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Psalm 84
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How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed! For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you! (ESV)
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God's Will
Wednesday of Epiphany 4
1 February 2012
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When the ancient theologian Gregory Nazianzus says "The Godhead is undivided in separate persons," he is propounding a mental train wreck. It reminds me of the old Peggy Lee tune: "Alone Together." How's that again? If the Godhead is undivided how can there be separate persons? The question is separate in what way? There are separate persons within the Trinity, but only a single essence. However, Gregory is not afraid to predicate to God both unity and separation. He puts it rather more starkly because he says that God is "undivided" and "separate." What is the opposite of separate? It is undivided. When God reveals Himself in these terms He is making mockery of our much-vaunted wisdom. All we can do with this is to confess our creaturely weakness and inability to fathom the deep wisdom of our God, who reveals Himself to us as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Analogies fail to sufficiently clarify the relations among the persons while giving the proper weight to the unity of the Godhead. We can talk about the unity between a human father and son, but they do not share a will or essence, despite being two different persons. Gregory mentions those who use the analogy of humanity as a category of unity, but, of course, humanity is a kind of ideation, a categorization of all persons. They certainly don't share a single unified will, just ask any two persons (especially Lutheran persons!). This is why Gregory calls us "compound" beings. We might even change our minds from minute to minute in our personal experience; we might careen from joy to deep despair in just a moment. We can't even be unified within ourselves without trying to express unity with other persons. We only approach god-like unity within ourselves when we are quietly confident of our own will and its expressions of God's grace toward us. In this way we begin to have the divine image renewed in our lives (Eph 4:24; Col 3:10). In the divine essence there is no disunity of will. There is no question that the Son does the will of His Father.
The church's unity of heart, mind and will around the confession of the truth is the way in which the Head of the church works in the church. She speaks what her Head has given to her. The Apostle Paul challenges our multiple wills by saying, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment" (1Co 1:10). About this admonition it is easy to say, "That's impossible! That will never happen!" We have plenty of evidence that it will never happen. But our heavenly Father has united us into the Head, who is Christ. His will is ours by connection to Him through Word and sacraments. There is only one will in the church: God's. There is but one teaching for His church: God's own. The God with the unified will, wills that His church share and express that will. |
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Gregory Nazianzus
"To us there is one God, for the Godhead is one, and all that proceeds from Him is referred to one, though we believe in three persons. For one is not more and another less God; nor is one before and after another; nor are they divided in will or parted in power. You cannot find here any of the qualities of divisible things. To speak concisely, the Godhead is undivided in separate persons. There is one mingling of light, as it were three suns joined to each other. When then we look at the Godhead, or the first cause, or the divine authority, that which we conceive is one. However, when we look at the persons in whom the Godhead dwells, and at those who timelessly and with equal glory have their being from the first cause, there are three whom we worship.
"Our enemies will perhaps say, 'What of that? Don't the Greeks also believe in one Godhead, as their more advanced philosophers declare? Do we not say that our humanity is one, namely the entire human race; yet they have many gods, not one, just as there are many men. But in this case the common nature has a unity which is only conceivable in thought. The individuals are parted from one another very far indeed, both by time and by dispositions and by power. For we are not only compound beings, but also contrasted beings, both with one another and with ourselves; nor do we remain entirely the same for a single day, to say nothing of a whole lifetime, but both in body and in soul are in a perpetual state of flow and change. Perhaps the same may be said of the angels and the whole of that superior nature which is second to the Trinity alone, although they are simple in some measure and more fixed in good, owing to their nearness to the highest good, that is God."
Gregory Nazianzus, Fourth Theological Oration, 14-15
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Prayer
Heavenly Father, God of harmony, it is Your gracious will that Your children on earth live together in harmony and peace. Teach us to examine our hearts that we may recognize our own inclination toward envy, malice, hatred, and enmity. Help us, by Your Word and Spirit, to search our hearts and to root out the evil that would lead to strife and discord, so that in our lives we may be at peace with all people. Fill us with zeal for the work of Your Church and the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which alone can bring that peace which is beyond all understanding; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
For President Matthew Harrison, of the LCMS, that he might be strengthened in every good deed
For Jackie and Dorothy Alexander, that the Lord Jesus would watch over them in their distress and uphold those who serve their needs
For Kim Maureen who will be undergoing surgery this week, that the Lord of all would be her and grant her healing
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Art: DAVID, Gerard Triptych of Jean Des Trompes (1505)
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 © Scott R. Murray, 2012
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