Firbush Retreats Firbush retreats are organized and led by Robert T. Walker. Firbush retreats are designed to make the best theology accessible to as many people as possible and especially those not trained in theology and often not familiar with routine technical terms. They combine times of worship and prayer with reflection on a theme related to Torrance theology. For more information see https://tftorrance.org/firbush. ----------- June 14, 2017 Firbush Retreat Summer 2017 Thomas A. Noble, "Christ and Human Response: Ch. 4 of Mediation of Christ" https://tftorrance.org/firbushS2017 The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides for their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:00-00:07 Just read out the title. 00:07-00:28 Just to add a little bit to the mention of this book, Managed Family Relationships, this is the edited version of papers, some of the papers produced at a conference last year held by the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical and Theological Research based at Tyndale House in Cambridge. 00:28-00:42 It is addressing issues which were significantly debated both at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland this year and at the Synod of the Episcopal Church in Scotland. 00:42-00:57 These just arrived yesterday, these are my own copies, but I'll leave them out here so that those who are interested can have a look at them and those will be on sale shortly. 00:57-01:12 I might say something a bit more about the T.F. Torrance Theological Fellowship at some points to make about that, but let me come straight to the book and explain that a year or two ago I made the suggestion that it would be a good idea if we actually went through T.F. 01:12-01:29 Torrance book at these occasions chapter by chapter because some of us are immersed in his writings, others are beginning to read him and so I thought that would be a useful thing to do and so we selected the Mediation of Christ. 01:29-01:46 These were the Didsbury lectures that he gave at the Nazarene College in Manchester in 1982 and I had the privilege of inviting him to do that and I suggested he might do a book on Athanasius since there was no good monograph on Athanasius at that point. 01:46-02:03 However, when he came he selected the Mediation of Christ and the original edition therefore only had four chapters but then the later edition 1992 by T. and T. Clark also republished in the States has the five chapters, the last one on the Torrance and the Trinity. 02:03-02:17 So tonight we come to the fourth and you have the handout before you, T.F. 02:17-02:46 T. and T. Clark. 02:46-03:09 I have a kind of angle from John Wesley and I stand in the Methodist tradition so that might be interesting and then I also have a book review which I did of a book by Alexandra Radcliffe whom some of you will remember came to these conferences while she was a student at St Andrews and actually met her present husband here. 03:09-03:22 I can't remember what her own name was, Alexandra, but she became Dr Alexandra Radcliffe and so her book has further helped us to discuss these issues. 03:22-03:31 But let's go first to the mediation and I'll just go quickly through these first chapters and I'm sure that most of you will have read this but some perhaps not. 03:31-03:54 I'll go on the Mediation of Revelation where he talked about conceptual tools, an idea he got from a tool maker for scientific laboratory and when T.F. visited this tool maker and he told him what he had to do to make these tools T.F. said to him, well you must know more about this than the scientists who are actually using them. 03:54-03:59 And he replied, yes I know that but they don't. 03:59-04:18 So the idea of conceptual tools, now this is taking the idea that there are concepts given to us in the Old Testament without which we could not understand the mediation of Christ, priest, sacrifice, expiation, altar and so on and so on. 04:18-04:29 And so for here, number one, the covenant partnership between God and Israel involved a running conflict between divine revelation and what St Paul called the carnal mind. 04:29-04:39 And so the election of God, number two, of Israel by God took the form of a community of reciprocity. So this is a relationship between God and Israel. 04:39-04:51 Thirdly, God's revelation came to Israel in such a way that it intersected and integrated its spiritual and physical reality, no separating of the spiritual from the physical in a Greek kind of way. 04:51-04:59 And fourthly, God's revelation of himself through the medium of Israel has provided humankind with permanent structures of thought and speech about it. 04:59-05:03 That basically was the first chapter, brief summary. 05:03-05:12 Then chapter two on the mediation of reconciliation, revelation and reconciliation belong together. 05:12-05:33 So that it's not that we receive some information about God as a result of which we make a decision whether to respond to God. It is rather that God reveals himself in such a way you cannot separate God's self-revelation from our reconciliation to him. 05:33-05:46 So revelation and reconciliation go together. Three points in this chapter. One, the covenant between God and Israel was not a covenant between God and a holy people, precisely the reverse. 05:46-05:52 It was a covenant of grace with sinful, rebellious, estranged Israel. 05:52-06:02 And so number two, the covenant actually brought an intensification of the conflict. The closer Israel came to God, the closer God came to Israel, the more the conflict. 06:02-06:12 But God makes their very sin the means by which he binds them to himself. 06:12-06:24 So the whole sacrificial system, their sin, they come and God gives them the way of atonement. 06:24-06:33 He makes their very sin the means by which he binds them to himself and that is brought to his culmination Jesus. 06:33-06:43 Leading him into the third point, which he says we may find difficult, but Israel was elected to reject the Messiah vicariously. 06:43-07:02 I'm referring to Peter's speech in Acts there. In other words, the point is, had Israel not rejected her Messiah, there would have been no cross, no crucifixion, no expiation, no salvation for humanity. 07:02-07:23 Now, this is a great paradox, but it is through our very sin represented in the sin of Israel that it is through that very sin that God lays hold on us and brings about the defeat of sin, the expiation of our sin in the death of Jesus. 07:23-07:40 He talked about the continuing role of Israel on this and he has this very evocative way of thinking about the two goats and Israel as the scapegoat going into the wilderness and the other goat as the sacrifice, the church and Israel. 07:40-07:46 He relates that then to the Holocaust and talks about his visits to Israel as moderator. 07:46-07:55 Well, that brings us into chapter three, which I say I think is the heart of the book where he talks about the person of the mediator. 07:55-08:00 And here he introduces us to this concept of onto relations. 08:00-08:20 He used to say, this is not a very good word because it brings together the Greek and the Latin in a way you're really not supposed to do, but it gets across this idea that it is the very relationships which a thing has, which determines its very being. 08:20-08:33 So you don't first of all have a being which then relates optionally to other things. The very being of a thing is determined by its relationship and he illustrated this from particle physics. 08:33-08:45 And this is one of the features of course running throughout the book. In fact, when he came to give these lectures and he pronounced that first sentence in chapter one, I thought, oh my goodness, these undergraduates are never going to get hold of this. 08:45-08:53 But I think I told you the story the last time that I'd given them a paper in advance. I'd introduced them to the theology of T.F. Torrance. 08:53-09:01 And after he had gone, a student from Perth said to me, Mr. Noble, when you gave us that paper, we didn't understand a word. 09:01-09:06 But when he came, we understood him perfectly. 09:06-09:15 Well, he was into theology and science of course and in the 60s and 70s he was developing all that line of his thought. 09:15-09:27 And so he uses this illustration from particle physics in which the interrelations, to quote, "Interrelations between particles are part of what particles actually are." 09:27-09:36 Now there's interrelations. Interrelations between particles in physics are part of what particles actually are. 09:36-09:43 And so we must think in terms of fields of force rather than a series of billiard balls bumping off each other. 09:43-09:49 The field of force is a reality in itself and so the relationships within that. 09:49-09:53 And he relates this to the Christian concept of what it is to be a person. 09:53-09:59 Because the persons of the Trinity are not individuals but their very being is in their mutual relationships. 09:59-10:05 So the father is the father is the father of this son. The son is the son of this father and so on. 10:05-10:11 So in other words, interrelations between them are part of what they actually are. 10:11-10:15 Now this is a marvelous illustration that he draws from particle physics. 10:15-10:24 And talks about the fact that the very concept of a person doesn't develop first of all with reference to humanity. 10:24-10:29 It develops in the history of thought first of all in relation to the Trinity. 10:29-10:38 It's only through the Trinity the very concept of person which was absent in the ancient world comes to be in reference to human beings. 10:38-10:46 Well that leads him on to the interrelation of Christ to the father and here again he's using an illustration from particle physics. 10:46-10:55 Ernst Mach, a physicist who thought that atoms were only mental artifices, scientific fictions. 10:55-11:02 So there were no real atoms because you cannot actually touch, see atoms. 11:02-11:04 You deduce their existence, you work out their existence. 11:04-11:08 So Mach said they're not really there, this is just a way of us thinking about them. 11:08-11:12 Whereas Max Planck said no atoms are real. 11:12-11:22 So Mach was taking the line of the observationalist whereas Planck he says was taking the view of the realist. 11:22-11:27 Now here's the parallel. There's a similar kind of choice he said in Christology. 11:27-11:35 There is first of all a phenomenalist approach. Now Greek phenomenon is an appearance, phenomena is the plural. 11:35-11:41 A phenomenalist approach merely looks at appearances, outward appearances. 11:41-11:53 And so if you apply that way of thinking in Christology Jesus cannot be known as he really is, only has he appeared to the primitive community. 11:53-11:59 So all we can do is say what Mach thought, what John thought, what Luke thought, but we cannot penetrate beyond that. 11:59-12:15 That's the observationalist line. In opposition to that the realist approach is that we must allow Jesus to disclose himself to us in his own intrinsic logos, the word, the rationale of God. 12:15-12:31 And in terms of his own internal relations you can only understand who Jesus is as he reveals himself to us through the witness of the apostles in his own internal relations. 12:31-12:38 And he's going to develop that in the next section particularly first of all his relationship to the Father. 12:38-12:49 He talks about how the fathers, the Christian fathers of the first six centuries, their realism came up against the dualist assumptions of their Hellenistic culture. 12:49-12:58 Hellenistic dualism, transcendent realm above, the realm of physical material reality down below. 12:58-13:03 So there is this great dualism between the transcendent and the this worldly. 13:03-13:09 Now if you apply that in Christology it cuts Christ in two. 13:09-13:14 Those who like to think in a transcendent way only think of his divinity, they begin there. 13:14-13:23 The Docetists, those who want to think from below think about his historical humanity, the Ebionites. 13:23-13:35 And of course he has in mind here a 20th century theologian Wolfhard Pannenberg who said that we've got to begin with a historical humanity, we've got to do Christology from below. 13:35-13:45 So if you imply these dualist assumptions you've either got to go from above to below or from below to above. 13:45-13:51 But that cuts Christ in two he says and he's going to develop his opposition to that. 13:51-13:56 So the oneness in being between the son and the father. 13:56-14:08 The fathers against this great dualism insisted on a unitary approach, the wholeness or integrity of the one person who was both God and human. 14:08-14:25 And the basic clue is the father-son relationship. In this crucial text no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom he will reveal him. 14:25-14:38 Now that's the basic clue, this mutual, exclusive, reciprocal relationship between equals. The father, the son, the son, the father. 14:38-14:46 And so this relationship falls within the very being of God which means of course there is relationship in God. 14:46-14:56 So it is not just a matter of God's relationships with us as individuals or with us as the world, there is already before that relationship within God. 14:56-15:05 The relationship between the father and the son in the Holy Spirit and therefore we must speak of the full and true deity. 15:05-15:19 Two points are implied then. One, knowledge of God the father and knowledge of God the incarnate son arise in us together. 15:19-15:38 This is the one undivided self-revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. And so the second point is implied, the incarnation must be regarded as falling within the being of God himself. 15:38-15:54 This is something which God has done which in some sense affects his very being. It falls within the being of God himself. It's not something he does externally to himself to which he is unrelated. 15:54-16:08 Reconciliation as the movement of God's love then draws us into the embrace of the eternal communion of love in God, the love within the Trinity, the love of the father and the son, the son to the father in the Holy Spirit. 16:08-16:27 We are drawn into that. And so the incarnate constitution of the mediator is vital. Jesus Christ as mediator, God and human, embraces both sides in the mediating relationship. 16:27-16:36 So we're not just thinking of God in man but God as man, God as a man. 16:36-16:53 Now this is a very important point here. At the beginning of the 20th century there was a tendency for that tradition that we call liberalism for some reason. I'm not really sure why we call them liberals because I don't think that really is a fitting term. 16:53-17:06 But liberalism had this great emphasis on the humanity of Christ and a tendency to downplay, neglect, even in some cases deny the deity of Christ. 17:06-17:16 And in response to that, evangelical believers said to say, "Oh no, the deity of Christ, the deity of Christ, the deity of Christ." 17:16-17:28 "But forget the humanity of Christ." And so what T.F. is saying, "It's got to be both and, not either or." 17:28-17:37 So God as a man, the full deity and the full humanity is where we begin. 17:37-17:52 It's only when we confess Jesus Christ as Lord, as God and man, that Christian theology even begins. So we don't begin from below and try to ascend the heavenly heights. We don't begin from above because we aren't above and try and come down. 17:52-17:58 Christian faith begins when we see that the word has become flesh. The two are one. 17:58-18:04 So he is mediator therefore in virtue of what he is. 18:04-18:16 So this is just not a metaphysical issue of God becoming man. It's to do with mediation. It's to do with reconciliation. It's to do with salvation. 18:16-18:26 He is mediator then in virtue not just of what he does, dying on the cross, that is of course essential and vital and central. 18:26-18:39 But he is mediator in virtue of what he is. He is not merely the bearer of the word. He is not merely the agent or instrument of the reconciliation and revelation. He is the word, the truth. 18:39-18:48 He is our peace. He is the propitiation, the reconciliation, the revelation. 18:48-18:59 If we let go this identity, then his word of forgiveness has no validity. We can't trust it. 18:59-19:05 It's only because of who he is that we may put our absolute trust in that. 19:05-19:12 And here he comes to the question which he was asked, you may remember, by the dying soldier on the battlefield. 19:12-19:19 Is God really like Jesus? And so he talks about the pastoral implications of that. 19:19-19:34 If we take an Aryan line, if we deny that Jesus is the Son of God and talk about him simply as a symbol for God as some 20th century theologians want to do, 19:34-19:48 then he can only have a moral relationship with God and behind the back of Jesus there may be a dark inscrutable arbitrary deity whom we cannot trust because there's a gap between Jesus and God. 19:48-20:04 So it's the identity of Jesus with God which means that as Jesus shows to us the glory of God and the face of Jesus Christ, the love of God and the face of Jesus Christ, we may utterly trust that that is God. 20:04-20:07 That is what God is like. 20:07-20:25 Now that means therefore that unlike some ways of thinking which merely think about the incarnation as a prelude, a necessary prelude to the atonement, 20:25-20:34 we must think about the incarnation and the atonement as one and therefore he goes on to talk about the unity of Christ's person and work. 20:34-20:43 But if he is very God and very man, number one, the atoning reconciliation takes place within the person of the mediator. 20:43-20:53 It is not merely an external transaction, external to himself, but he has become incarnate within our fallen guilt-ridden humanity. 20:53-20:58 He has really taken our sin upon himself. 20:58-21:06 Doesn't just save us from punishment, doesn't just save us from guilt, saves us from sin by taking it upon himself. 21:06-21:13 He has really taken our sin upon himself to heal and sanctify our human nature from within. 21:13-21:23 Two, men and women are savingly reconciled to God by being taken up to share in the inner relations of God's life and love. 21:23-21:38 So in that we are incorporated by the Spirit into Christ, in Christ, we are given to share in the Son's relationship with the Father in the Holy Spirit. 21:38-21:53 And so he talks about theopoeisis or theosis, which can be translated deification or divinisation and there has been some argument about that. 21:53-22:08 At this point, T.F. interestingly says it is not best to think of it as divinisation, it certainly does not mean that we actually become God essentially, 22:08-22:13 or swallowed up as it were into the being of God, but rather he goes for the word community. 22:13-22:21 We are introduced into the community of the Trinity so that we reflect the glory of God. 22:21-22:29 Thirdly, the union and communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is projected into estranged humanity. 22:29-22:32 Now, this next clause is very interesting. 22:32-22:45 So that the hypostatic union, the union in the one person of God and humanity in Christ becomes the reconciling union, 22:45-22:49 the bridge through which estrangement is ended. 22:49-22:53 That is an absolutely staggering statement. 22:53-23:06 Our relationship to God is held within the relationship between the eternal Son and the eternal Father within the Holy Trinity. 23:06-23:10 Absolutely staggering way of putting it. 23:10-23:20 And then number four, the church therefore cannot be thought of as externally related to Christ, but rather all are incorporated into Christ as living members of his body. 23:20-23:29 And finally in that chapter therefore he talks about the personalising and humanising activity of Christ. 23:29-23:44 That we are not really true persons, but he as the true personal Son of the Father personalises human life in such a way that in communion with Christ, 23:44-23:52 in the unity of the Holy Spirit, we become truly personal in the way that God is personal. 23:52-24:05 And he is humanising human in such a way that we twisted and defiled humans become what we are intended to be. 24:05-24:16 Through the whole course of his human life, Jesus Christ was at work healing, sanctifying and humanising the human nature which he assumed from our fallen dehumanised state, 24:16-24:22 converting it from its estrangement. What is that word converting? We will come to that in a moment. 24:22-24:27 Converting it from its estrangement from the creator back to its proper relationship to him. 24:27-24:33 And thus through hypostatic and atoning union fulfilled within his own incarnate person as the one mediator between God and man, 24:33-24:44 Jesus Christ became the humanising man who constitutes among us the creative source for the humanising of humankind. 24:44-24:55 Now, I thought it was important to look at that central chapter before we come on to chapter four, which is the one that we are really focusing on now. 24:55-25:01 And that is the mediation of Christ in our human response. 25:01-25:14 So, at the beginning of this chapter, he makes the point that the last chapter was concerned with the God-human world ministry. 25:14-25:22 And now in this chapter, he is going to talk more about the human God-world ministry. 25:22-25:29 And Christ's office as our high priest, as our advocate, is very important here. 25:29-25:35 There are, he says, two parties to a covenant. 25:35-25:46 But there is another middle factor in the Old Testament covenant, and that is a covenanted way of response. 25:46-25:56 God knew that Israel would not be able to fulfil the covenant provisions, hence the liturgies of expiation. 25:56-26:09 So, this is the middle factor, that God in the Mosaic covenant gave Israel a covenanted way of response through the sacrificial system in the tabernacle. 26:09-26:16 And he refers to the fact that in the figure of the servant of the Lord in the book of Isaiah, we have an embodiment of the covenant. 26:16-26:23 He is a kind of conflation of Moses and Aaron, a guilt-bearer and a sacrifice for sin. 26:23-26:32 But as there was a covenanted way of response in the Old Testament, and that was the important middle factor, 26:32-26:48 now that we are in the New Testament, the all-important middle factor is the vicarious humanity of Jesus, the humanity that he bore for us. 26:48-26:54 So, as in the Old Testament, the priest would offer the sacrifices in the temple, that was the given way. 26:54-27:03 So, Jesus is the way in which we are to respond. 27:03-27:10 It's not a way we devise, it is a way that is given to us. 27:10-27:13 So, he goes on to talk about revelation and reconciliation again. 27:13-27:21 Revelation comes in a particular human being who actualized in himself the personal word of God to humanity and, 27:21-27:33 and, and this is the point that is so often missed, and the personal response of humanity to God's word. 27:33-27:41 Jesus is our way, Jesus is our response to God. 27:41-27:47 And I talked earlier about how so-called liberalism tended to emphasize the humanity, 27:47-27:55 more conservative or more orthodox or more evangelical believers would tend to emphasize the deity but forget about the humanity. 27:55-28:04 And the problem is if we forget about humanity, we lose the point that Jesus is our response to God. 28:04-28:08 We don't have to make our own response out of our own resources. 28:08-28:16 The response has been made for us, this is the key point about the vicarious humanity of Jesus. 28:16-28:24 So, a way of response comes out of the depths of human existence. 28:24-28:29 Here is Jesus descended from Abraham, descended from Adam. 28:29-28:39 Out of the depths of our human existence in which each human being was free to share through communion with Jesus. 28:39-28:42 Now, underline that word free, that's a very important word. 28:42-28:47 It's a gift of freedom to respond to Jesus. 28:47-28:51 So, that's revelation but reconciliation which can't be separated from revelation. 28:51-29:03 With the incarnation, the sonship of the Son of God has been incorporated into the interpersonal and family structures of our human existence, 29:03-29:10 which are being constituting relations which we polluted and twisted. 29:10-29:16 Now, hopefully you can see there for the way this train of thought carries right through the book. 29:16-29:26 If you do it a chapter at a time you can begin to miss that, but he is talking here about being constitutive relations, onto relations. 29:26-29:33 And our onto relations with each other, within the human family, human community have been polluted and twisted. 29:33-29:47 He made his own, the estranged and disobedient condition of our human being and has converted it back in love and obedience to the Father. 29:47-29:49 Now, there's that word converted again. 29:49-29:56 On the cross he penetrated to the utmost extremity of our self alienating flight from God. 29:56-30:13 "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and turned everything around so that out of the fearful depths of our darkness and dereliction we may cry with him, "Abba, our Father." 30:13-30:23 So, the whole life and activity of Jesus was the vicarious human response which God has provided for us. 30:23-30:31 And then he talks a little bit about these two words, representation and substitution, and insists they have to qualify each other. 30:31-30:46 If we only talk about Jesus representing us to God, but drop the idea of substitution, then that could mean that Jesus represents or expresses our response. 30:46-31:05 Conversely, if he is only a substitute detached from us, so that God has taken this person out of nowhere and just said he's going to bear your sins, but he has no ontological bearing on us, then that won't do either. 31:05-31:12 It has to be both representative and substitute. The two have to qualify each other. 31:12-31:16 And he talks about how liberal theology tends to reject substitution with scorn. 31:16-31:22 Fundamentalists and more than fundamentalists do not see its relationship to the vicarious humanity of Christ. 31:22-31:31 What the vicarious humanity means in the mediation of our human response to God in. 31:31-31:45 Now, he goes on to talk about these five things, faith, conversion, worship, the sacraments, and evangelism. 31:45-32:07 So, what then are we to say about these areas where we think about our faith, our conversion, our worship, what we do in the sacraments, how we carry out evangelism? 32:07-32:18 So, here he comes to the implications of all he has been saying so far in the book for how we understand these areas where we think we do it. 32:18-32:25 So, number one, faith. What about faith? Yes, we must have faith. 32:25-32:34 We're called upon to have faith, but believing is not an autonomous, independent act. 32:34-32:42 Jesus steps in and provides that faith, i.e. that faithfulness to God. 32:42-32:54 So, we are saved by the faith or faithfulness of Jesus Christ, as the strict translation puts it. 32:54-32:58 But we may share in that faith, in that faithfulness. 32:58-33:11 So, over against our cultural tendency in the West to stress individualism, to stress freedom, we have to understand we do not have our own freedom to respond. 33:11-33:15 We are not individually able to believe. 33:15-33:31 And he uses this marvellous illustration of teaching his daughter to walk, and it wasn't the fact that she was holding his hand, it was the fact that he was holding her hand that enabled her to walk across the floor. 33:31-33:35 And then he talks about Peter's faith and Jesus' intercessions. 33:35-33:39 Satan wanted to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you. 33:39-33:45 So, faith, he says, is an empty vessel. We depend utterly on the author and finisher of faith. 33:45-33:47 Faith does not buy our salvation. 33:47-33:56 Faith does not achieve our salvation. It is already achieved, and even faith itself is a gift. 33:56-34:02 So, what then do we say about conversion, about our repentance and belief? 34:02-34:08 Well, yes, we must repent and believe. We are called to. 34:08-34:14 No one else can do it for us. Each of us has to do it. No one else can do it for us. 34:14-34:17 Except Jesus. 34:17-34:28 So, he was baptised into repentance. He took his place in the line of sinners waiting to be baptised into a baptism of repentance by John the Baptist. 34:28-34:34 And that life that he entered into there was completed on the cross. 34:34-34:43 So, we are unable to escape through our own free will, for our free will is by definition our self-will. 34:43-34:51 And of course, the term free will, which is often trumpeted by our individual ways, doesn't actually appear in the scripture at all. 34:51-34:59 It talks about the will of God. It doesn't talk about our free will. 34:59-35:05 So, we are unable to repent, but Jesus turned everything around through his vicarious repentance. 35:05-35:13 And then he tells the story of when he was asked, when he was born again. 35:13-35:17 During my first week as moderate of the General Assembly, I presided at the Assembly's Gallic service. 35:17-35:23 A highlander had asked me whether I was born again, and when I replied in the affirmative, he asked when I'd been born again. 35:23-35:33 I still recall his face when I told him that I had been born again when Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary and rose again from the virgin tomb, the first born from the dead. 35:33-35:38 And I can just see that blank look on that highlander's face. 35:38-35:42 Alright, well, let's point number two. Point number three, worship. 35:42-35:53 The pattern of Old Testament liturgy reflected the events of Sinai, and so similarly Jesus embodies in a vicarious form the response of human beings to God. 35:53-36:02 So, as Israel was given this way of response of Sinai, and this was what was carried out in the Tabernacle, later the temple, so Jesus now embodies that. 36:02-36:11 Jesus in his self-oblation, his self-offering to the Father throughout his life, coming to its culmination on the cross. 36:11-36:15 Jesus is our worship, our prayer. 36:15-36:19 So, we do not pray in our own name and significance, but in his. 36:19-36:37 In worship and prayer, he acts in our place so that what he does is nevertheless put into effect as our very own, issuing freely and spontaneously out of ourselves so that we too may cry, "Abba, Father." 36:37-36:42 Look at that word, "freely," again. That's the second time I've drawn attention to that. 36:42-36:47 It appeared at an earlier point where he talked about freely responding. 36:47-36:56 Now, he's denied, he's not very happy with free will under the previous section, but he does talk here about issuing freely and spontaneously out of ourselves. 36:56-37:01 So, we're not programmed. We're not compelled. 37:01-37:04 We freely respond. 37:04-37:09 And then, fourthly, in the sacraments, the sacraments are the sacraments of the finished work of Christ. 37:09-37:12 We do not baptize ourselves, we are baptized. 37:12-37:22 In the Eucharist, we are given communion in his very body and blood, the sacrament of our union with him in his great act of self-consecration. 37:22-37:26 We participate in his self-consecration and self-offering to the Father. 37:26-37:42 So, we come to the holy table not to protest our own faith or conversion, but put out empty hands to receive the bread and wine which we may eat and drink in communion with his body and blood. 37:42-37:52 And then, finally, in evangelism, how then are we to think of evangelism? 37:52-38:08 And he talks about unconditional grace and reconciling exchange, and then about an evangelical way to preach the gospel and an un-evangelical way. 38:08-38:15 I want you to listen to this quotation because I think I want to think a little bit more about this in our discussion. 38:15-38:20 There is an evangelical way to preach the gospel and an un-evangelical way to preach it. 38:20-38:35 The gospel is preached in an un-evangelical way when the preacher announces, "This is what Jesus Christ has done for you, but you will not be saved unless you make your own personal decision for Christ as your savior." 38:35-38:43 Or, "Jesus Christ loved you and gave his life for you on the cross, but you will be saved only if you give your heart to him." 38:43-38:52 He says in that event, what is actually coming across to people is not a gospel of unconditional grace, but a gospel of conditional grace. 38:52-38:59 And so he rather wants to say that the gospel is to be preached in an evangelical way. 38:59-39:09 Surely in such a way that the full and central place is given to the vicarious humanity of Jesus as the all-sufficient human response to the saving love of God. 39:09-39:26 In Jesus Christ, God has actualized his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once-and-for-all way that he cannot go back on it without undoing the incarnation and the cross and thereby denying himself. 39:26-39:40 He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell, his love will never cease. 39:40-39:48 Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior. 39:48-40:01 So he talks about Galatians 2.20, "I, yet not I, but Christ, the message of the vicarious humanity of Christ." 40:01-40:13 Now, there's a little bit more there, but I think I'll stop the exposition at that point and pause, first of all, to see if there's any points you want to bring up from that. 40:13-40:24 And then I want us to go and look at these other quotations that I've given you that present a slightly different point of view, and we'll see whether we can work our way through that. 40:24-40:28 But first of all, there might be some questions that arise out of that one.