In Exodus, Israel moves, as James Jordan has long said, from slavery to Sabbath. That is a beautiful summary of the book, but it must be filled out. The full movement is from slavery to Sinai to Sabbath. Sinai is a way-station, and a necessary one, on the way to Sabbath. Sinai is the mountain of covenant-making. Yahweh descends to Sinai as Israel’s Father, Master, Lord, Deliverer. He comes also as Israel’s Lover to adorn her with the treasures of... Read more
In his 1956 The Cinema, or The Imaginary Man, Edgar Morin observes that cinema might have been turned to practical uses instead of spectacle. Its fate could have been the fate of the flying machine and the automobile: “All the commentaries in 1896 looked toward the scientific future of the apparatus devised by the Lumiere brothers, who, twenty-five years later, still regarded the spectacle of cinema as an accident” (6). Instead, it becomes the stuff on which dreams are made:... Read more
The resurrection was a judicial act, the Father’s response to Jesus who “handed himself over to the righteous Judge” (1 Peter 2:23). But what is the verdict? What is the Father saying about Jesus, to Jesus, to us, in the resurrection? Raymund Schwager (Jesus in the Drama of Salvation) puts it this way: “The action of the Father at Easter is to be understood as a judgment by which he takes up a position in the conflict between the claim... Read more
Why did Jesus die on a cross? Thomas asks (ST III, 46, 4). He gives a variety of answers: Adam sinned at a tree, so Jesus saves at a tree; Jesus suffered in the air to purify the atmosphere; Jesus was elevated in death to show us the way of ascent; the four-cornered cross indicates that salvation spreads to the four corners of the earth. Then this from Augustine: “Not without purpose did He choose this class of death, that... Read more
In Raymund Schwager’s dramatic analysis of the atonement, Jesus comes proclaiming the kingdom of His good Father, meets rejection and begins to warn of judgment, and then, in a surprising twist, Himself goes to judgment. Jesus’ subjection to judgment does not relieve His opponents of judgment. On the contrary, they are judged just as they subject Jesus to judgment. This is not what they thought they were doing, but “there was a great gulf between their evaluation of themselves and... Read more
Jesus was a unifier – of his opponents as much as of his followers. As Raymund Schwager says, Jesus turned “all sections of the Jewish leadership against him,” and this was “a decisive factor in their cooperation” (Jesus in the Drama of Salvation, 89, quoting R. Pesch). He got the Romans and Jews together too: “The Messiah question . . . brought together Jewish and Roman fears or interests against Jesus” and this enabled His accusers to shift the accusations... Read more
Atonement theories can be seen as efforts to synthesize the grace and judgment of God: How does He show grace to a race that deserves condemnation. Solutions are often sought systematic syntheses, and there is something to that: The cross proves God to be just and the justifier of those who are of the faith of Jesus. But the synoptics’ resolution is different. In the history of Jesus, grace and judgment are two phases of a unified drama of Jesus’... Read more
God gave us the book of Proverbs to teach us wisdom. Partly, He does that by teaching us the content of Proverbs. But he is also teaching us wisdom by the way He communicates wisdom. Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of kings to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search out a matter.” God hid the secrets of the universe from us. Adam and Abraham knew nothing about atoms and nuclei, much less quarks and... Read more
Psalm 128 promises a fruitful home to the man who fears Yahweh. He will prosper from the labor of his hands, with no one plundering or taxing away his goods. The assumption is that productive work is part of family life. The family is an economic unit, among other things, not only consuming goods but producing goods. Both Psalms 127 and 128 emphasize this. Psalm 127 emphasizes that our labor is fruitful and productive, our work is blessed, only under... Read more
One of the best and most comprehensive of the new works on the development of Nicene theology is John Behr’s Formation of Christian Theology. The second volume covers the “Nicene Faith,” examining the theological background of the Arian debate, the development of the controversy, and the theologies of Athanasius and the Cappadocians. Behr has drawn the best insights from current scholarship, but much of his book is a lucid and detailed exposition of the main treatises of the most important... Read more
Select your answer to see how you score.
Leithart
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In