The Worst thing to Do

Perhaps the worst state that one can get themselves into is described by the great prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

How does one get to the point that he or she actually begins to see that which is morally good as an evil? Well, the old school way of talking about this is to use the terms “habits of vice.” The simplest way to understand a habit is that God has designed us in such a way that each time we repeat an action it becomes easier. All of us have had the experience of doing something which at first was very difficult but with repetition the action became easy — it became habituated. A habit, when formed, stands between the power to do something and the actual action of doing it. The point is, we can develop good habits which are called virtues and we can develop bad habits which are called vices. The greatest harm done by habits of vice is that they blind our thinking against even knowing good and evil. This, by the way, is what is so scary about our generation which is so blithely self-confident about justifying “unnatural vice.” A whole generation can come to start to see good as evil and evil as good. Again, the old school terminology for this generational process is that by “vicious customs” and “corrupt habits” unnatural vices (Rom 1) are “not esteemed sinful” by a society.

The Best Thing to Do

Hosea 9:10 says of ancient sinful Israel, “(they) became as vile as the thing they loved.” Behind this statement is a universal principle, we become like what we love. Therefore, we are improved and made better as people by loving things that are healthy for us, particularly by the love of the best thing which is God. Conversely, we are wounded and worsened by the love of sin.

Beyond the love of God, which is the highest and best thing we can do for ourselves, we can also improve our lives by developing habits of virtue which are the opposite of habits of vice. Chief among the virtues, of course, is love. Love as described in the Bible is self-giving without expecting a return. The point is, when we love in this way, it improves us by training our wills and our minds. Just as habits of vice have the powerful affect of blinding us to what is good and true; habits of virtue improve our understanding of the good and strengthen our ability to do greater acts of love. By doing acts of love we actually habituate ourselves to further acts of love and goodness. The difficult becomes easy through habits.

While a society is worsened and coarsened by allowing the growth of “vicious customs” and “corrupt habits” (particularly amongst its young), that same society can be improved by reinforcing habits of virtue within its population. Just as one society can become morally blind, another society can become more attuned to good and evil. It can become a better society—not perfect, but better nonetheless.

I was asked to write a piece on the topic of subordination. Well, as I did a little research I immediately realized that there are a couple of high-explosive landmines waiting for me on this topic. One landmine has to do with women in ministry. Most of the contemporary debate over Christ’s subordination to the Father has a social-political edge to it. The “issue within the issue” relates to women being or not being subordinate to men in church ministry, etc. I am choosing to stay completely away from this issue and simply focus on the key theological factors. The second landmine is that the topic of subordination immediately throws us back to the Trinity. Oh, well, we cannot avoid some issues if we are going to talk theology.

The Two Aspects of Subordination

One: The Eternal Godhead

To rightly understand the biblical statements about Christ’s willing submission to the Father we need to separate in our thinking His divine majesty in the Godhead from His incarnation. If we do not do this, we will quickly fall into a heresy called Subordinationism. Subordinationsim is a heresy that denies implicitly or explicitly the divinity of both the Son and the Holy Spirit and transforms them into creatures that are subordinated to the Father. This error comes from a misunderstanding between God’s nature and the Persons of the Trinity. Essentially Subordinationism accepts the three Persons in God, but then denies the consubstantiality of the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father. In this way it denies the true divinity of both the Son and the Spirit. In Subordinationism, the Son and Spirit are exalted creatures produced in some way by the Father. One form of this propagated the idea that the Father created the Son, and the Son created the Holy Spirit. The main proponents of this view, of course, were Arius and his followers. Another group of Subordinationists who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit in the 4th and 5th centuries were called the Macedonians after Bishop Macedonius.

The main point is this, if the divine persons are one in being, equal as God, they must be one in power and authority. If they are not one in power and authority then they are not one in being and divinity. Consequently, the Son would then be subordinated to the Father, not just in function or activities, but in his very person. In other words, the Son would not be truly God. Furthermore, we understand the Godhead to have one divine will—not three. If the divine Persons each have their own will, then the divine unity is broken and tritheism must follow.

Two: The Incarnation

Those who hold to some sort of subordinationism will often point to biblical texts like John 14:28 where Jesus said, “The Father is greater than I.” They see in these texts reason to believe that the Son is eternally subordinated to the Father or a created being. However, the doctrine of the Incarnation teaches us that in regard to Christ’s human nature the Son was (and should be) less than the Father and submissive in all things. In the NT, Christ was obedient as a one who was truly human. In taking on human flesh, the Son of God voluntarily set aside His status but NOT his divinity or being as truly God. As Philippians 2:6-7 beautifully states it, the Son assumed the form of a servant in all things. What we see in the Incarnation is an accurate description of God; however, it is a revelation of God in His “kenosis” (self-emptying form). The Incarnation is God in human flesh the self-subordinated Son. The big point is we are not to read back into the eternal Godhead the human subordination of Christ to the Father.

The Problem

Those who oppose the Trinity often create a false dilemma in the minds of people by projecting the idea that if Jesus was subordinate to the Father, than he cannot truly be God. This confuses nature with function or role. For instance, a Christian is to be submissive to his/her employer and recognize their employer’s functional leadership; however, Christians know from Scripture that all humans are equal before God. Humans are equal in nature—they are made of the identical stuff. It is perfectly logical to understand the subordination of Jesus Christ in His incarnation while at the same time recognizing the eternal co-majesty of the Trinity.

Here are a couple of amazing thoughts. First, most people who believe in God--unless they are pantheists—recognize that God is transcendent over all of His creation. The biblical way of saying this is that God is “high and lifted up.” When Isaiah saw a vision of God in His holy temple in heaven (Isaiah 6), he saw God in His awesome glory with powerful heavenly beings gathered around His thrown constantly saying “holy, holy, holy.” Holy, of course, means separate. God is separate, high and lifted up from all of creation—He is the transcendent Creator.

Second, God’s transcendence is demonstrated in the very simple fact that creatures have not always existed (1). Because the creation had a beginning and God did not, makes it very clear that all things have God as their Creator—because there is no other source other than God. This also means that His infinite power is not restrained in having to always produce the creation. The creation came into existence by God’s voluntary and intelligent action. He didn’t have to create things, yet, He chose to at a certain point. In other words, He is completely free and unfettered by anything in creation. He is utterly transcendent.

Some people wonder what God was doing before He created the universe. Wasn’t he lonely? Didn’t He need us? No, God did not need us and He wasn’t lonely. God was and is completely self-satisfied and happy within Himself. As I have mentioned before, God is the happiest being in the universe. Frankly, when we think of God as lonely or needy all we are doing is projecting our own creaturely limitations on to God. But, the point here is that God chose to create everything out of pure generosity and not neediness. Our transcendent God expressed His goodness in creating us—amazing.

Isaiah 6:1 “…I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.”

(1) Aquinas, SCG II, Ch. 37, 8.

After the American Revolution and the era of the First Great Awakening (era of Jonathan Edwards) there developed a longing for a direct encounter with God in the life of the new nation. This was accompanied by a more liberal attitude toward new interpretations of the Bible stemming from the influence of 19th century European literary and historical criticism. This milieu fomented at least three spiritual movements beginning at the end of the 18th century and culminating around 1880. Amongst the educated elite in New England there sprang up the Transcendental movement which might be described as a Romanticist impulse and rebellion against religious formalism with its creeds and dogma. It sought a direct encounter with God without all the religious trappings of churches, dogma and denominations.

A second movement was Spiritism or Spiritualism which experienced widespread popularity in the 19th century even among some of the most prominent members of society. Think of all the movies you have seen where 19th century people have been portrayed as seated around a table conducting a séance.

The longest lasting impact from this era of religious fervor; however, came from what has been termed the Restoration Movement. Restorationism spawned a number of sects and groups that are still with us today and which often continue to attempt to correct or overturn traditional Christianity in its Protestant and Catholic forms. While this movement emerged primarily in the United States, some of its leading lights and foundational groups were from the British Isles. The simplest way to put it is that Restorationsim was an attempt to restore primitive Christianity, this is why it is often termed Primitivism. Restorationists desired to re-establish Christianity to what they believed was the pattern described in the New Testament. This, of course, meant that they had very little regard for Christian creeds that had developed to define Christianity over time. However, some Restorationists went even further and began to see the Bible as a product of ancient corruption which also needed correction.

The reason Restorationists believed they needed correct Christianity is because they held that it had fallen from a state of purity. This fallen condition was termed the Great Apostasy. Signs of the Great Apostasy could be seen in the divisions and errors of traditional Christianity. Therefore, Restorationists undertook the work of restoring the church to the pristine period of the 1st century. There were different views as to when the exact period of apostasy began but most put the point near the early second century.

Prominent groups from the Restorationist Movement that are still with us today include: the Cambellites (Disciples of Christ, Church of Christ and Christian Churches); the Millerites (Adventists of the 1844 Great Disappointment); the Russellites (Jehovah’s Witnesses); the Thomasites (Christadelphians), the Darbyites (Plymouth Brethren originating in England), and of course the Mormons. As you can see with the personal names usually associated with each of these groups, there was usually a strong individual that was formative in their history. It is worthwhile to study the background of each of these individuals in order to better understand the individual groups that were engendered by his efforts.

Christian historian Mark Noll delineates the main difference between Protestants and Restorationists. He notes that Protestants believe that we must respect history as it is interpreted through faith. John Calvin even made the bold assertion that the past was a “living magisterium” by which we can better interpret the Scripture and doctrine. In contrast, Restorationists want to bypass history and reject the “jurisdiction” of any doctrinal developments. They wish to have the freedom to re-establish what they believe is the heavenly pattern of the original apostles.

I am one who believes that God works through history; in fact, I believe He is the God of history. One scholar I know put it this way, “You cannot understand history without God, nor can you understand God without history.” Because of this, I think the Restoration Movement is fatally flawed in its most essential concept—the belief that it can return to primitive and pristine Christianity. The irony to me, as an amateur church historian, is just how far off the mark these movements are at “restoring” primitive Christianity. What they have developed is so remarkably antithetical to ancient Christianity in both doctrine and practice that it is almost stunning. In fact, in some cases it is “jaw-dropping.” What these groups usually represent is the incarnation of one person’s well-intentioned but very fallible attempt to read the Bible through American individualism. Additionally, the desire of Restorationists to overturn the Great Apostasy can be viewed in real time right here at TFD. Unfortunately or Restorationists, I don’t buy it.

The word infinite, when used in Christian theology means that which has no end, limit or boundary and therefore cannot be measured by any finite standard. For instance, an infinite succession of numbers could not be exhausted either by continuous addition or subtraction of finite quantities.

There are two different divisions of infinites. The first division is when something is infinite either in one respect (a partial infinite) or when something is infinite in every respect (an absolute infinite). An example of something that is infinite in just one respect is space. However, there is only one thing that can be infinite in every respect and that would be a being which contained in itself all possible perfections that are beyond every category. The second division is called either an actual infinite or a potential infinite. An example of that which is potentially infinite would be matter and energy; in a sense, after its creation it could go on without end. An actual infinite would be, again, that thing which contains in itself all possible perfections.

Christians believe that God alone is an actually infinite being in every respect—The Absolute Infinite. In the Bible the perfection of God’s Nature; his Wisdom, Power, and Holiness, exceed all measures and limits; as described in 1 Samuel 2:2; Isaiah 57:15; and 1 Kings 8:27. If, however, God were finite that would mean that there could exist other gods that would be His equal or even superior to Him in perfection.

In looking at God’s attributes through the lens of the concept of infinity what we see is that His omnipotence is the infinity of His power; His omniscience, the infinity of His knowledge; His immenseness, the infinity of His space; His holiness, the infinity of His perfection; His eternity; the infinity of time; etc. I could go on, but I think you may be sensing that the Biblical idea of God’s infinity is pretty important.

The point I want to make is that the truth of God's infinity is not only of the greatest importance for theology in the strictest sense of the word, but it throws a lot of light on the great evil of sin. The reason for this is because the one who is offended by our sin is absolutely infinite—God. David cried out in Psalm 51:4 “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.” Consequently, the evil of our sin against an infinite God means that our sin becomes objectively infinite. Therefore, the atonement for our sin necessitates the absolutely boundless value of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Why? Because God’s justice required an adequate satisfaction for our sin—if this was not true, then there would have been no need for the cross.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “What is the second instruction” (from the infinity of God). It answers: “The second Instruction is that there is an infinite evil in sin, objectively considered, as it is committed against an Infinite God; and therefore it deserves Eternal Punishment; and no satisfaction can possibly be made for it, but by the Blood of Christ. 1 Peter 1:18. “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold but — with the precious Blood of Christ.”

Westminster goes on to proclaim a third instruction from God’s infinity. It says: “The third Instruction is that those who are reconciled to God in Christ need not fear his ability to perform any mercy for them; for he is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think. Ephesians 3:20.”

Hopefully, you can see that there are wonderful truths tucked away in dusty old concepts like God’s infinity. And I hope you can see we have the need of an infinite Savior. We don’t need a good man, an angel, or a superman, we need the infinite God found incarnate in Jesus Christ.