Reference
Radcliff, A.S. 2016. The
Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of
T.F. and J.B. Torrance. (Princeton Theological Monograph Series 222),
Eugene, OR: Pickwick. 208 pp
The “outworking” of sanctification
is more than a noetic (“intellectual”) process, wherein we become aware of who
we are in Jesus. We are reconciled not only to look toward Jesus as our
example, but also to participate in
his relationship with the Father in the Spirit. For Torrance, atonement is not the goal of the incarnation; rather,
the telos (goal, end) of Christ’s
atoning work is communion. As J.B.
Torrance asserts, “In love God created us for ‘sonship,’ to find our true
being-in-communion, and in Jesus Christ gives us that gift of communion through
the Spirit, of being daughters and sons of the Father.”
Comment: When
Torrance says that the goal of the incarnation is not atonement, he means
"atonement" in the sense of an external transaction (satisfaction,
penal substitution, example). In this case, he is not referring to
atonement as "at-one-ment."
Comment: In regard to the reason Jesus came, we
rightly assert that Jesus came into the world to save sinners ((Mark 10:45). We
must not stop there, however. According
to Jesus, eternal life is knowing the Father and the one whom he sent (John
17:3). Therefore, the over-arching reason that Jesus came was to bring us home
to the Father. In other words, as Torrance insists, the goal of the incarnation
is not atonement (in an external sense) but communion in the Father-Son relationship through the
ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Radcliff draws on JB
Torrance to describe three theological models that differentially relate to the
outworking of sanctification. First, the Harnack
model represents liberal theology, wherein Jesus is seen as a moral teacher
that we are too imitate. Second, the existential
model, represented by evangelicalism and Protestantism, recognizes the
God-humanward movement in Christ’s atoning death on the cross, yet, because it
has no concept of the human-Godward movement of the vicarious humanity of
Jesus, our response is burdensome, for it is detached from participation in
Christ. Third, the incarnational-Trinitarian model of the Torrance tradition
appreciates both the God-humanward movement and the human-Godward movement,
wherein the Christian life is viewed as “the gift of participating through the
Spirit in the incarnate Son’s communion with the Father” (JBT).
Radcliff cites T.A.
Noble’s book on the Trinity to assert that if we are to take Jesus as an
example, we do better to imitate his relationship with the Father in which we
share by the Spirit. As we share in that relationship, the outworking of our
sanctification follows. Noble offers an interesting analogy of a man falling in
love with a woman to illustrate how the desire for communion may express itself
in transformed life. The man finds that his relation with the woman turns him
out of himself, as she brings out the best in him. The man does not actively
seek this change for the better; he seeks the woman! His transformation is the
by-product of the relationship. For
Noble, it is “objective experience of the real and living God” that results in
the subjective transformation we call sanctification.
Comment: Noble’s analogy
of lovers transformed in relationship is noteworthy.
Sanctification conceived
in terms of a participatory
relationship challenges the external, legal view of sanctification found in
Puritanism, whether old or new. As JB Torrance lamented, Puritan preachers
sought to instill obedience in their congregations through law and the fear of
consequences of disobedience, thereby subordinating God’s filial (relational)
purposes to an over-arching legal framework. As Radcliff notes, the Puritans
preached law first in order to instill fear,
then offered the Gospel as “solace” to those who chose to embrace Christ.
Comment: The Puritan preacher
Jonathan Edwards is said to have instilled such terror in his hearers that the
congregants literally howled and wailed in fear of hell and damnation.
This kind of preaching, which is still with us today, presents the Gospel as a threat, rather than as “good news.” As
my partners in Africa tell me, this is common fare in their countries, where
the Father is portrayed as the “punishing God.” Of course, they learned this
kind of preaching from white evangelical-Protestant missionaries. (For this
reason, I am committed to bringing incarnational-Trinitarian theology to east Africa
and south Asia.)
The Puritans, both old and
new, prioritize law over relationship. For the stern-jawed Puritan, it is law
rather than grace that leads to repentance. According to J.I. Packer, for
example, “Holiness sets its sights on absolute moral standards and unchanging
moral ideals, established by God himself.” In regard to “law-breakers,” notes
Packer, God can do nothing other than visit them in “displays of retributive
judgment, so that all … may see the glory of his moral inflexibility.” Compare
that to Radcliff’s inspiring assertion that repentance involves fixing our eyes
on Jesus. Wow! What a difference!
Packer rightly asserts
that God is not “morally indifferent,” and we should not act toward him as if
he were. However, Packer also asserts that we must seek to please God “by
consecrated zeal in keeping his law,” accompanied by regular self-examination
to identify our shortcomings. In contrast, Radcliff rightly argues that we are
not forgiven so that we may have a second chance at keeping the law. She draws
on TF Torrance to assert that the Church is not a group of individuals who
follow common moral principles; the Church is a community-of-persons ontologically transformed in Christ, who
share by the Spirit in his relationship with the Father. Here again, we see the
Torrances assertion that our standing vis-à-vis
God is relational, not legal. In the
“identity-forming” ministry of the Spirit, notes Julie Canlis, we discover that
we are sons and daughters of our Father. The Spirit directs us out of ourselves
and away from our own attempts at perfect performance toward our relationship
with the Father in Jesus. As Canlis writes, “The Holy Spirit ushers us into
adoption, not workaholism; the Spirit tells us not so much what to do, but who we are.” Well said! For TF Torrance,
an external conception of holy living by adhering to laws is excluded by Paul’s
language of the Church as the “body of Christ.” The church “inheres” in Jesus;
it does not follow abstract rules. Again we see the assertion that our standing
with our Father is relational, not legal.
Comment: The images in the New
Testament that describe the Church are organic,
not abstract and legal. We are “the body of Christ.” We are the branches who
are nourished by the Vine. We are stones built up into a holy Temple, etc.
Following Torrance and
Hauerwas, Radcliff argues that law can become a substitute for relationship.
Law becomes an end in itself, a program to be achieved rather than a life to be
lived in relationship to the Triune God. Because of the capacity of the human
heart for deception, notes T.F. Torrance, we may seek to justify ourselves
before God and neighbor by a formal, impersonal fulfillment of law in which we
remain internally untouched and
uncommitted. For Torrance, this de-humanizing endeavor leads to insincerity and
hypocrisy.
Comment: Law keeping can easily
degenerate into “form” without “substance.” Tragically, law keeping may allow
us to turn a blind eye to the joys and
perils of a relationship with the
Living God. To encounter the Living God in relationship
is to be changed, and change can often be painful! (“What the caterpillar calls
the ‘end of the world,’ God calls a butterfly.”)
For JB Torrance, we
fulfill the law not through adhering to static rules, “but dynamically through
the presence of the Spirit in us and our participation in Christ.” Likewise,
notes Radcliff, Barth believes that ethical behavior is a matter of following
God’s will by the Spirit through participating in Christ. Similarly, Bonhoeffer
asserts that the Christian life comes not from being turned inward upon
ourselves but rather being turned out of ourselves in relationship with God.
[Contrast this with the neo-Puritan insistence upon the inward term of introspection and self-examination.] I think we can
briefly summarize all this by saying that godly living is not the consequence
of law keeping, but the fruit of relationship.
The outworking of sanctification comes not from knowledge of good and evil
(i.e., “ethics”) but from our union with God through Jesus in the Spirit.
Radcliff cites David
Torrance, who laments that probably ninety per cent of the sermons preached
today emphasize cumbersome exhortations to do what is “right,” so that
congregants get tired, weary and frustrated—and
ultimately slip away. Radcliff sees this tendency in a new book by the
arch-Calvinist, John Piper, who provides a formula for “fighting” against sin,
one that consists primarily of exhortations that rely on willpower and
struggle. As Radcliff argues, this obscures Christ as the ground of our
sanctification in whose intimate communion with the Father we participate by
the Spirit.
In contrast to Piper,
David Torrance calls for preaching that is centered on Jesus, so that we might
come into relationship with the
Father. JB Torrance argues that the preacher’s task is not to throw people back
upon themselves (as in Piper’s exhortations to willpower and struggle), but to
turn people out of themselves toward Christ, so that we might share by the
Spirit in his relationship with the Father. As JB Torrance argues, “God’s
primary purpose for humans is ‘filial,’ not ‘judicial,’ [i.e., ‘relational’, not ‘legal’] where we have been created in the
image of God to find our true being-in-communion, in ‘sonship,’ in the mutual
personal relations of love.” As Radcliff notes, “In the outworking of
sanctification, God’s primary purpose for humanity is not to adhere to external
rules and regulations (judicial) but to participate by the Spirit in the Son’s
communion with the Father (filial)” (p. 186).
Key points:
- · The goal of the incarnation is not atonement [in an external sense], but communion with the Triune God of grace.
- · The outworking of sanctification is not a matter of law keeping but of participation in the Son’s relationship with the Father by the Spirit.
- · Neo-Puritanism prioritizes law over grace and reduces sanctification to a wearing struggle.
- Law keeping without relationship is form without substance, leading to insincerity and hypocrisy.
- · Christian living arises as we turn away from ourselves to Jesus and the truth of our identity in him, so that we may share in his relationship with the Father by the Spirit and grow into who we are “in him” (Radcliff).
Let me conclude with a great quote from the 19th C. South African pastor Andrew Murray. It is an excellent antidote to the inward turn of the neo-Puritanism of Packer, Piper and others. I read it this morning in his devotional book, Humility:
"Being occupied with self,
even amid the deepest self-abhorrence, can never free us from self. … Not to be
occupied with your sin, but to be occupied with God, brings deliverance from
self."
