but a revelation of God! We must treat Scripture as such!

If someone found another letter written by Paul to a church, would we read it as authoritative? Explain your answer.

There is no room for addition to the canon in any case because the canon is closed. Thus, if someone found another letter written by Paul to a church, we would not read it as authoritative. But why not? This question has to do with the authority of Scripture and why we read it in the form we do today. The first argument that comes to mind is Jesus words in Matthew 5:18. In this passage, Jesus states that not even the smallest letter or tiniest stroke of a pen will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Here we see Jesus showing that He will protect His Word and will not let any of it pass away. We can trust completely in the sovereignty of God and trust that He has sustained His Word for us today and has brought it to us without error or fault. This would mean that the Bible we have today, that has been passed down by believers throughout generations is reliable and accurate because God has protected it. If God wanted this “newfound” letter of Paul in the Bible, He would have included it from the very beginning with the rest of Paul’s letters. But God did not include this letter and so we can say with confidence that we would not read it as authoritative. We also see Paul say in 2 Timothy that the Scripture we have is sufficient for life and godliness. John says that the signs and miracles written in his book are written so that we may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and that by believing we might have life in his name. He also says here that there are many more works that Jesus did that could fill all the books of the world. Yet, John chose to write only a select few things down through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Here, we see a prime example of God including certain things and leaving out other events. We are told that we have all we need for eternal life! Thus, the Bible we have today is all we need! God has protected it and we are not in need of anything else! In class we talked about how the Bible is the revelation of the Son and that when we read the Bible, we see the Son. If we are missing parts of the Bible, aren’t we missing parts of the Son? Do you really think that God has not completed His revelation and protected it until this time? When considering the biblical data, we must conclude that God has completed His revelation and that He has protected it! God has given us everything we need for life and godliness and has shown us exactly what we needed to know to have a relationship with Him. Lastly, if a letter to Paul was found now, it would be quite hard to show that this letter was from Paul and not forged by someone else to make it look this way. Having only one copy of a letter does not give credibility or authority. For the Bible, we have thousands of manuscripts that bolster the credibility of the books that we have today. Despite minor differences, the sheer number of manuscripts that corroborate each other highlight the reliability that we can have in our Bible today. On this point, humans themselves do not give authority to a text of Scripture, we just recognize the authority that is inherent in the Bible itself. Thus, humanity is not the arbiter of authority but the one and only Sovereign God is the arbiter of authority.

Can someone be a Christian without believing in the Triune God?

A person cannot be a Christian without believing in the Triune God. To begin formulating a defense for this statement I turn to Matthew 28:18–20. Here, Jesus says that a person is made a disciple by being taught all Jesus has commanded and by being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, one of the very first requirements of becoming a believer is professing faith in the Triune God! In baptism, we are professing to the church that we have accepted this basic truth. We have identified the god we believe in as the Triune God of the Bible and not any other “god.” Thus, to be able to identify as a Christian one must identify with the fact that the God that they believe in is Triune. If the person cannot agree to this, then they cannot be a Christian since this is a foundational truth found in the Bible. A person can believe that god is anything, from a golden calf to a pole, to the sun or the moon. Yet, this belief does not make them a Christian, it makes them an idolater. They are believing a false god that is not the God of the Bible. In Exodus, Yahweh gives the 10 Commandments and states that there is one God and that we should have no other before him. In the Shema, we again see how our God the one and only God. Yet, is the God of Jews the same as the God of Christians since we are pulling from the Old Testament? No! They are not the same. Christians profess that the God of the OT is the Triune God while Jews would profess that God in the Tanakh is one entity or being (Father). This demarcation between Jews and Christians displays why believing in the Triune God is a foundational belief. In the New Testament we see Jesus saying that He and the Father are one and that those who have seen Him have seen the Father. There is no distinction here in deity but there is a distinction here in relation and in person. We as Christians must confess that Jesus is fully God and fully man and that God is Triune! If we do not confess this truth, then we are not a Christian, we are following another religion entirely. The concept of Trinity is hard for us to fathom, but for all eternity God has been in relationship with Himself. In class we talked about how the Father, Son, and Spirit were all present and active in creation. We talked about how in the beginning, by means of the Son the Father created the heavens and the earth. God has always been Triune, in community with Himself and will never not be Triune. If we forsake this line of thinking (the meshing of God’s threeness with God’s oneness) then we will commit heresy. We cannot deny God’s threeness or His oneness! We cannot separate them into three distinct gods because if we do this would be tritheism and we are monotheists. We cannot put them into dynamic tiers. We must stand firm in the face of any attempt that tries to get rid of either side because this is not orthodox Christian belief. So, when introducing people to the God we believe in, we must start by introducing them to the Triune God! We do so by introducing them to the Son because when they see the Son, they have seen the Father because they are one! Therefore, a person cannot be a Christian without believing in the Triune God because if they do not believe in the Triune God then they are practicing an entirely different religion!

What does it mean that God is Father?

Father. This term seems simple when I think about it physically. I have a physical father who is in my life, has had some authority over me, and loves me no matter what. Yet, when we apply this term to God, does it mean the same thing? What exactly does it mean that God is Father? Theologically, God is Father because He is in relationship with the Son. For God to be Father, there must be some sort of “child” relationship. Father describes one of the three persons of God ontologically. This is part of God’s being. Because there is a Son, there must be a Father. The Bible reveals to us Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus goes on to say that when one sees me, they have seen the Father. This implies a oneness with the Father and the Son, yet also shows a distinction between the two persons. So, father is a relational term that describes a portion of how the three persons in the Godhead relate to one another. Logically, since there is a Son, there must be a Father. If there is no Father, there can’t be Son, and vice versa. The two have eternally existed as God and there was never a point where neither were God. Ontologically, God is also love as it states in 1 John 4. This implies that internally, in His being, God the Father is love. However, this is not all the Bible means when it names God as Father. Not only does the Bible speak of Father ontologically or internally, but the Bible speaks of Father economically/externally. When we speak of the economy of God, we are pointing to the work of God in his actions towards humans. This is also a relational work, but it is an external relational work toward something other than God (humans). This external work includes creation, sanctification, and holding the world together to accomplish His ultimate purpose. In creation, God is Father because through the Son, the Father brought us into being. He made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. God is our maker, our creator, and He cares for His creation. Since God is ontologically love, the external work that He does flows out of this love. Thus, our loving Father made us with intentionality and care. Being Father, God cares about us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually (with spiritually being the most important). God provides us peace, satisfaction, and joy. Yet, we can only experience this if we are participating in the divine life and have received salvation. This is yet another work of the Father. Through the incarnation and propitiation of the Son, the Father has completed the work and invited us to participate in his internal relationship externally. This is what is meant when the Bible says that we have become sons of God. We can now participate fully in the divine life with the Father through Christ and the Holy Spirit. God has extended his internal relationship externally to us as humans and invited us to experience the fullness of humanity in salvation. This is what it means for God to be Father. He has given of Himself (the Son) to invite us to participate in the divine life. We can be adopted into His family because He is Father. We become co-heirs with Christ and share in this inheritance. In saying God is Father, we are emphasizing both his internal and external work, displaying to others the beautiful relationship that one can have with God as a believer. Through the Son, we can experience love for all eternity!

Why is the creation account the first narrative in the Bible?

The creation account is the first narrative in the Bible because it lays the groundwork for the rest of the Bible by introducing language that the Bible will use throughout and by introducing us to the purpose of God that will be repeated till the end. The creation narrative is not merely recounting the events of creation so we can know how the world was created, but it is showing us God’s reason for creating and giving us clues to his goal in creating. God’s intended purpose is to dwell with His creation in the place He creates for them. This purpose never changes throughout the Bible. We see this emphasized in God creating a land for Adam and Eve to dwell with Him and repeated in Revelation when the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven with the new heavens and the new earth. Ultimately, the fullness of God dwells bodily in Christ, with the incarnation being the epitome of God dwelling with humanity. So, the creation account shows us God’s original purpose and telos for creation! We must go no further than creation to see the why of God creating and to see God’s goal for His creation! So, even in the Fall, God’s purposes were not changed. God has always planned to dwell with His creation and the culmination of this is in Christ. On top of giving us the purpose or telos of God, creation also gives us language that God uses throughout the Bible. Jesus in Matthew 28:18–20 used the phrase heaven and earth and authority. How do we know what these words mean? We know what these mean because of Genesis! The language of creation is repeated by the prophets, Gospels, and Paul. Repeatedly authors pull from this language to remind us that God’s purpose is to dwell with His people in the place He has made. In creation, we see God taking a rib from Adam’s side. Why did he take a rib and not a toe or an arm? God pierced Adam’s side to give life so that when we see Christ pierced on the cross, we recognize that God is giving life here too! So, we can clearly see how the Bible is using the language of creation to accomplish greater purposes than just telling us about the events of creation. There is great theological language that cannot be missed here. Often, people silo creation as its own doctrine, disconnecting it from everything else. But we cannot do such a thing. God could have chosen to put creation anywhere in the Bible, or even not include it! Yet, He put it first, so we can see the importance of creation. We cannot silo creation away from the other doctrines, but we must let it inform our thinking in everything else. The biblical authors did this often. John introduced his gospel by interpreting Genesis 1 through the Son. Paul did this in Colossians when he talked about how the Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation and through Him all things were created. If the biblical writers viewed the creation account this way, should we not view it the same way? So, we must get back to a place that values creation not only for the events, but also God’s purposes in creating. This will allow us to connect creation to the grand narrative of Scripture in a more cohesive way, enabling us to place proper value on God’s Word and His redemptive work through the cross to restore us to participation in the divine life.

Is it necessary to believe that the days in Genesis were 24 hour days?

Is it necessary to believe that the days in Genesis were 24-hour days? No, it is not necessary to believe this statement because necessity implies that if one does not believe that the days in Genesis were 24-hour periods then they will not be saved. This question does not present a salvation issue and does not directly deal with how one can get to heaven. Thus, a person can believe that they were literal 24-hour periods, or one can believe that the days were figurative representing a potentially longer amount of time. Both sides of this argument can try to establish proofs for their belief, but neither side can ultimately prove their defenses. Other than using the Hebrew word yohm for day, which is the common word for day in Hebrew, and “evening and morning,” God does not indicate anything about the timing. God, being ontologically different from humans perceives time differently than us. But, in the Bible, God had to write in such a way that humans could understand what occurred. So, God had Moses use the Hebrew word yohm and had him write, “and it was evening, and it was morning.” This enables the reader to understand that some time has passed but can leave the interpretation of how much time open to the reader. Since creation is not just about recounting the events of creation but about establishing God’s reasons for creating, one can conclude that the timing of events is not critical. This is because the creation account is about showing us how God desires to dwell with His creation in the land He made for them, while also providing for them! God creates so more beings can participate in the divine life! God is relational and community is important to Him. So, human beings were created with the purpose of participating in this divine life for eternity! If human beings were meant to do this for eternity, does how long creation took really matter? In Psalms 90:4, we even see the Psalmist saying that a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day! Time works differently for God than for human beings. He interacts with space and time different than us because we are in space and time at certain points while God can interact with all space and time simultaneously. Peter even uses this Psalm when he references the second coming, which is in the future! So, time to God is a mystery to us because God interacts with time differently than we do. Since how God interacts with time is a mystery to us and God used language in the Bible that we as humans would understand, it is not plausible to be 100% sure that the day in Genesis 1 was a literal 24-hour period. And since the only requirement for salvation is to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, then we cannot add anything as a necessity. The Bible shows that eternal life is only through the Son and that God’s work was completed in Christ at the cross. There is nothing else that we need for salvation other than faith/belief. We cannot say that it is Jesus plus anything else that gives salvation. If we say this, then we are going against the Bible. Some questions require us to say yes or no. An example of this would be, “Is Jesus God?” If we say no, we are espousing something other than Christianity. But believing in two different views of the days in Genesis does not put us outside the waters of orthodoxy, and therefore, it is not necessary to believe that the days in Genesis were 24-hour days.

What is the significance of Adam being made from the dust of the earth?

Adam is made from the dust of the earth rather than the air or just being brought forth by God. Is this important for us? Is there theological significance? Of course! The significance of Adam being made from the dust of the earth is that this is where his humanity/physical life comes from. God is ontologically different from humanity and Adam being made from the dust of the earth signifies this physical life that Adam has that is different from God’s life. We see this distinction made clear by God breathing the breath of life into Adam after he has been created by God. By physical life, we do not mean that Adam was an empty shell or zombie walking around, but that when God made Adam, He fully formed him into a man that could walk, talk, and think. This is because when Adam receives the breath of life, He is receiving the divine life and can participate in the divine life and community that God has eternally within the Trinity. Therefore, when Adam is kicked out of the garden for sin, and “loses” life, he does not physically die, but spiritually. He does not revert to a zombie or an empty shell when kicked out of the garden, but he has died in the sense that he has lost access to the divine life and participation in it! Therefore, the creation narrative gives us language for the distinction between divine life and physical life, necessitating the language of being born again that is used later in the Bible. It is for this reason that we see Jesus born of a woman. It is through being born of a woman, who herself is descended from Adam that the Son receives humanity. Jesus is referred to as the second Adam and the better Adam because he fully obeys and does all that Adam could not do. Thus, the Son is fully God and fully man! On another note, in the new heavens and new earth, God does not intend for us to become anything other than human. We do not magically become something ontologically different in eternity, but in eternity we will have new human bodies that will no longer be sorrowful or full of death. We will once again be humans as God originally designed, participating in the divine life with God for the rest of eternity. A second reason that Adam was made from the dust of the earth is that through the earth, God gives provision for physical life. Before Adam sinned, water came up from the ground to water the plants in the garden. God calls forth animals from the ground as well! God has called forth physical life from the ground many times and it is no different with Adam. Therefore, in our baptism, we are symbolically put into the ground and then raised out of the ground to walk in a newness of life. We have identified with the second Adam who has lived a perfect life that none of us who are in the first Adam could have lived. Jesus has defeated death through the resurrection after going back to the dust in which humanity was originally created. God knew from the very beginning that this language would be used for baptism and the second Adam. So, God formed the first man from the dust of the earth to provide language for the here and now. In conclusion, we have seen that there is massive theological significance to Adam being made from the dust of the earth as it shows us the distinction between physical life and divine life as well as gives us language for baptism and resurrection!

What does it mean that Adam and Eve were made in the image of God?

Imago Dei. The image of God. Such a small phrase, yet this phrase is packed with meaning. Yet, what exactly is this meaning? What does it mean for Adam and Eve to have been made in the image of God? As I begin to think about this phrase, the idea that comes to mind first is that Adam and Eve were created as a representation of God in human form. Yet, nothing about humans physically relate to God. God is ontologically different and when Scripture uses phrases such as “the hand of God,” it does so anthropomorphically. God may not really have a hand that we can imagine or a physical body. Thus, our starting point in thinking about what it means for Adam and Eve to be made in the image cannot be man, but it must be God. We cannot throw back onto God a greater version of ourselves and call that God. Being made in the image of God does not mean that humans are little gods either. Humans are ontologically different beings and thus are humans. To think about what it means to be made in the image of God, we must start with what it means to be God. God in Himself is in relationship. God is a relational God and desires for humans to be in relationship as well. Thus, humans were designed to be in relationship with one another and with God. In this way, humans were created in the image of God. God is love. Humans were created with the ability to love and worship God and to experience a wonderful relationship with him. In His economy, God is creator, merciful, gracious, eternal, king and Lord. Humans were created with an innate desire to be creative, to care for others and to have dominion over the rest of the planet. Humans were also created to be in eternal relationship with God. Until the Fall, this reality looked like it could occur. Humans were made in the image of God, after God’s likeness. Thus, man was created to be like God, but not to be God. So, as one can see, to be made in the image of God gives Adam and Eve purpose and identity. To be made in the image of God constitutes who Adam and Eve are as a whole. Yet, this purpose and identity is not physical but intellectual, relational, and spiritual. Adam and Eve are given the purpose of participating in relationship with God, having dominion over the earth, and to love one another as they love God. Adam and Eve are given the identity of image-bearers. This identity is imbued with creative desires, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Originally, they were created to live out this purpose and identity eternally, yet they sinned and were not allowed to live into eternity. It is at this point that some stipulate that they lost the image of God. Some stipulate partially and some stipulate completely. Thus, the image of God is potentially something that could be lost and regained and is separate from us physically. But are they right? Is the image of God completely gone after the Fall? Or is there some portion that is left? Is it all intellectual and spiritual? Since God is completely other ontologically than humans, I must postulate that the image of God is not physical in the capacity that we would think, but that it is spiritual, mental, intellectual, and emotional. Overall, being made in the image of God gives Adam and Eve purpose and identity, with the image of God being a reflection of God’s character, attributes, and economy.