Submission in the “Theology of the Body”
The following is an excerpt from a summary Pope John Paul II's "Theology of the Body" found in pdf form here: http://www.jp2.info/Theology_of_the_Body.pdf
"[Eph 5:22-24] is often viewed with suspicion by
women since it tells wives to be submissive to their
husbands. But the first line of the passage, which tells both
spouses to “be subject to one another out of reverence for
Christ” is often overlooked. The following lines are
devoted to explaining how that mutual submission is lived
in marriage. John Paul II makes it very clear that the wife’s
“being subject” to the husband does not mean that she is
dominated by him. It might even be argued that the
husband’s task is harder. He is the one who is commanded
to die for his wife as Christ died for the Church.
“The mutual relations of husband and wife should flow
from their common relationship with Christ.” (TOB Aug. 11,
1982) p. 309
“Love excludes every kind of subjection whereby the wife
might become a servant or a slave of the husband, an object
of unilateral domination. Love makes the husband
simultaneously subject to the wife, thereby subject to the
Lord himself, just as the wife to the husband… It is certain
that when the husband and wife are subject to one another
‘out of re v e rence for Christ’, a just balance will be
established, such as to correspond to their Christian
vocation in the mystery of Christ.” (TOB August 11, 1982) p. 310
“Christ manifests the love with which he has loved her [the
Church] by giving himself for her. That love is an image
and above all a model of the love which the husband
should show to his wife in marriage, when the two are
subject to each other ‘out of reverence for Christ.’” (TOB Aug.
25, 1982) p. 316
“The husband is above all, he who loves and the wife, on the
other hand is she who is loved. One could even hazard the
idea that the wife’s submission to her husband, understood
in the context of the entire passage of Ephesians, signifies
above all the “experiencing of love.” This is all the more so
since this submission is related to the image of the
submission of the Church to Christ, which certainly consists
in experiencing his love.” ( TOB Sept. 1, 1982) p. 320"
Introductory thoughts on Pneumatology
It’s a fancy word and it means the study of the spirit, that is, the Spirit of God. The following thoughts are a synthesis from three sources: Ephraim Radner’s book “The End of the Church”, Jürgen Moltmann’s book “A Theology of Hope” and a course on pneumatology by André Birmelé at the University of Strasbourg.
I love my wife. There’s me, there’s her, and then there’s this thing called our relationship. It’s really more than just me plus her; it is life itself. In fact, you could define life as the total of our relationships. Who am I? As soon as I state my name I am referring to the parents I come from, if mention that I am a father, husband, brother, worker, friend, or any other descriptor, I am referring to relationships. At its most basic, you can’t be in existence without an organic relationship to atleast two people. You are your relationships.
So let’s skip all the history of theological debates about the Trinity and go with this analogy: God exists, he speaks, and he has a relationship with his Word. This is the Trinity: the Father, his Word that is spoken into human existence, and the love between them, their relationship, which is the Holy Spirit. What moves God, what qualifies him, the love that is him, that is the Holy Spirit. As the care, the provision, and the intimacy that I show my wife is the action of our relationship, so the love of God and his works of love toward himself and us in his Son is the work of the Spirit.
We will look at the Holy Spirit from two perspectives: 1, what he does throughout history, and 2, what he does individually. We can sum up both with the following statement: The Holy Spirit moves Christ and his people through time by God’s promises and his acts of loving faithfulness.
It would be difficult to speak of the Holy Spirit without speaking of Old Testament prophecy. It’s curious, actually, that when Israel settled down from nomadic life into the sedentary, temple-centric life of Palestine, they didn’t adopt the sedentary Gods of their neighbors (well, ok, I guess a large number of them did). A nomad god is very different from a sedentary god in ancient Near Eastern religion. The nomad god is a warrior, himself on the move. A sedentary god is generally “epiphanic”, that is, he “appears” at certain times and certain places, giving meaning to geographic worship places, and marking the rhythm of agricultural seasons. Whereas Israel’s God never really settled down. He did sort of; they built him a temple anyway, but he wasn’t stuck there. As Solomon prayed in the dedication of the temple: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!” (I Kings 8:27). He goes on in his prayer to show that the temple was not for God’s benefit, but for the people’s, so that they could have a place to come and be forgiven of their sins. God himself was always moving forward, forward through time. He did this through his prophetic promises.
The classic way to introduce a prophet’s message in the Old Testament is to say that the Spirit of God came upon him. Prophecy is indisputable the work of the Holy Spirit. But let’s get it out of our heads that prophecy is somehow future-telling. That’s magic, and that is not what prophecy is. Prophecy declares God’s promise, and interprets the times in function of God’s promises. It is by the promise and fulfillment of promise that the Spirit of God moved his people through time, took them from being physical nomads, and turned them into spiritual ones. But they weren’t wandering; they were walking straight toward a sure promise. They did this by obeying the law, a law summed up by the command “You shall love the Lord your God and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is where the macro work of the Spirit is one and the same as the micro work of the Spirit: God’s Hesed, or his covenant, loving faithfulness. The job of prophecy was to connect the two, thus moving God’s people forward in love for him and for one another.
The interesting thing about God’s promises is that they developed. To Abraham, God would multiply him and make him a “blessing to all nations”. To Israel (the “multiplied Abraham”) he would deliver them and give them a promised land. Once in that land he would give them a king. When Israel got her king God promised to make his throne last forever in righteousness. When the descendents of David failed, the prophets played a pivotal role in developing “messianism”, or the understanding that the Davidic promise was to be taken up by a future “anointed one”, possibly even two of them (one high priest and one king). With the coming of Jesus the Messiah, the promise of God is to be with his people in the present and also to create a kingdom of righteousness and peace forever in a new creation for the future. God’s Spirit interprets himself as his new promises interpret the previous ones and reshape them and enlarge them for the future, always along the lines of God’s loving, covenant faithfulness to his people. So God’s people live his past promises in the present because they are their hope for the future (this is why pneumatology is inseparable from eschatology.) And that hope is always being expanded: both more real for the present and greater for the future. Because this was the work of prophecy/revelation, it is the work of the Spirit.
The revelation of God’s Word incarnate, Jesus the Messiah, continues this process of fulfillment/repromising, but also radically reoriented the promises of God towards eternal life, the kingdom of God being not a physical one, but one that dwells in the hearts of his people. He is Immanuel, God-With-Us. He physically and personally fulfilled God’s promises to Israel, but he did it in such a way that he formulated a greater promise: that God’s Spirit should be in the hearts of his people and keep them until the new creation. The Holy Spirit is God’s life, and the gift of life to his people. As Paul states to the Galatians: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). He thus ties both the historical salvation of God’s people and the life of love to which the people are call to the work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ.
This may seem problematic for students of church history who know that the life of God’s people has been marked by anything but the observable fruit of that same Spirit. When we come up against this and similar quandries in Christian theology it is always instructive to look to the life of Him after whom the theology is named. It was by the Spirit that Jesus accomplished his ministry (Matthew 12:28). It was by that same Spirit that he was brought to give his life on the cross and certainly by that Spirit that he was raised (Romans 1:4). As Jesus cried “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” this too was the work of the Holy Spirit. So this is the grace of God: that even our failures to act as the body of Christ, in love for one another, are taken, by the Spirit, and nailed to the cross with all of our other sins. In other words, the division of the God’s people in history are also part of the sufferings of Jesus on the cross—a work of the Spirit for our salvation. It is not insignificant that Jesus said “this is my body” over bread that was broken so that his people, who take that bread and become his body, are not condemned therein for their brokenness. While the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of unity (Ephesians 4:3), neither is its antithesis outside the bounds of his work. For in Christ’s work on the cross the Spirit showed that even brokenness—division—is providentially directed for a “cruciform” work in the church. It is a breaking, yes, because of sin, but providentially, also for life.
The implications for this are far too broad for the present essay. I would only point in a few directions. As Christ was “deadened” to the sense of his father’s presence, so too the church in her divisions, whether in gifts of prophecy, repentance, tongues, miracles, love, hospitality, anointed preaching, or any other demonstration of the Spirit; the senses have been deadened in the church’s divisions. But let us remember, this is not outside of Christ’s very experience. Nor is it, then, without redemptive purpose. As the Spirit spoke through isolated prophets when Israel was torn in two, scattered and deported, enslaved and oppressed, so he speaks and makes himself evident as he wills. God’s people are called to be faithful and wait, for we know that his promises are fulfilled. For his Spirit does not abandon his work, drawing his people ever onward toward the new creation.
Nor does the church’s experience of “deadening” of its senses to the work of the Spirit hinder the Spirit from working as he always does on the individual level, both for quickening and for deadening. For the Spirit makes every person alive when they are united to Christ through faith (Romans 8:9). As Israel lived the future promises in the present through obedience to the law, Christians also live God’s promises in the present, but not through the law. Because what we are promised is Christ, and the life of his Spirit, so we are given Christ for the present. Thus baptism into Christ is baptism into his Spirit (Mark 1:8). Jesus gives us himself because his Spirit is life. While scripture (and particularly the book of Acts) speaks of baptism of the Holy Spirit, often accompanied with tongues, it would be misinformed to separate this from Jesus’ baptism that he instituted. For Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 links the two: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” We receive God’s Spirit through baptism into Christ because it is the Spirit who keeps God’s people until they shall be with Christ forever, as Jesus said in his “high priestly prayer”: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” (John 16:13). The Spirit brings the goods (truth, eternal life, the fruit of the Spirit, a relationship with God) that are ours in Christ, goods which sharpen our desire to live in the hope of the life to come.
Thus the Spirit draws the individual into the cosmic plan of God’s promise and fulfillment by giving Jesus to that individual, the very promised plan himself. Therefore that person joins a communion that is primarily the love that God shares in himself, and secondarily, the love that he creates for his people to share. This doesn’t make life a cake-walk; the love of God, while present, is still something promised and looked forward to. In the apparent contradiction between the love of God that is given to us and the non-love that is experienced in the world, we come back to the point made when dealing with division in the church: the cross of Jesus assumes in itself the contradiction, thus making us and our sin even the tools of the Holy Spirit for the experience of that cross and the means of redemption and life through repentance. Indeed, his is the Spirit who “groans” (Romans 8:26). In this way each of us is carried ever onward by that Comforter who tirelessly extends to us his sure promise of life.
I conclude with the articles on the Holy Spirit from the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicea-Constantinople Creed, with punctuation added to clarify the relationship between the Holy Spirit and his work:
Apostles’ Creed:
“I believe in the Holy Spirit:
the holy Christian church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.”
And from the Nicean Creed:
“And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost:
the Lord and Giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father,
who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified,
who spoke by the prophets.
How to Speak
"Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way—(1) that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it.
It consists, then, in a correspondence which we seek to establish between the head and the heart of those to whom we speak on the one hand, and, on the other, between the thoughts and the expressions which we employ. This assumes that we have studied well the heart of man so as to know all its powers, and then to find the just proportions of the discourse which we wish to adapt to them. We must put ourselves in the place of those who are to hear us, and make trial on our own heart of the turn which we give to our discourse in order to see whether one is made for the other, and whether we can assure ourselves that the hearer will be, as it were, forced to surrender. We ought to restrict ourselves, so far as possible, to the simple and natural, and not to magnify that which is little, or belittle that which is great. It is not enough that a thing be beautiful; it must be suitable to the subject, and there must be in it nothing of excess or defect."
-- Pascal Pensées
Wisdom from “The Little Prince”
"Good morning," said the little prince.
"Good morning," said the merchant.
This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no need of anything to drink.
"Why are you selling those?" asked the little prince.
"Because they save a tremendous amount of time," said the merchant. "Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes in every week."
"And what do I do with those fifty-three minutes?"
"Anything you like..."
"As for me," said the little prince to himself, "if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water."
-Saint Exupery, "The Little Prince", Chapter 23
Predestination According to Pascal
"It thus follows that God is never obligated to extend grace except to those who ask for it, and not to those who do not ask for it. And since no one can ask for the grace to pray unless he has it, then obviously God is never obligated to give anyone the grace to pray, since no one would persevere in asking for it unless it was continually given to him.
But because God has bound himself by his promises to give to the children of promise, before they ever request it, he has bound himself to give them the grace to pray so that they might thereby attain the grace to live well; but since the obligation only follows his promise, he is only obligated to those to whom he promised it—in other words, only to the predestined."
Joint Declaration quotes
The following are a few quotes from the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church agreed upon in 1999 and subsequently adopted by the World Methodist Council as well. While it does not by any stretch put to rest the theological differences between the Catholic church and Protestantism, it does offer a new paradigm through which to view inter-church relations.
By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works. (15)
Through Christ alone are we justified, when we receive this salvation in faith. (16)
Our new life is solely due to the forgiving and renewing mercy that God imparts as a gift and we receive in faith, and never can merit in any way. (17)
We confess together that all persons depend completely on the saving grace of God for their salvation. The freedom they possess in relation to persons and the things of this world is no freedom in relation to salvation, for as sinners they stand under God's judgment and are incapable of turning by themselves to God to seek deliverance, of meriting their justification before God, or of attaining salvation by their own abilities. Justification takes place solely by God's grace. (19)
When persons come by faith to share in Christ, God no longer imputes to them their sin and through the Holy Spirit effects in them an active love. These two aspects of God's gracious action are not to be separated, for persons are by faith united with Christ, who in his person is our righteousness (1 Cor 1:30): both the forgiveness of sin and the saving presence of God himself. (22)
When Catholics emphasize the renewal of the interior person through the reception of grace imparted as a gift to the believer, they wish to insist that God's forgiving grace always brings with it a gift of new life, which in the Holy Spirit becomes effective in active love. They do not thereby deny that God's gift of grace in justification remains independent of human cooperation. (24)
We confess together that sinners are justified by faith in the saving action of God in Christ. By the action of the Holy Spirit in baptism, they are granted the gift of salvation, which lays the basis for the whole Christian life. They place their trust in God's gracious promise by justifying faith, which includes hope in God and love for him. Such a faith is active in love and thus the Christian cannot and should not remain without works. But whatever in the justified precedes or follows the free gift of faith is neither the basis of justification nor merits it. (25)
We confess together that in baptism the Holy Spirit unites one with Christ, justifies, and truly renews the person. But the justified must all through life constantly look to God's unconditional justifying grace. (28)
We confess together that the faithful can rely on the mercy and promises of God. In spite of their own weakness and the manifold threats to their faith, on the strength of Christ's death and resurrection they can build on the effective promise of God's grace in Word and Sacrament and so be sure of this grace. (34)
When Catholics affirm the "meritorious" character of good works, they wish to say that, according to the biblical witness, a reward in heaven is promised to these works. Their intention is to emphasize the responsibility of persons for their actions, not to contest the character of those works as gifts, or far less to deny that justification always remains the unmerited gift of grace. (38)
What About Guilt
It seems to me that there are two kinds of guilt. The first kind is the guilt of breaking God's law. It's like a judge in a court room that says "you're guilty" whether you actually feel like your guilty or not. You just are because you broke God's law. The Old testament often talks about this because God would command people to go make a sacrifice in the temple if they had sinned. Then they would not be held guilty for their sin. These sacrifices were a picture of Jesus Christ. He sacrificed himself for all sins that we have done. So it's covered. Even though you are guilty of sinning God doesn't hold you guilty; he puts the guilt on Jesus on the cross.
The second kind of guilt is what I would call psychological guilt. When you sin there is a voice in your head that says "that was bad." It's a good voice because you're supposed to listen to it and stop doing what you were doing. But guilt happens when that voice keeps saying it over and over: "that was bad, that was bad, that was real bad." And before long it starts saying "you're bad because you do bad things". When it says starts to say this, you start to feel trapped: "If I'm bad, then all I can do is bad." Do you see what has happened? That voice--or rather, listening to that voice--has effectively taken the cross back out of your life.
Remember, Jesus actually took the guilt for your sins on himself. But that voice keeps on accusing you! What's up with that? This voice is telling a half truth. It is true that you are a sinner and that you do bad things, but this does not determine your identity; it has no more power to define who you are because you do not belong to yourself anymore.
You are forgiven. That is what you are. You are in Christ, you are a new creation, you are clothed in righteousness. But this voice would have you think about the old self, the one that died with Christ. That is why the voice of guilt is what we call the accuser, or Satan. Jesus shows us the way to combat Satan: you tell him what God says about you. Some of the best passages for this are Romans 8 and Ephesians 1.
When you tell the accuser that you now belong to Christ and are a new creation, freed from the accusations of your sin, you are not merely playing mind games with yourself in order to promote positive thinking. God's word has power for salvation. That means it has the power to actually change you. So when you rebuke the accuser and tell him that God's word says you are forgiven, that same word can change you and your behavior. That's what repentance is. It is an actual change. God's truth causes you to turn away from sin and toward the the life of doing what it good. Notice: this change is not what makes you forgiven! You are forgiven when you are made one with Christ: you and I ARE forgiven. The work is done; Christ's promise assures it. Repentance is tyour response to that truth. If you really receive the forgiveness of Jesus, then you don't want to throw that in the trash by sinning more! In Romans 6 the Apostle Paul says "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?...Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."
We see this beautifully demonstrated in the story of Zacchaeus. When the Word of God comes walking by in the flesh and blood of Jesus he immediately receives him saying "Come to my house!" then he responds to that Word with repentance, turning away from a life of fraud by giving half of his possessions to the poor. That was great, but he did one more thing, and it is very instructive for us.
Zacchaeus is now a forgiven man; he is repentant, having turned away from his sin by God's grace, full of good works. Now when he thinks upon the sins he has done previously he knows that his sin does not just hurt himself, but it also hurts other people. So he does something that we call "making restitution", or making things right. He says: "If I have defrauded anyone I will restore it four times over." I repeat, Zacchaeus is already forgiven; this act is not earning his salvation. But the point of being a follower of Jesus is not just being forgiven, but living the good life! That is what Jesus wants for us. The good life is a life of love for others, and you can start with the ones you've wronged. You may be sure that the accuser had no power over that man.
So after you have spoken Christ's truth to the accuser and have turned away from your sin to a life of doing good, the surest fire way to be done with guilt is to go make restitution. Anything less would have you mired in a fog that falls very short of the life Christ has for you. Restitution has many different forms. If you have spoken with anger, tell that person that you are sorry and seek their forgiveness. If you have stolen, go pay it back. If you have acted indecently toward a young woman or man, you go tell them that you have sinned against them and commit to purity. Be very specific. If you have looked at things that draw your mind away from the love of Christ and focused on lust or greed or coveted what you cannot or should not have, then you take your Bible to a quiet place and take a long time to talk to and listen to the True Lover of your soul. I will say it again: none of this will get you forgiven; YOU ARE FORGIVEN! Restitution puts you back in a place to be living free of the accusing lies of guilt. It allows Jesus to take you to more beautiful places.
Fiat Mihi
“Let it be according to your word” are the words of Mary when the Angel announced to her that she would bear a son who was to be great, and would be called the son of the Highest. These are also the words of the church. God has a plan for the church: to bring Christ to the world. So the church’s reply: “Let it be according to your word.”
This reply of Mary brought with it a world of suffering, as Simeon told her, “a sword will pierce through your own soul.” So also this means suffering for the church. When the church bears Christ and brings him to the world she is persecuted and mocked; she suffers enormously.
As the church reads about the life of Mary, she can find in her a reflection of herself. Mary is the first church, who first was the temple of Jesus Christ in her very flesh. Because of her obedience the church itself was born—or reborn rather, adopted by God so that Jesus is the first among brothers. In this sense Mary is the mother of the church, the first church who set the example that we might walk in.
The apostles tell us to follow the example that they left. In this sense they are our spiritual fathers. Mary leaves us not many words, but her example is indeed one to be followed and emulated by the church.
First, God’s word came to her. She did not understand it first saying “How will this be since I am a virgin.” When the angel assured her that God was accomplishing his plan of salvation for Israel she submitted, received God’s word by faith into her very body, incarnate as Jesus Christ. Here she becomes to exemplary mother of the church: she receives God’s word and accepts it by faith. The power of God’s word planted in her the Word Incarnate for the salvation of the world.
It is true to say that because of Mary’s obedience we received life. Furthermore we might say that Mary herself birthed God’s salvation into the world by her submission to God’s will. In this way also she is our mother. While the apostles teach with their words, Mary teaches by her example. As her children we do well to emulate her.
To Make a Good Confession
We are in the midst of an unambiguously pagan world.
How then should we act?
I Timothy 6:13-16 “I Charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”
This pagan world speaks of spiritual evolution. They speak of the Universe as a cosmic energy which can be affected and influenced by the energy one puts out through thoughts and feelings. Light is something that is deep in the heart of every individual—if that individual can learn to discern it. This pagan world seeks to immortalize the human spirit through its own recognition of its own innate power. Each person is sovereign over his or her own destiny, directing it by thoughts and feelings; the energy that one puts out. They shrink from any idea of spiritual imperative; what is true and right is determined by each individual, as long as that person does not hurt ones neighbor.
This is what our fellow Americans believe. They are articles of faith that are simply assumed to be correct. Feeling determines reality for them.
We speak of spiritual death to our own desires in order to have spiritual life. We speak of God as the source of all life and the sustainer of all things. We believe that when we are submitted to the will of God, then we are truly fulfilled. We believe that we lose ourselves and our own opinions to the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection and his commandments. We believe that Jesus is sovereign over the universe and over our lives. What is true is determined by the person and character of the Triune God: love in relationship. This is what we believe. This is the good confession. If Jesus could make it before Pontius Pilate we can make it before this world without apology or qualifiers. Early Christians were called “atheists” because they rejected the Roman pantheon of gods. Today Christians are called “narrow” and “bigoted” because we reject the premise that all spirituality leads to God.
Nothing has really changed. We have a hope in a life to come, not this one. Our hope is sure. If our generation rejects us, then we wait for our Vindicator. Meanwhile we make the good confession and seek to be “free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To him be glory, honor and dominion forever…even in the 21st Century.