The "wonderful" name, Jesus

We were thinking on the Lord's day morning about names, and in particular about the name of Jesus.

In the first books of the Old Testament, God reveals himself through his names, inviting his people to call upon him using the name we associate with his covenant (Ex 6:3). We recognise this as a revelation of the Father.

But the narratives also call attention to the revelation of the name of another divine person. We thought about three instances of this:

When Jacob wrestles the mysterious man at Jabbok, he solicits Jacob's name, and gives him the new name of "Israel." But he won't provide Jacob with his own name: "Why is it that you ask my name?" (Gen 32:29). Jacob recognises that this "man" is divine.

Later on, an angel appears to Manoah and his wife, promising them a miraculous son. Manoah asks for the angel's name, but the "angel of the LORD" refuses to give it: "Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?" - or, as the King James puts it, "secret" (Judges 13:18).

Later again, promises another miraculous baby to the people of God: "the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful" - "secret" (Isaiah 9:6).

Three times the Old Testament writers call attention to a divine person, whose name was secret and yet to be revealed.

But then his name is revealed. "You shall call his name Jesus" (Matt 1:21). Jesus? It was one of the most common of all names. There are probably more people in the Bible called Joshua (Hebrew) or Jesus (Greek equivalent) than any other. There are about 4 or 5 people in the New Testament who share that name: Bar-Jesus was a Jewish false prophet (Acts 13:6); Jesus called Justus was a friend of Paul (Col 4:11); and Barabbas was also called Jesus, according to some Greek mss of Matt 26:16-17.

Part of the humiliation of our Lord was that in his incarnation he adopted one of the most ordinary names possible for Jewish boys.

But with this difference - for the first time, someone bore the name of Joshua/Jesus for whom its meaning was true. Here for the first time was someone who could "save his people from their sins" (Matt 1:21).

That ordinary name has been transformed by our Lord. For "God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus ever knee should bow" (Phil 2:9-10). And God has given him "a name written that no one knows but himself" (Rev 19:12), "the name by which he is called is The Word of God" (Rev 19:13), and "on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords" (Rev 19:16).

Gleanings from C. A. Coates, "The believer established"

"... in this condition of hope [the believer] finds himself thoroughly at one with God, who reveals himself as "the GOD OF HOPE." God puts Himself alongside us in this condition of hope into which His grace has brought us, for He is hoping too. He is looking forward to that day of glory which will display in full splendour the counsels of His grace, and He would have us in perfect communion with all the expectancy of His own heart." (p. 25)

"If you are not prepared to give up your own importance, all the reading and hearing in the world will not help you much in your spiritual life." (p. 37)

"If you read some of the works of the old divines you would be amazed to see how their hearts thirsted after Christ ..." (p. 84). Later Coates refers to Luther (p. 120) and "the dear old monk Suso" (p. 127).

"... the spirit in which Moses acted. He recognised in the toiling brickmakers the chosen people of the Lord." (p. 111)

"The cross was man's insulting answer to God's reconciling love." (p. 126)

"Do you bless God that He has called a poor heart like yours to the honour and joy of being identified with what He is doing for Christ in this world?" (p. 138)

"When violence failed [Satan] tried corruption, and began to seduce the Church by offering her the very things which Jesus has refused - the world and its glory." (p. 142)

An encomium on the brethren movement as a movement of revival at the end of the ages (pp. 144-46).

More gleanings from C.A. Coates, "The true grace of God"

After the heart-wrenching result of the independence referendum in Scotland this week (18 September 2014), I stumbled upon this quotation, and thought again:

"Alas! many believers nowadays seem to be occupied in the wrong city. Politics have to do with man's city. It is all a conflict as to who can get the upper hand in the absence of the rightful King ... A believer who takes part in politics is like a man building a magnificent cathedral in a place where a tremendous earthquake will shortly overturn every stone. I do not suppose a great sculptor would lavish all the resources of his art on a snow man ..." (p. 104)

"God loves us too well to allow us to rest in anything short of Himself - not even Christian fellowship." (p. 112)

The Father "is seeking worshippers. That is the great interest of the Father in this present hour. The salvation of souls is not the end. The end that God has in view in all the activity of His grace is to have worshippers." (p. 126)


"The world cannot satisfy. If you had all the opportunities of Solomon you would find in the end that the world was too little for your heart." (p. 140)

Gleanings from C.A. Coates, "The true grace of God"

 "There are scriptures which say that He died for all, and that He gave Himself a ransom for all, and that He is the propitiation for the whole world; and these scriptures show that Christ is available for the whole race of sinners ... All are invited: none excluded. But Scripture is careful to teach that it is the believer's sins which Christ bore and suffered for on the cross." (p. 17)

Once we stood in condemnation,
   Waiting thus the sinner's doom;
Christ in death has wrought salvation,
   God has raised Him from the tomb.
Now we see in Christ's acceptance
   But the measure of our own;
Him who lay beneath our sentence,
   Seated high upon the throne. (p. 23)

 "your standing with God is identical with His [Christ's]" (p. 31)

"The Holy Ghost would do wonderful things for us if we did not hinder and grieve Him. He would make us practically free from the lust of the flesh (see Gal. v. 16), and would give us the abiding consciousness that we are the objects of God's love (Rom. viii. 14-16)." (p. 63)
 
"Calvary is the religious world's answer to Grace." (p. 79)

Free books by brethren

The Stone Publishing Trust is advertising the following:

We have a large amount of second hand ministry for redistribution including some by J.N.Darby, F.E.Raven, J.B.Stoney, C.A.Coates, J.Taylor Snr, and a variety of other of the Lord’s servants. Complete sets are available for some but also single volumes. It is our wish, and that of the donors, to get these books into circulation again and they are offered free. A contribution to postal costs would be appreciated. 

You can find the page here. Of this  list of author's names, I've only read material by Darby and Coates. Everyone says that Darby is hard going, and they are right, though the effort is certainly worth it. But I am very much enjoying Coates's book, The Believer Established, and would certainly recommend it as something which any Christian could read and find helpful.

Upward mobility

From “The Western Times”, 16 May 1846, p. 4:

NURSERY MAID.

WANTED in a highly respectable pious Family, a steady, middle-aged,
pious FEMALE, capable of undertaking the care of a small family of
children, the youngest of whom is above three years old.

No one in connexion with the Plymouth Brethren need apply. Letters
addressed to M. M., at the Office of this Paper, stating particulars,
will be duly attended to.

Calvinism and the atonement

One of the things which most surprised me about the character of "exclusive" theology is its adherence to some of those doctrines elsewhere regarded as "Calvinist." R. A. Huebner's book on God's sovereignty is available for free download here, and it includes a great many choice quotes from older writers on these themes.

The nineteenth-century writers I've been reading over the last few months have been very dismissive both of Arminianism and of high Calvinism. J. N. Darby has some fairly robust things to say about both groups, not least in his discussion of "Propitiation and Substitution,"  which nevertheless argues that while propitiation was universal, Christ was only a substitute for the elect.

And this is a theme we pick up in other writers of this school. C. H. Mackintosh also argued that "Christ is a propitiation for the whole world. He was the substitute for His people." And on the question of the "five points of Calvinism," in the same pamphlet, Mackintosh was emphatic:

"We believe these five points, so far as they go; but they are very far indeed from containing the faith of God's elect. There are wide fields of divine revelation which this stunted and one-sided system does not touch upon, or even hint at, in the most remote manner. Where do we find the heavenly calling? Where, the glorious truth of the Church as the body and bride of Christ? Where, the precious sanctifying hope of the coming of Christ to receive His people to Himself?"

And I think that's pretty much where we are up to now too: quite happy with the soteriological perspectives of what is elsewhere described as "evangelical Calvinism," and yet wanting to see the broader importance of the character of the church, its universality and hope.

[NB The distinction between universal propitiation and particular substitution seems similar to that of Shedd: see Oliver Crisp, An American Augustinian : Sin and Salvation in the Dogmatic Theology of William G. T. Shedd (2007)].

[NB2 Tim Grass, who has written a definitive history of "Open" brethren, describes their earliest theological position as "high Calvinism," which revivalism would moderate post-1860; Grass, "How fundamentalist were British brethren during the 1920s?" in Bebbington and Jones (eds), Evangelicalism and fundamentalism in the United Kingdom during the Twentieth Century (Oxford: OUP, 2013), p. 119 fn. I'll come back to this thought another time, d.v.]

Castlewellan Castle conference - August 2014

A few weeks back, we attended the conference in Castlewellan Castle, in one of the most beautiful parts of county Down. The weather was exceptional, and the afternoon drives down the main street of Newcastle, with its extraordinary views of the Irish Sea on the one side and the Mourne mountains on the other, were breath-taking.

[photo from Wikipedia]
 
But even more extraordinary was the opportunity to spend time with Christians from Ireland, Scotland, England, France, the Netherlands, Germany and beyond. We studied Leviticus 1-5, with singing from Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1978), and it was wonderful. Fortunately one of the Dutch brothers recorded the meetings, and we can relive the experience here.

The experience of the conference has got me back into reading the old "brethren" classics. Last year, I read William Kelly's Lectures on the church of God (1865) - he was born not far from where we were studying - and began to work through the material on websites like Assembly Quest. Since the conference, I've been reading Kelly's commentaries on Romans, 1 Corinthians, Titus and Philemon, snapping up old copies from the Book Aid depot located near our house and browsing for what I can't find in hard copy on websites like STEM. Twenty years after leaving the "open" side of the house for greener pastures that turned out to be much less fertile than expected, I'm finding out how much I've been missing, and how so many of my concerns about church order and soteriology in particular could have been better addressed among some of those believers called "exclusives."