{"id":32749,"date":"2015-02-13T10:27:03","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T15:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=32749"},"modified":"2015-02-13T13:27:47","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T18:27:47","slug":"for-zion-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/02\/for-zion-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"For Zion – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"For<\/a>The first chapter of For Zion<\/em><\/a> lays the groundwork for Spencer\u2019s reading of Paul\u2019s theology of hope. It focuses especially on Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans. Understanding the details of this \u201ctheology of hope\u201d is crucial to understanding Spencer\u2019s full account of what\u2019s at stake in the law of consecration.<\/p>\n

For Spencer, the context of Paul\u2019s letter is important. He argues\u2014as Paul himself indicates\u2014that Romans should be read against the backdrop of Paul\u2019s planned trip to Jerusalem. For Paul, this trip metonymically enacts that long prophesied day when the Gentile nations would finally recognize God, gather an offering, and go up to Jerusalem. Paul, traveling on their behalf, bears an offering consecrated for the aid of the destitute Jesus-believers living there.<\/p>\n

Romans is framed by an act of consecration. As a result, Paul\u2019s trip to Jerusalem on behalf of his Gentile converts is, in many ways, hope embodied. It\u2019s the law of consecration enacted. It\u2019s Zion in miniature.<\/p>\n

This sets the stage. However, before Spencer can start on his sharp and nuanced explication of Paul\u2019s theology of hope, he needs to devote this first chapter to a description of the problem. He needs to clarify Paul\u2019s account of the problem that Christian hope and consecration are meant to address.<\/p>\n

We need a breakdown of Paul\u2019s basic \u201canthropology of sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Paul, to understand sin we have to understand two things. We have to see: (1) that sin is fundamentally a suppression<\/em> of God\u2019s already given grace, and (2) that sin accomplishes this suppression by hijacking and repurposing God\u2019s gifts (i.e., sin hijacks both the created world and God\u2019s law).<\/p>\n

With an eye to their philosophical implications, here\u2019s how Spencer renders some of the key passages in Romans 1:17-21.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s immediately within preaching, within the transfer of faith, that divine righteousness is revealed\u2014as it\u2019s written, \u201cthe one who\u2019s righteous will live by faith\u201d\u2014while divine wrath is revealed from heaven against all human unrighteousness, against all those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. What\u2019s known of God is manifest among them, because God has made it manifest to them: his eternal power and divine nature\u2014things indiscernible since the creation of the world\u2014have been understood and discerned through the things he\u2019s made. So they\u2019re without excuse. Although they knew God, they didn\u2019t glorify him as God or give thanks to him. (9-10)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sin is this act of suppression. It\u2019s this rejection of the world God has already given.<\/p>\n

In particular, sin is a suppression or obfuscation of the world\u2019s \u201cgivenness\u201d or \u201ccreatedness.\u201d This givenness or createdness is the mark of God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n

All created things arrive stamped with this gift-mark. This stamp is called \u201cglory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of merit, all these created things are given as gifts and they are given to everyone. God causes the sun to rise on the good and the bad. He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. God just gives.<\/p>\n

More, the created world\u2019s givenness (or giftedness) is a persistent sign of God\u2019s own nearness. It\u2019s a sign that persists even when God seems absent.<\/p>\n

As a result, when humans reject and suppress the gift-like character of the created world, they are, by extension, rejecting and suppressing God himself. So, as Spencer says, \u201cit is God\u2019s very nature that human beings suppress in their unrighteousness, obscuring his grace and his nearness by regarding him only as a distant and wrathful deity\u201d (10).<\/p>\n

With the world\u2019s grace (and, thus, God\u2019s nearness) suppressed, God starts to seem very far away. Everything about him starts to seem distant, angry, wrathful, paranormal, and fundamentally supernatural. Grace seems scarce and superstition sprouts.<\/p>\n

People start to think that if God is fundamentally otherworldly and supernatural, then religion must itself be about this same otherworldly and supernatural stuff. Religion gets turned into the business of long-distance communication.<\/p>\n

Religion, instead of abolishing this distance, enshrines it. Religion itself gets co-opted by sin.<\/p>\n

Thanks to our rejection of God\u2019s already revealed (and already obvious) grace, Spencer says, \u201cthe truth is displaced into a beyond\u201d (11).<\/p>\n

From the perspective of sin, the<\/p>\n

divine righteousness manifested in the nearness of the kingdom of God becomes divine wrath eventually made manifest from the meanwhile-silent heavens. Human beings in all their unrighteousness construct their world in a way that will leave no room for God, at least until He finally decides to plunge the world into apocalyptic disaster. People need God to dwell in transcendence so that he does not get in the way of their desires, “the lusts of their heart.” (11)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sin doesn\u2019t move God to withdraw. Sin is the hard work of pretending that God can be shoved off-world. Sin is make-believing that God and his grace belong to outer space or some distant point in the past or the future.<\/p>\n

As sinners, we need God to seem far away. His nearness is terrifying. A little distance gives our lusts room. It lets our hunger for acquisition bloom. God\u2019s purported \u201cabsence\u201d gives us cover to claim as our own\u2014that is, as property\u2014what had been gifts.<\/p>\n

With God out of the picture and his grace denied, sin has free reign. Now sin can put God\u2019s world to a different use.<\/p>\n

Rather than being an expression of shared grace meant for joint consecration, it becomes possible to trade on the world\u2019s glory in pursuit of our own satisfactions. We can \u201ceconomize God\u2019s glory\u201d as a proprietary commodity. We can license and trademark creation. We can speculate and stockpile. We can create demand.<\/p>\n

Having suppressed the truth, Paul says, we sinners<\/p>\n

have economized [metallasso<\/em>] God\u2019s glory by making of it so many static images\u2014things resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore God handed them over to the impurity they fantasize about, leaving them to dishonor their bodies among themselves\u2014those who in the lusts of their heart replaced God\u2019s truth with the lie and worshiped and served the creation in the place of the creator. (Romans 1:23-25, FZ 10)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Glossing this passage, Spencer summarizes:<\/p>\n

There is a perfect reciprocity between human unrighteousness (fallen humans being little more than bundles of transgressive fantasies and impure desires) and the economic order of the world (that order being little more than a market for trading idols). Every idol on offer is a polished mirror in which a transgressive human fantasy adores itself, enjoying the image <\/em>of the transgression much more than the act<\/em>. (13)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This reciprocity is clearly displayed in the way that sin hijacks God\u2019s law. From the beginning God gave the law as a gift, as a grace. And from the beginning the law could only be fulfilled by way of grace. The whole law points to Jesus. The law\u2014both in fact and in principle\u2014cannot be fulfilled by keeping the law. Only grace can fulfill the law.<\/p>\n

But with God\u2019s grace suppressed by sin, the law\u2019s own graciousness is obscured.<\/p>\n

Commandeered by sin, the law shows up as a system of economic exchange, of quid pro quo<\/em> with the divine.\u00a0The law shows up as proprietary, as a way of earning certain kinds of spiritual profit and surplus capital. The law becomes a pyramid scheme for securing and storing up privilege\u2019s both on earth and in heaven.<\/p>\n

In short\u2014and in one of the world\u2019s most bitter\u00a0ironies\u2014the law gets repurposed as a way of measuring what we can manage without <\/em>God, as a measure of what we can do all on our own! Religion and the law become about showing what I can do without any help from that so-distant God!<\/p>\n

And, more darkly, Spencer points out, the law comes to play a fundamental role in propping up our fantasies. What good is a fantasy that doesn\u2019t involve the excitement of transgression, of surpassing a limit? And what transgression is possible without a law to forbid it?<\/p>\n

This is the deep truth about\u00a0sin: sin needs\u00a0<\/em>God’s law. Sin hijacks and internalizes God\u2019s law. God\u2019s law is essential to the economy of sin, to the inflation of lust, to proving your superiority over other people, and to the dream that the next forbidden idol will finally satisfy you. Sin would be lost and impossible without the law.<\/p>\n

Sin lusts <\/em>for\u00a0the law.<\/p>\n

And so God\u2019s glory gets economized. And so grace gets\u00a0obscured. And so we feel dead to ourselves. And we feel dead to the world around us.<\/p>\n

Cut off from life and creation.<\/p>\n

Dazed.<\/p>\n

Distracted.<\/p>\n

Addicted.<\/p>\n

Disappointed.<\/p>\n

And we\u2019re left to ask: whatever happened to Zion?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first chapter of For Zion lays the groundwork for Spencer\u2019s reading of Paul\u2019s theology of hope. It focuses especially on Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans. Understanding the details of this \u201ctheology of hope\u201d is crucial to understanding Spencer\u2019s full account of what\u2019s at stake in the law of consecration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32749"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32760,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32749\/revisions\/32760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}