An address given at the AIM ‘Thinking Theologically’ conference held at Moore Theological College in June 2002.
Thinking theologically
I take it that the reason you have paid good money to be at this conference is not because theology happens to be a hobby of yours, like birdwatching or classical music or stamp collecting. Instead, it is because you are involved in some way in the work of the gospel, in the pastoring of God’s people and in the evangelizing of Sydney and the world.
And I assume as well that you are here because you see the need for a pastor of God’s people not to be simply a manager or a salesman or a therapist or a liturgist, but to be a theologian and a teacher of God’s word—as Paul variously describes it in Acts 20: to “testify concerning repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ”, to “teach in public and from house to house”, to “testify to the gospel of the grace of God”, to “proclaim the kingdom of God”, to “declare the whole counsel of God”, and to “admonish everyone with tears”. And to do those things in a context, as Paul also says in Acts 20, where there are all kinds of savage wolves that will come in among God’s people, from within and without—and will not spare the flock.
If that is our job, and if we are going to do that well and faithfully, then we are going to need to keep learning how to think hard and to think theologically—not just pragmatically or managerially or ethically or therapeutically—not even just exegetically, but theologically, about the whole big picture of God’s revelation, and how that picture shapes the daily details of pastoral ministry and of life.
And I assume as well that you are here because you know and you feel the difficulty of that task.
It is difficult because it means thinking counter-culturally—it means thinking according to entirely different premises from the basic premises of the world around us.
It’s difficult because thinking in itself is a counter-cultural activity these days—we live in a society that’s much more set up for feeling and experiencing than it is for thinking.
And it’s difficult despite the fact that many of us have letters after our name to prove that we’ve been theologically trained.
We partly find it difficult because we get out of College and we stop doing it. If we’re committed to expository preaching and to reading the Bible one to one and in small groups, then we still keep up a practice of thinking exegetically; but after College there aren’t actually all that many contexts where we get pushed and challenged to keep working hard at our Biblical Theology and our Systematic Theology.
We also find it difficult because the way we learned theology at College was in an academic context, interacting with the debates of the professional theologians; we write essays about what Torrance thought about what Moltmann thought about Barth; essays that only one person would ever read, so it didn’t much matter if we got it wrong. And so along with the content of our theology we also learned a tendency toward abstraction and irresponsibility in our theological thinking; and we learned a way of doing theology that is often driven by entirely different questions from the ones that come up in the context of the work of teaching God’s word and pastoring God’s people and preaching the gospel.
And so we find it difficult to think theologically in the context of Gospel ministry, and to relate it to the work of the gospel. In some cases we still dabble in theology as a kind of a hobby that we share with a few of the more academically minded members of the congregation. In other cases we stop thinking altogether and just revert to traditionalism—we follow uncritically every detail of the system that we were trained in—or we turn to to pragmatism, just borrowing whatever method works and gets visible results. But disciplined thinking about the big picture of theology, in a way that actually changes and determines the way we do ministry, so that we do ministry differently and we change our lives and we reform our churches—-that is hard work and something we don’t find easy.
About glory
Secondly, what we’re here for at this conference is thinking theologically about glory.
If thinking theologically is difficult, thinking theologically about glory is especially difficult. It’s especially difficult because the concept of glory is such a deceptively familiar concept. It’s the kind of concept that inhabits the world of hymns and songs and prayer books; in other words, in the sort of contexts where we are least likely to be thinking about the meaning of what we are saying! ‘Glory’ is the kind of word that can very easily become just part of the liturgical wallpaper of the church—like the stained glass in the windows. So when we do come across it in the Bible, we are so used to singing it in the songs and saying it in the prayer book (if you come from that kind of church) we’re so used to saying it liturgically that it hardly occurs to us to think about it theologically and to try and work out what it actually means because we assume that we already know.
And then when we do stop and try to define it we find that it is such a complex concept. We come across it in the Bible and we start digging a bit and what we find is multiple layers of meaning and a complicated etymology.
We find that kabod in Hebrew actually comes from the verb kabed—which means ‘to be heavy’. And there are a string of contexts where the word is used with various overtones of heaviness, where it is used with connotations of wealth and substance and permanence and severity. And then, connected with the images of wealth and gold and so on, there is the dimension of visible splendour and magnificence. The glory of Solomon; the glory of God that descends on the tabernacle; or the glory that shines from Moses’ face. As well as heaviness there is that second element of radiance and brightness. And thirdly, in the Old Testament as well as the New, there is the third, more metaphorical use of the word, to mean something like honour or opinion or reputation or a good name—which is the normal meaning of doxa in Greek.
Thirdly, glory is a dangerous concept. Thinking theologically about glory can be a path that leads you far away from the gospel. Martin Luther recognized that when he wrote his theses for the Heidelberg Disputation in 1518, and he said that the basic problem at the root of the whole theological system of Medieval Catholicism was the fact that it was not a theology of the cross but a theologia gloriae—a theology of glory. And concerning that whole system he said: “This is clear: He who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore he prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and in general good to bad. These are the people whom the apostle calls ‘enemies of the cross of Christ’, for they hate the cross and suffering, and love works and the glory of works.”
That kind of theology of glory is a powerful, seductive and dangerous way of thinking. In the name of that theology, enormous cathedrals have been built, ministers have been robed up like Old Testament priests, great works of art have been composed, all in the service of this notion, that God’s glory is best seen as an extension of human glory—that we reach him and that we know him and that we proclaim him through our cleverness and our strength and our goodness and the beauty of what we create.
Like all good lies it has in it an element of truth. The doctrine of creation; the fact that “the heavens declare the glory of God”; the fact that the man in Genesis 1 is created as the image and glory of God. There is an element of truth, but it takes no account of the fall or of the judgement of God on man’s glory, and so if you follow it it will lead you away from the gospel. And Luther rightly identified it as a denial of the cross.
So there is a lot at stake in how we think theologically about glory—if we get it wrong it will distort the whole shape of our ministry and the whole direction of our lives, and if we get it wrong enough we will actually end up leading us into a denial of the gospel.
Glory and gospel ministry in 2 Cor 3-4
2 Corinthians 3 and 4 is a good place to begin our enquiry into glory, because the theology of glory that Paul develops in these chapters is simultaneously a theology of the cross.
It’s a good place to come to because all of those various levels and layers of that complex concept of glory—heaviness, permanence, radiance, reputation and name—all come together here in these two chapters. The kind of theological thinking that Paul does in these chapters is anything but abstract and academic; he doesn’t create some sort of grand, abstract cathedral of the mind. Instead, it’s the kind of theological thinking that is deeply rooted in the ministry of the gospel, the kind of thinking that you can’t help but end up applying to the way that you live and the way that you minister.
An inglorious ministry (3:1-6)
Firstly, the faithful ministry of the gospel is an inglorious ministry. It comes without titles and honours and prestige and wealth and respect. The specific issue here is letters of recommendation, and the fact that Paul doesn’t have any, unlike others—presumably the people that he calls the super apostles— who do. Presumably, the kind of letters of recommendation that he’s talking about are letters from powerful church leaders—endorsements from famous Christians, and so on. I don’t think that Paul is opposed to letters of recommendation—he writes them all the time, as a trusted Christian recommending another person as a trusted servant of the Lord Jesus. 1 Corinthians 16 includes one such brief letter of recommendation for Timothy. Paul isn’t opposed to letters of recommendation, just as I suspect he wouldn’t be opposed in principle to ordination or denominational accreditation today.
But he is opposed to needing letters of recommendation (see verse 1). He is opposed to to the kind of mindset that requires human accreditation, and the right sort of human accreditation and credentials, and titles and the endorsement of the famous and the powerful, as if that was somehow something important to the ministry of the gospel, as if you can’t be a faithful minister of the gospel without the permission of a bishop or the approval of a denomination or the endorsement of some Christian celebrity. He is opposed to that.
The specific issue here is that of the things that make a person competent and sufficient to be a servant of God.
But behind that issue is the bigger issue in 2 Corinthians, the bigger issue of the ingloriousness of faithful gospel ministry. One of the reasons why Paul is writing this letter is because the Corinthians seem to have heard something about the afflictions and the rejections and the sufferings that Paul has just been through in Asia minor. And Paul hurries to tell themthat these are not things that he would ever want them to be uninformed about; these are not things that he would ever want to keep them ignorant of (1:8). And he does nothing to minimize them at all. In fact, he comes back to them again and again through the letter, as something that they actually need to know about and take on board if they are going to understand his ministry and his gospel.
Along with the sufferings that go with the faithful ministry of the gospel there is also the bad reputation. Paul talks about the fact that he and his companions carry out their ministry “through honour and dishonour, through slander and praise … treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known …” (6:8). Faithful gospel ministry will get you a bad reputation, there will be people who love you for it but there will also be people who hate you for it and you will be slandered maliciously and dishonestly behind your back. It’s part of the whole package of what genuine gospel ministry looks like, as Paul commends it to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 6.
And along with the sufferings and the bad reputation there was also hard work and downward social mobility. Paul, the respected Rabbi, took up his old trade as a tentmaker, living like a poor man (6:10) working hard with his hands and staying up late at night instead of living the life of the well-born, instead of accepting the patronage of the wealthy and following the path of the professional philosopher. As Paul has just said at the end of chapter 2, the pattern of his lifestyle and his ministry is a pattern that has the smell of death about it. He and the other apostles are like slaves at the end of the procession, being led into the arena to die.
All of these things are part of the pattern of Paul’s ministry and Paul’s lifestyle; all of them are part of a pattern that he deliberately contrasts in this letter with the ministry and the lifestyle of the superapostles. All of them are things that it seems like the Corinthians are embarassed about when they think of Paul. All of them are things that put them in two minds about whether they would want to be associated with him. All of them are elements that go to make up the bigger picture of the ingloriousness of faithful gospel ministry. If you are going to understand what Paul has to say in 2 Corinthians 3 and 4 about the gloriousness of gospel ministry, then you must first take on board what he says in this letter about the ingloriousness of gospel ministry.
This is not a letter written to tell bright young men and women setting out on a successful and respected and well-paid and upwardly mobile ministry career how to feel even better about themselves. It’s a letter that speaks about the gloriousness of gospel ministry having first spoken about its ingloriousness.
A glorious ministry (3:7-11)
And so it’s in that context that we come to verses 7-11, and to the beginning of Paul’s disussion about the gloriousness of gospel ministry.
Four times Paul contrasts the glory of Moses’ ministry of the old covenant with the glory that belongs to the new covenant ministry of Paul and his fellow workers. The contrast is not between the bad law and the good gospel. You could get that sort of impression from verse 6’s “the letter kills but the Spirit gives life”, but you certainly couldn’t get it from verses 7-11. Although the ministry of old covenant was a ministry of death, it was still a ministry that came with the glory of God.
No, the contrast is between the ministry of the old covenant, which was about the enforcement of a law written on tablets of stone upon a stony-hearted, rebellious people of God, and the ministry of the new covenant, which is about the writing of the law on people’s hearts by God’s Spirit. So the contrast is between “the ministry of death, engraved on stone” and “the ministry of the Spirit”; it is between “the ministry of condemnation” and “the ministry of righteousness”—the ministry that actually changes people’s hearts.
The glory that came with the ministry of the Old Covenant was the radiance that symbolized the presence of God in the midst of his people. It was a glory that could only end up destroying the people of Israel because as a nation—whatever could be said for this individual here and that individual there—as a nation they were strangers to God and rebels against him. They are afraid of God yet they don’t fear him.
And the law of God reveals to this nation that he has chosen the holiness and the righteousness of the God who has chosen them and who lives among them. The law of God, with all its commandments and its ceremonies and its sacifices, reveals to Israel the same thing that God had revealed to Moses in the opening verses of of Exodus chapter 34, when he descended in the cloud and proclaimed his name “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
That is the content that is symbolized by the visible glory of God. It is not that the law reveals to Israel an arbitrary and hard-hearted and compassionless God. No—the law reveals a God who is full of compassion and slow to anger. And yet he is still a God who will deal with the nation as one who will by no means clear the guilty and forgive the impenitent.
And when Moses comes down from the mountain a second time and declares the word of God to the people, at the end of chapter 34, that is why they are afraid, and after he has spoken to them, he veils his face. He veils his face not to prevent them seeing that the glory faded away—there’s no suggestion of that in the Exodus narrative—he veils his face because they are afraid of that kind of God and that kind of glory. He veils his face to protect them from the glory of the God who was among them, to spare them from the immediate consequences of that kind of glory.
Scott Hafemann is correct, I think, when he argues (against most of the 2 Corinthians commentaries) that Paul is not subverting the story of Exodus 34 here in 2 Corinthians 3, or playing games with it to make it a metaphor for something completely different than what the writer of Exodus intended. Paul is not saying that the glory of Moses’ face was a fading glory, and that he had to veil himself to hide that. Paul is saying that the glory was switched off or nullified or brought to an end by the veil. The veiling of Moses’ face is an act of mercy, to protect Israel from the glory of God so that it doesn’t destroy them immediately. It protects them from what would otherwise have been the telos, the outcome, the consequence of that glory for a rebellious and hardhearted people. The veiling of Moses’ face is a temporary protection for Israel from God’s glory. But it is also a foreshadowing of the fact that that glory will not remain with them forever. The presence of God among stiff-necked Israel is a presence that will come to an end.
The glory of gospel ministry lies in the way that it contrasts with that glory. Like the ministry of the Old Covenant, it is glorious because it reveals the name of God and it involves the presence of God among his people. But unlike the ministry of the Old Covenant, it does that in a way that brings not condemnation but righteousness; not death but the life that comes by the work of the Spirit. And because it is not a passing presence that is there for a time and then departs, but a presence that is permanent and remains.
A glorifying ministry (3:12-18)
The ministry of the gospel is a glorious ministry. It is also a glorifying ministry.
When a person comes to Christ the veil that protects them and separates them from the glory of God is taken away. And when the presence of the Spirit creates a new heart, that person is not destroyed but transformed by that glory.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (3:17). Freedom, that is, from bondage to sin; freedom and ability to obey and to do the will of God and to love God with the love that he has poured into our hearts—the freedom by which the righteous requirements of the law come to be met in us.
“And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (3:18). This is not just “we ministers of the gospel”, I take it; it is we all who have the spirit and who know Christ.
Gospel ministry is a glorious ministry because it reveals the glory of a great God who has made himself known to us in Jesus. It is a glorious ministry because that revelation is a gracious revelation and a saving revelation—because it comes to sinful people yet it does not destroy them; it is a glorious ministry because it draws us into an eternal fellowship with that God, into a fellowship that is permanent and does not come to an end. And it is also glorious because it is a ministry by which we are transformed and glorified and changed—progressively, gradually, by degrees, here and now in this life—we are changed into the image of the Lord Jesus.
That last point is the climax of Paul’s argument here in chapter 3. It establishes the point that Paul was making in the opening verses. The glory of gospel ministry lies in the fact that it does what the law was powerless to do. It changes people’s lives. It actually begins to make the people of God glorious, because it makes them more and more like the Lord Jesus.
A ministry of God’s glory (4:1-15)
But before we get carried away and start to think that gospel ministry becomes a matter of proclaiming to the world the glory of Christian community, and advertising what a wonderful people we are, and how anyone in their right mind would want to come and join us—before we start thinking that the glory spoken of at the end of chapter 3 is our glory—Paul makes it very clear in the opening verses of chapter 4 that the glory that matters is God’s glory and not ours, and that it never stops being a matter of mercy and grace. God is glorified not by the way such nice people and such clever people seem to have chosen to belong to him, but by the way he has mercy on such sinful and stupid people, and transforms them.
The glory that is at work in the new covenant ministry of Paul—the glory that is at work in your ministry and mine—that glory is God’s glory, and it is all about Christ and the cross and the grace of God.
God’s glory in Christ (4:1-6)
In the first place, Paul is emphatic that the glory that is revealed in his ministry is God’s glory in Christ. Not God’s glory revealed in beautiful buildings and wonderful music and nice people and Christian celebrities; but rather in face of Christ. And no amount of window dressing or gilding the lily with other things can take away from the fact that the one place where God’s saving revelation of his glory can be seen is in the face of Christ. Not everyone will see that—the minds of unbelievers are blinded so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. But it is still the only place where anyone will see the glory of God and live.
That’s why Paul deliberately renounces any other way. It is also why he doesn’t get involved in self-promotion, as if his greatness and his glory mattered. Verse 5 says, “what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake”.
We do no-one a service when we promote particular ministries and conferences by talking about the ’great Bible teachers’ who will be speaking there. God has no need of ‘great Bible teachers’, and neither do his people. What we need, amd what we need to keep asking God to raise up for us, is faithful servants of the word. And when we adulate them and advertise them and turn them into ‘great Bible teachers’, we need to pray that God will be patient and merciful with us and not take away that sort of ministry from us. The glory of the gospel is not the glory of men but the glory of God, and there’s only one face that matters in that respect, and that is the face of Jesus Christ.
God’s glory and the cross (4:7-14)
The ministry of the gospel is a ministry of God’s glory revealed in Christ; and therefore it is a ministry of God’s glory revealed in the cross. Paul never says ‘Christ’ without thinking ‘cross’. And he hardly ever says gospel without saying suffering.
And so just as the content of his gospel is about the glory of God revealed in the face of the crucified Christ, the power and the life and the glory of Jesus is manifested in his ministry through his sufferings.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe and so we also speak, because we know that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
Do you see how the very heart of Paul’s lifestyle and his ministry is determined by the content of his message? Just as his message is all about God manifesting his glory in the raising of the crucified Jesus, in the same way Paul lives the kind of life where he carries around in the body the death of Jesus—that’s why he repeatedly tells the Christians that he writes to not to be ashamed or embarassed or dismayed because of his sufferings. Paul’s theology is a theology of the cross, and so his life has the stamp of the cross on it. If Paul participates somehow in the glory and the life and the power of Christ in his ministry, it is because it has been granted to him to suffer for Christ, and to serve God in such an inglorious ministry that it is abundantly clear that the glory is God’s and not his. It is resurrection glory, the glory of the Spirit’s work, not the glory of human power and ability.
God’s glory and God’s grace (4:15)
The ministry of the gospel is a ministry not of God’s glory in the evangelist but of God’s glory in Christ. The ministry of the gospel is a ministry of God’s glory in the crucified Christ. And finally, in this section, the ministry of the gospel is a ministry of God’s glory in that it is a ministry of God’s grace.
For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. (4:15)
The gospel magnifies God’s glory—it proclaims God’s name and God’s honour and the reputation of God’s greatness. The gospel magnifies God’s glory because it is a gospel of grace. It is not a gospel about how people save themselves, but a gospel about how God saves the undeserving through Jesus. And so people who are drawn into relationship with God through that gospel are drawn into a life of thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
A ministry of suffering and glory (4:16-18)
Finally, drawing the threads together in verses 16-18, Paul summarizes the shape that all this gives to his ministry, and the effect that it has on the way that he views his sufferings.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (4:16-18).
It is a pity that the ESV opts for ‘slight’ not ‘light’ in verse 16 because the contrast is between the lightness of the afflictions of the present and the heaviness of the glory that we are looking forward to. The lightness is a way of expressing transience; the heaviness is a way of expressing permanence. Just as the gospel brings suffering into our lives in the present, as it brings us into union with Christ, it also prepares for us a glory that is an eternal glory, a glory that is heavier and more real and more permanent than anything in this world; a glory that is about sharing in the eternal glory of the risen Jesus.
Ministering differently
So how are we to minister differently in the light of this teaching about glory and gospel ministry?
The effects are many, I think, but I can suggest three just to get your thinking started.
- It ought to be something that affects the way that we view the ingloriousness of gospel ministry. When we understand what Paul is saying about the Christ-centred, cross-centred way that the glory of God is revealed in the ministry of the new covenant it ought to have a profound affect on the way that we think and feel about the ingloriousness of gospel ministry. It ought to warn us against the tendency in our hearts to want to run away from that ingloriousness or to minimize it, to turn gospel ministry into some sort of comfortable and respectable career.
- It ought to commit us to expecting and working and praying for and giving thanks for the glorifying effect of the ministry of the gospel among God’s people, even now in the present. Our doctrine of sin ought to teach us to be realists—pessimists—about human nature in general. But our doctrine of the work of the Spirit in the ministry of the gospel—our doctrine of the Spirit—ought to teach us to be optimists about the progress of the gospel and the fruit of the gospel among God’s people. We ought to expect the new covenant ministry of the gospel to make a visible difference in people’s lives, and we ought to pray for that difference and thank God for it and rejoice in it when we see it.
- And it ought to comfort us when we are in the midst of gospel sufferings and gospel setbacks and gospel sacrifices. It comforts us because it shows us the trajectory of the history of the gospel, which is so different from the trajectory of the history of Israel. When we wrestle with the slowness of our own hearts to change and the frustrations of ministry in our churches, when people don’t seem to change in a hurry, when we are in the midst of those frustrations and hardships and disappointments, the big picture of the glory of the new covenant ministry reminds us of how different our frustrations and setbacks are from the frustrations and setbacks of those who ministered the word of God under the Old Covenant. Because the big picture for us is not about a trajectory of death and condemnation, but rather a trajectory of “being transformed from one degree of glory to another”; a trajectory of “grace extending to more and more, increasing thanksgiving, to the glory of God”.
As Paul suffered and slogged his way through Asia minor; and as he waited in Troas, wondering and worrying about the letter that he had sent with Titus and about what would become of the church in Corinth—in the middle of all that, even while he felt in his heart the sentence of death, he was still secure in the bigger picture of the magnificent disproportion between the sufferings and setbacks of the present and the eternal weight of God’s glory. Let’s pray that God would feed our hearts with the same boldness and confidence, so that we too may believe and speak as Paul did.
