This paper on the transforming power of the story of Jesus was presented by James Purves as a guest lecture on April 9, 2003, at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague. The full title was “Pursuing the glory and goodness: Christomorphism: Where neopentecostal and anabaptist meet?”

Introduction

The approach here offered is dogmatic rather than systematic: our method lies in identifying the essential ‘building blocks’ of Christian theology, not designing a complete system. The propriety of constructing a contextualised, narrative theology is allowed for; but subject to it having, as prolegomena, an adequate dogmatic foundation. It is the nature of that dogmatic foundation that we seek to address.

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires (2 Peter 1:3-4).

Part 1: The Story

The glory

At the age of 19 the realisation of a living Jesus impacted me, during a student outreach meeting, six months prior to my conversion. The sense of God’s glory, at variously times since described by me as ‘being born again’, ‘filled’ or ‘baptised’ by the Holy Spirit, overwhelmed me at conversion. It seemed that God’s presence came down with an experience of energy, of presence and power passing in and through my body. Involuntary shaking filled the room when I met with another in prayer. Convictions formed within me that God was saying certain things. A hunger for Scripture, prayer, fellowship and an appetite for witnessing gripped me. In the context of revival in the university’s Faculty of Law, I was inducted into a spirituality that embraces glossolalia, prophetic utterance, healing and deliverance ministry as normative to the Christian life.

At the same time, I was mixing with a peer group who were shaped by the Charismatic renewal movement of the mid-1970’s. Introduced to a biography of Edward Irving[1], a famous preacher whose sermons gripped London society in the early 1800’s, and whose reflections in Christology and Pneumatology prefigured those of both later Holiness and Pentecostal theologians, I also became involved in a sacramental and liturgical traditional of healing and deliverance ministry, connected with the Scottish Iona Community.

Two years after conversion, I was a ministerial candidate for the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, already trying to deal with a tension between:

1. A Federal Calvinism, emphasising Atonement through Christ’s propitiatory, substitutionary Sacrifice. This was allied to an Augustinian anthropology, emphasising Christ potest non peccare, set over against the mass of sinful humanity, non potest non peccare. Christ’s sinless humanity was presented as essentially different to ours. I was taught that, through the atoning power of the Cross, we receive the benefits of Christ, specifically through salvation imparted through my credal confession of the revelation of Christ as Saviour, grace for this life dispensed through the continuing ministry of Word and Sacraments.
2. An understanding and ownership of the implication of the assumed humanity of Jesus Christ, as explored by Edward Irving, focussing on the Incarnation as the wellhead of atoning power, as expressed in Athanasius’ De Incarnatione, further looking to the Irenaean model of recapitulation, which emphasised that Christ shared the whole experience of our own humanity.

There was, in these early days of my theological formation and, indeed, throughout the period of preparation for ministry, no consolidated, ontological understanding of what it means for us to share in the life of Christ. Expectation of sharing in the experience of Christ was diminished by a stress, arising out of Bezan Calvinism, of Atonement properly understood as propitiatory sacrifice. Sacramentalism, in the Reformed as well as the Catholic setting, had domesticated the modus operandi of the empowering, purposeful presence of God. My ministerial mentors impressed upon me, as a young pastor, that it was through the faithful, weekly exercise of the ministry of Word and Sacraments that the means of promoting Christian witness and fulfilling the Church’s missional purpose was pursued. As one of my predecessors in my present charge, Bristo Baptist Church (founded 1765) was fond of saying, ‘we are evangelical but not evangelistic’. This was not meant as a confession of shame: it was a positive affirmation of a philosophy of ministry that validated the weekly ministry of Word and Sacraments.

The Goodness

Goodness? Apart from seeking to be pleasant and caring as occasion required, it was only of real concern if it would help lead a person into wanting to know more about Jesus, a prelude to their conversion.

Part 2: Questions

What if ‘glory’ and ‘goodness’ are, in fact, integrally related components? What if this is something that God has ordained as necessary for us, in order to share in His missional purpose for a renewed humanity, sharers in the divine nature? What if the essence of Christian faith and living is not, in fact, related to an individualistic ownership of Cartesian, propositional truths; but more foundationally related to our engagement with the substance of the glory and goodness of God, alone through which we come to a proper engagement with his very great and precious promises?

Can we not encourage this dual axis of awareness, that is captured in 2 Peter 1:3 – the glory (ontological awareness) and the goodness (ethical awareness) – in the reading and application of Scripture? Before looking to how we might do this, let us first clarify the dogmatic basis on which we would seek to build our hermeneutic.

Part 3: Dogmatic foundations

1. Truth is found in the context of God’s relating to people and the responding relating of people to God and, consequentially, people to people. Jesus is this truth, because He prototypical and paradigmatic of all these relationships.

We can only engage in theology out off this relationship, which is a process of our moving out off subjective, existential perceptions regarding ourselves and God, into relational dynamic anchored in Jesus Christ. Both the catalyse and paradigm for this is Jesus. In Jesus, we meet with mankind truly relating to God. In Jesus we meet with the One who is fully embraced in God’s relating becomingness to us and man’s responsive desire for God. In Jesus we meet with our humanity embraced and saturated in the glory and goodness that comes from God alone. This reciprocity of God’s becomingness to man and man’s response of surrender, in his desire for God, is founded for us in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ.

3. This God who, through Christ, enrols us in His dynamic relationships defines Himself in relational terms. The key passage of Exodus 34.6-7a, is seminal here. As with Moses, we can only know God in and through seeking relationship with Him and His glory; and in being confronted with the self-disclosure of God in His goodness: And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in merciful love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

The truth of the One who declares ‘I am who I am’ is found only when we are arrested and constrained by these dynamic characteristics of His goodness; and it is when these dynamic characteristics of His goodness are combined with the presence of His glory, the weight of His presence met with and embraced, that we enter into and are enabled by God in a manner true to His revelation in Jesus. All we need for life and godliness are this glory and goodness (2 Peter 1.3-4). Indeed, the full nature of the vicarious, atoning death of Christ can only be sufficiently grasped when we view it terms predicative of our humanity’s engagement with the relational intent of God’s character, in terms of compassion, grace, merciful love, faithfulness and forgiveness.

5. My relationships with others will be decisively shaped by my grasp of this identify that God invites me to embrace in Christ, recipient of and participant in His glory and goodness. Where my identity and self-understanding is firmly grounded in Christ, this will decisively shape the priority I give to seeking the presence of His glory and, at the same time, responding to His call to reflect the character of God’s goodness towards others.

Part 4: The hermeneutical challenge

To encourage people to engage with this dual axis that is captured in 2 Peter 1:3 – the glory (ontological dynamic) and the goodness (ethical dynamic), we need to engage with the Scriptures in a way that draws people into the process of discipleship that is centred on the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. For this, we would want to apply a condensed, prognostic question that addresses the basic, Biblical hermeneutic:

• Who were the people this Scriptural passage was first delivered to? Why was it addressed to them? What could this Scripture have meant to them?

However, in order to apply the dynamic of a Christomorphic life, we must go further than that. We have to look for a contextual application that allows for the glory and the goodness of God to be outworked in and through our ministry.

One way of doing this might be in asking the following questions.

‘Through the reading of this passage, in what way does the Word of God:

• confront me with our heavenly Father’s intent to bring the fullness of His glory and goodness to earth?
• challenge me to give myself more fully into the life of God’s Son, “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”?
• encourage me to recognise or further seek, as one among God’s people, the enabling presence of the Holy Spirit?’

It seems no accident that so much early preaching of the Scriptures was heavily allegorical, or that early, pre-Nicene formulations of the Trinity were emphatically economic. What mattered was the pursuit of Christomorphism: becoming more like Christ. In reading the Scriptures, it was the presence and pattern of Christ that was constantly looked for, the enabling of the Holy Spirit that was sought, the glory and goodness of Father that was acknowledged.

Where neopentecostal and anabaptist meet?

Neopentecostals have alerted the world afresh to the glory of God come to earth in and through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Unashamedly experiential, they look with expectancy for God’s glory to come among them; and many of us have witnessed, participated in the reality of God’s present glory through the power of the Holy Spirit and been blessed by God because of it.

Image: Yuriy Bogdanov

PR

Notes

[1] [Editor’s note: For more on Edward Irving see Derek Vreeland, “Edward Irving: Preacher, Prophet and Charismatic Theologian” and Trevor W. Martindale, “Edward Irving’s Incarnational Christology,” along with many other resources at PneumaReview.com.]

Advances in healthcare have led to increase in worry over one’s own well-being, wasteful spending, and a lack of concern for the well-being of others in our community. Indeed, we have come to view health as a commodity to possess and control. Commodities run out; thus, the fear of loss causes us to focus only on what we have and can maintain, rather than on ensuring everyone has enough.  Cutillo urges us to view health and healthcare from the margins, with those individuals who are often unable to afford and thus acquire healthcare. By so doing, we can resist the flow of healthcare as only a multi-billion-dollar industry and pursue justice in the distribution of healthcare at the local level. Moreover, instead of keeping medicine and faith apart, Cutillo argues for a complementary relationship, using Christianity as a means “to explore how we pursue health and practice healthcare” (p. 16). Indeed, this is the purpose of the book.

The book is divided into four parts: The first part discusses how individuals have come to see health as something to control; while the second part suggests that medics need a new way of seeing the patient. Part three addresses the fear of death and how we can view dying differently, and the final section offers a way forward to viewing healthcare as a gift that should be shared within the wider community in light of the intersection of medicine and faith.

Unrealistic Expectations

Bob Cutillo

Cutillo shows how even from the Genesis account, we have the proclivity to want to control our circumstances. Although God has declared all creation good, Adam and Eve sought more—the knowledge of good and evil. Since then, humans have had to make decisions based on what they understand of good and bad. We don’t want what is bad, and because society deems sickness and disease as bad, we try to control outcomes so that we can avoid them at all costs. In turn, we become anxious about those outcomes. Cutillo points out that because God is active in the world, he “is able to incorporate even the things we assume bad into a greater plan [that can] change the way we pursue health and face sickness” (p. 68). Thus, we don’t have to waste our energies in worrying about our health but focus on living.

Disembodiment

Medical students are trained to see the body in parts, but by breaking the whole into parts, they can lose sight of the whole altogether. When healthcare practitioners dissect the human patient into discrete parts, they no longer see the needs of the human before them, only their disease. Moreover, the propensity to tick the heuristic box of symptoms to diagnose disease avoids the altogether larger issue of how the individual is in other contexts of being and disallows the uniqueness of individuals to assist in both diagnosis and remedy. The result is that we separate the body from the soul.

Thankfully, that war never came. I followed God’s leading and my family background to become a Pentecostal pastor and theologian. Many years later I’m no less angry at the taking of those hostages, but I also understand that crisis came in the context of decades of missed opportunities to talk to each other dating back at least to a US-backed coup in 1953, the shooting down of a civilian airliner with nearly 300 passengers on board and Iran’s sponsorship of violent extremism across the Middle East.

I don’t know every single detail of the new agreement negotiated with Iran. But I do try to live by God’s call to “seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:14). If, after decades of hostility and angry rhetoric, the international community has crafted a nuclear accord that helps keep Iran from the bomb and helps keep the United States from another devastating war in the Middle East, then we have much to celebrate. And even if we don’t trust the Iranians or even our own government entirely, we still ought to pursue the path of peace as vigorously and strongly as possible.

The new diplomatic agreement with Iran does not erase history or cause us to forgive or forget the taking of U.S. hostages or, I would guess, the Iranian people to forget the U.S. warship shooting down a civilian airliner. What the new agreement does do is establish a process for the international community to monitor Iran’s nuclear energy program and require the Iranian government to limit that program in ways that have not happened for the last decade. And in exchange, the international community will begin to lift sanctions on Iran. It also establishes a solid international process for monitoring Iran’s compliance with the restrictions on nuclear activity – a process much stronger and more robust than anything that has been in place before.

I’m not naïve enough to suppose that the Iran Nuclear Deal is perfect, or that tensions between these two nations will simply disappear. I recall the instructive words of Jesus for those sent out “as sheep in the midst of wolves” to “be wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Honestly, I struggle with balancing such obviously conflicting images in my mind. And yet… that’s what Jesus said. And I trust Jesus. I don’t trust human governments. I don’t trust politicians’ hidden agendas. But I trust Jesus. I trust Jesus completely.

The U.S.-Iranian relationship will likely continue to be defined by disagreements for some time, whether on crises in the Middle East, or on human rights and religious freedom issues. As one wise Israeli leader reminded us decades ago, you don’t make peace with your friends.  Jesus taught us to love those whom we consider to be our enemies. On this I may struggle to be a good Christian, but I again recognize the wisdom of Jesus words proclaimed from the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9).

Personally, I affirm the right and responsibility of sovereign nations to defend and protect themselves and their citizens. Protecting the people of both the US and Iran in this case clearly involves containing and deescalating the nuclear arms race. Paraphrasing Jesus, “All those that take up nuclear weapons shall perish by nuclear weapons” (see Mathew 26:52).

There are already voices in Iran and in the United States clamoring for our two countries to reject this agreement. My concern is that many in our country seem to have already made up their minds that this is a bad agreement that can’t be supported. To my mind, that would be a mistake of historic proportions. Why not at least give it a chance? Let’s take time to pray about it, think about it, talk about it; if it really isn’t any good, its flaws will show through soon enough. If it does turn out to be a positive tool for progress, we will not have missed the chance without even considering it.

For me, giving this agreement a chance to work isn’t about partisanship or political posturing. It isn’t about supporting the Obama administration or preparing for 2016 presidential elections. As a follower of Jesus, I feel called to speak out for the possibility of peace. The greatest danger here is that we don’t take a risk for peace, that we don’t pursue the possibility that an agreement with Iran could lessen the tensions between the international community and Iran and ultimately deescalate the potential for conflict in a region that is already suffering the effects of war and violence in ways unimaginable to most of us in the United States.

In the coming weeks, members of Congress in both the House and the Senate will vote on whether or not this agreement proceeds. Every lawmaker will cast a vote on whether to approve or reject this deal. The stakes on this matter have never been higher. That is why forty national organizations, including more than a dozen faith-based groups, wrote a letter urging lawmakers to vote in support of this deal. The groups noted that this “will be among the most consequential national security votes taken by Congress since the decision to authorize the invasion of Iraq.”

Our elected officials need to hear from pro-diplomacy constituencies, and hearing from people of faith in support of diplomacy could have a lot of sway.

This agreement is an opportunity to imagine a brighter future for us all—one in which Americans and Iranians are no longer condemned to live through another generation of animosity. At such a historic moment, we are reminded of our responsibility to seek peace and pursue it, whether in Washington or in our own communities.

Eddie L. Hyatt, Pursuing Power: How the Historic Quest for Apostolic Authority & Control Has Divided and Damaged the Church (Grapevine, TX: Hyatt Press, 2014), 136 pages, ISBN 9781888435511.

Dr. Eddie Hyatt is known in Pentecostal/Charismatic circles as a man who is passionate about the Word of God, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and revival. These are major themes in his previous books. In his latest work he addresses what he believes to be a major hindrance to genuine spiritual renewal in the church. This hindrance is the church’s quest for power and control. Hyatt says that his studies have revealed that many, if not most, of the church divisions in history have not been primarily over doctrine but rather over the issue of power—ecclesial power. He substantiates his claim by citing specific examples of this occurring. The picture that emerges is not pretty. As Hyatt says “The pursuit of power has led to the darkest periods of the church’s history, resulting in heresy trials with imprisonments, torture, beheadings and burnings.” The author maintains that this quest for power, which has often been set forth as a means to secure unity, is contrary to the teaching and example of the Lord Jesus Christ. This book is not merely a critique of the past and present errors of the church, it tells us how to move forward into a more biblical and productive future.

A good portion of this book is given to showing that the church’s quest for power has often been rooted in an attempt to be apostolic. Hyatt defines apostolic for us, “‘Apostolic’ was the word used to claim that their faith was the same as that of those first apostles of the Lord, i.e. of the Twelve and Paul. ‘Apostolic’ thus took on the meaning of being ‘connected to’ or being ‘like’ the apostles.” Hyatt demonstrates that throughout history, various groups within the church have claimed to be apostolic in different ways. Some have claimed to be apostolic because their leaders had been taught by the original apostles, others claimed apostolic lineage based on a chain of church leadership that stretched back to the original apostles; still others based their claim on being part of one of the main churches mentioned in the New Testament, such as Jerusalem, Ephesus, or Antioch. Other grounds used to claim that a group was apostolic were a deep spirituality, a return to strong biblical doctrine, a commitment to the missionary mandate of the church, and an alleged return to the New Testament form of church government.

The emergence of modern Pentecostalism has been characterized in part by its “restorationist impulse,”¹ an impulse which has led many of its adherents to seek the restoration of the attributes of the early New Testament Church. Among these attributes are the gifts of the Holy Spirit described in Ephesians 4, Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. These gifts are significant to Pentecostals not for their own sake but for their mission as “a people called and empowered (Acts 1:8) to be fellow workers with Christ in His redemptive mission.”²

Before going further, it is important for me to share that I also believe in the operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Church today. But too often the ministry of the Holy Spirit is neglected in favor of an all-out-pursuit of personal “miraculous” experiences. I cannot dispute the importance of individual experiences with God in the life of the believer; indeed, such experiences have resulted in the salvation of many, and the explosive growth for Pentecostalism globally. But the primary role of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to the Word of God, as Christ stated: “the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about me” (Jn 15:26).

Presently, the experiential nature of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements has contributed to their engagement of a dangerous perspective which accords practically the same weight to spiritual or miraculous experiences as to the Word of God. This paper will discuss the implications of this experiential paradigm for current Pentecostal praxis with respect to revivals, evangelistic crusades and other missiological functions.

The Experiential Paradigm

It is the work of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 that has most profoundly influenced the development of modern Pentecostalism. The baptism in the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or charismata, are central to Pentecostal self-identity and operate as major differentiators between Pentecostal and Charismatic groups and the rest of Christendom. An unintended side effect of this belief in spiritual gifts and American cultural influences is the emergence of a more experiential Christianity,³ which I will refer to as the “experiential paradigm.” This paradigm is problematic for two major reasons. First, it fractures the relationship between the Word of God and the Spirit of God, by attempting to evaluate spiritual matters independently of the Word. Secondly, it allows personal spiritual experience to become quasi-authoritative, effectively rendering it equal to the Word of God.

Walker notes that large groups often experience behavioral phenomena which may “feel” like the work of the Holy Spirit, as when musicians and actors describe “the energy from the crowd” at a concert or other large-scale event. Another phenomena is that large crowds often draw performers and other entertainers, which could lead to spiritual counterfeits or excesses. An example of this might be the person who desires to become an actor but suddenly feels “called” to ministry because they feel certain that God has “destined them for the spotlight.” Closely related to this is the “star” system of Charismatic leadership in which individuals with considerable personal charisma are afforded undue deference by Christian believers on the basis of personality—a sort of spiritual popularity contest, if you will. Walker’s final phenomena is the lack of awe that these miraculous events seem to inspire toward God. Not only do these miracles generally not result in the glorification of God, they often serve to diminish the public perception of God to those who do not already know Him.

Pastor Lathrop reminds us that we should pursue the gifts of the Spirit—especially that we might prophesy—in order to build up the church.

The subject of spiritual gifts is an on-going controversies in the contemporary church. Sincere, Bible-believing Christians are divided over this very important issue. Some in the church maintain that certain gifts of the Spirit, such as tongues and prophecy, are not for today. Others, mostly those that would call themselves Pentecostals and charismatics, maintain that all of the gifts exists, but in some cases they only emphasize speaking in tongues. Paul, who wrote the most extensively about spiritual gifts in the New Testament, would not endorse either of these views. In 1 Corinthians 14:1-12 the apostle Paul offers some counsel that serves as a corrective to both of these positions. Participants on both sides of the debate would do well to read and heed Paul’s words in this passage. In this text Paul commends the gift of prophecy to the Corinthian believers. In the remainder of this article we will examine the passage giving particular attention to the gift of prophecy in order to learn what Paul thinks are the most important issues concerning spiritual gifts. In considering Paul’s words we will note the character of the gifts of tongues and prophecy and the historical context to which Paul addressed himself in 1 Corinthians.

The Corinthian believers were no strangers to spiritual gifts. In 1 Corinthians 1:7 Paul says that they, “do not lack any spiritual gift.” They were charismatic and they knew what prophecy was. This is evident not only from the mention of the gift in chapters twelve and thirteen and the instructions regarding its use in chapter fourteen but also from the instructions that he gives concerning women prophesying in chapter eleven. Since the church seemingly had a wealth of spiritual gifts, why does Paul single prophecy out and give the teaching that we find in 14:1-12?

One possible reason for Paul’s instruction was that the Corinthians’ understanding of the gift of prophecy may have been colored by the pagan exercise of prophecy, most notably at Delphi.³ New Testament scholar Craig S. Keener, however, does not see cultural background as being especially important in reference to this issue.⁴ So, the idea that Paul wrote as he did to counteract pagan ideas regarding prophecy is not entirely certain.