Wyatt Graham

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Theology

“Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

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After Jesus taught the disciples for 40 days about the kingdom of God, the disciples had a question to ask Jesus. They said,  “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6)? In answer, Jesus Jesus rejected their right to know the Father’s timing “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). 

Yet Jesus does not stop his answer there. He continues: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). In so doing, Jesus evidently explains how he is restoring the kingdom to Israel.

After 40 days of learning about the kingdom of God from Jesus (Acts 1:3), the disciples understood the issue well. What they did not know was how to discern when the restoration would occur. They needed to wait for the Father to act. In other words, they must “wait for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4) which means the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at which time “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5; cf. Acts 2:33).  

As I will argue, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit signals the fulfillment of the father’s promise and the beginnings of the restoration of the kingdom. The Spirit, at one level, evinces the presence of the kingdom since he is the “Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16:7) and where Jesus is so is the kingdom (e.g., Luke 17:21). 

The narratives in Luke and Acts provide more reasons why this is so. [Read more…] about “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Persecution and Condemnation in Canada

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In Toronto, a Jewish school resists lockdowns on the basis of breaching charter freedoms. In Alberta, authorities shut down Whistle Stop Cafe. In that same Province, authorities also arrested a mayoral candidate in connection to (but not exclusively for) breaching health guidelines.  In Manitoba, Maxime Bernier, the leader of the PPC party was arrested for breaching health guidelines. I am sure I could cite many such examples across Canada. 

Churches too have not escaped heavy application of law. Three pastors in Alberta have been arrested. Evidently, Alberta Health thinks it’s wise and good to shut down businesses, arrest mayoral candidates, and pastors even at the cusp of reopening the entire Province—which will happen on July 1st. Other churches have received fines. Chuches, politicians, schools, and businesses all have likewise received heavy applications of law in Canada.  

I dislike such heavy-handed application of law against Christians in Canada. As I have said more than once, I support religious freedom in Canada, and so if someone feels conscience-bound to act in a certain way, then I support their freedom to do so. I also dislike immensely the heavy handed application of law against any citizen or business in Canada.

But here we are.  [Read more…] about Persecution and Condemnation in Canada

Divine Attributes: Knowing the Covenant God of Scripture by John C. Peckham (A Really Long Review)

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John Peckham calls his conception of God covenantal theism. To make the case for covenantal theism, he uses a two-fold standard. Theological concussions must be biblically warranted and systematically coherent (250). Through this biblical and systematically coherent method, Peckham aims to describe God according to Scripture. 

His goal is to better understand the nature and attributes of God (1). In pursuit of this understanding, he asks key questions about God that he believes the Bible can answer. “These questions include: Does God change? Does God have emotions” Does God know everything, including the future? Is God all-powerful? Does everything occur as God wills? Is God entirely good and loving? How can God be one God and three persons?” (1). 

In this sense, even though Peckham aims to discern God according to biblical warrant, he nevertheless starts with a set of questions. I say this not as a critique but a clarification of how Peckham makes his argument. That said, Peckham’s Divine Attributes is full of Bible. In the first pages, Peckham lists biblical patterns of speech about God before summarizing these patterns. He also interacts widely with other contemporary writers, even some less known but important authors like James Dolezal. 

Peckham summarizes his argument economically and in more than one place. By covenantal theism, he aims to describe God as the Bible describes him. The term covenantal conveys “that God enters into real back-and-forth relationship with creatures but does so voluntarily, remaining transcendent even as he condescends to be with us (immanent)” (37). He then defines the attributes he discerns in Scripture: “In brief, covenantal theism affirms God’s aseity and self-sufficiency, qualified immutability and passibility, everlasting eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence and sovereign providence, conventional action, omnibenevolence, and relational triunity” (37). 

He will also talk about God being analogically temporal and in a real relation with the world through, as noted, a back-and-forth covenantal relationship (250). He elsewhere explains: “While God’s essential nature is changeless, the covenantal God of Scripture changes relationally because he voluntarily engages in back-and-forth (covenant) relationship with creatures while always remaining the same trinitarian God who was and is and is to come” (254). While he claims to hold to a qualified immutability and impassibility, such statements do not seem to match historic idioms and notions of these concepts. Of the latter, in the context of a theodicy of love, Peckham notes that “the voluntary suffering of God of the cross suffers most of all” (253). As I will argue below, this language appears in the tradition but not in the way that Peckham uses it. 

He also does not affirm simplicity (241) and defines the Trinity along social trinitarian lines (244). Each person of the Trinity has “a distinct faculty of reason, will, and self-consciousness” (253). When it comes to trinitarian relations, he sees no biblical warrant for eternal relations of origin, eternal generation either (237). Again, these conclusions flow out of his method of biblical warrant and systematic coherence. With this method and Peckham’s conclusions summarized, I want to reflect on his method (he calls it canonical theology), which relies on biblical warrant and systematic coherence. [Read more…] about Divine Attributes: Knowing the Covenant God of Scripture by John C. Peckham (A Really Long Review)

Brief Thoughts on the Two-Kingdoms

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The reformers recognized that God reigned over the universe, but that we could distinguish how God reigned through his administrations of church and government.

We render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Since grace does not destroy nature, we belong to heaven even while having obligations to administrations on earth. So we pay taxes to whom taxes are due (Rom 13:6). And we honour God with our conscience, worship, and so on.

This kind of thing represents what the reformers meant by two-kingdom theology. It was not two discrete kingdoms but two distinguishable administrations of God’s one reign. [Read more…] about Brief Thoughts on the Two-Kingdoms

Know Nature to Know Scripture

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“For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it,” reasons Paul before saying, “just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body” (Eph 5:29–30).

Paul here moves seamlessly from the nature of human bodies to the supernatural grace of Christ’s for the church. Paul then continues moving from nature to grace by defining the church as those who are “members of his body.” By members, Paul means parts of the body: a hand, a foot, an eye, and so on. 

Nature explains grace. That’s why God made everything. [Read more…] about Know Nature to Know Scripture

Upholding the Law of God by Distinguishing Law

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Every Christian must uphold and maintain the law of God. 

Then again: I don’t sacrifice animals or go outside the camp if I touch something dead. So it is evident that we must distinguish law or fall into deadly legalism.

Richard Hooker does just that in his first book of Ecclesiastical Polity. He knows that his work will not be popular. He writes: “This book might have been more popular and more accessible to the masses if it had merely extolled the force of laws and the necessity of good laws, and had railed against the evils of those who attack them.”

Had he simply said, “you have to obey God’s law,” people may have approved. Yet in so doing, he would engage in unhelpful rhetoric. He explains: “However, this kind of rhetoric is more liable to stir up passions than to build up understanding of the issues in question.”

He is right. The reformers lived by “we distinguish” because the lack of distinctions can kill. Are we justified by faith or by faith working through love? Is faith working through love evidence of genuine faith? 

The small things matter. 

And unhelpfully simplifying matters, as noted, might be rhetorically powerful but they can be deadly. In the early church, many found Arius rhetorically powerful. He convinced a lot through his simple slogans too. But he was a heretic. 

So let’s distinguish law according to the reformed and Augustinian tradition because these two traditions rightly understand God’s revelation.  [Read more…] about Upholding the Law of God by Distinguishing Law