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Sunday, May 24, 2020

Plague Journal: Week 10

On Monday 16 March the Prime Minister made an announcement to the nation on TV. To help prevent the spread of coronavirus people were advised to stop attending public meeting places such as restaurants and cinemas. Later that day places of worship were added to the list. Although this was advice and not legislation, we complied. Since then our church buildings have remained empty. The following Monday lockdown was imposed with the full force of law behind it. 

Lockdown measures are now being eased. The 'R' rate is below 1 in most parts of the country. The economic impact of lockdown looks horrendous, but many people remain paralysed by fear and will need some coaxing to get back to work. It is possible that Primary Schools will reopen in a limited capacity following the half term break. Non-essential shops may start trading in early June. The government has signaled that if the conditions are right, church gatherings may be permitted after 4 July.

In the absence of sector specific guidance on how to keep congregations safe, churches don't seem to be in any great rush to open their doors. The consensus among church leaders seems to be that we're in this for the long haul. It looks like online 'services' and keeping in touch with members of our congregations by phone call will continue as our modus operandai  for some months to come. 

In my Plague Journals over the last ten weeks I've charted how I've had to adapt my ministry to the current situation. Initially I used Facebook Go Live for ministry videos, but it was too glitchy. Buffering was a real problem. Then I switched to pre-recording YouTube videos which were posted at our regular service times. For our midweek prayer times we started off with Skype, but moved to the freebie Zoom platform as the latter gives better quality sound and video.

Now we've gone for Zoom pro, which meant that on Wednesday I could give the Bible talk in the meeting, after which we had a time of prayer. The trouble was that my poor old laptop could barely cope with hosting the meeting. The recording of the talk was like watching a badly dubbed Spaghetti Western. The audio was OK, though, which was something.

My laptop struggled again this morning. Due to 'system overload' or something it couldn't access the mic, so no one could hear me. I had my phone set up to record the Bible reading and message, but had to switch to using my mobile for Zoom. Thankfully, friends from church recorded the message using the Zoom's recording feature. They also sorted the song videos, which my laptop struggled to do in a trial run. I spoke on Psalm 50, 'A call to worship the God who is not safe, but good'. Thanks to a generous gift, a new higher spec laptop is due to be delivered this week.

I prefer livesteaming to pre-recording and it was with some reluctance that I abandoned FB's Go Live for YouTube vids. Since I last tried Go Live we've had a new WiFi router installed at home, as the old one was becoming unreliable. With that in mind I thought I'd have another go at livestreaming this evening to see if the new router had resolved the buffering issues. It seemed to go OK from a technical point of view, at least. I spoke on 'Jesus as our exalted Prophet, Priest and King' from Hebrews 1, 4, & 7.

Reading update. As of last week's journal I was up to p. 497 of Robert Letham's excellent Systematic Theology. Since then I've read what remained of Incarnation 2, the whole of Incarnation 3 and a good chunk of Christ Our Great High Priest. bringing me to p. 570. Incarnation 2 & are fine examples  of how historical theology can help us understand the teaching of the Bible with greater clarity and depth. There are few theological problems that haven't been pondered before by some of the greatest minds in the church. Reinventing wheels and chasing 'new insights' into what turn out to be blind alleys does not represent the height of wisdom. It's silly, in fact. In theology as in the natural sciences we see further by standing on the shoulders of giants.

That said, new questions in Christology have arisen and a number of these are discussed in Chapter 18, Incarnation 3. Some are 'Questions to Which the Answer is No!' Like, 'Did Christ Assume a Fallen Human Nature?' No! Did Christ empty himself of his divine attributes when he became man, or 'The Kenosis Theory'?  No! to that too.

Although I must say I was baffled by Letham's remarks on John Calvin and the Communion of Attributes in the Person of Christ. The writer suggests that Calvin sometimes smacks of Nestorianism on this point. Luther taught that divine attributes such as omnipresence were communicated to Christ's glorified humanity, which is hardly in line with Chalcedon. Calvin held that in Scripture actions proper to both divine and human natures are predicated of the Person of Christ.

Hence, while the divine nature cannot die, the 'Lord of glory' was 'crucified'. While Christ's glorified human nature retains its physical properties, he is said to  'fill all things'. The communicatio represents a 'figure of speech', said Calvin and entails no ontological confusion. See John Calvin's Ideas, Paul Helm, Oxford, p. 71-83. I am at a loss to understand what Letham means when he says by way of summary of his treatment of the Communion of Attributes, "Person-perichoresis (in the Trinity) and nature-perichoresis (in the incarnation, in which the divine omnipresence is transferred to the human nature) Crisp considers to be a mystery." (p. 518). Certainly a mystery to me.

No discrete chapter is devoted to 'Christ our Glorious Prophet'. Just a paragraph or so is given to our Lord's prophetic work in Chapter 16, 'Christ, our Great High Priest'. But Letham's discussion of Jesus' high priestly ministry is rich with biblical and historical insight. Penal Substitution is robustly defended within the framework of union with Christ and not at the expense of other biblical emphases. Next up in this chapter, sections on 'The Scope of Christ's Atonement' and 'Intercession and Benediction'.

On Saturday Sarah and I went for a walk to Shearwater lake on the Longleat Estate. To our surprise and joy the lakeside cafe was open for takeaways. Always wanting to support the local economy we treated ourselves to a tub each of Marshfield Farm's Heavenly Honeycomb ice cream. The easing of lockdown tastes sweet.

Plague Journal: Week 1Week 2, Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6Week 7Week 8, Week 9

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