Stephen D. Morrison's Blog, page 14

Billy Graham and Karl Barth

Billy Graham and Karl Barth are two monumental figures of 20th century Christianity. Though upon their meeting, it became clear the contradictions between both men, especially in their understanding of the Gospel.

Eberhard Busch writes in his biography of Barth entitled Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, about Barth meeting Billy Graham and the impressions he had of him:

(Thanks goes to PostBartian for this quote)

The same frontier was evident in a conversation Barth had with Billy Graham, in August 1960. His son Markus brought them together in the Valais. However, this meeting was also a friendly one. ‘He’s a “jolly good fellow”, with whom one can talk easily and openly; one has the impression that he is even capable of listening, which is not always the case with such trumpeters of the gospel.’ Two weeks later Barth had the same good impression after a second meeting with Graham, this time at home in Basel. But, ‘it was very different when we went to hear him let loose in the St Jacob stadium that same evening and witnessed his influence on the masses.’ ‘I was quite horrified. He acted like a madman and what he presented was certainly not the gospel.’ ‘It was the gospel at gun-point . . . He preached the law, not a message to make one happy. He wanted to terrify people. Threats–they always make an impression. People would much rather be terrified than be pleased. The more one heats up hell for them, the more they come running.’ But even this success did not justify such preaching. It was illegitimate to make the gospel law or ‘to “push” it like an article for sale . . . We must leave the good God freedom to do his own work.’

Preaching the Gospel

Evangelical Christianity in many ways learned how to preach the gospel from Billy Graham. And therefore Evangelical Christianity often has this ring to it that Barth points out. This attempt to terrify people into believing. But, as I’ve written in my book We Belong, “The gospel is not a threat, it’s an announcement.” For too long the church has followed the pattern of sin, with hell and the threat of damnation, and then Christ. But what is sin other than that which Christ has defeated? Sin does not come before Christ, Jesus Christ comes before sin. We can only know sin in the light of Christ’s victory over sin. When we preach sin first we are left with a threat-filled gospel. When we preach Christ and Him crucified first and above all else, then and only then can we rightly understand sin as a defeated enemy.

Barth argues this in CD IV.1 saying, “The reality of sin cannot be known or described except in relation to the One who has vanquished it.” Sin cannot be defined in a vacuum, in the absence of Christ. Sin, hell, and judgement must only be understood in the light of the One who has born our sins, entered into our hell, and taken upon Himself our judgement. Sin, hell, and judgement understood abstractly apart from Christ will always lead to a gospel of fear-mongering.

Classically, the doctrine of sin came after the doctrine of creation. The fall of man was understood as the prerequisite for our salvation, the issue that Jesus came to solve. But Barth argues that we must instead only place sin within the context of Christ. Because we truly cannot know sin apart from the undoing of the fall. Just as light reveals darkness by vanquishing it, so sin is known only in it’s downfall. It therefore must fall after Christology, and not before.

So as much as we in American owe a great debt to Billy Graham, I feel it’s important that we honor him while at once going beyond him into a better understanding of the gospel. The gospel is not about fire and brimstone, judgement, hell, or sin. The gospel is good news of great joy about the God who is so for man that He will stop at nothing to undo our corruption, defeat our sin, and adopt us into His life as His beloved children! To focus more on the minor issue of sin, which is minor only because now Christ has defeated it, is to turn the good news into okay news. But the gospel celebrates the gracious will of God in Jesus Christ to win the human race back to Himself. And this is what He has done! My prayer is that in the coming days of the church we will once again learn to preach good news: the happy announcement of what God has done for mankind, and not the sorrows of sin and death which He defeated.

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Jesus Christ: The Future of Mankind

I’ve been re-reading one of the first things I ever read from Karl Barth, which remains to this day my favorite of all his writings. This is volume IV.1 from the Church Dogmatics. It’s amazing now after coming full circle, after studying many other aspects of Barth’s theology, I find myself back at the center with the doctrine of reconciliation (atonement).  It is a dense volume, but also a very devotional, even worshipful volume in praise of God’s grace.

Today I wanted to share a delightful section that outlines one of the most important aspects of the gospel. This is the death of Christ as the end of the old man, the resurrection as our new beginning, and the resurrection to come as our future and God’s. (All references are to the Hendrickson edition of 2010.)

The Death of the Old

In and with the man who was taken down dead on Golgotha man the covenant-breaker is buried and destroyed. He has ceased to be. The wrath of God which is the fire of His love has taken him away and all his transgressions and offences and errors and follies and lies and faults and crimes against God and his fellowman and himself, just as a whole burnt offering is consumed on the altar with the flesh and skin and bones and hoofs and horns, rising up as fire to heaven and disappearing.

In virtue of this word, i.e., in the power of this event, the existence of man as a sinner and all his transgressions are now behind him. Whatever else he may be, he will no longer be this man, the transgressor. (CD IV.1 P. 93-4)

The death of Jesus Christ as the forgiveness of sins is not an abstract transaction of legal fiction. The death of Christ was the destruction of the old man with all his sin. The gospel says not only that our sins are wiped away, but the sinner we used to be as well. God in Christ joined Himself to mankind, reaching the root of our existence, to undo our fallen nature by destroying it and giving us new life in Him. This is the accomplishment of the cross. It belittles the cross to make it purely an act of forensic, legal exchange. It is much, much more profound and significant to see that in Christ we have died, and now in Christ we live (Gal. 2:20).

Continuing this though, Barth writes as well about the state of mankind after the cross, that we are no longer transgressors of the law. To deem ourselves as sinners is to live an illusion, to be self-deceivers.

In Him a new human subject was introduced, the true man beside and outside whom God does not know any other, beside and outside whom there is no other, beside and outside whom the other being of man, that old being which still continues to break the covenant, can only be a lie, an absurd self-deception, a shadow moving on the wall–the being of that man who has long since superseded and replaced and who can only imagine that he is man, while in reality he is absolutely nothing. (P. 89)

The old man is gone. Any shadow of this man is an illusion, an absurd self-deception. Such a man has been forgotten, and lost forever in the death of Christ.

The New Life of Mankind

But God has not left mankind to live in this nothingness, to live in non-existence. Instead, God has claimed man as His own, as His possession. We belong to God.

By the grace of God, therefore, man is not nothing. He is God’s man. He is accepted by God. He is recognized as himself a free subject, a subject who has been made free once and for all by his restoration as the faithful covenant partner of God. (P. 90)

God has chosen not to be without man, to exist for mankind as His partner, Father, Lord, and friend. As such God has upheld the covenant in Himself through the grace of Jesus Christ.

We now are a new creation in Christ Jesus. Our old life has been removed and Christ has become our life. In Him we live and move and have our being. We have been reconciled to God.

Whatever we have to think and say of man, and not only of the Christian man but of man in general, at every point we have to think and say it of his being as man reconciled in Jesus Christ.

We speak of man reconciled in Jesus Christ and therefore of the being which is that of man in Him… The grace of God in which it comes and is made over to us is the grace of Jesus Christ, that is, the grace in which God from all eternity has chosen men (all men) in this One, in which he has bound Himself to man–before man even existed–in this One. He, Jesus Christ, is the One who accomplishes the sovereign act in which God has made true and actual in time the decree of His election by making atonement, in which He has introduced the new being of all men. (P. 91-2)

In CD II.2 Karl Barth brilliantly argues a new understanding of election as election in Jesus Christ. (See this article for more.) Here Barth shows how God from all eternity elected mankind in Jesus Christ, and in time Jesus Christ has enacted this election through reconciliation. From all time God desired mankind, longed for our participation in His life. The resurrection has made way for this in that God has created a new being for man in Jesus Christ!

Opening Eyes to See

But how does all this work together? Is this universalism? No! Because while it is true that all mankind has been reconciled to God, that the transgressions of man have been taken away, or, as John put it, ‘Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’, this does not mean universalism. Because, simply, not all people are awake or aware or thankful for this reconciliation. All our included, yet not all are taking part.

I used an analogy of a dance in my book, We Belong. It’s an analogy that I first learns from Robert Capon, but that Karl Barth here implements as well. Essential, although mankind has been included into the party, into reconciliation, not everyone is truly enjoying the party or taking part in the dancing. Some are blind to it, others are rebelling against it, but all are included. Again, this doesn’t mean that all will be saved. But this does mean that all have been reconciled, whether they know it or not, feel it or not, believe it or not.

Jesus Christ is God’s mighty command to open our eyes and to realize that this place is all around us, that we are already in this kingdom, that we have no alternative but to adjust ourselves to it, that we have our being and continuance here and nowhere else. In Him we are already there, we already belong to it. To enter at His command is to realize that in Him we are already inside.

…That is why we use the word direction–we might almost say the advice or hint. It is not a loud and stern and foreign thing, but the quiet and gentle and intimate awakening of children in the Father’s house to life in that house. (P. 99-100)

An Eschatological Note

The way of mankind has been altered and taken up into the way of Jesus Christ. Our future is not our own. Our future belongs to this Man Jesus Christ. It is His future and it is our future in His.

The future of mankind is not found in mankind, in our failings or potential for destruction. The future of mankind is found in Jesus Christ, the one who in becoming man has taken up our cause as His own and altered our history and our destiny. He is our Lord, our Savior, and our Future.

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Quotes From the “Greatest Book in the English Language” (Ulysses)

This year I’ve been reading more fiction. So I figured why not read the book that’s considered by many to be the greatest book ever written in the english language? It’s a notoriously difficult book, but a celebrated one nonetheless. I’m talking about the masterpiece of James Joyce: Ulysses. (Amazon link)

Loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey, Ulysses give the account of a single day in Dublin, Ireland: June 16th, 1904. It follows the life of Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly Bloom. But the story takes a back seat in this book, putting the beautifully creative, hilariously odd, and truly genius prose to the fore. This book is a literary masterpiece that implements many unique writing techniques, many of which Joyce invented (such as “stream of consciousness”).

It is a book of music, color, life, vitality. It’s is a literary yes to the mundaneness of every day life. And I truly enjoyed it. Though will admit that it is incredibly difficult! 1 But don’t let that hinder your from picking this book up and enjoying it. It’s less a book to be understood and more a book to savor, like a symphony, for the beautiful masterpiece it is.

Here then are a few of my favorite quotes from the book. Some are here because they’re genius, some because they’re funny, and others because they are just so beautifully written I couldn’t help but share them (though much of the book is this way). Enjoy! 2

“From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.”

This could very well be an aptly applied summary of the entire book! P. 515

“Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes… Shut your eyes and see.”

These lines sent me straight to the dictionary. But I’ll save you the time. Stephen Dedalus is monologuing in his mind about the inescapable limitations of perception. P. 37

“Piper! Mr Best piped. Is Piper back? Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickles pepper.”

A great example which shows how much Joyce just loved playing with his words. It’s a very clever, funny sentence, and thousands more like it are found all over this crazy book. P. 191

“Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions? Warring his life long on the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality.”

30 pages into the book when I read this absurd sentence I knew I was in for a book like no other. But I absolutely love this word. It’s silly, and hilarious if you get the pun. It is a jab at the Catholic church (one of the many throughout the book). It plays on the word consubstantiation and transubstantiation, which are beliefs that have to do with the communion elements in church. It also helps when you break it down: con-trans-magnific-and-jew-bang-tantality. There is a not-so-subtle pun in there about the virgin Mary too, and the collision (bang) of the Divine and the human in the incarnation. A bit blasphemous? Yes. Clever and fascinating to read? Absolutely yes. P. 38

“Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.”

Another passage that sums up the book quite well. Joyce spends 700 pages telling of a single day! It is undoubtably the longest day in literature. P. 213

“She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren’t men?), but, lightward gliding, mild she smiled on Boylan.”

This comes from my favorite episode, called Sirens. Joyce wanted this chapter to read like music sounds, so he uses words to create a ringing in your head as you read them. This is just one of many great examples. P. 266

“Bloom looped, unlooped, noded, disnoded.

Bloom. Flood of warm jimjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music out, in desire, dark to lick flow, invading. Tipping her tepping her tapping her topping her. Tup. Pores to dilate dilating. Tup. The joy the feel the warm the. Tup. To pour o’er sluices pouring grushes. Flood, gush, flow, joygush, tupthrop. Now! Language of love.”

Another example from the musical chapter, Sirens. P. 274

“Drops. Rain. Diddle iddle addle addle oddle oddle. Hiss. Now. Maybe now. Before.

One rapped on a door, one tapped with a knock, did he knock Paul de Kock, with a loud proud knocker, with a cock carracarracarra cock. Cockcock.”

As you can tell, more from the music chapter. You can almost hear the rain dropping and the man knocking at the door. P. 282

“They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, flayed and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose again from the bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till further orders whence he shall come to drudge for a living and be paid.”

This could be my favorite quote. It’s a brilliant play on the Nicene Creed. It sounds very similar to how the creed sounds, while using words similar enough but different enough from it. This is all while telling a funny story about Jacky Tar the navy man. For example see how “rump and dozen” sounds similar to Pontius Pilate. Very clever! P. 329

“Who made those allegations? says Alf.

I, says Joe. I’m the alligator.”

I couldn’t tell you why, but this quote had me laughing aloud for several minutes. It’s just one of the many little puns that Joyce has packed into this book. P. 337

“Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”

Thought provoking quote. P. 377

“Bloom panting stops on the fringe of the noisy quarreling knot, a lot not knowing a jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.”

I like how vividly this sentence shows action. A chase scene is taking place and we are placed in the center of the chaos. P. 587

“The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.”

What a gorgeous way to describe the night sky on a summer day. P. 698

“And Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Perhaps the most famous quote, Molloy’s stunning monologue to end this fantastically beautiful book. This comes after a 50 page long, completely unpunctuated look into the mind of Molly. This final word is left to the wife of Leopold Bloom. It is here that the final Yes is given to life, vitality, beauty, and love. This book truly is a life affirming book. It is a human book. P. 783

I hope you’ve enjoyed these quotes! Perhaps they’ll inspire you to pick up this challenging yet beautiful book for yourself!

Have you read Ulysses? If so what are your favorite quotes?

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Notes:

I used two guides as I read the book: one from Sparknotes, and another from Goodreads. It also helped a lot to have the audio book read by Jim Norton ↩All page numbers are from the “Modern Library” edition. ↩

Delighting in Humanity (Tertullian)

I love old things!

Especially old books. If a book has made it through the test of time and into my hands today, it is unlikely to disappoint.

Recently I’ve been reading a collection of writings from the early church fathers. 1 I enjoy the clarity with which the early church wrote. And they had to have this clarity, they were practically inventing a new language to describe what took place in Jesus Christ.

While I was reading Tertullian, a particular passage struck me as profound and valuable for today’s church. This is what I read. It comes from his work On the Flesh of Christ: 

Christ loved that human being, that lump curdled in womb in the midst of impurities, that creature brought into the world through unmentionable organs, that child nourished on mockery. On his account Christ came down. On his account Christ preached. On his account Christ, in all humility, brought himself down to death, to death on a cross. Clearly he loved one whom he redeemed at great cost. …

He would not have redeemed what he did not love… By heavenly rebirth he remakes our birth, putting death away. He restores our flesh so that it is free from trouble; he cleanses it when leprous, gives sight to it when blind, heals it when paralyzed, purifies it when it is demon-possesed, raised it when it has died. 2

Tertullian here writes beautifully on Christ’s love for the flesh, for the human being. He states something like what Gregory of Nazianzus famously said. “The unassumed is the unredeemed.” Since Christ has come to redeem humanity, He has likewise assumed that very same humanity He seeks to redeem.

But what strikes me so profoundly is not just the Christological ramifications. Instead, take this passage and contrast it to the way we speak today. We often speak of the flesh, of our human existence, as a sub-par-existence. We believe that one day we will escape this flesh and fly of to a merely “spiritual” reality. But if Christ has come to redeem our humanity, whose to say that we will escape it in the end? 3

Simply speaking, in today’s church we devalue what Christ came to value. 

If Christ came to redeem our humanity, we must learn to celebrate our humanity. Celebrate the life you live and enjoy every second of it. We are not here to wish away our time until we die and fly off to some spiritual place. This life matters.

Earthly pleasures are a gift. Out of context they can be a pitfall, but when enjoyed as the bounty of God’s joyous heart this life and the good in it is nothing short of heavenly. We have been given the gift of existence, and we are not to waste it away.

Take delight in your humanity, for Christ has taken delight in it already.

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Notes:

The specific book I’m reading is The Christological Controversy. It’s a collection of writings form the early church that all deal with the nature of Jesus Christ and the controversy of his dual nature as man and God. I recommend it as a great primer into the early church. Here’s a link. ↩Chapter 4 sections 3 and 4 ↩This argument and line of thinking is more thoroughly argued and explained in the context of eschatology in my book We Belong: Trinitarian Good News chapter 14. ↩

A Preview of We Belong

The following is a preview of my latest book, We Belong: Trinitarian Good News! This includes the introduction and some of the first chapter. Click here for more about the book. Enjoy!

—————

INTRODUCTION

This book is the product of a personal “grace-reformation” that has taken place over the last four or five years, altering fundamentally how I think, and live. This message has changed me. This is a book reflecting upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and wrestling with what I thought I knew so well, only to find how wrong I was. For me this was primarily a theological shift, although it didn’t start that way. Initially, and through personal frustration, this was a re-examination of the Christian faith. Having grown up in church I felt as if I had a firm grip on the “basics” of the gospel, but as I began to study things more for myself and to think critically about ideas I’ve always believed, the more I began to see differently. I’ve had moments where everything I thought I once knew blew up in my face upon a new revelation or critique. This process led to what you have before you today: not a perfect book, but an honest one. A book that hopefully can help you along your journey as much as the ideas in it have helped me along mine. I hope this book challenges you, therefore, in one sense, but in another way I hope it is easy for you. I hope that you can grasp the simplicity if it all, while remaining challenged by the depth of it all.

This book is divided into four sections. First on God and man, second on the incarnation of Jesus Christ, third on the atonement, and fourth on the Perichoresis (or dance) of God (and our participation in it). In each section there is a mixture of theologically intensive chapters and then the practical implications of that theology. The most theologically intense chapters are chapters one, two, seven, nine, and fourteen. In these chapters you may feel challenged, but I always wanted to make it practical after the heavy thinking is done. Section three specifically might be challenging, and if it gets to be too much for you feel free to skip ahead and come back to it later on. In some places I’m arguing a specific theological position to which you may not even be aware of the opposed position. No worries. Grasp what you can, and don’t stress about the rest. I’ve written this book from a theological standpoint because that’s how I think. I love theology, and I find it highly practical. However, I also see how it is important to, at times, spell out the clear practicalities in theology. I hoped to do both in this book.

My ultimate prayer, however, is that you would come to see the Gospel as truly good news.  My life has been radically changed as I began this journey of rediscovering the Gospel that I thought I knew so well. I hope that this book can either be a beginning or a continuation of your journey into the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. May you stand astonished in awe-struck wonder at the man Jesus Christ and the good news of His life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

S. D. Morrison

1: BEFORE THE BEGINNING

“God does not need man, yet He wills not to be without him, to interest Himself in Him.”

– Karl Barth

“…God is love.”

– 1 John 4:8

If God is love, then God cannot be a singular person or a solitary deity. To love implies an object and a subject, a lover and a beloved. Love by nature necessitates many persons. When the scriptures say that God is love, they are at once saying that God is a Trinity. For this reason the scriptures speak of God as love (in being), not merely as one who loves (in action). God is love because the act and being of God are one and the same. God’s being is His being-in-act, and God’s act is His act-in-being. In Himself from before all time God is love because the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in a mutual fellowship of self-giving, other-centered service and love. God is therefore one Being, three Persons. God is at once three distinct persons who exist with and in and for one another, and also one God united in the love they share for each other. To speak of God, therefore, as a God of love, as a God who is love, is to speak of the Trinity.

Christian theology dares to do this: to speak of God. This is our task. This daring task to speak of God—of God!—is not to be taken lightly. Theology is serious, yet in it’s seriousness there is at once the most profound joy. Jesus Christ is the self-revelation of God, the Word that became flesh, giving us grounds to speak of God and a basis to work out ideas about who God is. So while this book is mostly about the Gospel, it is also about the God of the Gospel. As you’ll come to see, the Gospel and the God of the Gospel are inseparably joined together. We cannot speak of one without speaking of the other. Who God is for us is who God is inherently in Himself. The Gospel is not a tool God used to fix mankind, it is the outworking of who God is eternally in Himself as love. The economic Trinity (the saving work of God: God for us) is inseparable from the ontological Trinity (the Being of God: God in Himself).⁠1 But all this will become more apparent as we continue throughout this book.

What I am struggling to describe here is at once the doctrine of God (who God is) and the doctrine of election (God’s choice about mankind). These two doctrines go together, and cannot be set apart from or against the other. Far from an exhaustive study, this chapter serves as an introduction to what will echo throughout the rest of this book. Volumes more could be said about what will be introduced here, but that’s not what I’m going for. We are after the Gospel, but not just for the sake of good theology. We are after astonishment, wonder, joy, and a deep understanding of what makes the Good News so wildly good.

The first lesson then is to see that the Trinity is essential to the Good News. Far from being an abstract theological principle, the Trinity is utterly important when discussing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The God of the Gospel is the God who freely loves mankind because He is in Himself love from before all time. To begin anywhere else, I believe, would be to error gravely.

With hopes of making the Gospel once again astonishingly good news, we must begin here by discussing each of these doctrines separately. Though I hope you see the inherent connection between them. First we will discuss the basic nature of the Trinity, along with several helpful ways of thinking about this doctrine especially in regards to what we’re trying to do here. After this we will discuss what Karl Barth has called “the sum of the Gospel”, that is, the doctrine of election: God’s choice regarding mankind.

The Trinity: Lover, Beloved, Love

The basic formula for the doctrine of the Trinity is that God is one Being, three Persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son or the Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father or the Son. Yet, the Trinitarian persons of God are inseparably united in one Being.

The mystery of this reality is far beyond our comprehension. In the fourth century work by St. Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, we discover the truth that, “His is a greatness too vast for our comprehension, but not for our faith.”⁠2 While we may be able to understand basic formulas about the Trinity, to comprehend the full weight of God is beyond us. It therefore remains a mystery tapped into only by faith. It is “with the will to believe [that] comes the power to understand”.⁠3 The mystery of the Trinity is essential to the doctrine of the Trinity. If our God is a God we can fully comprehend, we can know with certainty that He is a God we have fashioned in our own image. “Concepts create idols, only wonder understands” said St. Gregory of Nyssa. Since we are after the true and living God, we must be okay with mystery and difficultly. A God we can control, even intellectually, is no God at all.

In chapter three I will present a biblical basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. In the meantime this is the appeal I make: however odd the Trinity may seem, trust that it is so, despite its difficultly, and understanding will come. And even more importantly, worship will come. For “the truth of the Trinity is more to be adored than expressed.”⁠4 In our striving to understand the doctrine of God and of the Gospel it’s important never to loose sight of that fact. Theology is doxology; what we seek to learn about God is only ever another effort to worship Him more.

With that said, there are some helpful ways of thinking about the Trinity that I believe will benefit our discussions throughout this book. There are two analogies that will be used here to speak of the nature of God.

The first is as The Great Dance. The movement of God in Himself is sort of like a dance. Each Trinitarian Person exists for the sake of another, and in fact does not exist apart from the other. The early church therefore adopted the Greek word perichoresis. This implies a mutual interpenetration and indwelling of each Person in the other. The Father exist in and for the sake of the Son and the Spirit, the Son exists in and for the sake of the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit exists in and for the sake of the Father and the Son. The mutual oneness of God is a fluid movement, much like a dance. Father, Son, and Spirit ebb and flow, through and around, existing in and for one another in a Great Dance of love, life, light, and freedom. As C. S. Lewis describes it: “In Christianity God is not a static thing–not even a person–but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irrelevant, a kind of dance.” ⁠5 God is a movement in Himself, He is a dynamic relationship. The poetic use of a dance in this sense is useful when trying to understand the nature of the Triune God.

The second analogy is one that helps clarify the specific relationships that exist between each Person of the Trinity. This second way of speaking of the Trinity is to name the Father, Son, and Spirt by their actions within the Trinity, after the biblical notion that God is love. In the light of that fact, we can say that the Triune God is the Lover, Beloved, and Love. St. Bernard of Clairvaux clarifies this writing that, “surely if the Father kisses and the Son receives the kiss, it is appropriate to think of the Holy Spirit as the kiss for His is the imperturbable peace of the Father and the Son, their secure bond, their undivided love, their indivisible unity.”⁠6 This image helps clarify the specific way in which God exists in Himself. While again, this can in no way exhaustively express who God is inherently, it is helpful to think of God in this way. God is love: the Father loves the Son, the Son is loved by the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the Love that exists between them. God as love, God as a Trinity, is God as the Lover, Beloved, and the Love: the grand Love Affair of God almighty. This fact also shows that fundamentally when we speak of God we are speaking of a relationship.

Now, of course, we must avoid speaking too literally about God. All our speech of God is at best only an indication of who He is in Himself. While in Jesus Christ it is true that God has revealed Himself to us, He remains hidden in mystery. The vastness of Gods nature is incomprehensible, and therefore all speech we make of God is merely an indication of who God is and not a literal representation. We cannot comprehend God fully, but in grace He has given us knowledge of Himself through His Son.

This is helpful whenever we consider difficult problems. For example, if we were to wonder about the gender of God. It is a serious error to take the words “Father” and “Son” and re-interpret them in the light of our understanding of what a father and son is. To read back into the Godhead our human understanding of Father and Son is to error gravely. God has no grandfather, as the term might imply, nor was the Son born of the Father, He was eternally begotten. These terms are only indications of who God is in Himself, and they serve to re-define our terms, not the other way around.⁠7 We cannot read back into God human definitions, including the male gender that often goes along with Father and Son. Simply then, God is not a male just because He is called “Father” and “Son”, but God is transcendent and other than mankind and our ways of understanding existence.

So in summary, who is God? God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one Being, three Persons. God is the Great Dance. God is the Lover, the Beloved, and the Love. God is a relationship. God is love.

 

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Notes:

1 See T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God (T&T Clark, 1996)

2 Book I.8

3 Hilary, On the Trinity Book I.12

4 T.F. Torrance The Christian Doctrine of God P. Ix (T&T Clark, 1996)

5 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity P. 152 (Macmillan, 1952)

6 Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, P. 237

7 More on this in chapter three.

5 Great Quotes from CD I/1 (Karl Barth)

Yesterday I finished reading Karl Barth’s first book (volume I/1) in his magnum opus The Church Dogmatics. And as before, today I want to present a “summary” of this work in the form of five quotes taken from it. Though a summary is nearly impossible for Barth, due to the dense complexity of his thought. However, these quote are presented here with the hopes of giving a taste of the brilliance of this book. The main subject of this work is the Word of God. This includes Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity, the foundation of which Barth finds in the event of Revelation (a.k.a Jesus Christ).

Several things however have been exclude from this summary. These include the prolegomena (or introduction) Barth writes for the whole dogmatics, his doctrine of the “three-fold Word of God”, and finally his exposition of parts of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. These sections are highly complex in themselves and cannot possibly be summarized in a single quote, and for this reason they are excluded from this summary.

Essentially, therefore, all I present here is Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity, as it is worked out in terms of revelation. Barth saw revelation as the basis of the doctrine of the Trinity, and therefore understood the Triune God as the Revealer, the event of Revelation, and the effect of Revelation. Or, in other words, as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So without further ado, here are five great quotes from CD I/1 which present this doctrine: (All page numbers are from the Hendrickson version. Brackets are my comments.)

#1 “Revelation in fact does not differ from the person of Jesus Christ nor from the reconciliation accomplished in Him. To say revelation is to say ‘the Word became flesh’.” (P. 119)

#2 “God reveals Himself. He reveals Himself through Himself. He reveals Himself. If we really want to understand revelation in terms of its subject, i.e., God, then the first thing we have to realize is that this subject, God, the Revealer, is identical with His act in revelation and also identical with its effect.” (P. 296)

#3 “Thus it is God Himself, it is the same God in unimpaired unity, who according to the biblical understanding of revelation is the revealing God, the event of revelation and its effect on man.” (p. 299)

[or, in other words, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit]

#4 “The doctrine of the Trinity is what basically distinguishes the Christian doctrine of God as Christian…” (p. 301)

#5 “One may sum up the meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity briefly and simply by saying that God is the One who reveals Himself.” (p. 380)

Bonus quote: “We do the bible poor and unwelcome honor if we equate it directly with revelation itself.” (p. 112)

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3 Reason to Read Theology (and Where to Start)

Theology has a bad reputation amongst Christians. While it’s a respected field, it also can seem like an impenetrable field reserved only elite scholars.

But Karl Barth once said that, “In the church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.” 

We’re all called to practice theology. Theology is not for the elite. So here are three reasons why you should read theology:

1. Theology is Worship

Jesus said to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.” (See Luke 10:27.) Theology is an act of worship.

As we disciple our minds and seek the truth we worship God because we place value on God. We apply “worth” to Him.

For me theology is one of the most devotional and personal forms of worship. To say that theology is not for you is to deny God your mind. God desires your intellect, and desires your intellectual pursuit of Him. Worship God with your mind! This is the essence of theology.

2. Theology is Challenging

Theology, as an intellectual pursuit, is a challenging pursuit. It requires you to wrestle with your ideas and beliefs. It puts stress on what you thought you once knew, testing everything. It’s challenging to welcome new ideas you’ve never thought into your world view. But it’s worth it.

Theology is hard. It is a discipline of the intellect. It will change the way you see the world, yourself, and your relation to God. But what good is your world view if it cannot stand up to a good shaking?

As theology challenges you, it grows you.

3. Theology is Practical

Theology is not just abstract thought games. Theology is practical. It has to power to change your life.

It may appear like a senseless act of repetition and detail, but don’t lose heart. Any journey into theology will eventually lead back to your every day life.

I began the journey to study theology about four years ago. It’s not been easy, and it still isn’t. It can be confusing, and disheartening. But at the end of the day I can say with certainty that studying theology has changed my life. It’s because there is some intrinsic power in theology itself. But because, like Jacob, wrestling with God is sometimes necessary. You may leave with a limp, but you’ll leave blessed. (See Gen 32:22-32)

Where to Start?

So where should you begin your journey? My favorite theologians are Karl Barth, Jurgen Moltmann, Thomas F Torrance, James B Torrance, C Baxter Kruger, and the early church fathers Athanasius and Ireneaus. From these theologians here are some good books to begin with, and where to go from there.

 

For Beginners:

Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, and The Shack Revisited by C. Baxter Kruger

Jesus Christ for Today’s World, and In the End—the Beginning by  Jurgen Moltmann

Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace by James B Torrance

On the Incarnation by Athanasius

Against Heresies book III by Ireneaus

Dogmatics in Outline, and Evangelical Theology by Karl Barth

Next Steps: 

The Mediation of Christ, and Christian Doctrine of God by Thomas F Torrance

Church Dogmatics II/2 and IV/1 by Karl Barth

The Trinity and the Kingdom and The Crucified God by Jurgen Moltmann

For more recommendations, check out 68 Books I Recommend

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Why am I a Christian?

It’s an important question. Many assume since I grew up in the church, I’ve never really struggled with belief. But that’s false.

They’ve also assumed that I never had an option in believing. That too is false.

If I’m brutally honest there are times in my life when I really didn’t want to believe anymore. Times when Jesus seemed more like a myth than a savior, when God seemed far away.

Doubt and faith are not exclusive in this way, though. In fact, doubt in many ways is included in faith. If you have faith but have never doubted, do you really have faith? Or just blind optimism?

Doubt is a part of faith and it does not negate the existence of faith.

I’ve doubted, but in my doubt I still believe in Jesus Christ. I still am a Christian.

The only reason, the one thing that has kept me a Christian through the seasons of my life—from childhood, to my teen years, up until now—is simply Jesus Christ. I am a Christian for the sake of Jesus.

If what I know to be true about Jesus tomorrow could be proven false, I would give it all up. Because without Jesus, God is nothing special to me.

The God postulated in society today is not a God I’d like to know. Even in many Christian churches today, God is not a God I have any interest in. Such a God of abstract, distant, and emotionless characteristics is a God that I have no interest in giving my life to. But Jesus!

Jesus astonishes me.

Jesus came and suffered with us. He is our brother, one of us. He loved deeply, showed grace to many, and fought against injustice passionately. He was tender, furious, wild, free, and filled with joy. And He died. He wept. He was affected by our human condition.

And if this is what God is like, then sign me up! Because a God like Jesus is a God worth having.

So if you’d ask me why I’m a Christian, this is the answer I’ll give you. I am a Christian because of Jesus Christ, because if that is what God is like, then that is the sort of God I’ll gladly give my entire life to.

Sadly, many have failed to see God in Christ. We have postulated a God more like Zeus than Jesus. I believe if the church can just get back to Jesus, to the God revealed in Christ, then we’d recapture the passion that turned the world upside-down. God is like this! and that’s news worth spreading.

Why am I a Christian? Simply for Jesus’ sake.

“We Belong” is Finally Here! (Publishing Date Announced)

I am ecstatic to announce today the official release date of my upcoming book We Belong: Trinitarian Good News! 

It’s been almost a year and a half of writing, struggling, re-writting, editing, and pondering the content of this book, but it’s finally finished! I am incredibly proud of what I have accomplished with this book, and the work I have put into it will undoubtably speak for itself.

So, without further ado, We Belong arrives August 15th! 

For the first two weeks of the release, it’ll be available exclusively through this website at a discount (25% off cover price). Additionally, everyone who purchases either an ebook or paperback copy during the first two weeks will receive three free ebooks (including my last book Where Was God?). 

This book has been in my heart to write for the last five years and words simply cannot contain the level of excitement I have for it’s release. My hope and prayer is that this book will ignite a passion for the gospel in all who read it. The message of this book has changed my life, and I pray it does to same to everyone who reads it!

Testimonials

“I’ve kind of always wondered why the gospel is referred to as good news, when if you ask most Christians to explain it, it sounds more like bad news with a handy trapdoor of potentially better news. In We Belong, Morrison finally explained to me why the awe-inspiring relationship God has both within Himself as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and with us as humanity is the best news… I have never felt as delighted with God and invited by God as I do after reading this book.”

– Sarah Brown, reviewer

“I once heard a man say that the point of theology is to lead people to worship. If that is true than you have been successful in your theological endeavor. I found myself worshiping God multiple times while reading the book.”

– Joshua Lister, reviewer

Topics

We Belong is about the Gospel: what is it and why is it good news. 

Within this theme there are several topics I discuss in the book. These include the Trinity, election, creation, sin, theology, the incarnation, the hypostatic union, the vicarious humanity of Christ, the atonement, atonement theories, new creation realities, the coming Kingdom of God, the resurrection of the dead, union with Jesus Christ, mysticism, universalism, preaching the gospel, and our inclusion into the Trinitarian life of God. There’s a lot packed into this book! Everything is worked out to be both theologically grounded and practically inspirational.

We Belong: Trinitarian Good News coming August 15th!

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Resistance Beat Him (Hitler the Artist)

Any creative endeavor meets resistance. Writing, painting, poetry, theology, dancing, music, whatever—it’s all going to face resistance sooner or later. The trick is not to be overcome by it, but to overcome it.

This has been a helpful reminder for me this week. I’ve been working through the last few rounds of editing on my next book We Belong: Trinitarian Good News. While at once I am extremely excited to publish this book. I am at once struggling with resistance. What if it’s not good enough? What if people don’t like it? 

But this quote from Steven Pressfield’s excellent book, The War of Art, has motivated me tremendously.

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.

Don’t let resistance beat you! And while you’re at it, send me an encouraging note this week on my Facebook page while I’m putting the finishing touches on my book.

Cheers :)