oakleys.org.uk

What follows is a debate that took place on my Facebook page last October (2009). It really shouldn’t be allowed to slip down the wormhole of past FB posts. It’s worth reviewing. Perhaps my RC sparring partner, Bryan Cross, will want to add something to this.

It began with me posting a quotation from Martin Luther on enforced priestly celibacy:

. . . the pope has as little power to give this command as he has to forbid eating, drinking, the natural processes. . . No one, therefore, is duty bound to keep this commandment, and the pope is responsible for all the sins that are committed against this ordinance, for all the souls lost thereby, and for all the consciences thereby confused and tortured (Plass, What Luther Says, p. 888).

That was the catalyst for the following debate. (The reader should know that my FB rules forbid posting links to Roman Catholic propaganda sites in comments. That will explain a few lacunae in the flow of the argument.)

1. Kevin Branson: The Church has deemed it best that her ministers be single, and celibate, as Paul deemed it best. At present, the Church therefore requires a vow of celibacy from priests. Someday, that could change, and in certain situations exceptions are made even now, but ordinarily, them’s the rules. Nobody puts a gun to a priest’s head and forces them to take a vow of celibacy, nor did anyone force Luther to do so. It was his own choice, as it was his own choice to break his vow of celibacy.

2. Shawn Honey: Celibacy was chosen by Paul and he recommended it to others; it was not bound upon him from the outside, nor did he bind others to it. Peter chose to marry as did other Apostles and, presumably, countless elders (“husband of one wife…”). I think the point pertains to whether a church has the right to bind the consciences of its ministers in a way that Scripture seems to speak against.

3. Craig Lawrence Brann: True as Mr. Branson’s points are, it remains that the Apostle Paul had good reason for suggesting that men facing an apocolypse not be wed and likewise that women not become pregnant—this counsel was not at all timeless or abstract and it really is one of the roman church’s silliest Order’s to make apology for. Wasn’t it the same Apostle who called forbidding marriage a, ‘doctrine of demons.’ Hardly a class of teaching that ought only be obtained by the clergy!

4. Jeff Meyers: Good points, Sean. Remember, too, that the 1 Tim 3 passage (“husband of one wife”) is about the qualifications for “bishop” (episkopos).

5. Jeff Meyers: Craig, right on. Enforced celibacy for pastors is demonic, as Paul says.

6. Jeff Meyers: Kevin, get real. According to Rome, everyone that wants to be a pastor/priest must take a vow of celibacy. That is one big ecclesiastical gun at the head of every young man who desires to serve the church as a pastor. Also, “the Church” has not deemed it best for her ministers to be singe. Nope. ROME has arrogated to herself the make-believe position of sole authority over the entire church of Jesus Christ, East and West. Rome has no authority to make such a decree.

7. Jeff Meyers: BTW, you apologists for Roman tyranny, don’t bother to put links to RC web sites here in my FB comments. My FB page is not the place for you to seduce people to follow you to Rome. I’ll delete them.

8. Kevin Branson: Jeff, my comment was placed before your “warning”, or maybe they passed each other like ships in the night, or maybe I didn’t refresh soon enough to be “warned”. My point, without the link, is that celibacy is not required of all Catholic priests. The link would have explained the exceptions, but nevermind. Too much information can be bad. My other point which was deleted is that if one truly believes the Catholic Church is demonic, then that should be plainly stated, rather than merely offering relatively polite criticisms of the errors of the Catholic Church, and/or the Pope.

9. Jeffrey Steel: I am honestly trying to figure out why you even care about this Jeff… I think if you’re going to engage with the discipline of priestly celibacy as the norm, dispensations are given to some married men by the way, you need to understand the Catholic Church’s teaching on the theology of the body.

10. Jeff Meyers: Kevin I didn’t say the Catholic church was demonic. I only repeated Paul’s statement that for the church to forbid marriage is a demonic doctrine.

11. Jeff Meyers: Jeff: it’s the norm and ideal that is the problem. That dispensations are given to some men is lame. That doesn’t exonerate Rome from gross error in demanding celibacy of pastors and bishops. The prohibition is against the Scriptures’ explicit instructions and warnings. No “theology of body” can ever compensate for that.

12. Jeffrey Steel: Jeff, I understand your concerns but how much of your (and most of us in the West) view of sexuality been shaped by the Western culture? The Church doesn’t hold a gun to men’s head to be a priest; that is a gift given and men offer themselves to the vocation of celibate chastity. Pope Paul VI admitted exceptions but East and West are very similar here. In the East, for instance, only celibate men can be bishops. If a man has the sacrament of marriage prior to receiving the sacrament of ordination he maintains both until his wife dies which then he remains celibate and chaste for the remainder of his life. The Latin rite Church is the same with regards to exceptions. It’s not lame, it’s the charity of the Church recognising the prior valid ministry of men from outside her walls and discerning a call to vocational ministry and marriage. Celibacy is freely chosen.Celibacy is a charism. It is the total gift of self in and with Christ to his Bride and it expresses that relationship of the priest’s service to the Church and to Jesus. Theology of the Body does compensate lame shots at a theology of the chrism of priestly celibacy.

13. Tim Gallant: Celibacy is indeed a charism. And one which very few have, which is why the so-called celibate priesthood is one very long train wreck.

14. Kevin Branson: Not sure exactly what Tim Gallant is specifically referring to as regards the “very long train wreck” that is the celibate priesthood. Probably more than just the Catholic child sex abuse problem, but that is probably part of what he is referring to. In observance of the “rule” for Catholics who post in this thread, I have to be careful not to post a link here, so you will have to dig up the answer to this question for yourselves: What is the ranking of the relative incidence of sexual crimes against children amongst these four groups: a) Catholic priests, b) protestant ministers, c) school teachers, and d) family members? Hint: you are more likely to rank these in the correct order if you successfully ignore the media’s reporting regarding Group A). And yes, sexual abuse is very bad, no matter who commits the sin.

15. Tim Gallant: The one long train wreck is not simply the sexual abuse of children by clergy, which is simply part of the pattern, or should I say the tip of the iceberg. Those who want to know can dig deeply into the inconvenient pregnancies caused throughout history by monks and priests, to say nothing of those who remained technically celibate but who were anything but on any other level. What is sown is reaped. The Roman church has on the one hand exalted a particular sort of life as spiritual unlike “secular” life, and on the other tied it to celibacy. The result is the necessary conclusion that truly spiritual life requires celibacy, and that leads people who have no charism into an abyss.

Yes, it is indeed one long train wreck, and it is a train wreck that is built into the system.

16. C Frank Bernard: As much as I like Luther, I don’t think I like “[...]and the pope is responsible for all the sins that are committed against this ordinance[...]” Where’s this in the bible? I think I’d stick to demonic (antithesis) references for lies/false doctrine, that rulers will undergo stricter judgment, etc. As Luther realized, so do we (adults, assuredly those 20 and over) have a responsibility to realize that anyone who tries to bind the conscience of those called to a 1Tim3 or Titus1 office by prohibiting the subsequent entrance to the blessed covenant of marriage is plainly biblically wrong and should be counseled by the best elders (each most likely having a godly wife and godly children). We no longer have the high office of apostles (2nd only to Jesus) but even when we did, there were multiple apostles who could rebuke one another (e.g., to Peter’s face and god-breathed into scripture for all to take heed).

17. Jeff Meyers: Charles, Any pope at any given time is responsible for the Roman church’s well-being as the chief pastor of that flock. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes on judgment day. They are indeed responsible, just as Jesus told the Jewish leaders that they would answer for all the sins of their predecessors if they didn’t heed his warning (Mat. 23).

18. C Frank Bernard: That’s a good point, but skimming that chapter I wonder if the rulers alive in that generation were about to receive the very unique judgment in AD 70. The blood wrath of the saints was stored and poured on that particular gen of rulers.

19. Jeff Meyers: Charles, the AD 70 judgment was unique, but it was also an example. The connection between pastor and people is so strong that Paul can command Timothy: “Watch yourself and your doctrine closely; persevere in them: for in doing so you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16). The salvation of our people depends, in some sense, on our example and teaching as pastors. The pope has a very large church for which he is directly responsible.

20. Bryan R Cross: Before addressing Luther’s statement itself, we have to step back and consider the meta-level question of how to evaluate such a statement. If Luther’s statement were false, how would we know?

21. Jeff Meyers: If Rome’s law requiring celibacy for priests were false, how would we know?

22. Bryan R Cross: It would be contrary either to natural law or to the Church’s dogmas concerning morality.

23. Jeff Meyers: Rome’s law is contrary to both created nature and the Word of God’s explicit, clear teaching about marriage and ministry in the church. Church dogma can be wrong and is always answerable to the Scriptures. This is one of those unmistakably clear instances of Rome’s error.

24. Bryan R Cross: Jeff, celibacy itself is not contrary to created nature. Otherwise, anyone who did not marry would be acting contrary to nature. That would make Jesus a pervert. So the conditional requirement of celibacy is not a violation of natural law, because the priestly vocation is a supernatural calling, not a natural calling. Nor is the celibacy requirement contrary to any Church dogma (so it is irrelevant to this question whether the dogma is right or wrong). The Bible nowhere teaches that the presbyter must be married (or must have been married). The discipline in the NT time was not that marriage was a necessary condition for ordination, but that no one having more than one wife could be ordained. So the celibacy requirement does not contradict Scripture; it is fully compatible with Scripture.

25. Jeff Meyers: Bryan, what a tangled mess of an argument. I’ll let the readers of this tread decide if it’s sophistry or not. Of course, the Bible does not require marriage for a presbyter or bishop. I never said anything like that. What the Scriptures do indeed condemn is “forbidding people to marry,” and that is the real issue here. The Roman way is to forbid marriage in the priesthood (little dispensations to various groups here and there notwithstanding). That violates God’s Word with a vengeance. Adam had to learn that it was “not good to be alone.” Man and woman are made to marry. If there are those who chose NOT to marry for good reasons, they are free not to do so. But it is a special and dangerous calling, as Jesus makes clear. There are all sorts of possible licit reasons for remaining celibate, including the desire to serve Christ’s church as a pastor/bishop without distractions. A man is free to embrace celibacy if he wants. But he will be embracing something against his created nature. Not everyone can do so. Jesus chose to do so, but he only had three years of service. Not taking a wife was his wise choice. But the implications of the fact that he chose married apostles is pretty obvious, except to Roman churchmen blinded by their erroneous tradition.

26. C Frank Bernard: Bryan: celibacy requirement or option? Where’s the requirement?

27. Bryan R Cross: Charles, if your question is “Where in Scripture is the requirement of celibacy for the priesthood stated?” then we see that this disagreement (between Protestants and the Latin Rite discipline) is itself based on a deeper disagreement concerning whether or not any ecclesial discipline must be stated in Scripture.

28. Jeff Meyers: Bryan, in your note to Charles I see that you’re still not getting it. It’s not just that there’s no requirement for celibacy in Scripture. Rather, it’s that by explicit example (apostles, etc.) and direct command (1 Tim 3; 1 Cor. 9:5), marriage is commended to pastors and bishops. To decree clerical celibacy is in direct violation of explicit biblical teaching.

29. C Frank Bernard: So the requirement citation I’m inquiring about is first in the post-biblical Latin Rite? How exactly did we go from the apostolic requirement of having no more than 1 wife to having no more than 0?

30. Jeff Meyers: That’s exactly the way to put it, Charles. The Bible says that a presbyter/bishop “must be the husband of one wife.” The Roman church decrees that a presbyter/bishop is forbidden to have one wife. So how’s all that Aristotelean logic working for you?

31. Bryan R Cross: Jeff, Catholics agree that St. Paul condemns forbidding marriage. The context for that statement by St. Paul is proto-gnosticism, based on the notion that marriage is evil, and that bringing children into the world is evil, because matter is evil. But you are interpreting Paul’s statement to be without qualification, i.e. anyone, regardless of their vocation state, has the right to marry in that vocational state. Whereas the Catholic Church understands St. Paul’s statement with an implicit qualification: anyone, has the right to choose the vocation of marriage [which is good and holy], but that does not mean that St. Paul is saying that anyone in the priestly vocation has the right to marry, or that everyone has the right to both vocations simultaneously. So it is not enough to appeal to 1 Tim 4:3, because both sides interpret it differently. And it is not prima facie self-evident which interpretation is correct.

32. Jeff Meyers: Bryan, for the church to forbid pastors to marry is against explicit NT teaching (1 Tim. 3; 1 Cor. 9:5; etc.) and is violating Paul’s warning against “forbidding” people to marry. Proto-gnostic or not, the problem is when church authorities FORBID pastors from marrying. If individuals want to forgo marriage, that’s their choice. But to authoritatively decree that no one who is married may be a pastor is in DIRECT violation of Pauline teaching. Paul says that a pastor/bishop “must be the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3; Titus 1). Rome says that no man with one wife may be a pastor/bishop This is demonic.

33. Bryan R Cross: Jeff, I’m aware that many of the Apostles were married. But again, the question is whether their being married entails that all subsequent bishops and priests have a right to be ordained *and* be married. I don’t see how it does. The fact that some of the Apostles were married does not entail that the Church does not have the authority to require that those men who wish to be ordained as priests in the Church lay down their right to married, for the sake of Christ.

34. Jeff Meyers: Bryan, if the apostolic example is not normative, then where in the world is Rome getting the inspiration for her decree to DEMAND celibacy for pastors and bishops? Paul tells us: demons. Once again, the clear contradiction:

The Holy Spirit says through Paul that a pastor/bishop “must be the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3; Titus 1).

Demons speak through Rome saying that no man with one wife may be a pastor/bishop.

35. Bryan R Cross Jeff, the 1 Tim 3 passage can be ready either way, as I pointed out. It can be read as a requirement that every priest be married to one wife (or have been married only to one wife), OR it can be read as forbidding the ordination of someone with two or more wives. The Church has always understood it in the latter sense, never in the former sense. So it seems to me that the burden of proof is on those who claim that it means that every priest *must* be married. Either way, it does not teach that every man has a right to both vocations simultaneously.

Regarding 1 Cor 9:5, of course St. Paul had the right to take a wife. Catholics fully agree. That doesn’t show that the Church has no authority to require that those men who wish to be ordained as priests in the Church lay down their right to married. So I don’t see the Church’s celibacy discipline to be “in DIRECT violation” of any of St. Paul’s statements. Of course I can see how you read them that way, but I don’t think you see how a Catholic can see these verses as fully compatible with the Church’s discipline. Just pointing to verses doesn’t resolve the disagreement, because interpretation is involved.

36. C Frank Bernard: Regarding 1 Tim 3: “Either way, it does not teach that every man has a right to both vocations simultaneously.” But it does teach, either way and at a minimum, that ordained men could have both vocations simultaneously. But then somehow later the “Latin Rite” and/or “the Church” forbade marriage after ordination? Care to explain the birth of this celibate discontinuity?

37. Jeff Meyers Bryan, are you kidding me? The burden of proof is on Rome that says that every pastor/priest MUST be unmarried. Such a requirement flies in the face of the entire Bible, Old and NT, re: Levitical priests or Christian apostles and pastors.

Granted that 1 Tim. 3 forbids the ordination of anyone with more than one wife. It does. But what it does NOT do is FORBID a man who has one wife from being ordained. Rome does that. Not Paul. Titus 1:6 says that a presbyter “must be the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. . .” Children. Are you now going to present to me some sophistry that concludes that Paul’s instruction was not meant to lead us to believe that the men presented for ordination to presbyter were ordinarily married and had children?

38. Bryan R Cross: Jeff, if you are interpreting 1 Tim 3 to mean that a pastor/bishop “must be the husband of one wife”, then the instant his wife dies, he loses his ordination, and can’t be re-ordained until he remarries. But you don’t believe that. So St. Paul cannot mean there that every priest/bishop must be married. There are other, more charitable explanations besides “demons” for why Rome adopted the celibacy requirement. It is the same reason why the Orthodox require celibacy of their bishops; for the reasons St. Paul explains in 1 Cor 7. “One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his interests are divided.”

39. Jeff Meyers: No, Bryan. Quote 1 Cor. 7 all you want. I referred to it obliquely earlier. Paul was talking about making responsibly choices. Yes, it applies to the pastorate. I grant that. But not even Paul will do what the Pope has arrogantly done: authoritatively decree that all men who enter the pastorate be celibate. Paul carefully avoids using his authority as an apostle to demand celibacy.

Let me be clear here. For a man to choose celibacy as a pastor based on 1 Cor. 7 considerations is not demonic. For the church or those in authority to counsel men on the benefits of celibacy for ministers is NOT demonic. But when the pope and leaders of the Roman church make celibacy ecclesiasetical LAW and FORBID marriage to men entering the ministry or serving as pastors, well, that is demonic. Talk to Paul about the charity of that judgment, not me.

40. Bryan R Cross: Charles, you wrote, “But it does teach, either way and at a minimum, that ordained men could have both vocations simultaneously. ” I agree. But everything lies in the term ‘could have’. Does the ‘could have’ mean “have an intrinsic right to”, or does it mean “are compatible”? The Church sees it in the latter sense. That is why married Anglican priests, who become Catholic, can then be ordained Catholic priests and remain married. The compatibility of the two vocations does not entail that the Church may not require as a discipline that those men seeking ordination in the Latin Rite remain celibant.

41. C Frank Bernard: If the Latin Rite is merely the name assigned to the celibate ordained, no big deal in many ways. But I suspect the Latin Rite is either the only ordination option presented in some churches and/or has privileges not offered to the married ordained.

42. Bryan R Cross: The Latin Rite is one among 23 Rites within the Catholic Church. And so far as I know (though I don’t know very much about the other Rites), the Latin Rite is the only one requiring celibacy of priests. So if someone wanted to be married and discerned a vocation to be a Catholic priest, he could pursue ordination in the other Rites.

43. Garrett Craw: Bryan that seems rather convenient to me. So, its okay to be married if you’re in some far-flung ethnic group but not in the heart of the vast majority of the RCC? That makes no sense. BTW speaking of anecdotal train wrecks. Everyday I have to wade through the train wreck while wearing my Protestant dog collar because people think I’m some weird unmarried creepo leering at their children. That’s just the real-world out here in Los Angeles where the pedophile priest scandal blew up like a hydrogen bomb.

44. Justin Donathan: Bryan, how is it that Apostolic counsel and practice is not normative for the church and can be abrogated in the case of celibacy for priests, while so much of the rest of RC teaching and practice is based precisely on Apostolic precedent?

45. Bryan R Cross: Garrett, the solution to abuse in the Church is not to start a sect, but to stay within and serve and reform, with charity and patience, even if that means white martyrdom or red martyrdom. Two wrongs don’t make a right; that’s why schism from the Church is never justified. Trying to reform the Church from the outside is a dead-end. How much longer would it take before that became evident? Another 500 years? We’ve got to realize that the outside strategy was mistaken. Any Protestant who is tempted to complain about the state of certain Catholics must first consider the responsibility he bears for that state by not being in the Catholic Church. I’m not saying this as a criticism of you or other people like you; on the contrary, it is because of the great deal of respect I have for PCA/CREC people like yourself (and all those solid men that I graduated with at CTS) that I believe that when Protestants finally bring their gifts back into the Church, the effect in the Church will be powerful. I wasn’t ignorant of the abuse scandal when I returned; I came to believe that that’s no excuse for remaining in schism.

Justin, discipline and dogma are not the same. For example, it is not a sin to eat meat from animals killed by strangulation (Acts 15). That’s a discipline that was based on the time/context. But Apostolic dogma can never be revoked.

46. Garrett Craw: “Trying to reform the church from the outside.” Gotta love that one. I think you’re trying to get the conversation away from the Bible back into philosophy so you can talk about tradition. The Church has been very powerful in the last 500 years. Its Protestants that are taking the Gospel to Africa and China not the RCC. This actually reminds me of debating Marxists. Rather than admit that some things really don’t work and never have (like enforced clerical celibacy and Utopian proletariat states). You still haven’t answered the biblical arguments put forth by Jeff and others and that is problematic.

47. Jeff Meyers: Bryan, this is pure arrogance: “when Protestants finally bring their gifts back into the Church.” I don’t need to return. I was baptized into the Church 52 years ago and have never left it. What you conveniently overlook is that men tried to reform the church from the inside in the 16th century. Rome refused. She exiled them and the declared herself to be the true Church at the council of Trent. Before the 16th century there was no Roman Catholic church. There was just the Church. Now there is this arrogant sect, ruled from Rome, that arrogates to itself the title of “the Church.”

48. Jeff Meyers: Bryan, you write: “But Apostolic dogma can never be revoked.” This is exactly what Rome has done by mandating celibacy – revoked Apostolic dogma.

The Apostle Paul says that a pastor/bishop “must be the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3; Titus 1).

Rome’s dogma says that no man with one wife may be a pastor/bishop.

And don’t give me some nuanced definition of “dogma” in an attempt to escape the issue.

49. Valerie Kyriosity: If I may add my two cents to the melee (sorry for the mixed metaphor, but I didn’t want to claim any more violent contribution), Jesus’ unmarried state has been mentioned a couple of times as a model of celibacy. Well, only of premarital celibacy. Jesus’ whole incarnation is about His marriage. All of creation is about His marriage. He is the ultimate example of marriage which all human marriages are to reflect. If a man — pastor or layman — would be like Jesus, let him lay down his life to seek and sanctify a bride. And note that it’s only one bride He came for…not a harem as sentimental or hypermystical folks on both sides of the Tiber would have it. He’s neither the husband of each nun who dons a wedding dress to take her vows in a perversion of a marriage ceremony nor of each girl of either sex who sways gently to the creepy, quasi-romantic music of the “Jesus is my boyfriend” tunes at the local evangellyfish church.

50. Bryan R Cross Jeff, regarding whether before the 16th century there was a Roman Catholic Church, here are Aquinas’ dying words, receiving Viaticum: “I receive Thee, the price of my redemption, for Whose love I have watched, studied, and laboured. Thee have I preached; Thee have I taught. Never have I said anything against Thee: if anything was not well said, that is to be attributed to my ignorance. Neither do I wish to be obstinate in my opinions, but if I have written anything erroneous concerning this sacrament or other matters, I submit all to the judgment and correction of the Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I now pass from this life.”

51. Jeff Meyers: Bryan, that some, such as Thomas, obsequiously bowed to Rome, does not mean that all theologians and churches in Europe, let a lone the entire world, did so. You can find examples of theologians, bishops, and pastors from the 4th century on that sought to make Rome the center and authority for the entire church. Sure enough. You can also find just as many IN THE CHURCH who resisted Rome’s imperialistic attempts to centralize church authority, like Augustine.

52. Bryan R Cross: Jeff, my point wasn’t about bowing. My point was that if, as you put it, there was no such thing as the Roman Catholic Church until Trent, then Aquinas’ words make no sense. Aquinas clearly believed there was such a thing.

Regarding Augustine’s alleged “resistance” to “Roman imperialistic attempts to centralize church authority,” here’s what he said to the Donatists:

“You know what the Catholic Church is, and what that is cut off from the Vine; if there are any among you cautious, let them come; let them find life in the Root. Come, brethren, if you wish to be engrafted in the Vine: a grief it is when we see you lying thus cut off. Number the Bishops even from the very seat of Peter: and see every succession in that line of Fathers: that is the Rock against which the proud Gates of Hell prevail not.”

53. Jeff Meyers: Oh there was a particular Roman church alright, and lot’s of pastors and bishops believed that local church in Rome, Italy, had primacy. But others did not. I affirm there was an arrogant, power-hungry local Roman church in Italy before the 16th century. But there was no monolithic “Roman Catholic Church” before Trent.

“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” Jesus cries on the cross.  He’s crying out for Elijah, someone says.

But the Greek eli is exactly the name of another Old Testament figure, the High Priest Eli, priest during the childhood of Samuel (1 Samuel 1-4).  That allusion works: Eli was a weak priest during a time of apostasy, when his sons were committed abominations in the house of Yahweh, abominations that would bring desolation.  That is the first-century setting as well, as Jesus has told us in Matthew 24.

More immediately to the context, Jesus goes to the cross as the living temple of God, to be torn down.  That is precisely the story of 1 Samuel 1-4 – the dismantling of the tabernacle.  The banner over Eli’s term as high priest carried the message “Ichabod,” the glory has departed, and on the cross God forsakes His living tent, though He returns when He raises up this tent as a glorious temple (cf. 2 Corinthians 5).

These are the questions for week 17 of the Guided Reading Course. We’ll focus on Calvin, Institutes, II.xii-xiv, and refer occasionally to Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pp. 321-330.

Calvin, Institutes, II.xii-xiv

II.xii

1. Why, according to Calvin, did our Mediator need to be true God and true man? (II.xii.1-3)

2. In Calvin’s view, would the incarnation have been necessary if man had not sinned? Why or why not? (II.xii.1-2, 4) Do you agree?

3. What does Calvin think of question 2, above? Why? (II.xii.5)

II.xiii

4. What evidence does Calvin adduce to prove Christ’s true humanity? (II.xiii.1)

5. What objection does Calvin address in II.xiii.4? How does he respond?

II.xiv

6. What misunderstanding of Christ’s human and divine natures does Calvin address in II.xiv.1? How does he correct this erroneous view? What analogy does he offer?

7. What does Calvin mean by “the communicating of properties” (II.xiv.1)? How do the scriptural texts cited in II.xiv.2 fit with this doctrine? How does Calvin’s view differ from the Lutheran doctrine (cf. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 324ff.)?

8. What, in Calvin’s view, is demonstrated by the texts cited in II.xiv.3? Do you agree?

9. What were the errors of Nestorius and Eutyches? How does Calvin reply? (II.xiv.4)

I feel its time to rant a little on the blog, and I also feel its time for a little commentary on the industry I live and work in.

OK so maybe rant is a bit strong, but throw out opinion and thought.

A recent blog post (shout out to Alex Redgate http://awlred.wordpress.com/) questions the community outside of the London scene or lack of it, and its kind of made we want to post about the “London Scene”. This is in no way a dig at Alex, hes a top man, and we love him here.

There has been a hum of “isn’t the London scene wonderful” and I must admit I agree, to a point. Its great to see our capitol city picking itself up introducing competition and diversity from what was a one horse city. But the swipes at lack of community outside of London disappoints me. It disappoints me as I hear it a lot from people that have no idea whats happening in our city’s around the country.

I personally think there is plenty of community outside of London, I also know there are many many amazing outlets outside of London. but like everything from down south they believe they do it best because of the transport links and of course the much larger audience. But lets not forget a few short years ago, there was Monmouth, there was flat white selling Monmouth and there was Fernandez and Wells selling Monmouth and that was it. Coffee tour was over in a flash in one of the most cosmopolitan city’s in the world. At this time the hub of the UK was on the Halifax, Huddersfield area, one that that was way ahead of London (just look at the northern heats compared to the canceled London UKBC).

If you Go to Scarborough, or Leeds, or Liverpool, or even Manchester now (for years a black hole of coffee culture) or Derby, Burton, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, York (and there are many more) there is at least one place to go to get a great coffee experience. But you have to look for them and often these people are just tring to run there business and don’t have time (or inclination) to create a scene.

I get tired of the “only good place is London blah, blah” its as boring as the other international destinations I’ve heard the same of (Vancouver, Copenhagen, Portland etc). This is not the fault of people doing great things in these city’s, to the contrary its because of them they have these powerful emerging coffee shops and roasters. Its also that a press is very city centered, take a look at the independents 50 best coffee shops, they seem to agree that most of the best are in London.

I tip my hat to everyone that makes these places stand out on the coffee maps of the world, but they quite often either spread the word effectively or empower there customers to do so and build a strong tribe that spread the word for them. Armed with a press that listens (and is normally a tube ride away) and these powerful advocates you can see why it happens.

But I know I haven’t been to 1% of the coffee shops in London village, let alone the many outside, so I cant write off every coffee shop, on what is or isn’t being done in them. So often we judge a coffee shop by the coffee roaster they use, or the machine and grinder they make it on or the decor they have fitted out their store with. The barista doesn’t seem matter so much how much care attention and pride they put into their shots. I bet you in every town there is someone who wants to make better coffee, I bet you in every chain store there is some one with the passion for better coffee that just doesn’t know it exists.

Don’t moan or grown that there isn’t a “scene” in your town but get off your backside and make that scene happen, organise something go into the coffee shops in your local town and speak to the baristas and see if they would be interested. Post blogs that inspire people in your local area I don’t know anything to drum up support.

Of course you could just move to London.

I'm preparing to preach on John 9 on Sunday evening. To be honest, I'm rather behind! If I had more time, I'd be wanting to look at Peter J. Leithart's Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture (Baylor Univ Press, Waco, 2009). As I understand it, he applies the approaches he talks about to John 9 as a kind of test case and example. According to the Scripture index, John 9 gets quite a bit of treatment: pages 60-64, 72-3, 100-102, 105-7, 117-8, 124-32, 136, 141-2, 161-71, 176-80, 184, 185-88, 192-95, 197-204, 206.

Marc Lloyd

Yesterday was my first anniversary of being a vicar.  It’s been a steep learning curve and there’s still lots to work out.  My first six months were exhilarating, not least because I was walking closely with Christ.  The second six months were tiring and my walk with the Lord suffered.  I have a tendency to be success motivated and need to guard against it.  My daily prayer is “Let go of the need to be successful, be faithful to God’s will and do his work.”

I need to keep this first line of the prayer of humiliation from The Valley of Vision in my heart and mind:

Sovereign Lord
When Clouds of darkness, atheism, and unbelief come to me,
I see thy purpose of love
in withdrawing the Spirit that I might prize him more,
in chastening me for my confidence in past successes,
that my wound of secret godlessness might be cured.

but shortly I shall have it perfectly in heaven.

…When I am afraid of evils to come, comfort me, by showing that in myself I a a dying, condemned wretch,
but that in Christ I am reconciled, made alive and satisfied;
that I am feeble and unable to do any good,
but that in him I can do all things;
that what I now have in Christ is mine in part
but shortly I shall have it perfectly in heaven.

Amen

Exum notes that for the lovers of the Song “nature in all its glory reflects and participates in their mutual delight.  And everything is experienced more intensely, from the thrill of watching a lavishly outfitted palanquin approach from a distance . . . to the pleasure derived from the intimate contemplation of the beloved’s attributes . . . , from the anguish caused by the beloved’s absence, to the joys found in an exotic pleasure garden fit for a king.”

Not just for the lovers of the Song, of course.  For those who are in love, everything is tinted by that love.  If it doesn’t arouse anticipation at the lover’s presence or melancholy at his or her absence, it still is something to share, its pleasure doubled.

That must be a figure of what it’s like to love Yahweh your God with your whole heart.

Yesterday, I noted Exum’s observation that the Song’s imagery is not straightforward visual, but describes the experiences of the lovers.  Exum is drawing on a 1967 JBL article by Richard Soulen, who says, “It should be obvious that comparisons of the female body to jewels (7 1), bowls of wine (7 2a), heaps of wheat (7 2b), and so on, are not intended to aid a mental image of the maiden’s appearance or merely to draw parallels to her qualities; they, and others like them, seek to overwhelm and delight the hearer, just as the suitor is overwhelmed and delighted in her presence. Likewise, the point of comparison between the maiden’s hair and a flock of goats on the slopes of Gilead (4 ?) has nothing to do with Egyptian sculpture, color, motion, or with the quality of either the hair or the flock; it lies simply in the emotional congruity existing between two beautiful yet otherwise disparate sights.”  The images work because they are Eliot-esque “objective correlatives.”

More needs to be said, though.  The specific images are set within a biblical framework and system of images.  And, besides, as Michael Fox (The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs) points out, there has to be some sensory feature connecting the image with the referent if the metaphors are to function as metaphors at all:

“we cannot fully explain the meaning of a metaphor merely by pointing out the sensory resemblance between an image and its referent.  What an objectively shared trait does is to bridge the terms of the metaphor and allow the reader to think of the referent in terms of the image.  In descriptive metaphor, where the sensory link is prominent and extensive, the linkage serves to communicate a sharper picture of the referent.  But that is not the case with these metaphors, where the primary role of the sensory common denominator is to make the metaphor possible.”

Citing Ricoeur, he argues that the point of a metaphor is to “reduce the shock engendered by two incompatible ideas.”  For instance, “shorn ewes are a pleasant and effective image for teeth because of their evenness and whiteness, whereas a comparison such as ‘your teeth are like gazelles’ lacks a bridge between the terms to allow the transfer of affective qualities.”  Yet the metaphor depends for its full meaning “not only on the extent of the common ground but also on the ‘metaphoric distance’ between image and referent: that is, the degree of unexpectedness or incongruity between the juxtaposed elements and the magnitude of the dissonance of surprise it produces.”  A small gap between image and referent might make the referent more visually vivid, but “greater metaphoric distance produces psychological arousal, a necessary component of aesthetic pleasure.”  In short, “the sensory common denominator attracts image to referent, while a metaphoric distance is adamantly maintained by a certain incongruity between the terms.”

This tension, he claims, is “essential to the creation of a profoundly new vision of love” in the Song.

What is wisdom?  Follow the canonical progression of wisdom books.

Proverbs: There are two women.  Choose Lady Wisdom and reject Lady Folly.

Ecclesiastes: All is hebel.  Death looms.  Therefore, eat, drink, rejoice in the wife of your youth.  Joy in your wife is the way to Lady Wisdom.

Song of Songs: A man rejoices in his bride, eating and drinking a feast of love.

So:

Wisdom is about sex:  Proverbs says, Choose the right woman; Ecclesiastes says, Cling to her in defiance of decay; the Song says, Love brings you back to the garden.

Or: Fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom.  Joy in defiance of death is wisdom coming to maturity.  Fulfilled wisdom is knowing that love is as strong as death.

Or: Proverbs is priestly wisdom, distinguishing wisdom and folly.  Ecclesiastes is kingly wisdom, rendering judgments in the midst of darkness.  The Song is prophetic wisdom, the hope of future harmony.

Or: Proverbs is past; Ecclesiastes is present; the Song is future.

Or: Proverbs is the Father; Ecclesiastes the Son; the Song is the Song of the Spirit.

Terry Eagleton gives a neat summary of Alain Badiou’s account of faith, an account that seems to me to be quite close to the biblical view of faith in several respects:

“. . . the kind of truth involved in acts of faith is neither independent of propositional truth nor reducible to it.  Faith for him consists in a tenacious loyalty to what he calls an ‘event’ – an utterly original happening which is out of joint with the smooth flow of history, and which is unnameable and ungraspable within the context in which it occurs.  Truth is what cuts against the grain of the world, breaking with an older dispensation and founding a radically new reality. . . . For Badiou, one becomes an authentic human subject, as opposed to a mere anonymous member of the biological species, through one’s passionate allegiance to such a revelation. . . . Truths and subjects are born at a stroke.  What provokes a subject into existence for Badiou is an exceptional, utterly particular truth, which calls forth an act of commitment in which the subject is born.”

Badiou doesn’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but if He did, Badiou would recognize that as the kind of truth-event to which one might commit his whole soul.

A couple of disconnected notes on Matthew 27.

First, the death of Jesus responds to the mockery of passers-by and Jewish leaders.  The passers-by mock Jesus for His claim to be able to destroy and rebuild the temple (v. 40), but at the death of Jesus the temple is essentially immobilized when the veil is torn (v. 51).  Both passers-by and leaders mock Jesus for claiming to be Son of God (vv. 40, 43), but at His death the centurion and his men confess Jesus as Son of God (v. 54).  Not only does Jesus’ death rebut both forms of mockery, but the rebuttal is given in the same order as the mockery – temple, then Son of God.  Of course, Jesus proves to have power over the temple, and proves to be Son of God, precisely by rejecting the temptation of the mockers: He demonstrates His sonship by not coming down from the cross (vv. 40, 42).

Second, at Jesus’ death, the cosmos is shaken.  Three zone are hit by the impact of His death: the temple (v. 51a), the earth with its rocks (v. 51b), and tombs (v. 52-53).  That’s a variation on the three-story universe of Genesis 1.  The temple is the earthly “heaven,” the earth is, well, the earth, and people are buried in tombs “under” the earth.  Jesus’ death shakes the whole universe; light turns to darkness, the firmament-veil is torn, earth becomes mobile, Sheol coughs up the dead.  Creation is being dismantled to prepare for a renewal of creation.

A couple of days ago I posted on how I'd Saturday's meeting of our Diocesan Synod was dire. Well, as a sample, here is the address given by the acting Bishop of Chelmsford, Rt Revd Dr Laurie Green. Not that this was itself entirely dire - I just thought people might like to see, and perhaps comment on, what was a fairly average part of the presentations we were given. Maybe it was just me! (And anyway, it plugs his book.)

General Election 2010

Christianity believes fundamentally in incarnation – it believes that God has become intricately involved with the world and its issues through the life of Jesus the Son of God. Incarnation means, in other words, God is down to earth.

The Good News is that God’s grace is changing the world so that it might conform to God’s reign of justice, peace, love and mercy. The Church community therefore has the responsibility to work alongside that divine grace and so be in the forefront of the business of, as the bible has it, “turning the world upside down” because of God’s hopes and plans for it. The Christian life of witness must therefore have this same mark, and engage the thorny issues and complex challenges of life together on this planet and turn it upside down – that is, the Christian life must be politically engaged. Little wonder that the widely accepted ‘Five Marks of Mission’ 1 describes one element of mission as “transforming the unjust structures of society”. So the upcoming General Election might be seen as nothing less than a mission challenge.

Let’s look together at the earliest pages of the Bible, for whilst science helps us discern how creation may have happened, the book of Genesis goes much deeper and tells us that the meaning of creation is that God brings order out of chaos, society out of anarchy – and what’s more that we have a duty laid upon us by God to work with the grain of that creation and to be stewards of it. A steward is one who tends, one who cares for and ministers, and the Book of Genesis tells us that we are here to be stewards of all creation and to minister to one another. Now this term ‘minister’ is the same word quite rightly taken by the leaders of government – ministers – because they too have this same mandate, to be servants and stewards in the service of the people in the society they serve. So politicians and the Church share in many respects this duty of care for the society we share, and indeed the Church must encourage vocations to the political life – that we should minister together in this way, caring for the whole of God’s creation, and especially for the human beings within it.

Genesis also tells us that God creates us ‘in his own image’. So any lack of respect and care for one another in society is therefore an affront to the image of God that is in us, and must be challenged and sorted out. The quest for Christians is therefore to seek out those situations where the image of God in our fellows is not being respected or where that image is marred, and to do something about it. This is why the prophets, and Jesus too, condemn those who use power or privilege to take advantage of the underprivileged, for that very action mars the image of God in those being oppressed, and indeed mars the image of God in the oppressor.

Now, the Church talks a lot about this in its prayers and in its teachings but the Bible goes further. The Bible does not just talk of principles of stewardship and care for God’s image in us and in others – as wonderful as those principles are – but consistently connects those principles with concrete behaviour. It sets out specific means of redressing wrongs rather than merely rehearsing a list of abstract notions about it. The most obvious example is the Ten Commandments – and this because, as Jesus puts it, “by their fruits you shall know them.” Again, in Matt 25:32ff, the parable of the sheep and the goats, the right relationship with God is equated with concrete acts of compassion and justice towards the less fortunate. The passage asks us, when did we last clothe the naked, feed the hungry or visit the local prison – it does not just talk about that being a nice ‘idea’. So the Bible is calling for us to engage with these issues, not just to think or talk about it.

We might note too that some people try to argue that whilst the Bible is concerned that we care for individuals, the Bible does not spell out that we should engage in politics, first because that is not so much about individuals as groups and the wider society, and second, we should rather keep ourselves pure, and politics may corrupt us. But look again at the Book of Genesis. God creates the individual – ‘Adam’ – but it’s not long before Adam is pestering God for companionship. He could not stand to be alone because God has made him a human being for companionship – a social being. In the Book of Exodus, Moses builds a society – not simply a person for God but a ‘People of God’. Similarly, Jesus gathers his discipleship community – the new Israel – and tells them that, when two or three are gathered – the godly revolution is on. God certainly does care about individuals, but the Bible tells us even more about the building of godly communities. Because we are children of the same heavenly Father we are brothers and sisters on the earth and so we seek not just the good of one, nor even some, but we Christians seek what has become known as the ‘Common Good’ – the good of all and every one of God’s children.

Any arrangement in society that favours the rich over the poor or the strong over the weak is in violation of the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Beatitudes of Jesus. Any such exploitative arrangements are in opposition to a biblical understanding of the Common Good and our duty as Christians. From the Genesis mandate and through to the vision of the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation, we are exhorted to work to change such unjust systems.

Seeking the Common Good, finding structural ways of loving our neighbours, is otherwise known as politics. Of course, the world of politics may not appeal to all of us, but we all have that mandate upon to engage it in some way or other from the moment in our baptism when the sign of the cross is made upon our forehead and those words are spoken by the minister – “do not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified” – in other words to get our hands dirty – “and fight valiantly” against all such evil and sin: to risk ourselves in the battle for the Kingdom of God.

In the end, we must ask ourselves the simple question: ‘Am I happy with Britain today?’ If I feel that this society of ours conforms in every respect to my vision of the Kingdom of God then I might try to convince myself that there is indeed no need for politics. But if I feel that mandate upon me to change the world, to turn it upside down so that it more readily conforms to the values of God’s Kingdom, then engagement in politics, at least as a committed and informed voter, is my duty and the duty of us all.

And when it comes to determining how to vote we should not simply apply the usual criterion of ‘what policies are in my own best interest?’ but ask rather, ‘what policies offer most opportunity for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven?’ For those who have time it is therefore well worth while to submit each policy on offer to the scrutiny of a theological analysis rather than merely apply the secular criteria of utility or expediency. To help you do just that you may wish to refer to the new edition of my book ‘Let’s Do Theology’2 which shows you how to take a particular issue or concern and apply biblical and theological analysis to it. Otherwise, surf the web for theological reviews of specific policies. However you do it, make sure that the way you vote is determined by a prayerful and Christian perspective. Play your part in God’s mission to ‘transform the unjust structures of society’ that they may more conform to the Divine will for this wonderful world God has created.

Bishop Laurie Green

1 There are five things which the Diocese of Chelmsford is committed to doing:

1. Proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom.
2. Teaching, baptising and nurturing new believers.
3. Responding to human need by loving service.
4. Seeking to transform unjust structures of society.
5. Striving to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain and renew the earth.

2 “Let’s Do Theology” is now available in a completely revised and updated edition from Mowbray/Continuum. 2009.
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Commentators often resort to some embarrassing expedients in trying to explain the bodily imagery of the Song of Songs.  The assumption is that the images are mainly visual.  Breasts are like fawns grazing among the lilies?  Well, the fawns must be bent over, their backs rounded and their little tails sticking erect like nipples.

Exum wisely demurs.  The point is not to describe either lover visually but “to convey to the reader the emotions the speaker experiences upon beholding the loved one.”  The metaphors, she goes on to suggest, are also part of a process of distancing and construction, a process that gives non-exchangeable meaning to each body part.  The different descriptions also reveal sexual ideals: The man, described in third-person by the woman, is statue-like, hard, made of stone and metal; the woman is soft, organic, full of fragrance and fruit.  In any case, it’s the associations of the imagery, not primarily or only their visual appearance, that’s important.

In her commentary on the Song of Songs (Old Testament Library), Cheryl Exum notes the finely rendered sexual differences between the way the man and woman of the Song, evident in the different ways they express their desires for one another.  The woman tells stories: “They are the only parts of the Song that display narrative development or what one might call a plot.”  But the man doesn’t tell stories; rather, he “look[s] at her and tell[s] what he sees and how it affects him.”  In short, the man majors on sight, the woman on speech; the man gazes and records, but “the woman constructs the man primarily through the voice.”  Strikingly, she quotes him more than once; he never quotes her.

Exum characterizes the difference as between lovesickness and awe.  The woman describes herself as lovesick when her lover is present, and then again when he is absent: “The woman tells others, the women of Jerusalem, what love does to her.”  Both parts of that sentence are important: The woman confides in others in a way the man never does, and she is referring not to the affect that her lover has so much as the effect that love has.  The man however tells the woman directly “what she does to him.”  He describes her effect not as lovesickness but as conquest: “Turn your eyes away,” he pleads, “for they overwhelm me.”  Exum comments: “As a man, he is used to feeling in control.  But love makes him feel as though he is losing control.  He is powerless to resist; his autonomy is challenged.”  In short, “He is awestruck; she is lovesick.”

And then we allegorize?

Further thoughts on the structures of Matthew 27, focusing on verses 45-66.

Verses 45-54 can be seen either as a panel structure or as two chiasms. In the panel structure, each panel begins with Jesus crying out in a loud voice:

A. Jesus’ “cry of dereliction,” v 46

B. Reaction of hearers, v 47-49

A’. Jesus cries “again with a loud voice” and dies, v 50

B’. Reaction of earth and soldiers, vv 51-54

Alternatively, this section can be seen as two small chiasms:

A. Jesus cries out, v 46

B. He calls for Elijah, v 47

C. Someone gets a sponge soaked in wine, v 48

B’. Let’s see if Elijah comes, v 49

A’. Jesus cries out again, v 50

The second chiasm, somewhat less obvious, goes from verse 51 to 54:

A. Veil of temple torn, v 51a

B. Earthquake, rocks split, v 51b

C. Tombs open, many bodies raised, v 52

D. Saints enter Jerusalem after resurrection, v 53a

C’. Appear to “many,” v 53b

B’. Soldiers see earthquake and other happenings, v 54a

A’. Confession, v 54b

Verses 55-61 are organized with a fairly obvious chiasm:

A. Women watching from a distance, vv 55-56

B. Joseph of Arimathea asks for body of Jesus, vv 57-58a

C. Pilate gives body to Joseph, v 58b

B’. Joseph prepares body and places it in tomb, vv 59-60

A’. Women sit opposite the grave, v 61

The final verses of chapter 27 might also be seen as a simple chiasm:

A. Priests and Pharisees gather to Pilate, v 62

B. Request for a guard, v 63a

C. Last deception worse than the first, v 63b

B’. Pilate grants guard, v 65

A’. Priests and Pharisees go away to secure grave, v 66

I'm trying to work on my Sunday preaching plans for the next quarter. God-willing it might go something like this:

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9th May PM – John 10 – The Good Shepherd

6th June AM – Holiday Club All Age Family Service – Merciful Rescue - Jonah

13th June PM – John 11:1-47 – Dead Man Walking

4th July PM – John 11:45-12:11 – Destined to Die

11th July AM – Ecclesiastes 3 – What’s the time?

8th Aug AM – Ecclesiastes 4 - Better & Worse

22nd Aug PM – John 12:12-36 – Strange Glory

Marc Lloyd

We're currently working through Galatians in our homegroups. For the next quarter, the studies might go something like this:

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12th May - (5) Galatians 3:15-25

26th May - (6) Galatians 3:26-4:20

9th June - (7) Galatians 4:21-31

23rd June - (8) Galatians 5:1-15

7th July – (9) Galatians 5:16-26

21st July – (10) Galatians 6:1-18 & Review

Marc Lloyd

Song of Songs 3:11 speaks of the crowning of Solomon on the day of his wedding.  Most commentators refer to the Orthodox practice of crowning grooms and brides as new Adams and Eves.  I’ve got no problem with that, but I suspect there’s something else.

First, as Ernst Wendland says in an article (forthcoming in Lovely, Lively Lyrics: Selected Studies in Biblical Hebrew Verse [Dallas: SIL Academic], generously supplied by the author) there are many verbal links between the appearance of Solomon’s palanquin (3:6-11) and the description of the bride in 4:1-7.  That the palanquin and the bride are the same is also suggested by the parallel of 3:6 and 8:5.  Wendland notes that these two questions are in structurally similar locations in the poem – each at the climax of its respective half of the Song.  8:5 is explicitly a question about the bride, perhaps so too 3:6.

Second, beyond the verbal links that Wendland notices, there are structural indications that the two sections form sub-portions of a larger unit.  At least there seems to be an inclusio around the two sections:

A. Myrrh and frankincense, 3:6

B. Mighty men with swords, 3:7-8

B’. Necklace like shields of mighty men, 4:4

A’. Myrrh and frankincense, 4:6

(There is also an inclusio at 4:1, 7 with “beautiful, my darling.”)

If we take this inclusio as a frame for a single unit, then the move from 3:11 to 4:1 doesn’t seem abrupt.  There were, of course, no chapter divisions in the original text, and so the text would move from “gaze on Solomon with the crown” to “how beautiful you are, my darling.”  There is clearly a change of speaker, but the scene has not, perhaps, shifted as thoroughly as is often thought.  What are the daughters of Zion supposed to look at?  Solomon with his crown, and then Solomon goes on to describe his “crown,” his beautiful bride.

In short, Solomon’s bride is his crown – just as we’d expect from the king who wrote Proverbs 12:4: “a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.”

The beloved is a dove.  Why a dove?

We can answer by taking a detour through temple theology.  The temple is made according to the pattern of the mountain, reflecting the beauty of Yahweh’s original glory.  The temple is glory come to earth.,

And the glory of Yahweh is like a bird fluttering over Israel (Deuteronomy 32:11), like a bird hovering over the formless emptiness of the original creation (Genesis 1:2).

That glory is the Spirit, who comes to Jesus like a dove.

So: The beloved is the temple, made in the image of the Spirit-dove.

Hence: “My dove.”

Jenson again.  He notes that liturgy provides a test of theological truth, in the sense that “no teaching can be true whose consequences would pervert the practice or darken the understanding of irreversibly instituted liturgy.”

He illustrates: “the Reformers insisted there must be something wrong with established teaching about the mass because it sanctioned the proliferation of private and votive masses, a situation not coherent with the canonically instituted rite; Catholics charged that Reformation teaching about works must be wrong because it would lead to ‘abolishing the mass’ altogether.  Both accusations proved right.  Catholic theology has adopted the Reformers’ critique of the mass-theologies that justified much late-medieval practice.  And the Eucharist did quickly lose its rightful place in Protestant churches.”

In a footnote, he explains the last comment:

“Does ‘faith alone without works’ mean ‘without sacraments and the other actions that constitute the church’s life’?  Catholic polemicists supposed that it did, with abundant justification in the actual practice of and conclusions drawn by many supporters of the Reformation.”

For Luther and Calvin and Bucer, “faith along without works” certainly did not exclude sacraments since sacraments were not our works but God’s.  But Jenson is right.  For some Protestants, still today, the Catholic critique holds: “Faith without works” is translated as “baptism does nothing” and “the Supper is hardly worth doing, certainly not frequently.”