Redeeming Sociology E-Book

Vern S. Poythress

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 646

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Interpersonal relationships are possible for humans because we are created in the image of a Trinitarian God. But if the Trinity is our model for relationships, why is the human condition rife with pain and evil? How are we to think correctly about fallen human relationships and our models for understanding them?  Redeeming Sociology advocates a biblically informed model for human relationships—relationships rooted in the Trinitarian character of God, his governance of the world, and his redemption accomplished in Christ. Poythress examines how the breaking of relationships through sin leads to strife, murder, and oppression among human beings and sets cultures against one another. And he shows how these broken relationships are restored through the outworking of redemption in Christ. Though typical sociological models for interpersonal relationships may offer some valuable insights, they are handicapped by a fundamental misunderstanding of humanity. The biblical model that Poythress presents correctly diagnoses the problem of human relationships, so it can likewise prescribe a biblical solution that infuses new meaning and power into how we relate to others made in the image of God.    

Leseprobe

“Using the triadic analytical technique derived from the truth of the Trinity, Poythress continues his quest for an undistorted, biblical understanding of the sciences, this time zeroing in on linguistics and sociology. This is a work of first-rate thinking. Demanding yet enriching, this book is a major contribution to modern reformation and its intellectual renewal.”

J. I. Packer, Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology, Regent College; author, Knowing God

“In the spirit of Abraham Kuyper, Vern Poythress has given us a valuable guide to thinking about godly relationships in our secular world. He develops a biblical understanding of how the distortions of sin have fractured our relationships with God and his people. I commend Poythress for his insightful thinking in this book, which joins the ranks of his similar contributions on science and literature.”

J. Lanier Burns, Research Professor of Theological Studies, Senior Professor of Systematic Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary

“It is fairly common today for preachers and theologians to speak of relationships as crucial to the gospel, and to invoke the divine Trinity as the ultimate model therein, but this point has rarely been presented in theological depth. Poythress takes up that task, showing in great detail the biblical depth of this picture. He explains that human relationships make no sense apart from God’s nature, creation, and providence. Indeed, this book presents a powerful argument against the exclusion of God from sociology and psychology. And it extends the argument of his recent books (on interpretation, science, and language) that the God of Scripture is the foundation for everything human.”

John M. Frame, J. D. Trimble Chair of Systematic Theology and Philosophy, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando

“Vern Poythress has done thinking Christians a great service by engaging in rigorous theological reflection on relationships—that all-important facet of human existence that we are inescapably immersed in, are shaped by, and yet often take for granted. Church leaders will benefit from this fine book.”

D. Michael Lindsay, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Rice University; author, Faith in the Halls of Power

Redeeming Sociology

OTHER CROSSWAY BOOKS BY VERN SHERIDAN POYTHRESS

In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach

Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach

Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation

(with C. John Collins, Wayne Grudem, Leland Ryken, and Bruce Winter)

Redeeming Sociology: A God-Centered Approach

Copyright © 2011 by Vern Sheridan Poythress

Published by Crossway

                    1300 Crescent Street

                    Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

This book examines human relationships in a manner analogous to a previous Crossway book that examines language: In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach (2009). Where appropriate, some of the wording and structure of the previous book has been utilized in this one. This use is with permission.

Cover design: Studio Gearbox

Cover photo: Veer Inc.

First printing 2011

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-2129-4

PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-2130-0

Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-2131-7

ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-2132-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Poythress, Vern S.

Redeeming sociology : a God-centered approach / Vern Sheridan Poythress.

           p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4335-2129-4 (tp)

1. Christian sociology. 2. Interpersonal relations—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title.

BT738.P65 2011

261.5—dc22

2010053586

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

VP   23   22   21   20   19   18   17   16   15   14   13   12   11 14    13   12    11   10    9    8     7    6     5     4     3     2     1

To my wife and sons,

whom the Lord has given me

in precious relationships

Contents

Preface: Why Relationships?

11

Introduction: Considering Personal Relationships

15

1. The Importance of Relationships

17Part 1: God’s Involvement with Relationships

2. Relationships and the Trinity

23

3. God Creating Human Beings

30

4. God’s Covenants

33

5. God Sustaining Relationships

48

6. Creativity in Relationships

51

7. Exploring Examples of Relationships

57

8. The Regularities of Human Relationships

66

9. God’s Rule

71

10. Responding to God’s Government

88Part 2: From Big to Small: Relationships in the Context of History

11. Small Pieces of Human Action within the Big Pieces

95

12. World History

98

13. The Fall into Sin

103

14. Redemption through Christ

115

15. Peoples and Cultures

121

16. Principles for Cultural Reconciliation

127

17. Good and Bad Kinds of Diversity

133

18. Human Action

143Part 3: Interpreting Human Relationships

19. Meanings in Personal Action

155

20. Social and Cultural Analysis

162

21. Interpreting God’s Actions

173

22. Cultural Learning

182

23. Human Knowledge within Culture

190Part 4: Smaller Wholes within Society

24. Varieties in Society

197

25. Authorities

206

26. Classifications of People

220

27. Social Equality and Inequality

225

28. Episodes

231

29. Transactions

237

30. Action in Steps

240

31. Subsystems for Human Action

243

32. Signs and Their Meanings

253

33. Foundations for Unified Signs

259

34. From Signs to Perspectives

266Part 5: Applications

35. A Jigsaw Piece as a Perspective

271

36. Living in Relationships

275Interaction with Other Approaches to Society and Relationships

Appendix A. René Descartes’s Method

281

Appendix B. Modern Sociology

287

Appendix C. “Scientific” Sociology

294

Appendix D. Empathetic Sociologies

303

Appendix E. Sociological Models

310

Appendix F. Sociology of Knowledge

316

Appendix G. Sociology and Postmodernism

324

Appendix H. Postmodern Theology

327

Bibliography

331

General Index

337

Scripture Index

347

PREFACE

Why Relationships?

Why a book about social relationships? We can find books with advice about devotional life, marriage, friendships, romance, and child rearing. We can also find books about large-scale social issues such as poverty, economics, politics, and law. Some of these are solidly based on the Bible. Because the Bible is God’s own word, it provides us with guidance in all these areas. The advice from these books may be wise, but as some of the books would themselves admit, mere advice is not enough. We need God’s power, provided in Christ. We need fellowship with him. And we need a whole view of the world in which God is our God and is the most important and valued person in our life.

The Challenge of a Modern Worldview

A modern secular world presses in on us. If we listen to it and absorb too much of its message, we neglect to make God central. We think and act in relationships as if they were independent of God. Modern, secular thinking masters our minds instead of Christ being the Master in all areas of our life.

So we need to have a biblically based worldview that includes a sound view of our relationships. I want us to rethink the foundations of our relationships, and not just to offer advice or a superficial tour of those relationships. God is the Creator of the whole world in all its dimensions. He has established his own wise order for our relationships. His order and his presence are essential to life and to relationships. We need to learn how to praise God for the world of relationships that he has given us.

Linguistic and Sociological Study of the Bible

I have a second reason for considering relationships. In the last few decades, academic study of the Bible has come to include a significant body of studies using linguistic and sociological approaches. The Society of Biblical Literature, a major academic society for studying the Bible, has several “Program Units” or sections devoted to linguistic and sociological studies. In fact, linguistics and sociology and social anthropology are beginning to influence biblical studies far more broadly than just in those studies that self-consciously adopt their techniques.

In principle, these studies could make a helpful contribution. The Bible is written in language, and so linguistics is pertinent. The Bible is written to people living in particular cultural settings, and so social and cultural thinking are pertinent.

But linguistic and sociological approaches inevitably come with assumptions. Often, these assumptions are influenced by a secular view of science. According to this view, the task of science is to observe and analyze phenomena “objectively,” without making religious assumptions. In the process, scientists begin to assume that God can be left out of their reckoning. If God is left out, sin is left out. And if God and sin are left out of the reckoning at the beginning, in the foundations of an academic discipline, they may be also left out at the end, in the theories and the conclusions. Or if God is not left out altogether, the god who gets brought in is not really the God described in the Bible, but a limited, tamed-down substitute.

How is God left out? Language is treated as purely human language, with God excluded from being an essential participant in the use of language. Society is treated as purely human society, with God as a person excluded from it. So sin and its effects have to be redefined, and then the remedy for sin has to be redefined.

Sin laces language with deceit and laces society with oppression and suffering. If God is not the remedy, what is? People have tried all kinds of alternatives. One possible alternative says that rather than sin being the problem, some structure in language or society or both imprisons us and keeps us from authentic living. And there is a grain of truth in what they say, since language and society, and not merely individuals, show effects from sin. These effects of sin bring untold suffering and damage, and press the lives of human beings more deeply into misery and sin.

Even our thinking about society becomes distorted when we lose God’s illumination about our plight. For example, people may say that we cannot escape from language in order to think and see and talk about the world outside of the limitations and social effects of a language that we have inherited from our forebears. Neither can we escape from society and culture in order to think and see the world of human beings from outside the prejudices that culture has transmitted to us. In both language and culture we are trapped by the limits of our humanity. In this view, the basic problem is no longer sin but being finite (being human). And indeed being finite is a problem, but only when you are alienated from God who is infinite.

When people apply this view to studying the Bible, they may easily conclude that the Bible is imprisoned by the languages and cultures of its origin. Some

people may still want to say that God speaks in the Bible in some sense. But they would claim that God limits himself, and his speech never rises above the prison of the cultures in which it originated. People who think in this way radically restrict the Bible’s power to speak in criticism of our lives and our cultures.

How do we deal with possible biases introduced from linguistics and sociology? The task is not easy. In the end, we have to rethink all of linguistics and all of sociology, because foundational assumptions about the nature of the world and the nature of humanity and the causes of human disorders affect the disciplines as a whole. Because linguistics and sociology and our modern world are heavily influenced by natural sciences, the same concerns arise with respect to natural sciences such as physics, chemistry, and biology.

My Role

How do I fit in with these concerns? I have spent most of my career teaching New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. I have had the privilege of studying the Bible intensely. But now I find that such study can be disrupted and distorted by assumptions that are alien to the character of the Bible and to the God who inspired its writing. These alien assumptions sometimes come from natural science, linguistics, or sociology. To have a healthy study of the Bible, we need also a healthy understanding in other areas affecting the study of the Bible. But to have a healthy view of any area of our lives, we need to receive the healthy instruction of the Bible and apply it to that area.

And so I have looked to the instruction in the Bible and thought about its implications for various areas of life. I have then found myself writing books that venture out into these areas in the modern world, and especially into areas that today affect the study of the Bible directly or indirectly. I write in order to stimulate the reconfiguration and transformation of our worldview.

The Bible gives us instruction and power that enable us to undertake this transformation. The Bible transforms the way we ought to think about and conduct natural sciences, as I have tried to show in Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach (2006). It transforms the way we think about language, as I have tried to show in the book In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach (2009). It transforms the way we think about society, culture, and relationships, as I try to show in this present book. This book is therefore a sister to the book on language (In the Beginning). It is more like a daughter or a niece to the one about science, since social sciences and natural sciences confront somewhat different challenges.

Abraham Kuyper’s Vision

The Bible’s instruction has a unique role, because it is the word of God. But I have also been encouraged by a secondary source, namely Abraham Kuyper’s book Lectures on Calvinism.1 Abraham Kuyper observed that according to the Bible Jesus Christ is Lord—Ruler and King of the entire universe (Eph. 1:20–22; Phil. 2:9–11). His lordship and authority extend to every sphere of life. In his book Kuyper accordingly devoted a chapter each to religion, politics, science, and art. Christ, he claimed, is Lord over all these areas.

Kuyper also believed that the fall into sin made a difference. Ever since the fall, our lives and our thinking have been in disorder and rebellion. This rebellion works its way not only into religion, but also into politics, science, art, and other spheres. The Christian, who has been redeemed by Christ and has committed himself to be a follower of Christ, must loyally follow Christ in every sphere of life: religion and politics and science and art alike. Thinking in these spheres has been corrupted by sin and accordingly must be transformed. Kuyper thought that such transformation had not yet been adequately done.

In the generations after Kuyper a number of people took up Kuyper’s challenge. They worked at transformation of thought. Advances took place. But along with the advances came some misjudgments, in my opinion. So work still needs to be done. And that is why I am writing. Reflection needs to continue in the natural sciences and in linguistics and sociology. So I have produced the books in these three areas. Others, I hope, will build on what I have done and will correct what I still have left amiss.

I hope that my books may contribute directly to transforming the fields of study that they address. But I hope also that they will indirectly help us in studying the Bible. We work toward healthy views of languages and of societies in order to have a healthy environment in which we study the Bible fruitfully. Through this study we grow in Christ and begin to glorify God in all of life.

1Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931), compiled from six lectures given in 1898 at Princeton University under the auspices of the L. P. Stone Foundation.

INTRODUCTION

Considering Personal Relationships

It is not good that the man should be alone.

—Genesis 2:18

What would it be like to live all alone on an uninhabited island? If the island had sufficient food resources, a clever person might survive for a long time. But it would not be good; he would be lonely.

We live in company with fellow human beings. God made us that way. He made us to be in relationships. First and foremost, we are designed to have a personal relationship with God himself. But God planned that we would also have relationships with other human beings, and we would benefit from the cooperation and the comradeship. We benefit as adults, but we benefited even more strikingly when we were infants. In reality, none of us is “self-made.” God made us. And then we had someone to take care of us while we were young. At that point, a relationship was essential.

Human social relationships are wonderful and mysterious. They are so because they are a gift of God to us. They reflect and reveal him. How do relationships reflect God? According to the Bible, God himself is personal. God is one God in three persons. Within God, the persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—have rich personal relations with one another. We are made like God, and that is why we can enjoy personal relationships. When we relate to one another, we rely on resources and powers that find their origin in God. We can appreciate personal relationships more deeply, and interact more wisely, if we come to know God and see his place in these relationships.

Because I am a follower of Christ, I trust in the Bible as the word of God.1 The Bible is a foundational resource for my thinking about personal relationships. From time to time we will look briefly at other views of humanity and human relationships. But my primary purpose is to help people increase their appreciation for relationships, using the Bible for guidance. If you as a reader are not yet convinced about the Bible, I would still invite you to think with me about relationships. The actual character of relationships does, I believe, confirm what the Bible says.

1Interested readers may consult many works that show at length that the Bible is the word of God. See, among others, Benjamin B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948); D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, eds., Scripture and Truth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983). It is an important issue, so important that it deserves much more space than we could take here.

1

The Importance of Relationships

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him— a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

—Ecclesiastes 4:9–12

Personal relationships have a central role in human living. We spend a lot of our time interacting with other people—talking, listening, helping, cooperating in work and in leisure. When relationships degenerate, we may feel the effects keenly: we may hate others; we may quarrel, fight, backstab, envy, covet, lie, slander, steal, and murder. We may suffer when other people hurt us. Relationships can clearly be for both good and ill. Not only in the family but in almost every other sphere of life we experience human relationships. Education depends on relations between teacher and student and between fellow students. Businesses depend on relations of employer and employee, supervisor and subordinate, and teams of workers in cooperative effort. Communication, news, and entertainment, whether by television, radio, newspapers, or the Internet, involve relationships between communicators, news reporters, entertainers, and recipients. We can enter into relationships in friendships, social organizations, businesses, churches, charities, political parties, governmental organizations, military organizations, and sports.

Large organizations like national governments, big-business corporations, universities, and mass media organizations demonstrate the importance of relationships in another way. Their very existence is closely tied to relationships. They continue to exist because they are maintained through a vast number of internal relationships among those who work in them. And their influence on others relies heavily on what other people know and think about them. A business, for example, depends on people’s trust in its reputation and their knowledge of the products that it offers for sale. A national government functions most effectively when the people freely recognize its authority, rather than regarding it as an unwelcome oppressor.

Some activities, such as gardening, do not demand the immediate presence of another human being. But even they gain significance from a larger context of human life in which relationships have an indispensable role. We practice gardening using advice and examples from other people. We may have obtained the seeds or seedlings from a nursery or gardening shop. We may work our garden with benefits in mind that extend to other people. And gardening can be more pleasant if we are talking with a friend while doing it. We could go on. Many of the most significant and precious moments in life gain significance through relationships. So examining our relationships could contribute significantly to reorienting our lives. That is why we are going to take a long look at relationships and their meaning.

The Importance of Relationships in the Bible

The Bible confirms the importance of relationships. It says that in the beginning God created human beings in his image: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Human beings are created like God, and the likeness includes his personal character. Human beings thus have capability for personal relationships, involving knowing, loving, and communicating with others.

The first recorded interaction between God and man shows a personal relationship. God spoke to human beings concerning their task: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Gen. 1:28). This speech showed a relationship of communication and personal responsibility between God and human beings. The personal responsibility came into focus more pointedly when God introduced a special prohibition: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’” (Gen. 2:16–17). Adam and Eve, the first human beings, violated their relationship with God when they disobeyed and fell into sin. But that was not the end of their relationship with God. God gave hope to Adam and Eve through a promise of redemption, which demonstrated a continuing possibility of positive fellowship with God (Gen. 3:15).

Among human beings, family relationships play an important role. God established the relationship of marriage even before the beginning of human rebellion (Gen. 2:18–25). The human race grows through families who bear children and raise them (Gen. 4:1–5:32). Parents have a responsibility to train their children (Deut. 6:6–7; Eph. 6:4). Children must maintain a relationship of respect toward their parents (Ex. 20:12; Eph. 6:1–3).

God also established the beginning of civil government when he gave instructions on how to deal with cases of murder (Gen. 9:5–6). We can see more complex governmental organization in Egypt (e.g., Gen. 41:37–57), in the kings of Israel (1 Chronicles 22–29), and in Babylon (Daniel 1–6). God established these governments and accomplished his will through them, even though they did not always act justly (Gen. 45:5; 50:20; Dan. 2:36–45; 4:34–35; 7:17–27; Rom. 13:1–3).

In the Old Testament God’s relations to human beings come to particular expression in covenants. We will look at covenants more closely at a later point. Roughly speaking, a covenant is a kind of pact, an agreement that establishes a relationship between two parties. God made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 17), and later with the nation of Israel through Moses (Exodus 24). Jesus inaugurated a covenant at the Last Supper (Matt. 26:28). God’s covenants with human beings express a commitment on God’s part to a special people, and they look forward to a time when God will accomplish final and definitive redemption. Redemption includes the healing of the relation between God and mankind that was broken by human rebellion.

The healing of the relationship was accomplished when Jesus Christ came into the world and carried out his work. Jesus acted to restore a proper relationship of love between God and human beings, and a relation of love among human beings. His teachings have much to say about human relationships in their many dimensions. But his actions, especially his death and his resurrection from the dead, took place in order to effect reconciliation in the relation between God and man, and then, as a further result, reconciliation in human relationships with one another: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” ( John 13:34).

The “gospel” or good news that the Bible proclaims tells how Jesus’s work restored relationships, and what we are to do in responding to God and what he accomplished. The Bible’s message addresses relationships in all their dimensions.

Our response to the message in the Bible includes a response in changing our relationships. First of all, we need to be reconciled to God, against whom we have rebelled. In other words, our relationship with God needs to be restored. In addition, reconciliation with God has implications for our future relationship to God and to others. Jesus summarizes our obligations to God in two central commandments, both of which involve relationships:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he [ Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 22:36–40)

Living your life as God designed you to live it means living fruitfully in relationships. If you are genuinely carrying out God’s two commands—for relationship with God and relationship with other people—you are pleasing God and fulfilling the true goal of your existence. So relationships are vital in your life.

PART 1

God’s Involvement with Relationships

2

Relationships and the Trinity

The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

—John 3:35

How do we go about understanding human relationships? Human relationships have a close relation to the Trinitarian character of God. In fact, the Trinitarian character of God is the deepest starting point for understanding personal relationships. So we need to look at what the Bible teaches about God in his Trinitarian character.

The Trinity

The Bible teaches that God is one God, and that he exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I will not undertake to defend orthodox Trinitarian doctrine in detail, because this has already been done many times.1 Let me mention briefly only a small number of evidences. In addressing the polytheism of surrounding nations, the Old Testament makes it clear that there is only one true God, the God of Israel, who is the only Creator (Genesis 1; see Deut. 6:4; 32:39; Isa. 40:18–28). The New Testament introduces further revelation about the distinction of persons in God, but it everywhere presupposes the unity of one God as revealed in the Old Testament. The New Testament does not repudiate but reinforces the Old Testament: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Mark 12:29). “You believe that God is one; you do well” ( James 2:19).

Second, the New Testament dramatically affirms the deity of Christ the Son of God by applying to him Old Testament verses that use the tetragrammaton, the sacred name of God: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13; from Joel 2:32, which has the tetragrammaton).2 We also find explicit affirmations that Jesus is God in John 1:1 (“. . . and the Word was God”) and John 20:28. The Holy Spirit is God, according to Acts 5:3–4.3 The distinction between the persons is regularly evident in John, when John expresses the relation of two persons as that of Father and Son, and when the Spirit is described as “another Helper,” indicating that he is distinct from the Son ( John 14:16).

God Has Personal Relations within Himself

The New Testament indicates that the persons of the Trinity speak to one another and enjoy profound personal relations with one another. These relationships within God show us the ultimate foundation for thinking about human personal relationships. God establishes a personal relationship with us, but, in addition, the persons of the Trinity have personal relations to one another. Personal relationships exist not solely among human beings, but also in divine-human relationships, and even in divine-divine relationships. Approaches that conceive of personal and social relationships only with reference to human beings are accordingly one-sided, reductionistic.

What evidence does the Bible give for divine-divine personal relationship? Divine relationships crop up again and again in the Gospel of John where Jesus talks about his relation as Son to the Father. For example, “The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing” ( John 5:20). “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper [the Spirit]” ( John 14:16). The relationship between the Father and the Son includes asking, commanding, loving, and each “glorifying” the other ( John 13:31–32; 17:4–5).

The statements recorded in the Gospel of John mostly focus on Jesus’s relation to the Father during his time on earth. But they reflect eternal truths. The Son, the second person of the Trinity, always existed, according to John 1:1. He became a human being at a specific point in time, which was the beginning of Jesus’s life on earth: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” ( John 1:14). This becoming human is called the incarnation.

What Jesus said and did on earth, he said and did as both God and man. So his work on earth was in harmony with his eternal relation to the Father. The statement “the Father loves the Son” ( John 5:20 and 3:35) applies to Jesus’s earthly life; but it also applies eternally. The Father has always loved the Son, even before his incarnation. The language about the Father “sending” the Son implies that the Father was Father and the Son was Son even before he was “sent” to earth in the incarnation (see John 5:23, 37; 10:36; Gal. 4:4; and elsewhere). And it implies that the Father and the Son already had together a plan for sending the Son before the moment when the sending took place in his incarnation.

So far we have considered two persons of the Trinity, the Father and the Son. There is also a third, the Holy Spirit. The designation of the Holy Spirit as “another Helper” ( John 14:16) indicates that the Holy Spirit is a person distinct from the Son and from the Father. The fact that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” and that the Son “sends” him from the Father indicates that the Spirit enjoys personal relations with both the Father and the Son (see John 15:26). The three persons agree in their purposes, and one carries out the intentions of another.

The Spirit’s relation to the Father and the Son also comes to light in the communication and sharing of knowledge among them:

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me [ Jesus], for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ( John 16:13–15)

Distinct Roles of the Persons of the Trinity in Personal Relations

Since the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three distinct persons, we may expect rich, many-dimensional personal relations among them. They know one another; they love one another; they are in harmony in their purposes; as divine persons, they share in the divine characteristics, such as omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, immutability, righteousness, holiness, truth, and eternality. They dwell in one another (“coinherence”).

But we can also see distinctions among the persons in the relations that they have with one another. As we observed, the Father is Father and the Son is Son. The Father has a fatherly relation to the Son, and the Son has a filial relation to the Father. These are distinct personal relations.

The Father and the Son enjoy their Father-Son relation from all eternity. But it is also expressed or made manifest in time when the Son becomes incarnate. The angel who announces the virgin birth of Christ to Mary says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High [God] will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Note the word therefore. The child will be called “the Son of God” because God himself—God the Father—will “overshadow you,” and the child will be conceived by the special exercise of God’s power, without a human father. God himself is the child’s father, and so the child is definitely “the Son of God.”

We have already affirmed that the Son of God was always Son of God in relation to the Father who was always the Father. The virgin birth of Christ is not in tension with this eternal reality. Rather, the virgin birth is an appropriate manifestation in its particular time and place of what was always the case in God, but it becomes newly manifest to humanity because the Son has now become “flesh,” a human being.

In addition the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, has a distinctive role in the virgin birth. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” says the angel, in an expression parallel to “the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” The power of the Most High, the power of God the Father, operates through the coming and presence of the Holy Spirit. God the Father is the divine Father who fathers the Son in the virgin birth. And the Holy Spirit is present as the power of God who empowers the conception of the Son. Both Father and Spirit are present, but in distinctive ways.

Since the virgin birth and conception are in harmony with who God always is, we may infer that the Father fathers the Son eternally and that in this act of fathering the Holy Spirit is the empowerer. The old-fashioned word for fathering is begetting, and accordingly the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed uses the term to express the relations of the persons of the Godhead: “I believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made. . . .”

The Bible also uses the term beget to designate the resurrection of Christ:

And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm,

“You are my Son,

today I have begotten you.” (Acts 13:32–33; quoting Ps. 2:7)

Acts 13 applies the language of “begetting” in Psalm 2 to the resurrection of Christ (“raising Jesus”). In the resurrection the sonship of Jesus was displayed openly, and as the representative man he entered into a new phase of the exercise of his sonship. Romans 1:3–4 indicates the new phase: the gospel concerns “his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Christ’s resurrection took place through the power of the Holy Spirit: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11). The resurrection of Christ, like the virgin conception of Christ, was in harmony with the eternal personal relations among the persons of the Trinity (see fig. 2.1).

The Father has a fatherly personal relation to the Son through the Spirit. These relations among the divine persons are of deep importance to us because they are the ultimate foundation for human personal relations. You and I have the capacity for personal relationships because God gave us an ability analogous to his own personal relationships among the persons of the Trinity.

Many people take their starting point from human personal relations. They reason that we first know about earthly fathers and earthly sons. Then, by some kind of leap or extension, we project the earthly personal relationship of father-and-son into the sky, and we talk in a metaphorical way about God as “Father.” Similarly, they would say that the spirit of a human being functions as the starting point for talking about the Spirit of God. But we should rather think through our own human relationships with God as our starting point. After all, he is the original. We are derivative. The original father is God the Father. Any earthly father is “father” only by analogy to the ultimate Father. Human beings have a spiritual aspect because the Holy Spirit exists eternally (1 Cor. 2:11; see fig. 2.2). Human fathers and human sons exist and their family relations exist only because we are made in the image of God, who is the original Father (see fig. 2.3).

The Gospel of John talks about other aspects of the personal relations within the Godhead. One such aspect is mutual love. “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand” ( John 3:35). This reality shows that the Father-Son relation involves not merely “begetting” but also a continuing activity of loving.

In addition, the Son loves the Father ( John 14:31). The love that the Father has for his Son is expressed by the Father giving the Spirit to the Son: “He gives the Spirit without measure” ( John 3:34). This verse about the giving of the Spirit describes the bounty of the Father to the Son immediately before the affirmation about the Father’s love (v. 35). The Father also expresses his relationship to his Son by giving “all things” to him, according to John 3:35. Another aspect of the relationship is communication. “For I [ Jesus] have given them [the disciples] the words that you [the Father] gave me” ( John 17:8). The Spirit also participates in a relationship of hearing the Father and the Son ( John 16:13).4

We can add still more aspects. The Father “sends” the Son and the Spirit. This sending indicates a personal sharing of purposes, and the Son doing “as the Father commanded me” ( John 14:31) indicates a relation of command and commandment keeping. The language of the dwelling of the persons of the Trinity in one another indicates a deep sharing. Knowledge of one person in the Trinity involves knowledge of the others.5 The giving of life and the giving of judgment are also activities in which the persons share (see John 5:22, 26).

The uniqueness of God

We have seen many kinds of analogy between God and human beings, and between divine persons and human persons. But God is unique in his infinity. God is God, and there is no other. The three persons of the Trinity are all one God, and it is a mystery that only God comprehends. No analogy from creatures and creaturely relationships captures or explains thoroughly who God is.

The personal relationships within the Trinity are infinitely deep. In their depth they exceed what we as creatures know. Human relationships do not have this same depth, but they do derive from a divine foundation. So our relationships both with God and with fellow human beings have a weight and a significance. They reflect the goodness and the wisdom and the love of God. They are not just tacked on as an afterthought. Human relationships, when rightly ordered, reflect the glory of God. If we understand the personal character of God, we ought to be motivated to thank God for who we are as personal creatures with a capacity for relationships. And when we grasp the weightiness of our relationships, we should be motivated to try to serve God in the way we conduct relationships.

1For a recent discussion, see John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2002), 619–735.

2The tetragrammaton is YHWH (Hebrew, hwhy, “Jehovah”), often translated in Greek as kyrios, “Lord”.

3Acts 5:3–4 indicates that to lie to the Holy Spirit is to lie to God.

4See Vern S. Poythress, In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009), especially chap. 2.

5Ibid.

3

God Creating Human Beings

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

—Genesis 1:26–28

Human personal activities are possible because human beings are created to be like God (“God created man in his own image,” Gen. 1:27). We are able to love, to give, to communicate, to share purposes, to obey commandments, and so on. We do these things because God made us in a way that reflects his own character and the eternal relations among the persons of the Trinity (see fig. 3.1). Of course there are also differences between God the original and man the image. God is infinite and we are finite. God knows all things and we do not. Saying that human beings are God’s image does not deny the differences; but it does invite us to note the analogies.

God not only has created us to be who we are but also sustains who we are. The Holy Spirit sustains human creational life, as well as redemptive life:

The Spirit of God has made me,

and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. ( Job 33:4)

If he [God] should set his heart to it

and gather to himself his spirit and his breath,

all flesh would perish together,

and man would return to dust. ( Job 34:14–15)

God is present through his Spirit, sustaining our everyday activities of living and breathing. It follows also that he is present in sustaining and empowering our activities of loving, giving, communicating, commanding, and obeying.

God has impressed his Trinitarian character on our relationships. Whenever we interact in relationships, we rely on what he has given us. We also rely on the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity. Because of this indwelling, our relationships hold together. In our relationships, we live in the presence of God, who through the Spirit gives us life and empowers us. Tacitly, we are trusting in God’s faithfulness and consistency and wisdom.

This is true even when non-Christians have relationships. But they have suppressed awareness of their dependence on God, as Romans 1:19–21 indicates:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

We saw in the previous chapter that the Father expresses his love for the Son by giving the Holy Spirit. This loving relationship is the archetype or original pattern for God’s relationship with human beings. Through the Son of God, God has opened the way to be reconciled to him and to have a relationship of love with him. In this relationship he has taken the initiative by showing his love to us through Christ: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). God sends us the Spirit of Christ to enable us to respond to his love (Rom. 8:9–17). The response includes learning to listen to God’s voice and learning to pray to him. In this response we reflect the love that Christ has for the Father.

Relationships among human beings also reflect divine relationships. In a human relationship one person may take the initiative. If Abe gives Bill a gift or an order, Abe is the initiator. In an unfallen world, this initiative would always be an expression of love. Abe the human initiator is like God the Father. Bill the recipient is like the Son. And the giving from one person to another that takes place in the relationship is like the Spirit. These three aspects must hold together in order for a relationship to have integrity. Abe and Bill and the actions within the relationship must all be in harmony.

Think of some of the relationships you have. First, you have a relationship with God, either broken or restored. You have a relationship with a spouse, or parents, or children, or employer. How do you conduct these relationships? You do not have the power to change the other person in any way you wish. But you do have a responsibility “to walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2). You should be desiring to reflect in each relationship to another person, whether family member or friend, the harmony in love among the persons of the Trinity.

4

God’s Covenants

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land . . .”

—Genesis 15:18

The Bible indicates that in the course of history God establishes relationships with human beings. These are sometimes called covenants. Theologians have extensively reflected on covenants, because they embody God’s redemptive plan for the human race. For our purposes, we need only to look at a few highlights that are most relevant to human relationships. The covenants express relationships between God and man. But in addition they provide significant insight into human relationships because human beings can make covenants with one another (e.g., Gen. 26:28; 31:44). A covenant (Hebrew, berit) is a binding agreement between two parties. One or both of the parties commit themselves to specific obligations, and penalties or benefits may attach to keeping or violating the obligations. For example, in the covenant in Genesis 17:1–14, God required Abraham to “walk before me, and be blameless” (v. 1). God promised on his part that Abraham would be “the father of a multitude of nations” (v. 4). God also imposed the specific requirement of circumcision for Abraham and his descendants (v. 10). The uncircumcised male would forfeit his position (v. 14), which represents a penalty for violating the obligations of the covenant. Human beings have the capacity to enter into a covenantal relation with God or with another human being. They are persons, capable of binding personal relationships. And it is clear from Genesis 1–2 that God intended from the beginning to have a covenantal relation with human beings. God specified an obligation for Adam in Genesis 2:17 when he forbade him from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God also indicated that the penalty for violation would be death. The relation between God and man at this point is not explicitly called a covenant, but it clearly has some of the features that characterize later covenantal arrangements. It has been called “the covenant of works.”1

Authority, Control, and Presence

God’s covenantal arrangements with human beings naturally reveal many aspects of God’s character. And by implication they often reveal aspects of human character because human beings are analogically related to God through being created in his image. God shows himself to be the Lord in his relations with human beings. John Frame has observed that God’s lordship expresses itself in three aspects, which he has denominated authority, control, and presence.2

We can illustrate these aspects by looking at God’s covenant through Moses, ratified in Exodus 24. The heart of this covenant is the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1–17), which God delivered to Moses in written form and which Moses put inside the ark (Ex. 24:12; 25:16, 21). The ark is called “the ark of the testimony” (Ex. 25:22; 26:33) or “the ark of the covenant” (Deut. 31:25).

Meredith G. Kline observed that the Ten Commandments and the book of Deuteronomy have affinities with ancient Near Eastern treaties, specifically the Hittite suzerainty treaties.3 God providentially brought it about that the Hittite culture would offer an analogy to his own covenantal dealings with Israel. But because he is the God of the whole universe, his covenants surpass what took place among the Hittites. The Hittite treaties had five parts: (1) the identification of the suzerain (the great king), corresponding to the language “I am the Lord your God” in Exodus 20:2a; (2) the historical prologue, reciting past benefits of the king, corresponding to Exodus 20:2b, “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”; (3) stipulations, corresponding to the commandments themselves (Ex. 20:3–17); (4) blessings and curses, corresponding to blessings and curses attached to the second, third, and fifth commandments (Ex. 20:5–6, 7, 12); (5) provisions for public reading and for future generations, corresponding to provisions such as in Deuteronomy 27 and 31–32 (see table 4.1).

Table 4.1

Features of Hittite Suzerainty Treaties Analogue in the Old Testament Characteristic of God 1. Identification of suzerain Ex. 20:2a Presence 2. Historical prologue Ex. 20:2b Control 3. Stipulations Ex. 20:3–17 Authority 4. Blessings and curses Ex. 20:5–6, 7, 12 Control, authority 5. Provisions for reading and for passing on Deuteronomy 31–32 Presence

The identification of the suzerain, “I am the Lord your God,” indicates God’s personal presence, as he presents himself to his people. It expresses the theme of presence. The provisions for future generations also imply his presence for those generations. The stipulations, the commandments, express the theme of authority. God has the right or authority to prescribe both commandments for the Israelites and consequences for their obedience or disobedience. The blessings and curses imply God’s authority or right to specify consequences. But they also indicate his sovereignty over the consequences. Thus they express the theme of control. The historical prologue also expresses control, because God demonstrated his control over history in bringing the people out of Egypt.

Clearly there is some overlap between the three aspects. The blessings and curses exhibit both God’s authority and his control. In fact, a deeper reflection shows that each of the three aspects implies or includes the others. The three aspects are all implications of God’s lordship and his character. Authority is an implication of God’s goodness and his holiness, which implies his right to set the standards for living. Control is an implication of God’s omnipotence. Presence is an implication of God’s omnipresence. God’s attributes of goodness, omnipotence, and omnipresence operate in all that he does. So they always go together. God’s presence manifests God, who always has authority and control. When God controls, he shows himself present in his control. His control is always rightful control and hence shows his authority. And so on.

All God’s relations with human beings, and his relations with other creatures as well, consistently show his authority, control, and presence. We can confirm this consistency by looking at the language about covenants. The apostle Paul talks about the new covenant in 2 Corinthians 3, where he describes himself and fellow servants of the gospel as “ministers of a new covenant” (v. 6). Such thinking shows that the entire New Testament is an expression of the new covenant. This new covenant is analogous to but superior to the old covenant through Moses (vv. 6–15). The core of the Mosaic covenant, as we have seen, is given in the Ten Commandments. But these are supplemented by other material given through Moses and then deposited beside the commandments (Deuteronomy 31). Moreover, the Mosaic covenant fulfills God’s covenantal promises made earlier to Abraham and the patriarchs (Ex. 6:4), and the prophets build on Moses (Num. 12:6–8; Deut. 18:15–22). God makes a covenant with David as well (Ps. 89:34–37), which is the core for a larger body of instruction given in connection with David and Solomon (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon). The whole Bible is covenantal communication. Some parts are explicitly described as covenantal. And those parts that do not receive such an explicit description are clearly linked, either by historical association or by content, with the rest.

God’s covenants with human beings are also linked with his personal relationships within himself. Theologians have spoken of the “covenant of redemption.”4 This covenant is an eternal pact or agreement between the Father and the Son, whereby the Father undertook to send the Son into the world to accomplish redemption, and the Son undertook to carry out the Father’s will, especially in the climax consisting in his death and resurrection. The very language of the Father “sending” the Son implies a common purpose and understanding between the two persons. This common purpose has been a reality forever. It implies a commitment of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father involving their mutual love and commonality of purpose. The mutual commitment is clearly analogous to the commitments we find in covenants discussed in the Bible. So the word covenant can be applied to this commitment within the Trinity in order to indicate the affinity. Or we may choose to use the word covenant more narrowly to describe commitments—perhaps only formally ratified commitments—in which human beings are one of the parties. Whether or not we want to call this purpose of God a “covenant” or “pact,” God’s plan is a reality, and it is the foundation for the particular human covenants found in the Bible.

Human Commitments

The explicit covenants between God and man have a central role in the Bible. But the Bible also recognizes that human beings as persons are capable of having relationships of commitment among themselves, one human being to another. Abraham made a covenant with Abimelech in Genesis 26:28. Jacob and Laban made a covenant in Genesis 31:44. In these instances a formal pact helped to overcome previous distrust or alienation. But the word covenant can also be applied to a friendly, cooperative relationship. Malachi indicates that the relation between husband and wife is covenantal: “She is your companion and your wife by covenant” (Mal. 2:14). Husband and wife have made a binding commitment to be faithful to one another in marriage. Marriage is a covenant. Within a particular culture the husband and wife may have made specific vows or promises during the wedding ceremony. But even if a particular culture does not have such a practice, the commitment is implicit in the meaning of marriage, because God, not man, is the Lord of marriage. He established it in the beginning (Gen. 2:18–25). Jesus confirms God’s continuing authority over marriage in his teaching: “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt. 19:6; see 19:3–12).

Marriage has a particularly important role as a fundamental human relationship. But the principle of God’s involvement—the principle of his presence, we might say—extends to other relationships. God is Lord of the whole world:

The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,

and his kingdom rules over all. (Ps. 103:19)

As Lord, he has authority. He specifies right and wrong in human attitudes and behavior.

In particular, because God himself is true and does not lie (Num. 23:19; John 17:17; 1 John 5:20), he expects us to be truth tellers (Eph. 4:25). The importance of truth also comes to expression in the ninth commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Ex. 20:16). If one human being makes a promise to another, he should keep it. That obligation rests not merely on human convention but on the character of God. God’s authority stands behind the obligation. Human contracts, where explicit commitments are written out, are a special form of promise and commitment, and again God’s authority stands behind the obligation. In a broad sense, promises and contracts are covenantal.

Promises and contracts include explicit moral commitments. Suppose a building contractor agrees to refurbishing my kitchen, and I agree to pay him a certain amount of money when he is finished. A contract spells out these obligations. Once we have both signed the contract, he is morally obligated to do what he promised, and I am morally obligated to pay him. Other kinds of relationships, such as friendships, telephone conversations, and participation in family sports activities, may not explicitly spell out particular moral commitments, but they still have a moral dimension. Human beings still should act in a loving way in the relationship.

For example, you are expected not to steal something from the grocery store by shoplifting, even though you never explicitly promised not to shoplift. Or suppose that you buy a bag of apples at the grocery store. God obliges you to pay what you owe and not to try to trick the cashier by underpaying, or by switching the label on the bag. God morally commits us not to steal but instead to respect and protect the property of our neighbors. He commits us to his standard whether we like it or not, and whether we agree with it or not.