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Scandalous Sacraments

Last updated on: April 30, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Jesus called people to eat his flesh and drink His blood (John 6). It scandalized His hearers and led to accusations of cannibalism. Christian mystics have spoken of sacramental communion with erotic overtones, using the love-feast of the Song of Songs as a paradigm. Brannon Hancock thinks that much Christian sacramental theology has softened the scandal. Traditional definitions of sacraments as “visible signs of invisible grace” can obscure the fact that “God’s grace comes to us through materiality” (14). The... Read more

Abigail, Christ-Type

Last updated on: April 30, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

While David is fleeing from Saul, he spends time near Carmel, guarding and assisting the shepherds of the wealthy Nabal. When he asks Nabal to let his men participate in the sheep-shearing festivities, Nabal rebuffs him, and David gets ready to attack Nabal’s house (1 Samuel 25). Fortunately, Nabal has a wise, courageous, and cunning wife who intervenes to stop David in his tracks and save her undeserving husband. She goes to meet David, sending gifts before her (like Jacob... Read more

Eternal Life

Last updated on: April 30, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

It’s common – and correct – to say that “eternal life” doesn’t just refer to the duration of life. It refers to a quality of life. But we ought not to skip past the duration issue too rapidly. Duration affects quality. Knowing that we are heading toward death changes the way we experience life. Knowing that death is a passage to a new life that never ends changes the way life feels. If you want to know if duration affects... Read more

Doorkeeper

Last updated on: April 29, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

From the whirlwind, Yahweh reveals His creative power to Job, challenging Job with a repeated “where were you when. . . ?” The focus is on Yahweh’s power to create, but several times He describes His power as the power to set up dates and doors. It was Yahweh who “enclosed the sea with doors” and “placed boundaries on it,” setting “a bolt and doors” (38:8, 10). The sear bursts from its “womb” wild and uncontrollable. Yahweh alone is Lord... Read more

Doorkeeper

Last updated on: April 29, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

From the whirlwind, Yahweh reveals His creative power to Job, challenging Job with a repeated “where were you when. . . ?” The focus is on Yahweh’s power to create, but several times He describes His power as the power to set up dates and doors. It was Yahweh who “enclosed the sea with doors” and “placed boundaries on it,” setting “a bolt and doors” (38:8, 10). The sear bursts from its “womb” wild and uncontrollable. Yahweh alone is Lord... Read more

Final Judgment

Last updated on: April 29, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In an earlier post, I noted that Revelation 4 describes not only a heavenly temple but a heavenly court. But the judgment isn’t passed until chapter 20, when the saints have taken thrones to share in the proceedings. The beasts have already been throne into the lake of fire and the harlot city is smoldering ruins, but the Lord doesn’t pass final judgment on the dragon until the saints are enthroned to judge alongside Him. “You shall judge angels,” Paul says... Read more

Final Judgment

Last updated on: April 29, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In an earlier post, I noted that Revelation 4 describes not only a heavenly temple but a heavenly court. But the judgment isn’t passed until chapter 20, when the saints have taken thrones to share in the proceedings. The beasts have already been throne into the lake of fire and the harlot city is smoldering ruins, but the Lord doesn’t pass final judgment on the dragon until the saints are enthroned to judge alongside Him. “You shall judge angels,” Paul says... Read more

Contested Reform

Last updated on: April 29, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

According to John Thiel’s analysis in Senses of Tradition (154), innovation in the church often seems initially to be a threat to tradition: “The ecclesial investment in constancy often leads to the eclipse of the ‘still’ of the present and the ‘will be’ of the future by the ‘always’ of the past. This is particularly true of the traditional duration that extends from the present through the open future. Prospective conceptions of tradition, whether classical or modern, make the shape of... Read more

Natural Consensus?

Last updated on: April 29, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Brad Gregory (Unintended Reformation) emphasizes the role of Christian division in the formation of modern institutions and ideologies. But he also shows at several points that the modern efforts to head off the unintended consequences of the Reformation failed or even made the disease worse. Natural law was one of the solutions to interminable theological debates. Confessional divisions could not be reconciled; nature could transcend because it was shared by all. It didn’t turn out that way: both the notions... Read more

Incipient Modernism

Last updated on: April 29, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Daniel Albright observes in his Panaesthetics that Renaissance perspective “is more unnatural, even seditious to nature, than it first appears” (49). The reason is that “Perspective is less concerned with objects than with space – it lavishes its resources on relations, not on things. In some Renaissance paintings, the thing seems arbitrary, chosen mostly for its usefulness in describing flamboyance of space” (49). He offers an example Perugino’s painting of Christ conferring the keys, in the background of which is a building... Read more

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