JT: Mr. Torrance's
language tells me he is a misguided Calvinist and when one begins with a
faulty premise......
WT: This is a classic ad
hominem; rather than rebutting the argument by appealing to reason, you
said nothing about the argument, instead you attacked the man by appealing to
prejudice.
JT: When I wrote the above I did not consider it
to be ad hominem, I don't know the man. I was commenting on his ideas and
made that statement.
because I've been there, done that. I had to learn the hard
way to be Berean and check everything I hear/read in God's Word myself.
Of course this does not include secular philosophy, science, and
history but they IMO are not in the category called Truth if we use the
scriptural definition.
WT: If it is light, what difference does
it make if it is coming through Calvin or Camels; it is still light? Calvin
would have been the first to say that any light found shining around him was
sourced not in himself but in the True Light which came into the
world.
JT: If it conflicts with or contradicts the Word of Truth then there
is a problem. Calvin's doctrine does this causing no end of
confusion. He was still in Roman Catholicism when he began his writings and a
very young man (in his early 20's). I don't see godliness in the fruit of his
life. He lorded it over Geneva and had a man burned at the stake for
disagreeing with him. I'll leave the judgment to God and
go to Jesus Himself who is the one with ALL light and who is
ALL truth.
<snip> I'm not baiting you Bill,
just stating what I understand from scripture which is that
Jesus the man became fallen and depraved from the 6th to the 9th hour;
which is when the light of the world went out and darkness covered
the earth (Matt 27:45, Mark 15:33); he cried "My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me" because for the first time ever he had
become separated from the Father because of OUR SIN.
WT: I am really quite glad that you said
this, because in doing so what you've done implicitly is what we all have
to do sometimes when trying to state biblical truth; that is, we have to
assimilate or summarize or synthesize from things not stated expressly,
in order to state what we believe to be a just-as-true statement of the
truth. And while I do not agree with your summary, I will both defend your
right make it and refuse to call it anything less than entirely appropriate to
draw. Good job, you are doing theology.
Now that you have opened the door :>)
I would like to respond to this by doing some theology myself. Rather than
understanding the "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" as an
_expression_ of despair, I would like to cast it in a different Light. I would
like to suggest that in his exhaustion and pain and humiliation the Son was
trying to kick-start in the minds of his accusers a very familiar story, with
a very happy ending. Psalm 22.1 begins with this most haunting cry, and both Matthew
and Mark tell us that Jesus took it up when he was dying on the cross.
JT: This is because Psalm 22:1 is a Messianic prophecy which came through
King David who was a Prophet/King.
WT: It is very natural for us, steeped as
we are in the legal framework of Western Evangelical thought, to see this
cry of Jesus as the supreme _expression_ of his passion. With the justice
of God in the background, Jesus takes upon himself our sin and God
unleashes upon him the fury of his eternal wrath. And in that horrible,
unthinkable moment, Jesus cries out, "My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me." But is this the
correct interpretation of this verse?
JT: It says what it means and means what it says Bill - and it certainly
does not sound like joy-bells to me...
WT: What if we read it as true
Trinitarian Christians, with the Triune God, not the legalized God of holy
anger, in the back of our minds.
JT: I'm not sure what a "trinitarian Christian" is since trinity
is not a Biblical word. The scriptures speak of the Godhead but
the term trinity comes out of the RCC, not only that but it has become
very controversial.
WT: Again, and I know you know this, this
cry of Jesus is a direct quotation from Psalm 22. If we read the Psalm as a
whole, we find the message does not end in despair at all, but in Victory; in
fact, it ends with the remarkable prophesy, "All the ends of the earth will
remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will
worship before You. ... They will come and will declare His righteousness to a
people who will be born, that he has performed it" (27&31). Between the
cry and the prophecy lies the whole range of human emotion. The first two
verses are words of deep despair: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
...
JT: We should stop here and understand that Messianic prophecy in
scripture is interspersed with the rest in all the OT and in Vs2-5
of Psalm 22 David is speaking of his own experience. This
could not be Jesus because in his own words Jesus said that the Father
always heard him even when he didn't speak out loud (see John 11:42);
(I'm assuming here that you agree that we should interpret scripture in light
of other scripture...)
WT: O my God, I cry by day but you do not
answer." The anguish of the Psalmist is heightened in that his cries are met
by stone-cold silence. But in his despair he rehearses the faith of his
fathers. He goes back to the old stories of God's faithfulness: "In you our
fathers trusted; the trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried out and
were delivered. In you they trusted and were not disappointed" (4-5).
But then the psalmist
takes a turn into deeper despair and darkness: "But I am a worm, and not a
man. A reproach of men, and despised by the people" (6).
JT: In Psalm 22, Vs.6 we are back at the cross and the word for worm
(tola) used here refers to man in his sinful state before a Holy God; it is
also used in Job 25:6 and Isaiah 41:14 and here (from the cross) it is a
statement of Truth.
WT: He is well aware of the heroes of the
faith, but I, he thinks to himself, am not a hero. I am not even a good
person. Even the people despise me. They mock my trust in God. Go ahead, they
say, commit yourself to the Lord and see what happens. Let the Lord deliver
you. Then the Psalmist looks away from himself and the people and sets his
eyes again upon God. "Yet," he says, "You are the One who brought me forth
from the womb. You made me trust when I was at my mother's breast. Upon you I
was cast from birth and you have been my God from my mother's womb"
(9-10).
JT: Jesus said all along that he came forth from God and this is the
reason he prayed out loud in John 11:42 (so the rest of the people would
believe this).
WT: Here the Psalmist cries out for
deliverance: "Be not far from me, for trouble is near; for there is
none to help. Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of
Bashan have encircled me. They gape at me with their mouths,
Like a raging and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and
all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; It has melted within
me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue clings to my
jaws; you have brought me to the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded
me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierced Mm hands and
my feet; I can count all my bones. They look at me and
stare. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they
cast lots. But You, O LORD, do not be far from me; O my Strength, hasten
to help me! Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the
power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the
wild oxen! You have answered me. I will declare Your name to my brethren;
In the midst of the assembly I will praise You" (11-21). The trauma of the
Psalmist is staggering. His insides are shredded with fear. He has no
courage and no hope. He is crying out to God for help, for
deliverance.
JT: I read this as a very vivid description of what the crucifixion was
like physically and emotionally. I don't believe King David had this kind of a
personal experience in his own life.
WT: Then the Psalmist makes another
turn. The despair ends, and praise begins and the whole ordeal comes to a
victorious end, such that coming generations will look back on this event
and see that the Lord has performed his salvation:
"I will declare Your name to my brethren; In the
midst of the assembly I will praise You.
...
JT: This is also a prophetic statement concerning Jesus ministry to his
Church post Calvary - see Hebrews 2:12; he certainly didn't do any singing
from the cross.
WT: For He has not despised nor
abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from Him;
But when He cried to Him, He heard" (22, 24) "My praise shall be of You
in the great assembly; I will pay my vows before those who fear Him.
... All the ends of the world Shall remember and turn to the LORD, And
all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For the kingdom
is the LORD's, And he rules over the nations. All the prosperous
of the earth shall eat and worship; all those who go down to the dust Shall
bow before Him, even he who cannot keep himself alive. A posterity shall
serve Him. It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation,
they will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born,
that He has done this" (25, 27-31). This Psalm begins with agony and culminates
in God's victorious intervention and to a prophecy that the coming
generations will look back upon this moment as the salvation of the Lord of
Hosts.
So, the question must be asked, Why
did Jesus quote the first verse of this Psalm from the cross? because in his
day--and this is where knowledge of extra-biblical history comes in--to hear
the first verse of a Psalm was like hearing the beginning of a favorite song.
The tune kick-starts the tape in our heads and sends us singing the rest of
the song. So familiar with the Psalms were the Jews that to hear the first
line was to hear the whole Psalm. When Jesus quoted from the first line of
Psalm 22, he set the whole Psalm playing in their heads. And in so doing, he
was interpreting the event of his passion and death for them.
On the cross Jesus surely
identified with the suffering of the Psalmist, but he also identified with the
whole Psalm. What is happening on the cross? What is the meaning of this
event? This is what we must ask -- and Jesus is answering all of these
questions; he is saying, Here it is, right here is Psalm 22. It looks as
though all is lost. It looks as though the dogs are winning and as if God has
abandoned him, utterly forsaken him to the abyss. But not so!
JT: I don't know about all that Bill. How many Jews were even
there? This would do nothing for the Romans and the religious leaders had
already rejected him in fact they are the ones who insisted on sending him to
the cross; it's not as though the light came on for them and they all
turned up 50 days later in the upper room to wait for the
promise. Apparently most of them didn't even understand the scriptures -
understanding came through the ministry of the Holy Spirit which they had
not yet received (see Luke 24:44,45).
WT: "For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the
afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He
heard." (24) Judy, you want to say that God forsook his son; indeed,
the very opposite is true!
JT: I am not saying God rejected his son; what I am saying is that this
was part of the price Jesus paid when he took our sin upon himself. He
knew up front how it would be which is why he shed great drops of blood in the
garden of Gethsemane and yet the amazing thing is that he still went
through with it for the joy that was set before him - despising the
shame. (see Hebrews 12:2)
WT: In the greatest of ironies, the cry
of Jesus, "My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?" actually sets in
motion a line of thought that completely reinterprets what is happening on the
cross. Far from being a perverse moment when the angry God (of Jonathan
Edwards, if you want to know where your theology comes from, where this angry
God) pours out his wrath upon the Son and utterly rejects him,
JT: Wrong on both counts Bill. My theology does not come from
Jonathan Edwards and I do not believe God ever rejected his son. After
all he can not deny himself can he? Nor do I believe this was a "perverse
moment" It is totally in keeping with the nature and character of a holy
God who can not deny Himself or His Word. God can not abide sin and
iniquities - they create a wall between creature and creator; so God in
his holiness hid his face from Jesus during his time on the cross (for a
moment in the light of eternity) because as both sacrifice & scapegoat
he was laden with OUR sin. But when it was finished, it was
finished. He was justified in Spirit and the work was done.
WT: the Cross is the moment when the
Father absolutely refuses to forsake his Son; it is the moment of moments
when he does not hide his face, or turn his back on him in abandonment. Far
from being the moment win the wrath of God is vented upon the Son, the Cross
is the event where the relationship between the Father and the Son is the most
triumphant. Yes, in sin's greatest darkness, Jesus penetrated to the core
of Adamic estrangement, where everything shouts that God has rejected us and
abandoned us to the abyss. But it was precisely there, precisely in that
estrangement, that fallenness and depravity, "where humanity is at its
wickedest in its enmity and violence against the reconciling love of God"
(Torrance), that the fellowship of the Father and Son and Spirit stood
fast.
JT: You've completely lost me here Bill. What are you and
Prof Torrance saying?
WT: This we know, when we let the Trinity
guide our thinking through the Bible.
JT: The trinity is what was guiding the RCC for so long - I prefer to
honor the Godhead and allow the Holy Spirit to lead me into ALL Truth... as
well as guide my thinking.
I need to thank Baxter Kruger, a
wonderful professor of theology and Church history in Jackson, MS, for
first enlightening me to this Truth. I'm tired. I'll get to the rest of your
remarks later. Thanks for being patient, while we wade though
this.
JT: I'm not sure what you refer to here Bill but if it is
that God did not turn away from Jesus on the cross then this conflicts with
the clear teaching of scripture so I would not classify it
as truth. How do these professors explain what happened from the
6th to the 9th hour?
Hope you get some rest and refreshment,
Grace and Peace,
Judy
