Comments on: _Believing Christ_ Revisited, 5 – Covenant

By: Ry

Ry — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 20:16:49 +0000

This has been an amazing experience reading this blog. As I was pondering things I came up with the following idea and would like feedback on it. Perhaps our problem in the church isn’t that we misunderstand grace but that we misunderstand works. I came up with the idea of 2 types of works. The FIRST WORKS is the basic principles of faith and repentance. In essence, let him in. Receive his grace. These FIRST WORKS are our only true individual personal works we must perform through our agency. We must choose him. The SECOND WORKS are the works that flow from us through him when we have truly let him in and accepted his grace. Thus, all our righteousness is not ours at all but his. Not of my righteous works are mind because they come from the power of grace. Because I am one with him. THE PROBLEM I think we have as a people (lds) is we’ve emphasized righteousness so much that we have made it unto ourselves. We have attempted to do the SECOND WORKS ourselves. And held ourselves responsible for our failure to do them and do them right. We then get confused when the Atonement doesn’t seem to work or we don’t see changes and our hearts fail us. Thus, how much more it means to me when the Lord said, “teach nothing but faith and repentance”. All else becomes personal righteousness because we take on the SECOND WORKS without Christ without even realizing it.

Alma 34:39
“Yea, and I also exhort you, my brethren, that ye be watchful unto prayer continually, that ye may not be led away by the temptations of the devil, that he may not overpower you, that ye may not become his subjects at the last day; for behold, he rewardeth you no good thing.”

We are not being taught, “Use your works and rightousness to overcome tempation!” We are being taught, “Let him in, receive his grace, and you will not be tempted more than you can withstand.”

Prayer is a receiving mechanism much like a heartfelt study of the scriptures to come to know him. Thus rightousness will flow through us to the world from him.

And it seems to me growing up in the church that I’ve been taught all my life to pray and read your scriptures without really understanding why. Without the purpose of letting him in, then it defaults to use your works to pray and read which then lead to nothing. Even worse, zoramitizm. So our next evolution and responsibility as priesthood holders is to stop this rightous works indoctrination that we’ve been inadvertently recieing.

By: joespencer

joespencer — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:07:25 +0000

As everyone’s background colors her reading. Hence: “a good starting place.”

By: John C.

John C. — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 11:59:54 +0000

Joe, just be careful with von Rad. He was a devout Christian and there is a good chance that colors his reading of Ancient Israelite religion.

By: _Believing Christ_ Revisited, 6 – Grace, Works « Feast upon the Word Blog

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:05:35 +0000

[...] comments joespencer on _Believing Christ_ Revisited, 5 – Covenantjacob on _Believing Christ_ Revisited, 5 – CovenantA post by Joe on grace & covenant [...]

By: joespencer

joespencer — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 13:58:21 +0000

I hadn’t planned on discussing that directly, but I’ll certainly have some things that should help to clarify that….

By: jacob

jacob — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 02:13:23 +0000

Joe,
When you talk about being saved by grace and judged by works, I notice that several Book of Mormon writers discuss hell and the chains of hell in the present tense, as though hell is a mortal condition of this life and not exclusive to a post-mortal punishment of the law (2 Nephi 2:10.) Is this something you are going to address later on as you clarify “saved by grace?”

By: A post by Joe on grace & covenant « WHAT I'm thinking about

A post by Joe on grace & covenant « WHAT I'm thinking about — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:55:41 +0000

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By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:53:10 +0000

That is a nice point, Mike. Thanks for sharing.

By: joespencer

joespencer — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:27:50 +0000

I’ll take the liberty you grant me and tell you to wait. :)

That is, it’ll be better if I try to articulate it in one fell swoop rather than in anticipatory bits and pieces.

By: James

James — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:02:21 +0000

Joe, could you elaborate a little on what you mean by ‘judged by works’? I know you said you’ll be tackling works in a later post, so feel free to tell me to wait if you want.

By: joespencer

joespencer — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 13:14:18 +0000

This is a very nice way of putting it—namely, that Robinson’s problem is that he begins from independence, so that relationship with Christ becomes a necessity only contingently (and then is something we aim to get rid of in the end)….

By: joespencer

joespencer — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 13:12:43 +0000

That’s a nice way of putting the problem of the parable. I’ll be stealing that in the future. :)

By: joespencer

joespencer — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 13:11:51 +0000

I don’t disagree with anything of your characterization of the NPP; I’m just skeptical that this is what Robinson was getting at. That he talks about covenant perhaps points in the direction of the NPP, but the way he talks about the covenant—and particularly the way he articulates the “old covenant”—is, it seems to me, entirely at odds with the NPP.

If the point, though, is just to say that Robinson’s talk about covenant is a first step in the direction of something like the NPP, I don’t have any quibbles. But a first step is a long way from the end of the journey in this case!

By: mjberkey

mjberkey — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 03:12:24 +0000

On another point, I don’t think we should even be “very slow” to embrace the theoretical “program of justification by law.” I think Adam Miller nails this one when he says the law was not intended as a means to independent righteousness, and to treat it that way is sin. On the contrary, the law was given to show us our dependence on God, even if we were to keep it perfectly. “Indeed, the better one is at keeping the law, the more clearly the law manifests one’s own lack of righteousness because each prescription is itself a performative confession of our dependence.”

In my opinion, the way Robinson keeps coming back to the theoretical possibility of justification by law is a bright yellow highlight on everything that is wrong with his model. The idea (if I’ve understood him right) is that we start out independent and autonomous, but when we make our first slip-up, then we’ve come into God’s debt and the only way out is grace. Not only is grace a response to sin, then, but our dependence on God is viewed _as_ shameful (the defining attitude of sin), and the end goal is for us to get back to the state of being independent of God again.

By: mjberkey

mjberkey — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 03:01:51 +0000

I am really liking the reversal from “saved by works, judged by grace” to “saved by grace, judged by works”! That’s just such a good way of putting it. And I thought it was really interesting how you show that our our hoping to be judged by grace actually shows a lack of trust in grace. We don’t actually trust grace to save us from the sinful nature. We pretend that somehow grace will save us from “the effects of sin” without ever actually saving us from sin itself.

By: Roberta

Roberta — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 00:09:45 +0000

Thanks for the book reference, Joe! I’m reading excerpts of this book online (as I wait for the actual book to arrive) and I’m learning more in just a few pages than I hoped. Good stuff!

By: Zinka

Zinka — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 17:04:05 +0000

I have always struggled with the parable of the bicycle. I’ve told my husband I fear getting to Judgement Day to find out oh, you were supposed to have contributed $1.67 as your best effort on earth, but alas you only came up with $1.25. Goodbye Celestial Kingdom.

Thank you for these posts. It’s really helping me sort out some of my twisted ideas. I especially liked your “bicycle in the garage” analogy. I will be pondering that one for awhile.

By: meekmildmagnificent

meekmildmagnificent — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 22:51:27 +0000

The NPP as elucidated by Sanders, Wright and Dunn (and to a lesser extent Stendahl) pointed out that the dichotomy between works and grace is a false one. According to the NPP, we enter the covenant relationship as a matter of grace; however, we remain in the relationship and are ultimately judged by the things we do — our works. The faith that motivates works is not trust for salvation, as evangelicals so often state it; but firm commitment in interpersonal relationships. It is more “faithfulness” rather than a noun, “faith.” “Faithfully obedient to the terms of the covenant relationship” is probably the best translation of pistis or “faith”. In addition, in the NPP grace is a matter of covenant faithfulness by God to Israel. Grace is what God gives because he has bound himself by covenant to do so. Whether one is in the chosen people is a matter of birth or grace, not what one does. However, human faithfulness to the covenant in grateful response to the grace obligates covenant faithfulness in return.

All of this is straghtforward NPP and it seems to me to be what Robinson is aiming at — even if his parable of the bicycle doesn’t quite get us there.

By: meekmildmagnificent

meekmildmagnificent — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 22:13:25 +0000

Joe: The notion that grace is a covenantal commitment given as a grace when the Law was given is right out of Sanders’ take on the NPP. In addition, the emphasis on justification as a juridical metaphor that sign-afies union in Christ is precisely the center of the NPP. One enters the covenant people as a matter of grace, but one is obligated to keep the terms of the covenant once in Christ. That too is standard NPP. All of this seems to be what Robinson is getting at. Remember that Sanders first published in 1977 and this view was all the rage as Robinson was writing.

By: joespencer

joespencer — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:23:19 +0000

I'm intrigued about how you see this reflected in Believing Christ. I'm pretty inclined to claim exactly the opposite. A good part of the problem with Robinson's take is that it refuses to see Paul's Jewishness, providing a deeply pre-NPP view of things. (It wouldn't be surprising to see a Jewish reading of Believing Christ call the book anti-Semitic.) So, a little help?

By: meekmildmagnificent

meekmildmagnificent — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:54:59 +0000

One of the things that Robinson is doing is reflecting the best of scholarship on Paul and the New Perspective on Paul. That is an important part of the discussion. He is responding in a sense to evangelicals regarding the meaning of “justification in Paul’s thought and not crafting a philosophical or theological view. He is, after all, a biblical scholar and not a theologian. His view of justification is a take on E. P. Sanders works.

By: Hit and Miss | Times & Seasons

Hit and Miss | Times & Seasons — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:50:00 +0000

[...] Believing Christ, Revisited, a series at Feast Upon the Word Blog by Joe Spencer discussing Stephen Robinson’s classic book. I think it’s about time they shortened the blog name to Feast Upon the Blog, don’t you? [...]

By: joespencer

joespencer — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:11:35 +0000

You’ve not misunderstood me. A good starting place on the Hebrew concept of righteousness, I think, is Gerhard von Rad’s Old Testament Theology, vol. 1, pp. 370-383. It shouldn’t be terribly hard to track down….

By: Robyn Iverson

Robyn Iverson — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 17:02:50 +0000

Do you have a source for your information on the “Jewish” sense of the word justified (I would love to read more about this)? This sheds a very different understanding for me of what the prophets have been talking about in terms of sin and righteousness, especially in light of our personal relationships with God and with others, if that’s what you are meaning when you write, “to be rightly oriented in one’s obligating relations.” If I have misunderstood, please correct me.

By: Announcing a Series: _Believing Christ_ Revisited « Feast upon the Word Blog

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:48:48 +0000

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