Seminary: Day 7

Day 7

AP: We have rebelled against God and deserve nothing but wrath and judgment. Yet God has provided a way to uphold justice in the universe, to uphold his goodness of character, while providing a way to escape the coming wrath. Not by breaking the rules (i.e being inconsistent with his character) or overlooking evil, but by crediting us with his goodness, and crediting Jesus with our rebellion. Christ was actively obedient, obeying God at all times throughout his earthly life, and he was passively obedient - accepting all suffering that came his way though it was unjust. He became sin and accepted the full force of God's wrath that we deserved, died the death sin brings, and rose from the grave, showing that his sacrifice was accepted. This "great exchange" (our sin for his goodness) is applied to all who believe and trust in Him. His work fully accomplishes our salvation - there is nothing we do to add to it, and in fact if we try, we have not grasped the gospel. Because of this, when we believe we are accepted by God and adopted into His family - never to be cast out.

ST: God made man in his own image, but the language used is particularly peculiar: "Let us make man in our image." As people have tried to understand this verse through the centuries, a number of views have surfaced. The first view is that God is talking with the angels - but in no other place in Scripture are angels said to create; there is a single Creator God. The second view is that God is making use of the "royal we" - as if a Queen says "We are not amused." The third view is that this is a glimpse of the Trinity, that God is having a self-directed discussion between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This option is particularly appealing because there are other places where the Old Testament is like a fully furnished room that is dimly lit - such as where what is sometimes called the "proto-gospel" is in Genesis 3:15 when God curses the serpent: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." Later, the more full revelation of truth comes in Jesus. With no other creature does God say he will make it in "our image." This image is not an add-on to humanity, but is the essence of what it means to be human. Mankind was also uniquely given dominion over the creation as God's vice-regent. Adam was good, with no flaw in his reason, knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, having the law of God written in his heart and having the power to fulfill it, but he was not yet confirmed in his righteousness (or not yet glorified or not yet in his eschatological state) - i.e. his relationship with God could be lost. Mankind fell from this lofty position when Adam rebelled, but the gospel does not merely return us to Eden, but takes us to Eden's goal. The second Adam - Christ - succeeds where the first Adam failed and thus secures for all who believe that final state of glorification where sin is completely removed, which means heaven is not another trial as Eden was, but is a relationship with God that cannot be severed because sin and the desire to sin will be removed from us.

CH - Zwingli was a different reformer than Luther was, for many reasons - not the least of which that there is no "Zwinglian Church" or "Zwinglian Reformation." Zwingli was a humanist in the 16th cetury use of the word - a man of letters (learning), a man of the city - while Luther was a man of the countryside, a man more in touch with the medieval sensibilites. Zwingli, like Luther (and all of us) was a flawed man, and there were rumors (assumed to be Catholic propaganda by some) that he got a woman pregnant outside wedlock. Some years later, a confession was found in a book in Zwingli's handwriting that this was in fact true. This and Luther's (a former monk) marriage to a former nun was used by Catholic opposition to say that the Reformation was really just about sex. For Zwingli, the reformation was about the sovereignty of God in light of the plague, during which 25% of the population of Zurich died. Zwingli, like Luther, did not reject everything from the Catholic church (hence the title of "reformer"), for instance, he still believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary, and his Marion devotion continued. But Zwingli was a pre-modern man, and the plague was a mysterious act of God. His "95 thesis" moment surrounds the eating of sausages (!), breaking the Lenten fast. Zwingli did not actually eat, but sat among those who did. This leads to a series of disputations, and with the advent of the printing press, word spreads quickly. (Incidentally, printers at that time were considered very radical, and there were risks when printing controversial material). These disputations accented the role on the Bible as normative for life, and he swings violently against the Anabaptists. Because the church and state were so closely tied at this point in history, people like the Anabaptists were considered on the fringe, opting out of society. One other interesting development at this time is in ministerial training where a gathering of ministers sat and each expounded on a passage (the same one), starting from the least experienced and proceeding until the most experienced pastor would speak. Zwingli eventually rejects the sacramental view of the Lord's supper, seeing it as a memorial. It was an argument in essence about the meaning of the word "is," as in "This is my body." Zwingli argues that the use of "is" here is more closely related to "symbolizes" than one of identity. Thus, a "pamphlet war" broke out on the presses of the day