Come and Go
Sunday School Lesson for Sunday, 23 February 2014 from Reverend Dr. Frank Carver
and Reverend Dr. Herb Prince
GOD HAS SPOKEN!
Why?
Why so much attention to
Hebrews 2:10-18?
Part One
(Hebrews Ten) [The following outline is that of Kevin
L. Anderson, Hebrews: A Commentary In The Wesleyan Tradition, New Beacon Bible
Commentary (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2013), 5-6.
I. Hearing the Apostle and High Priest of Our
Confession: Hebrews 1:1—4:13
A.
Hearing God’s Word in These Last Days: Jesus the Merciful and Faithful High
Priest (1:1—2:18)
1.
We Must Heed God’s Definitive Revelation in the Son (1:1-2:4)
2.
Jesus Perfected as a Merciful and Faithful High Priest (2:5-18)
a.
The Humiliation and Exaltation of Jesus (2:5-9)
b.
Jesus Identification with Humanity (2:10-18).
B.
Hearing God’s Word Today: Jesus the Apostle and High Priest of Our Confession
(3:1—4:13).
II. Jesus’ Superior High Priesthood:
Hebrews 4:14—10:18
III. Call to Persevering Faith and
Acceptable Worship: Hebrews 10:19--13:25]
Hebrews 2:
10 For it became him, for whom are
all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to
glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For
both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one, for which
cause he is not ashamed to call them brothers,[a] 12 saying,
“I will declare
your name to my brothers.
Among of the congregation I will sing your
praise.”[b]
13 Again, “I
will put my trust in him.”[c] Again, “Behold, here I am with the children whom
God has given me.”[d] 14 Since then the children have shared in flesh and
blood, he also himself in the same way partook of the same, that through death
he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
15 and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage. 16 For most certainly, he doesn’t give help to
angels, but he gives help to the offspring[e] of Abraham. 17 Therefore he was
obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a
merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make
atonement for the sins of the people. 18 For in that he himself has suffered
being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.
Footnotes:
a. Hebrews 2:11
The word for “brothers” here and where context allows may also be correctly
translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”
b. Hebrews 2:12
Psalm 22:22
c. Hebrews 2:13
Isaiah 8:17
d. Hebrews 2:13
Isaiah 8:18
e. Hebrews 2:16
or, seed
Hebrews
2:17: “Therefor he had to become like his brothers and sisters in
every respect,
so that he might be a
merciful and faithful high priest in the service of
God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins
of the people.”
Albert
Schweitzer (1875-1965): He comes to us as
one unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, he came to those men
who did not know who he was. He says the words, “Follow me!” and sets us to
those tasks which he must fulfil in our time. He commands. And to those who
hearken to him, whether wise or unwise, he will reveal himself in the peace,
the labors, the conflicts, and the suffering that they may experience in this
fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery they will learn who he is.[Albert
Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, first complete edition, ed. John
Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 487. The first English edition was 1910.
For the German see Geschichte der Leben-Jesus Forschung, Zweite, neu
bearbeitete und vermehrte Auflage des Werkes “Von Reimarus ze Wrede” (Tübingen: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr [Paul
Siebeck], 1913, [1906]), 642.]
The
Apostle Paul: For
our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become
the righteousness of God.[2 Corinthians 5:21.]
Introduction
To put it bluntly, two quite different versions
of Christianity are implicit in the two quotations above when taken in their
respective contexts. We hope to clarify these two competing visions as our
study proceeds. First, we read the three texts that contain the same phrase
that we highlighted in Hebrews 2:17:[The related Greek terms are hilastērion in
Romans and Hebrews and hilasmos in 1 John that we discussed January 5, 2014, in
lesson seven, “Jesus” (2), on Hebrews 2:10-18.]
But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been
disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of
God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no
distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are
now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God put forward as a
sacrifice of atonement by his blood effective through faith (Romans 3:21-25).
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may
not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous; and he is the
atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins
of the whole world. . . . God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent
his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love,
not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:1-2; 4:9-10).
It may be helpful here to review with a
few sentences from our treatment of Hebrews 2:17 with the help of the Romans
and 1 John texts:[See lesson seven, “Jesus: (2) on Hebrews 2:10-18, presented
January 5, 2014.]
All this, Jesus’ becoming both “a merciful and faithful high priest in the
service of God,” was in
order “to make a sacrifice of
atonement for the sins of the people.” We reach here the thematic high point of the author’s witness to
Jesus as “a Son.”
The holy God, in Jesus, in his life,
death, and resurrection for love’s sake, has taken into his own full personhood
all about us that contradicts his very holy nature and suffers it out of
existence that we might live in full fellowship with him—a truly “atoning sacrifice”: As Paul put it, “for our sake [God] made him [Jesus] to be
sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Blood was at the
heart of the Old Testament sacrificial system, which in the LXX informs our
author, and will appear prominently in Hebrews: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given
it to you in making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes
atonement” (Leviticus
17:11).
Forgiveness comes at the cost of life
itself, that is, at the risk of integrity for human life—and of holiness for
divine life! Therefore, as a gift of sheer grace, we have “a merciful and faithful high priest in the
service of God,” one like
us “in every respect,” who made “a sacrifice of atonement” for our sins. Now and forever, “because he himself was tested by what he
suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested”!
Not everyone in the Church and its theological scholarship agrees
with the above, that is, on the basic meaning or current relevance of these
texts from Paul, John, and Hebrews 2:17. A great divide that arose particularly
with the Enlightenment is still having its effect in the Christian community
regarding “a sacrifice of
atonement” and “the atoning sacrifice for our sins,” the question of “Why did Jesus die?” How
should we understand his death in relation to who we are and how we live as
Christians? Was and is the Cross of Christ really all-important,
indeed indispensable, for our Christian faith and walk? If so, in what way? We
may not even be aware of how these questions are even now affecting the kind of
Christians you and I are.
To get a perspective on these
questions we look primarily at the life and writings of a man whose ministry
took place one hundred years ago, a man whose writings I have been reading in
now and then for at least two years. This is the British pastor and theologian P.
T. Forsyth (1848-1921). In a small but fascinating book that I found on my
shelf a few weeks ago, A. M. Hunter, P.
T. Forsyth (1974), reflecting Forsyth’s language, observed that “sixty years ago, everywhere liberals of
one kind or another were inviting men to believe with Christ rather than to believe in him; to replace the gospel of Christ with the religion of
Jesus.”[A. M. Hunter, P. T. Forsyth (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1974), 69. Although I never had the privilege of meeting him, A. M. Hunter,
Professor of Biblical Criticism at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, was
the external reader of my Ph.D. dissertation at New College, University of
Edinburgh. I owe him! Hunter’s book is the primary source for my presentation
of Forsyth’s life and thought unless otherwise documented. Page numbers for the
quotations from him are in parenthesis, e.g., (1).] Or, put in another way, “Was
Christ a part of his gospel?” (71). Some in Forsyth’s day said that Jesus was not himself a
part of his gospel.
This distinction, to believe “with Christ” as opposed to “in
him,” points to the issue,
raised for Forsyth particularly by the 19th century “new religious-historical school of
Germany” as he described
it. These German scholars and their followers taught that “the first form of Christianity was the
so-called religion of Jesus.”[P. T. Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus
Christ (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1909), 41. This work, “his greatest
book” (68) and considered his magnum opus, was the Congregational Union Lecture
for 1909 delivered in London.]
Their views and their consequences in the Church Peter Taylor Forsyth sought to
confront in his teaching and writing ministries. The issue imbedded in this
distinction, “with Christ . . . in him,” was
alive and well in A. M. Hunter’s day and is a long ways from dead and buried in
the Church of our day; it is part of the theological air that you and I
breathe. Let us begin with the question of “Who was Peter T. Forsyth?”
Since the length of the lesson and the shortness of time compel
us to make this a two part study, we will deal with only two questions today: first,
“Who was Peter T. Forsyth?” and second, “Who was Peter Forsyth as a Liberal?”
Part two will work with two more questions, “Why did Peter Forsyth change his
theological stance?” and “What was Forsyth’s defense of the Apostolic Gospel?”
So we begin with
I.
Who Was Peter T. Forsyth?
P. T. Forsyth, “a great man born before his time” (11), and once labeled by Swiss
theologian Emil Brunner (1889-1966) as “the greatest of modern British theologians” (11), was born and raised in a frugal
Scottish home. His mother was a housemaid and his father, Isaac Forsyth, a loving,
spiritual, bookish man, with little of this world’s goods, was a postman and
small trader who had to wait, Jacob-like, nine years before he could marry his
sweetheart. She was working for a devout citizen of Aberdeen, Peter Taylor. She
was like a daughter to the family, and had promised her dying mistress never to
leave her master.
So when at last they married they lived in Taylor’s large house and
took in mostly impecunious (moneyless) Highland students, among them George McDonald
who deeply influenced the thought of C. S. Lewis.[Hunter, Forsyth, 14.] Peter
Forsyth’s health was such that he never knew a day without pain from childhood.
Although possessing a highly-strung nature and a frail body, Forsyth’s “mind was extraordinarily quick and, under
pressure, able to work at almost demonic speed” (21). Following a happy childhood in Aberdeen his
evident academic prowess enabled him to attend the nearby University of
Aberdeen where he took a brilliant “first” in the classics.
After completing his course at Aberdeen, Peter Forsyth went to
Gӧttingen, Germany, for a semester to sit at the feet of Albrecht Ritschl who
was “then the lodestar for
aspiring students of theology”
(14). He learned German well and acquired a life-long interest in the national
character of the German people and their theologians. Later in life, his
personal library as a working theologian contained one-third German sources. On
his return to England from Gӧttingen, he entered Hackney College in London, but
“his health was already so
fragile and his abilities so evident, that he was allowed to leave in 1874
without completing his course” (15).
Soon he began his career in which twenty-five years were spent
in active pastoral ministry[Forsyth’s five Congregational pastorates were in
Shipley, a suburb of Bradford near Yorkshire; St. Thomas Square, Hackney,
London; Cheetham Hill in North Manchester; Clarendon Park, Leicester; and
Emmanuel Church, Cambridge.] followed by twenty of the finest years of his life
as a professor of theology. In 1901 he had become Principal of what became
known as New College, London. As a theologian Forsyth has often been called “a Barthian before Barth.” It was reported that “to an Irish student who had quoted
Forsyth to him, Barth is said to have replied, ‘If Forsyth had not said what he
said when he said it, I would have said he was quoting me.’” [Hunter, Forsyth, 12. Karl Barth’s dates were 1886-1968, P. T.
Forsyth’s dates were 1848-1921.]Hunter notes , however, that “the parallel breaks down at two crucial
points: on the place of reason in revelation and on the primacy of the moral. [Forsyth
affirmed the moral as contrasted to metaphysical. For example he felt that at
“Chalcedon (AD 451), men sought to explain the incarnation not on moral but in
intellectual terms – terms of pure being and substance” (75), He felt that the
incarnation should be expressed rather in moral and personal terms. Yet, as
Hunter notes, “Forsyth never contested the truth for which the men of Chalcedon
stood – but a more luminous, a more realistic, more satisfying attempt to
irrradiate the ultimate mystery of how God became a human being” (80). See especially his The
Person and Place of Jesus Christ, 231-232. The title page displays a quotation
from Butler: “Morality is the nature of things.”]. . . Moreover, to a greater
degree than Barth he appreciated the virtues of liberal theology” (12). This leads to our next question,
II.
Who Was Peter Forsyth as a
Liberal?
With the term “Liberal”[“Liberal” is
used here as a descriptive term for the major shift in theological thinking
that occurred in the late nineteenth century.] we are in the context of the
work of 19th century biblical interpretation based on the primacy of
reason that characterizes the modern period. It is within this 19th
century aftermath that Hunter states that Forsyth theologically, “began as an out-and-out Liberal” (15). “Liberalism” is an ambiguous word
representing right as well as wrong attitudes. Thus Hunter continues:
In one sense the mature Forsyth was a Liberal; in another he was
not. A Liberal he was in his demand for intellectual liberty, in his insistence
on the right and value of biblical criticism, in his refusal to rest content in
the ancient creeds with their obsolete categories, in his concept of theology
as Christian faith giving a reasoned account of revelation (15).
Forsyth
had earlier held to what he called “purely scientific criticism”[P. T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching
and the Modern Mind (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1907), 281. This book
contains his Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale University in 1907.] following his classical studies and the work of the 19th
century German higher critics on the historical Jesus, so brilliantly sketched
by Albert Schweitzer in The Quest of the
Historical Jesus (1910). Back to A. M. Hunter:
The Liberalism which he early espoused, and on which he later came
down like a hammer was that version of Christianity which so sought to
accommodate it to the modern mind as to make shipwreck of the historic faith:
which stressed evolution [In line with the inevitable progress ethos of the
time, this view and use of the theory of evolution should be distinguished from
the “theistic evolution” contemporary evangelical scholars are discussing.]rather
than revelation, viewed the kingdom of God as a human creation rather than a
divine invasion, minimized human sin and guilt, scaled down the New Testament
Christ and his cross to all-too-human dimensions, and regarded Paul as the
perverter of an originally simple gospel about God’s fatherhood and man’s brotherhood
(15).
So what happened to Forsyth’s original Liberalism, that is, his “purely scientific criticism”? In our next lesson this will be our
third question, “Why Did Peter Forsyth Change His Theological Stance?” which will
lead us into our fourth question, “What Was Forsyth’s Defense of the Apostolic
Gospel?”
-------
Come and Go
Sunday School Class
First Church of
the Nazarene
3901 Lomaland
Drive
San Diego, CA
92106
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment