To return to a thread long since abandoned, I thought this brief blog from SAET was very good.

Along the same theme, Easter is not merely the proof — the “bill of sale” –  that Good Friday accomplished salvation, but rather is the salvation that Good Friday accomplished! Easter is the ultimate telos of Good Friday. A soteriology that too narrowly focuses on legal cleansing as the sole/primary  benefit of the cross will inevitably minimize the soteriological significance of resurrection and new life (both Christ’s and the believer’s). Christ didn’t die just so our sins could be forgiven (as though that solved the problem), but that through his death and the forgiveness of sins we might have new life in him.

Or to say it again, Easter is not the bill of sale, but the thing purchased.

Meaning is not something that starts at 100% and undergoes losses, it is negotiated and undergoes shifts all the time from speaker to hearer and back to the speaker again, and then the hearer is the speaker.

And Phil Almond, you have established nothing at all, certainly not about 'beaming down' or any such equivalent. I'm sure that so called 'Bible believers' do not rely on some Star Trek view of deity and words placing. What a waste of mental effort.

Clare

What I actually said was (italics mine) ‘Having thus established beyond dispute, for those who believe the Bible, that God in the OT and the incarnate God in the NT did ‘beam’ messages to individual souls without loss of meaning…..’.

It is the words addressed to all by God and Christ in the Bible that I was referring to as the most clear cut examples, like ‘Turn to me and be saved all you ends of the earth…’; ‘If anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink’.

Nothing that God or Christ said in the Bible told Peter Sutcliff to murder prostitutes, or the Jewish leaders to crucify Christ, or the Spanish Inquisition to do what they did, or the Church to invade the Holy Land, or your relative to kill her daughter.

You have already told us (see ‘Tim Goodbody’s……’ thread) quite clearly more than once that you do not know ‘exactly which bit of which texts are authentically real-deal Jesus and which are our own idols, our own prejudices dressed up and deified’. I plan to make more detailed observations on this on that thread but just now I observe that your position also seems to be that none of the statements made (according to the Bible) by God and Christ, even if they are the ‘real deal’ were understood without loss of meaning by the parties to whom they were addressed. Does that include what you assert is the hermeneutical key about ‘How do you read’ and ‘Mercy not sacrifice’?

Phil Almond

I always intended (intend) to respond to recent posts by Clare, Mark Bennet and David but I wanted to try to understand David H’s point of view first.

Firstly, response to Clare 19 June 2009:

‘That was his choice and I presume he knew that would make  beaming individual messages to individual souls whilst preserving their purity a logical impossibility-even without sin-so who am I to argue with him that he ought to have done things more clearly!’

‘And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.’

Obviously God was not aware of any logical impossibility in ‘beaming’ an individual message (command) to that individual sinner Abraham, nor that the command would be inevitably warped by Abraham’s agenda or the agendas of his socio-economic milieu, culture and history, and the way Abraham behaved shows that he understood and obeyed the command. And there are of course many other examples in the OT.

For the NT see my 8 June 2009 post to Paul Dyson on this thread. Neither does it seem like Jesus was deterred by the obstacles you mention nor by a concern that ‘languages (that) are ambiguous, fluid, unstable and, of course, varied’. On the contrary he expected his disciples to hear, understand and obey his commands, if they loved him.

Having thus established beyond dispute, for those who believe the Bible, that God in the OT and the incarnate God in the NT did ‘beam’ messages to individual souls without loss of meaning, there is no reason why they cannot also speak to us the words they spoke then. And this happens in the most clear cut way when, with believing hearts, we read, call to mind, hear those promises, commands, warnings addressed to all (via the great commission, the Christ who knocks at the door and invites anyone to hear ‘my voice’, the Christ who will bring all his sheep into the one flock by the hearing of ‘my voice’). Clare’s view denies that ‘my voice’ includes all that Jesus said as recorded in the NT.

It is of course true, as I never tire of saying, that all of us, dead as we are in trespasses and sins, with fat hearts, heavy ears and closed eyes, need, like Lydia, our hearts to be opened by the Lord so that we attend to what he has said and is saying to us from his own mouth or from his inspired prophets and apostles. And that process of enlightenment may be quick or, as with many of us and the disciples, slow.

If Clare doesn’t like ‘soul’ then read ‘heart/mind/centre of personality’.

I keep on saying that God and Christ speaking to us in the way I have described is not a limiting thing but rather the key to an experiential encounter with God in Christ – with the real God in Christ – who is telling us in words that he came to call sinners (what warrant have we for thinking this other than his telling us?), that we need to repent, that we must say farewell to all that we have if we want to be his disciples.

The Church and the lives of Christians are dependent on the Son and the book. The sacraments are properly understood in the light of the Son and the book.

Phil Almond

Phil,

You write:

'I see an unbroken chain of meaning and truth from the heart/mind/voice of God, a true real time communication, meaning the same for God as for the individual to the individual every time the individual'

Clare gave a very thoughtful response to this claim on June 19th - can I encourage you to respond to what she says instead of just repeating it on a later post to someone else.

At least explain where you get this idea from in the first place. If I didn't know you were a highly conservative Bible focussed evangelical  I would say this sounded like chanelling.

David H

Reading your 19 June 2009 post I am unsure whether you are agreeing or disagreeing with my 17 June 2009 post; although your

‘I suspect that any certainty gained by purely personal experience is illusory’.

makes me think you are disagreeing. To try to precisely indentify if and where we disagree I wonder if you could analyse my 17 June post and say where you agree and where (if) you disagree. Taking the example I gave

‘Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other’

you will have perceived no doubt that I see an unbroken chain of meaning and truth from the heart/mind/voice of God, a true real time communication, meaning the same for God as for the individual to the individual every time the individual (if enlightened for the first time if a non-Christian, or enlightened by God’s gracious indwelling if a Christian) reads, hears or calls to mind these words.

If you disagree I wonder whether you could express your disagreement in terms of where that chain (as you see it) breaks.

Phil Almond

David H

Thanks for that, which is helpful.

The Bible tells us that God sent messengers, on the whole, rather than messages. I think I have a 'high' view of incarnation which, for me, is not a 'mere' part of a process, but is fundamentally essential: and not only because of the words spoken or the deeds done, but because it is God working in relationship with the created physical world and with people.

And I link that to how I understand the first and greatest commandment, and how costly I undersand my own Christian vocation to be.

I think the incarnation cannot be reduced to formula, proposition, argument, text or narrative - it transcends them all and offers the possibility of a living faith in the living God. In telling us of Christ, scripture consistently points beyond itself.

It may be idle pedantry, but the Bible tells us that God sent the Son - it does not tell us that God sent a book or an argument.