Atonement is not an end in itself

On the other hand, atonement is not an end in itself, any more than the judgement of sin and the expiation of guilt are ends in themselves. The purpose of atonement is to reconcile humanity back to God so that atonement issues in union between man and God, but it issues in union between man and God because the hypostatic union is that union already being worked out between estranged man and God, between man's will and God's will in the one person of Christ. It is the hypostatic union or hypostatic at-onement, therefore, which lies embedded in the very heart of atonement. All that is done in the judgement of sin, in expiation of guilt, in the oblation of obedience to the Father is in order to bring humanity back to union with God, and to anchor that union within the eternal union of the Son and the Father, and the Father and the Son, through the communion of the Holy Spirit.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 196

God veiled himself

In Jesus Christ, God has come in the humble form of a servant, veiling his divine majesty, for we could not look on the face of God and live. If God came openly in his glory and majesty, we would be smitten to the ground in sin and death; the last judgement would be upon us, with no time to repent, no opportunity for personal decision in faith. The very humanity of Christ is the veiling of God; the flesh of sin, the humiliation and the form of a servant, the death of Christ all veil God — and so God draws near to us under that veil in order to reveal himself, and save us. It is sometimes asked if God could not reveal himself to us apart from or without Christ, without the humble form of a servant. But if revelation were to take place apart from the veiling of Christ, or in a form totally unknown to us, it would disrupt the conditions of our world and of our humanity, and instead of saving us, it would mean our disintegration. No, the very humanity of Jesus Christ makes salvation possible, for here in the man Jesus, God comes alongside us as man and within our historical existence with its temporal relations, choices and decisions, he acts there upon us personally through word and love, through challenge and decision.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 194

The Church's one foundation

381 Aurelia. 7. 6. 7. 6. D.

1 The Church's one foundation
   Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
   She is His new creation
   By water and the word;
   From heav'n He came and sought her
   To be His holy bride;
   With His own blood He bought her,
   And for her life He died.

2 Elect from ev'ry nation,
   Yet one o'er all the earth,
   Her charter of salvation,
   One Lord, one faith, one birth;
   One holy name she blesses,
   Partakes one holy food,
   And to one hope she presses,
   With ev'ry grace endued.

3 'Mid toil and tribulation,
   And tumult of her war,
   She waits the consummation
   Of peace forevermore;
   Till with the vision glorious,
   Her longing eyes are blest,
   And the great Church victorious
   Shall be the Church at rest.

4 Yet she on earth hath union
   With God, the Three in One,
   And mystic sweet communion
   With those whose rest is won;
   O happy ones and holy!
   Lord, give us grace that we
   Like them, the meek and lowly,
   On high may dwell with Thee.
                         Samuel J. Stone
                         The Methodist Hymnal 1939 edition

<idle musing>
This was one of my favorite hymns growing up. I was surprised to discover that it isn't more popular, occurring in only 847 hymnals. As per usual, cyberhymnal has an abundance of extra verses:

3. The Church shall never perish!
   Her dear Lord to defend,
   To guide, sustain, and cherish,
   Is with her to the end:
   Though there be those who hate her,
   And false sons in her pale,
   Against both foe or traitor
   She ever shall prevail.

4. Though with a scornful wonder
   Men see her sore oppressed,
   By schisms rent asunder,
   By heresies distressed:
   Yet saints their watch are keeping,
   Their cry goes up, How long?
   And soon the night of weeping
   Shall be the morn of song!

And mixes parts of two other verses to create two different ones:

6. Yet she on earth hath union
   With God the Three in One,
   And mystic sweet communion
   With those whose rest is won,
   With all her sons and daughters
   Who, by the Master’s hand
   Led through the deathly waters,
   Repose in Eden land.

7. O happy ones and holy!
   Lord, give us grace that we
   Like them, the meek and lowly,
   On high may dwell with Thee:
   There, past the border mountains,
   Where in sweet vales the Bride
   With Thee by living fountains
   Forever shall abide!

</idle musing>

Assuming the whole nature of humanity

He who reveals God to man, and reconciles man to God, must be both God and man, truly and completely God, and truly and completely man. If the Son was to redeem the whole nature of man, he had to assume the whole nature of man; if in the Son man is to be gathered into the fellowship and life of God, it must be by one who is truly and completely God. Only he can be mediator who is himself the union of God and man, only he can be pontifex who is himself the pons.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 190

If Christ is not God, then?

If Christ is not God, if God is not fully and wholly present in Christ and identical with Christ, then God does not reconcile the world to, himself, and the work of Jesus is not eternally valid, but is only temporal and contingent and relative. If Christ is not God, then the love of Christ is not identical with God's love, and so we do not know that God is love. We may know that Christ is love, but if he is not really God in the complete sense, then all we have in Jesus Christ is a revelation of man, of humanity at its noblest reaching up into the clouds. If Christ is not God, then we do not have a descent of God to man. Thus as the obverse of the fact that Christ's real humanity means that God has actually come to us and dwells among us, Christ's deity means that God himself has come to save us. The dogma of the humanity of Christ asserts the actuality in our world of the coming of God, and the dogma of the deity of Christ asserts the divine content of our knowledge and salvation, the objective reality of our relation to God himself. The dogma of the deity of Christ means that our salvation in Christ is anchored in eternity: that it is more sure than the heavens.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 188

Jesus, with Thy Church abide

380 Litany (Hervey). 7. 7. 7. 6.

1. Jesus, with Thy Church abide,
   Be her Savior, Lord, and Guide,
   While on earth her faith is tried:
   We beseech Thee, hear us.

2. May her voice be ever clear,
   Warning of a judgment near,
   Telling of a Savior dear:
   We beseech Thee, hear us.

3. May she guide the poor and blind,
   Seek the lost until she find,
   And the broken hearted bind:
   We beseech Thee, hear us.

4. May her lamp of truth be bright,
   Bid her bear aloft its light
   Through the realms of heathen night:
   We beseech Thee, hear us.

5. Judge her not for work undone,
   Judge her not for fields unwon,
   Bless her works in Thee begun:
   We beseech Thee, hear us.

6. May she holy triumphs win,
   Overthrow the hosts of sin,
   Gather all the nations in,
   We beseech Thee, hear us.
                         Thomas B. Pollock
                         The Methodist Hymnal 1939 edition

<idle musing>
I don't recall ever singing this, but it certainly does make a good prayer for the state of the church. It's not very common, only occurring in about 100 hymnals, but for an uncommon hymn, it suffers from a variety of versions. As usual, cyberhymnal has the fullest version. Here are the extra verses

3. Keep her life and doctrine pure,
   Help her, patient, to endure,
   Trusting in Thy promise sure:
   We beseech Thee, hear us. 4. All her fettered powers release
   Bid our strife and envy cease,
   Grant the heav’nly gift of peace:
   We beseech Thee, hear us. 5. May she one in doctrine be,
   One in truth and charity,
   Winning all to faith in Thee:
   We beseech Thee, hear us.

7. May her priests Thy people feed,
   Shepherds of the flock indeed,
   Ready, where Thou call’st, to lead:
   We beseech Thee, hear us.

9. All that she has lost, restore,
   May her strength and zeal be more
   Than in brightest days of yore:
   We beseech Thee, hear us.

10. Raise her to her calling high,
   Let the nations far and nigh
   Hear Thy heralds’ warning cry:
   We beseech Thee, hear us.

13. May she thus all glorious be,
   Spotless and from wrinkle free,
   Pure and bright, and worthy Thee:
   We beseech Thee, hear us.

</idle musing>

Why docetism fails

The humanity of Christ is also essential to God's act of reconciliation, for the actuality of atonement is grounded upon the fact that in actual human nature it is God himself acting on our behalf. Thus any docetic view of the humanity of Christ would mean that God only appears to act within our human existence, or that his acts are only of tangential significance, that they do not really strike into the roots of our existence and condition, and have no relevance to our need. Atonement is real and actual only if and as the mediator acts fully from the side of man as man, as well as from the side of God as God. If the humanity of Christ is imperfect, atonement is imperfect, and we would then still be in our sins. If Jesus Christ is really and truly man, then his death for sin is an act of God himself in human nature, and not just an external act upon human nature. But if atonement is to fulfil its object, it must be not only act of God upon man, but act of man in response to God, man's sacrifice, man's oblation, satisfaction by man for sin before God. Apart from the human obedience and human life and death of Christ, apart from his human sacrifice, we have nothing at all to offer to God, nothing with which we can stand before God, but our sin and guilt. But here in the full humanity of Jesus, as it is joined eternally to his deity in incarnation and atonement, man's destiny as man is actually assured and restored to its place in God from which it has fallen; man's wrong has been set aside in and with the judgement accomplished upon the humanity of Christ, and now in his humanity our new right humanity has been established before God.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 186

Going Deeper with Biblical Hebrew—a review

Going Deeper with Biblical Hebrew: An Intermeiate Study of the Grammar and Syntax of the Old Testment, by H. H. Hardy II and Matthew McAffee. Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2024.

When I read that Chip Hardy and Matthew McAffee had an intermediate Hebrew grammar coming out, I was curious. They are both excellent scholars and both teach Hebrew, so I was fairly certain it would be of value (see disclaimer below). Having had a copy now for a few weeks and working through it, I can assure you that I wasn’t disappointed. It is well-written and solidly grounded in modern linguistic theory. As I told them on my initial glance through it, it’s the second-year grammar I wish I had access to when I was learning Hebrew many long years ago. But enough introduction. Let’s take a deeper look.

First, the book is well-made, with a Smyth binding that will hold up through a semester of use and beyond as you refer to it over the years. The type face is clear and crisp, large enough to be easy on the eyes, but not too large. The layout is clear, with a generous use of tables to illustrate things. There is an abundance of Hebrew examples illustrating their points.

The contents are divided up into three parts, the first being a general introduction to the language and a chapter on textual criticism, written by John Meade. The second part (chs. 3–6, almost 200 pages) covers the verbal system (ch. 3), verbal stems (ch. 4), the prefix and suffix conjugations (ch. 5), and volitives (ch. 6). The third part (chs. 7–11, almost 300 pages) covers nouns and noun phrases (ch. 7), pronouns, adjectives, and participles (ch. 8), infinitives and temporal clauses (ch. 9), conjunctions, adverbs, and other particles (ch. 10), and prepositions (ch. 11). Three guided lessons (textual criticism, semantic analysis [word study], and syntactic analysis), four appendices (continuing with Biblical Hebrew, vocabulary, English-Hebrew list, and glossary), an ample bibliography, and three indexes (name, subject [with Hebrew words appearing together under the entry “Hebrew words”], and scripture index) round out the volume.

Each chapter begins with a brief introduction, then a section entitled “Going Deeper with…,” which consists of a look at a scripture passage, highlighting how knowing Hebrew sheds more light on it, specifically by highlighting the elements to be covered in that chapter. The selections are well-chosen and designed to pique the interest of the student. This is followed by an enumeration of the chapter objectives, another short introduction and then the meat of the chapter. Usually they begin by illustrating the points being made via English examples before diving into the Hebrew. As I mentioned, there are numerous examples from the Hebrew Bible highlighting each of their points. Footnotes provide a bibliography for the student who wants to go further, as well as a bit more background in some cases. Grammatical terms that might be unfamiliar to the student are underlined and defined in the glossary at the end of the volume.

Each chapter ends with exercises consisting of Hebrew to English translation (with instructions not just to translate, but to parse verbs and make other notations based on the theme of the chapter), a selection of sentences to translate from English to Hebrew, and a guided reading of a scripture passage, with vocabulary and notes to assist. Considering that this is a second-year grammar, the notes should be more than adequate.

The only note of concern I have is the chapter on textual criticism assumes access to works that only a well-equipped seminary or graduate school would have. I have a fairly well-stocked library, but I certainly don’t own the Göttingen LXX volumes (although I wish I could justify them!). Consequently, it’s obvious this chapter was written with the seminarian/graduate student in mind. That being said, the principles he lays out can be applied with the tools you do have. And the bibliography supplies links to public domain tools such as Kennicott and the Hexapla, which mitigates some of problems of not having access to a research library. And maybe it will spur the student on to learning other languages, such as Aramaic (for the targumim), Syriac, or Latin. Worse things could happen! And some might even decide to splurge and buy the Göttingen LXX on Accordance or Logos. (I admit, that one is tempting to me sometimes, even though I prefer print for reference works like that!)

The text is remarkably free of typographical errors. I understand that they are planning to post an errata sheet, but for now the only egregious error that needs to be noted is at the top of page 151, where the root גדל is reversed. Once the errata sheet is posted, I’ll add a link here.

In summary, this is an excellent second-year grammar that adequately prepares the student to be ready to more easily read the Hebrew Bible, while also preparing them to be able to read and understand more advanced works, such as IBHS or, to explore more historical grammar, Eric Reymond’s Intermediate Biblical Hebrew Grammar, as well as giving them a solid foundation in modern linguistic approaches to Biblical Hebrew—which will also equip them to understand linguistic approaches to Biblical Greek and English. I heartily endorse this book and encourage you to add it to your library.

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of the book with no obligation to review it.
Secondary disclaimer: I read and recommended for publication at Eisenbrauns Chip's dissertation on Hebrew prepositions, although in the end it was published by SBL Press. And, I copyedited Matthew's revised dissertation for Eisenbrauns in the ENEAC series. That's why I was excited to read this volume, but it didn't prejudice me toward it before reading it.

Why the incarnation matters

The stark actuality of Christ's humanity, his flesh and blood and bone, guarantees to us that we have God among us. If that humanity were in any sense unreal, God would be unreal for us in him. The full measure of Christ's humanity is the full measure of God's reality for us, God's actuality to us, in fact the measure of God's love for us. If Christ is not man, then God has not reached us, but has stopped short of our humanity — then God does not love us to the uttermost, for his love has stopped short of coming all the way to where we are, and becoming one of us in order to save us. But Christ's humanity means that God's love is now flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, really one of us and with us.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 185

I love it! Hebrew humor

One should avoid several common misconceptions about meaning. First, meaning does not necessarily equal translation value. Words do not have identical semantic ranges in any two languages. Hebrew חסד may have some similar notions as English loyalty, but it is not identical in meaning or usage. A Hebrew market would not have a ḥesed-program for frequent shoppers.—Going Deeper with Biblical Hebrew, 590

Tozer for Tuesday

I grieve that we have so little manifestation of the Shepherd’s presence in our churches. We talk about His being here, but we do not sense that He is here. We do not have the feeling that He is here. Do not talk down feeling, for it’s part of our human constitution; and when He walks into the presence of His people. consciously, they cannot help but feel it.

I think that the most wonderful thing would be to each become so Christ-conscious and so Church-loving that we would clean up our lives and purify our hearts and wash our hands and forgive our enemies and love them too. Then we would focus on Him and learn to live and pray and preach and give and worship in the very conscious presence of the Son of God’s love. I think this would be the most beautiful thing in the whole wide world.—A.W. Tozer, Reclaiming Christianity, 75

I love Thy kingdom, Lord

379 St. Thomas. S. M.

1 I love Thy kingdom, Lord,
   The house of Thine abode,
   The Church our blest Redeemer saved
   With His own precious blood.

2 I love Thy Church, O God!
   Her walls before Thee stand
   Dear as the apple of Thine eye,
   And graven on Thy hand.

3 For her my tears shall fall,
   For her my prayers ascend;
   To her my cares and toils be given,
   Till toils and cares shall end.

4 Beyond my highest joy
   I prize her heavenly ways,
   Her sweet communion, solemn vows,
   Her hymns of love and praise.

5 Sure as Thy truths shall last,
   To Zion shall be given
   The brightest glories earth can yield,
   And brighter bliss of heaven.
                         Timothy Dwight
                         The Methodist Hymnal 1939 edition

<idle musing>
Written by one of the early presidents of Yale, this hymn is quite popular, occurring in a little over 1300 hymnals. Cyberhymnal adds three verses, two after verse 2 and the third one just before the final verse:

3. If e’er to bless Thy sons
   My voice or hands deny,
   These hands let useful skills forsake,
   This voice in silence die.

4. Should I with scoffers join
   Her altars to abuse?
   No! Better far my tongue were dumb,
   My hand its skill should lose.

7. Jesus, Thou friend divine,
   Our Savior and our King,
   Thy hand from every snare and foe
   Shall great deliverance bring.

</idle musing>

Finding a christological balance

[H]ow can we be faithful in our theological statements to the nature of the eternal being of the Son who became man and who yet remains God, and at the same time be faithful to the nature and person of the historical Jesus Christ?

That has been the constant problem of theology. We see it already in the early church, in the contrasting emphases between Antioch and Alexandria, in the tendency of the logos christology even before that to depreciate the historical Jesus. Then, after the battle with Arianism, we see a tendency of post-Nicene christology while affirming the true humanity of Christ, to fail to give adequate account of the saving significance of the historical humanity of Christ, content apparently to give the historical Jesus a place only in the liturgical year, and not in the actual doctrine of Christ. By contrast the modern tendency, especially in the west has been to give an account of Christ solely in terms of what he did for man, rather than in terms of his person and being as the Son of God become man, with the result that the doctrine of Christ tended to be displaced by historicism on the one hand, or religious experience and spiritual values on the other hand.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 182

Jesus as eternal word

Again, if Jesus Christ is the Word of God to us, he is the Word of God antecedently and eternally in the Godhead. Not only is he the Word of God uttered by God in the incarnation, but the Word eternally spoken by the Father in the communion of the Holy Spirit within the holy Trinity. Were that not so, the revelation we are given in Christ would not have eternal validity or ultimate reality. That is why the fourth Gospel begins with the wonderful prologue of the eternity of the Word in God, for it is from the eternal God that the Word proceeded, and all that follows in the Gospel — all that Jesus said and was in his dependence as the incarnate Son upon the Father — goes back to and is grounded in that eternal relation of Word to God within God. Similarly, the epistle to the Hebrews begins its exposition of the high priestly work of Christ by teaching that the Son came forth from the Godhead, the Son by whose word all things were created. It is that Son who came and manifested himself, and now in the incarnation stands forth as the divine servant Son to fulfil his work of atonement in entire solidarity with man, eternal Son of God though he was. But all that Jesus did has reality and validity just because it rests upon that eternal relation of the Son with the Father, and therefore reaches out through and beyond the span of years in his earthly ministry into God.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 176

O come and dwell in me

377 Old 134th (St. Michael). S. M.

1. O come and dwell in me,
   Spirit of power within,
   And bring the glorious liberty
   From sorrow, fear, and sin.

2. Hasten the joyful day
   Which shall my sins consume,
   When old things shall be done away,
   And all things new become.

3. I want the witness, Lord,
   That all I do is right,
   According to Thy mind and Word,
   Well pleasing in Thy sight.

4. I ask no higher state;
   Indulge me but in this,
   And soon or later then translate
   To my eternal bliss.
                         Charles Wesley
                         The Methodist Hymnal 1939 edition

<idle musing>
Not one of Wesley's better known hymns, only occurring in about 160 hymnals. I don't recall ever singing it, but I do like it.
</idle musing>

O how the thought of God

374 Sawley. C. M.

1. O how the thought of God attracts
   And draws the heart from earth
   And sickens it of passing shows
   And dissipating mirth!

2. ’Tis not enough to save our souls,
   To shun th’eternal fires;
   The thought of God will rouse the heart
   To more sublime desires.

3. God only is the creature’s home,
   Though rough and strait the road;
   Yet nothing less can satisfy
   The love that longs for God.

4. O utter but the name of God,
   Down in your heart of hearts,
   And see from the world at once
   All tempting light depart!

5. A trusting heart, a yearning eye,
   Can win their way above,
   If mountains can be moved by faith,
   Is there less power in love?
                         Frederick W. Faber
                         The Methodist Hymnal 1939 edition

Forever here my rest shall be

373 Martyrdom (Avon). C. M.

1 For ever here my rest shall be,
   Close to thy bleeding side;
   This all my hope, and all my plea,
   For me the Saviour died.

2 My dying Saviour and my God,
   Fountain for guilt and sin,
   Sprinkle me ever with thy blood,
   And cleanse, and keep me clean.

3 Wash me, and make me thus thine own:
   Wash me, and mine thou art;
   Wash me, but not my feet alone,
   My hands, my head, my heart.

4 Th' atonement of thy blood apply,
   Till faith to sight improve;
   Till hope in full fruition die,
   And all my soul be love.
                         Charles Wesley
                         The Methodist Hymnal 1939 edition

Insights from Hebrew grammar

See also Gen 1:6, 9 (unmarked jussive), 11, 14, 20 (unmarked jussive), 22, 24. Note the shift in person for the creation of humanity in verse 26: נַֽעֲשֶׂה אָדָם; “Let us make man” (unmarked cohortative). Rather than the function of a performative jussive, the cohortative states the action that God is going to do. The act of creation is expressed in verse 27: וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָֽאָדָם “God created man.” The use of the first-person verbal form contrasts with the indirect nature of the jussive, instead emphasizing God’s personal investment in the creation of humanity.—Going Deeper with Biblical Hebrew, 253 n. 61

Invasion—by suffering and love!

There can be no doubt about it that Jesus deliberately forced the issue. At last when the time drew near he marched straight upon Jerusalem and threw everything into the crisis, pressing the nation to come to an ultimate decision, pressing the people to the supreme point when as a whole people they would take a decision in the solidarity of their sin in resistance against the revealed grace of God. That was the Christ who came not to bring peace but a sword, who came to cast fire on the earth. And so Jesus kept his finger pressing hard upon the people, deliberately provoking evil to its final and complete reaction, and then he set himself to deal with it by the finger of God, in holy love. It was an act of aggression on his part for which he had long prepared. He invaded the realm of the strong man in order to bind him, invaded by suffering and by love, in order to bind him by atonement. The cross was the culminating point of the struggle when he touched people at the very roots of their being, at the point where sin was most deeply entrenched, and did the tremendous deed that reversed all things.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 155

In that awful hour mercy and truth worked together and kissed each other…

The more truth entered into the innermost centre of man's sin and guilt, the more it involved man in ultimate conflict with God who is truth and love. It was not that Jesus was making mankind more guilty, but that his absolute consistency as holy love, his truth, was exposing the infinite guilt of humanity as he drew it fully and completely upon himself in all its utter violence in order to bear it and bear it away as the lamb of God in atoning sacrifice. Here we have the ultimate compassion of Jesus Christ in which he so pours himself out upon mankind and for them that he enters into the innermost citadel of sin in order to take it upon himself. In exposing it he, the truth, drew out all its hate and enmity, revealing its true nature as sheer hatred of grace, and then he bowed beneath it and bore it all on his own body and soul on the tree in holy and awful atonement, and with groanings that cannot be uttered. But in that awful hour mercy and truth worked together and kissed each other, as the Old Testament would put it. The cross is at once the absolute truth and absolute mercy. God is both just and the justifier of the ungodly, and what joins these together is the steadfastness or faithfulness of Jesus Christ both toward God and toward man.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 151–52