Searching for the Righteousness of God at Gordon-Conwell: The New Perspectives and the “Downsizing” of the Law?

By John Jefferson Davis
Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics

I

was at the xerox machine in the faculty workroom, duplicating some class handouts for my Systematic Theology III class on Justification and the “New Perspectives.” A faculty colleague whose classes also address these issued happened to be passing by, and our conversation turned into an animated and vigorous discussion on justification, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, the “New Perspectives on Paul”, the role of good works in the final judgment, the definition of the “righteousness of God,” and other important matters in biblical theology and the doctrine of salvation. Several other faculty colleagues were in and out of the discussion, which lasted for about 90 minutes, and several students who happened to be there at the time enjoyed this somewhat unusual opportunity to hear two faculty members engage in friendly discussion and debate on matters that are at the heart of our biblical faith.

He graciously gave me some of his class handouts on these issues, and I gave him copies of mine, and both agreed that further discussions on these topics would be good for us, and for the school as a whole. In case you are interested in these discussions, I want to make available to you by the following links several of the class handouts that I am using in my theology classes: “Where N.T. Wright Isn’t Quite Right: Further Brief Perspectives on the New Perspectives” [revised version]; “Reflections on the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ,” defending the imputation of Christ’s active obedience, and responding to some objections; and “On ‘Righteousness’ of God, Man, and the Law”, arguing against a “New Perspectives” definition of the “righteousness of God” which tends to reduce it to a generalized sense of “covenant faithfulness,” and so tends to “downsize,” so to speak, the concrete demands of the moral law in salvation and the Christian life.

I hope you might find these materials helpful as you continue to proclaim with clarity and confidence the wonderful saving truth that because of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, we can stand confident before the throne of God, clothed in Jesus’s blood and righteousness.

How to Get More Out of Committee Meetings in Your Church

By John Jefferson Davis
Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics

Can you relate to the following scenario? Two friends meet one evening in the church parking lot and one says, “I have just come out of a mind-numbing budget committee meeting at the church. I can only stare at lines of numbers on spreadsheets for so long before my eyes glaze over.”

Most of us can remember committee meetings in our churches that, if not exactly “mind numbing,” have left us tired and frustrated, with the feeling that all the talk and discussion and debate had not accomplished as much as we would have hoped. Perhaps we find it difficult to rest well that night, our minds still running with the unresolved issues and tensions of the meeting. Many of us spend a lot of time in our church or other Christian organization going to meetings. Does Scripture give us any hints as to how committee meetings in the church can be more satisfying and productive? The good news is that the answer is a definite “Yes!” Let’s consider briefly a number of key passages that can take our meetings to a whole new level of satisfaction and fruitfulness.

Before looking at the first passage – Exodus 4:2 – we can stop to observe that typically, church committee meetings follow a pattern like this: 1) open with a sincere (but somewhat token) prayer for God’s guidance; 2) individuals on the committee share their ideas and have discussion and debate; 3) a plan of action is adopted; 4) the meeting is closed in prayer, asking God to bless the plans that we have made. As we shall see, a more biblical pattern would look something like this: 1) united prayer, seeking a common mind; 2) corporately listening for the voice and plan of God in the midst of the discussion; 3) being energized by the Spirit of God to execute God’s ideas (cf. Acts 13:1,2, the church at Antioch, energized and united for mission).

Principle One: Relinquishing Our Agendas to God: “What Is That In Your Hand?”

In the call of Moses God meets Moses at the burning bush, and later in the conversation asks Moses the question, “What is that in your hand?” (Ex.4:2). Moses answers, “a staff.” God tells Moses to throw the staff on the ground, and it becomes a serpent. God commands Moses to pick it up again, and it becomes a staff – which later God uses, in the hands of Moses, to part the Red Sea waters. The “staff” can be a symbol for those things that we bring to the meeting: our ideas, our agendas, our knowledge, expertise, training, and hopes for the church. God asks us to throw our staffs on the ground – to relinquish and surrender our ideas and agendas to him, so that he can return them in a form that has been transformed and energized by God’s own power. This conscious and intentional act of each committee member being willing to relinquish control and surrender his or her “staff” to God is the first step for having God’s empowerment for the committee’s work.

Principle Two: Seeking a Common Mind: the Principle of Spiritual Alignment

Another beautiful picture of extraordinarily fruitful “committee work” in the church is found in Acts 1:14: “They all joined together constantly in prayer” (Acts 1:14). Jesus had commanded the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Father sent the gift of the Holy Spirit to energize them for mission (Acts 1:4,8). In 1:14 Luke uses the relatively infrequent word in New Testament Greek, homothumadon, which means “of one mind” or “of one purpose.” Luke also uses the same word to describe the unity of the early Jerusalem church in worship and fellowship (Acts 2:46) and in the praise of God (Acts 4:24). This significant word homothumadon signifies that the disciples in Acts 1 were “on the same page” – not only being in the same place physically and geographically (in the upper room), but in the “same place” mentally and consciously, with shared understanding and purpose. This could be called the principle of spiritual alignment: when the disciples were united, with their minds aligned with the purpose and plan of God, the Spirit powerfully energized their mission (Acts 2), and the church expanded in effective mission (Acts 3 - 28). The key here is to see the critical order of the process: 1) achieving unity of mind; 2) being empowered by the Spirit; 3) engaging in fruitful mission. All too often, “conventional” work in the church tries to accomplish step #3 without first achieving steps #1 and #2. The powerful transition from Acts 1 (“common mind”; “alignment”) to Acts 2 (empowerment by the Spirit) is reflective of the fact that the “Acts 1” unity is an answer to Jesus’ Jn.17 prayer for Christian unity – and of the fact that Jesus blesses richly those who obediently align themselves as answers to his prayer!

This crucial principle of alignment can be illustrated as follows: an ordinary bar of iron has countless iron molecules each of which is a tiny magnet (“dipole”), but the bar of iron as a whole has no magnetic force, because the individual iron molecules are oriented in random directions, and the little individual molecular magnets cancel one another out. If you take a powerful magnet and stroke the iron bar repeatedly, the molecules in the bar become aligned, the little magnets are working in the same direction, and an ordinary bar itself has become a powerful magnet that can do some “heavy lifting.”

Or consider the advice that the coach of the legendary hockey team – TeamUSA – that upset the Russians in the 1980 Winter Olympics – gave to his players: “Forget the name on the back of your jersey – your name – the only name that matters is the name on the front of the jersey: TeamUSA.” The being-of-one-mind alignment of TeamUSA lifted a talented collection of individual hockey players to an extraordinary level of team effectiveness.

Principle Three: Lectio Divina Committee Listening: Listening as Body of Christ

A third principle of effective committee meetings in the church could be called “lectio divina committee listening.” Most of us are familiar with the lectio divina method of scriptural prayer and meditation: a quiet, unhurried, contemplative and meditative listening to a passage of Scripture read perhaps several times, with a view to hearing the voice of God speaking to us through the biblical word. The same posture and attitude can inform how we listen to one another during the meeting. All too often, in the typical meeting, after the opening prayer we revert to our individualistic mode of relating, not really acting as though we really believed that we were connected as Body of Christ; not listening to one another intently and empathically, but being preoccupied with preparing our own statements so that we can voice our own ideas when we “get the microphone.” In the lectio divina model of committee listening, the committee members bring an awareness that as they meet, they are an expression of the Body of Christ, not autonomous individuals. They patiently try to hear what God might be wanting to say through the other members of the body.

This lectio divina style of committee listening can in itself be a small answer to Jesus’ High Priestly prayer for Christian unity (Jn.17:21) that the disciples would be one as he was one with the Father. Christian unity is not just about the “macro” issues of interdenominational relations – but can start at the “micro” level of a church committee meeting.

This type of listening was modeled by Jesus himself: “I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me … what I have heard from him I tell to the world” (Jn.8:28;26). These principles of having a “common mind” and “listening” are so powerful because they reflect the very inner life of the Triune God, manifested in the life and ministry of Jesus, and in Jesus’ relation to the Father: Jesus first listens to the Father; then aligns his mind with the Father’s mind; relinquishes his will to the Father’s will; and is then empowered by the Spirit for effective and fruitful ministry (cf. Lk.3:21, at the baptism: “as he was praying”; 4:1-13: listening to God/testing in the desert; 4:14: “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit”).

In the plan of salvation, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit always work as a team – not as independent individuals. A church committee that patterns its methods of work on the model of the Trinity and on Jesus’ relationship to the Father will discover that God will bless the work in extraordinary ways.

A Concluding Summary: Some Suggestion on “How To”:

To conclude, how could these principles be applied in practice? Here are some suggestions: First, the leader of the meeting could recount the story of Moses (“What is that in your hand?”), and invite the members to “throw their staffs on the ground” at the outset of the meeting. Second, the committee spends some time in quiet prayer, asking for Christ to bring about a common mind, and asking the Holy Spirit to be present, and to help in attentive listening for hearing and discerning the Father’s ideas as the members speak with one another. Third, the committee then engages in its discussions and agenda items, but with a consciousness that “We are ‘Body of Christ’ as we meet as a committee – not separate and autonomous individuals.”

Fourth, and finally, before the close of the meeting, the committee again spends some time in quiet, silent reflection, asking God to “push forward” the ideas and action items that he wants to go forward. At the close of the time of silent reflection, the leader attempts to articulate any consensus that seems to have emerged, or items about which consensus has not been achieved.

It’s not rocket science; it is really quite simple. Try it in your next church committee meeting, and see if God turns what could be just another meeting into a surprisingly fruitful event in the life of the parish. Believe me – it really worked for Jesus – and it can work for us as well!

For Further Reading:

Roy Oswald & Robert E. Friedrich, Jr. Discerning Your Congregtion’s Future

(Alban Institute, 1996), pp.5; 145-146; “Centering Prayer”.

Charles M. Olsen, Transforming Church Boards into Communities of Spiritual Leaders

(Alban Institute, 1995).

Thinking About Curricular Change: the Categories

By John Jefferson Davis
Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics

During the months ahead the faculty will be engaged in discussions of curricular change, both in relation to the process of curriculum review mandated by the trustees, and in relation to the Kern Grant and the development of hybrid and web-based degree programs based at the Charlotte campus. This brief paper examines four basic categories that figure in such discussions, and argues that some philosophical assumptions commonly made about these categories are simplistic, and need to be rethought.

The opinions expressed in this paper are only my own: they do not express the views of the faculty or administration, and are offered only for the purpose of discussion only.

The four categories in question are “diversification”, “division of labor”, “quality”, and “residency”. Some specific proposals and recommendations will be stated for faculty discussion and debate.

1. The first category is that of diversification. Consider analogies from the worlds of ecology, farming, and investment: in agriculture and ecosystems, a “monoculture” or a national economy based on a single crop (e.g., rice or wheat) can be wiped out by the unexpected rapid spread of a disease or infestation; similarly, and ecosystem with less biodiversity is much more vulnerable to sudden environmental changes than an ecosystem with greater diversity. In the world of personal and institutional investing, it is prudent to have a diversified portfolio, given uncertain knowledge of the future and the rapid changes in a technology-driven, globalized economy. The implication that could be drawn here in relation to theological education is that a school with greater diversity of courses, faculty, degree offerings, and delivery systems would be less vulnerable to unexpected economic, demographic, technological, and geopolitical shocks than an institution with less breadth of diversity.

Other factors being equal – and in practice, of course, this may be a complex judgment to make – it would be advantageous for Gordon-Conwell to increase the diversity of its degree programs and delivery systems. This could be related to a principle of “inventory”: other factors being equal, the provider with a broader and richer inventory of its goods and services will be at a competitive advantage relative to a provider with a more limited inventory.

2. The second category is that of the division of labor. A standard economics textbook illustration of this principle is that of the lawyer and the administrative assistant: even though the lawyer may be a faster typist than the administrative assistant, overall productivity will be greater if the lawyer concentrates on that area where she has the greatest comparative advantage, i.e., doing law, and delegates the word processing to the administrative assistant. In the seminary’s current situation, this suggests a new way of framing the “adjunct” discussion: greater use of properly vetted adjuncts will allow full-time, tenure track faculty to spend more time where they should have a comparative advantage: research and publication. These latter activities help to build and maintain the school’s international reputation and “brand”, while adjuncts contribute to quality classroom teaching and support the school’s economic base. Full-time faculty continue, of course, to contribute by way of excellent classroom teaching. (This scenario suggests that Gordon-Conwell should see itself more like “Harvard” than “Phoenix University” – though it is, of course, different from both in its fundamental mission.)

3. The third category is that of quality in theological education. All faculty are agreed that Gordon-Conwell education should be “excellent” and of high “quality”. A distinction between what philosophers of language call “binary” and “graded” categories should be noted at this point. A category such as “pregnant” is binary in that is “all-or-nothing” in character; a woman is either pregnant or not. A term such as “tall” or the category of “tall persons” is graded, in that there is no one-size-fits-all class of “tall” persons.

Our discussions of “quality” in education commonly fail to make this distinction and treat quality as a binary concept. Consider the following question: “Does the Michelin brand represent an excellent quality of tire?” The answer, most people would say, is “Yes, Michelin does represent excellent quality” – but more precisely, we need to ask, “What grade of quality are you talking about – and what are you willing to pay for it? We have tires that are ‘good’, some that are ‘better’, and some that are the ‘best’. How much do you want to pay?” If (many/most) faculty assume that full-time, residential education is the “best” [an assumption that needs substantiation by empirical research] then let those who can afford it pay for the “best”, while also having in inventory an educational product that is “good” (enough) or “better” for those who seek it at their given price point and personal cost-benefit calculus. The assumption in this latter scenario and Michelin tire analogy would be that theological orthodoxy and competent graduate-level instruction is a “binary” characteristic (the GCTS course either has it, or it is not offered at all), whereas quality – if viewed primarily in terms of residential “face time”, is a graded category.

4. The fourth category is that of residency or (personal) “presence”. The argument here is that “residency”, like that of “quality”, is in fact a graded and not a binary category, under the existing conditions of modern and postmodern digital cultures. “Residency” or “modes of one person being ‘present’ to another” is no longer a binary category – either you are (fully) physically/molecularly present, or you are (fully) “absent”. This simple binary distinction of present/absent has been obsolete at least since the invention of writing: there are many modes of mediated personal presence – writing, telegraph, telephone, radio, television, video and now, in something of a “quantum leap” in technology – the internet: email, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, videoconferencing, and so forth. The point to made here is that mediated presence is a form of “real” presence – real, but different in various ways from immediate physical or molecular presence. Digital realities are a new form of reality, and digitally mediated form of presence have both detriments and advantages compared to physical modes of presence. Virtual presence should be seen as a (graded) form of “real” presence, with the understanding that the category “real” is not exhausted by the “physical”. From the point of a biblical ontology, we can recognize at least three modes of real presence: molecular/physical; virtual; and spiritual (e.g. “I am with you always, to the very end of the age …”). Today’s learners expect to be “present” to one another in both physical and virtual modes, and our challenge as faculty is to settle on an appropriate mix of these modes, not insisting on one to the exclusion of the other.

Implications and Recommendations:

1. All campuses should seek to increase the diversity and “inventory” of delivery

systems, especially online/hybrid models;

2. Make increased use of properly vetted adjuncts to support the full-time, tenure-

track faculty for research and publication (“division of labor” principle);

3. Increase number of allowable Semlink/online courses for all degree programs to

67% [cf. Asbury programs; ATS current standards];

4. To increase scheduling and curricular flexibility, introduce (course) credits of 1, 2

and (4) credit hours in addition to existing 3 credit-hour courses;

5. Consider “Open-Sourcing” the curriculum, i.e., “giving away” online [iTunes Univ.;

YouTube] Semlink and campus-recorded lectures and courses (non-credit) following the MIT, and the “Google strategy” to draw potential students to the seminary’s website; give Semlink course materials online to alumna/ae to build stronger alumna/ea loyalty. (cf. Lk.6:38, “Give and it will be given to you”; Ecc.11:1, “Cast

Your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.”)

A final observation: the changes proposed above would seem to be consistent with the founding visions of A.J. Gordon and Russell Conwell to provide affordable, biblically orthodox theological education to working adults and part-time students who might not otherwise have such access.

January 29, 2010

Miracle Baby: the Wonder of the Incarnation

By John Jefferson Davis
Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics

My wife Robin and I just returned recently from Washington, DC and a visit to get acquainted with our new grandson, Isaiah John Tobin, born November 14, 2009, weighing 7 lbs. 14 oz. ( and, coincidentally, Isaiah 7:14: “…. God with us”). Holding my new grandson as a proud grandfather (my third grandchild), I was so thankful to God for the birth of this beautiful new healthy child, and reflected on the amazing process of human embryonic development in the womb and live birth – things that we can easily take for granted because they seem so “normal”. The Old Testament Isaiah spoke about the birth of a “miracle baby” (Is.7:14), but there is something well-nigh miraculous about the formation and birth of any human baby, when seen in the light of modern science and embryology.

In his fascinating book The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth, Gerald Schroeder reminds us that a normal adult human body contains 75 trillion cells, and all 75 trillion were grown from and encoded genetically in a single fertilized egg cell in our mother’s womb. One cell divides to become two … four … eight …. sixteen … thirty-two …. sixty-four … and so on, all the way to 75 trillion cells – and these cells must appear at the right time, in the right order, in the right spatial configuration, so that brain cells do not appear in our toes or fingernail cells in our liver, and so on. There are 3.5 billion base pairs to specify the human genome in each cell, and this genetic “script” is packed into a space in the cell nucleus that measures only 1/1000 of an inch in diameter – an amazing feat of divinely designed “nanotechnology.”

Each time one of our cells divides, the amount of genetic information that has to be copied without error is like a person xeroxing ten 400 page books per minute for ten hours - and this from the time of conception until we die. As one biologist observed, the process of human embryological development staggers the imagination: the human embryo is like a machine that can not only build itself, but has the “intelligence” to be able to make a copy of itself as well.

At this Christmas season, when we again remember the “Word made flesh” (John 1:14), we can again in all humility reflect on the miracle of the Incarnation: the Author of the genetic code became a zygote, then an embryo, and finally, a 75 trillion-celled human being – himself living through, for our benefit, the amazing process that he himself had designed. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift: Joy to the world … the Incarnate Lord has come!

The Incarnation and Male Priests as “Icons of Christ”?

By John Jefferson Davis
Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics

I have recently completed an article titled “Incarnation, Trinity, and the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood,” which follows an earlier article on I Tim.2:12 and Paul’s use of the creation texts in Genesis. In this new article I address the issue of the ordination of women in an Anglican context, and respond to an argument by C.S. Lewis from the nature of the incarnation in which Lewis concludes that the fact that Jesus was incarnate as a male indicates that women can not properly represent the character of God to the congregation.

I argue that Lewis’s argument from the incarnation is not convincing, in that it overlooks the changed nature of the priesthood in the New Covenant, the analogical nature of human language about God, and the divine purpose to assume a human nature, rather than an exclusively male nature (cf. sarx, not aner – in Jn.1:14), for the purpose of redeeming both men and women, who both equally reflect the image of God.

If this is an issue that is of interest to you – and apart from the question of the ordination of women, the discussion raises significant points regarding our understanding of the nature of the incarnation – you can read an excerpt of this article by clicking on this link: [to be uploaded]

The complete article is scheduled for publication in the January 2010 issue of Priscilla Papers.

Very Brief Perspectives on the “New Perspectives”

By John Jefferson Davis
Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics

N.T. Wright’s Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (InterVarsity, 2009) is Wright’s latest and most definitive reply to his critics – including John Piper, The Future of Justification (Crossway, 2007) – in the ongoing debate on the “New Perspectives” on Paul. My general sense is that Wright is basically “right” in what he affirms – placing justification in the context of the Abrahamic covenant, and integrating it with the other crucial biblical themes of resurrection, adoption, the Spirit, and eschatology – but less than “right” in what he denies or appears to downplay: imputed righteousness, penal substitution, the active obedience of Christ, and righteousness as a moral quality (vs. “covenant faithfulness”) for both God and man.

Wright’s reading of Romans and Galatians and the other Pauline epistles is certainly correct in calling fresh attention to Paul’s situating of justification squarely in the context of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen.15), and seeing this covenant as fulfilled in Christ, the true “seed” of Abraham, who fulfills the covenant through his atoning death and resurrection from the dead. Justification is not only a “courtroom” or forensic reality, but also dynamically and integrally connected with the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Rom.4:25) and the reception of the Holy Spirit through faith in the crucified and risen Messiah (Gal.3:2). The justified ones, who receive the Spirit, are indeed seen to be the true sons of Abraham, and heirs of the promise (Gal.3:26), full members of the one people of God. Systematic theologians need to give fresh attention to these important biblical-theological connections being highlighted by Wright and other “New Perspective” exegetes.

On the other hand, Wright seems to over-react to the “merit-theology” of late medieval Catholicism that constituted the historical context in which the Protestant reformers formulated their understanding of justification. The context in which Luther and Calvin read and applied the book of Romans was not a first-century context in which the main issues were the observance of circumcision and dietary laws as conditions of table fellowship between Jews and Gentiles; their context was one in which categories of merit, indulgences, purgatory, the sacrifice of the mass, and the grounds and nature of forgiveness of sins framed the burning soteriological issues of the day. As an exegete Wright is “right” to focus on the biblical texts in their first-century contexts; Luther and Calvin, as historical and systematic theologians, were right in applying the texts to the issues and categories of their own sixteenth-century time and culture. (At the very end, though, Wright does say that “Everything that Luther and Calvin wanted to achieve is within this glorious Pauline framework of thought” [as Wright understands it], p.252.)

The concept of imputation is well grounded in Paul (e.g., 9 occurrences of logizomai, “credit” in Rom.4). The “righteousness of God” indeed includes “covenant faithfulness”, but this expression of God’s righteousness is more fundamentally and essentially grounded in the eternal character and nature of God himself as a just and morally perfect being. This “righteousness of God” is expressed in scripture in many texts (e.g., Ps.9:8; 98:9; 99:4; 103:6) that portray God as the righteous judge who condemns the guilty and vindicates the innocent. The concept of righteousness is in fact connected with obedience in the Law of Moses (Deut.6:25: “If we are careful to obey all this law … as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness”). At the human level righteousness can indeed describe a person’s moral and ethical character (e.g., Cornelius as a righteous Gentile, Acts 10:22). Christ did in fact obey all the divine requirements of the law of Moses, and our mystical union with him (“in Christ”) is the theological reality on the basis of which both the active and passive obedience of Christ can be credited to the believer.

Some of Wright’s critics have suggested that his highly nuanced reading of Paul’s doctrine of justification is so complicated that it is too difficult to preach and teach in the church. There may be some truth in this criticism. We could do well to follow the apostle’s own example of how to preach justification, as depicted by Luke in Acts 13:37,38, during the first missionary journey in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch: “… through Jesus the forgiveness of sins in proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.” Indeed, the “cash value” of justification is that through faith in Jesus Christ, as God’s crucified and risen Messiah, our sins are forgiven, and God the righteous judge declares us “not guilty” in the sight of the law. This is indeed good news for those who are welcomed back to the family of God as his forgiven sons and daughters, given the gift of the Spirit, and made heirs of all the promises given to Abraham, the father of us all.

[For occasional notes on recent books and articles on theology, ethics, and current affairs, see my page at twitter.com/drjackdavis]