David Kelsey's Warfield Lectures: Lecture 6, "God's Power in Two Registers"

Dr. Kelsey concluded the 2011 Warfield lectures with the final register of God’s power—the power of God to reconcile estranged creatures to Godself and one another. It is the second of the explicitly christological registers, the other one being the God’s power faithfully expressing in eschatological consummation. Between God’s relating in creaturely blessing and eschatological consummation stands creaturely estrangement. Creaturely estrangement is the result of clinging to another creature or created thing as if it is God. By putting our hopes for well-being, flourishing and continued existence in what is not God, we distort reality for others and ourselves. What results is systemic and personal creaturely estrangement—the entropic movement of human creatures who resist God and thus one another. In light of God’s work in creaturely blessing and toward eschatological consummation, and in light of creaturely estrangement in relation to these two blessings, God works to reconcile all estranged creatures to Godself in Christ.

Drawing from the Synoptic Gospels, Acts, and the Pauline epistles, Dr. Kelsey noted that narratives of eschatological consummation and reconciliation in scripture are necessarily intertwined in the life of Jesus, but the narratives can be distinguished as separate even in their necessary interrelatedness. While (1) narratives of eschatological blessing entail God’s ongoing relationship with us (sanctification), (2) narratives of reconciliation catalogue God’s relating to us as the One who reconciles us from estrangement is a singular, episodic event of the lived history, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (justification).

God reconciles estranged creatures to Godself as the Crucified God, incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. And, as the Crucified human, Jesus lived the life of eschatological consummation with God. In light of Jesus lived history, we know that he identified himself with the One he called Father in a way that affirmed their radical closeness and radical distinctness. Jesus’ lived history begins with a special identification of Jesus with God (Matt and Luke: the Virgin Birth; Mark: the baptism narrative), and continues as Jesus identifies himself with God in a number of decisive and unusual ways. For instance, Jesus relates to God as Father in a way that angers the Jewish religious leaders. He is the One who reinterprets the law with personal authority, raises others from the dead, and forgives sins.  He was rejected because of his claim of radical closeness between God and himself, yet another indication that this man could only be God.

Another component of his radical closeness to God was Jesus’ rejection of the entropic estrangement and disorder characteristic of the life of sin and idolatry. According to the gospel narratives, Jesus rejected sin in a way that respected the creaturely finitude and limitation of those he came into contact with. He did so by resisting creaturely resistance to God non-violently and in complete solidarity with the estranged, climaxing in his death on the cross. On the cross, Jesus was cut off from his people and died the death of a slave in bondage. But he was not, Kelsey suggests, cut off from God. Jesus’ Cry of Dereliction was not a cry of complete God abandonment or indicative of a stasis between the Father and the Son. Rather, Kelsey suggests, the Cry of Dereliction should be read as a Job-like lament. The Son at once argues with God in representing estranged creatures and dies as God committing himself in total solidarity with the estranged.

What does this tell us of the power of God in reconciling estranged creatures?

First, in reconciling estranged creatures, God respects the integrity of God’s creatures by relating to them on their own terms as one estranged. As one estranged, God in Christ enacts the promise of forgiveness and liberation from the bondage of sin and estrangement by going to the very depths of human estrangement. There God in Christ resists creaturely resistance to God. Without compromising their God ordained creaturely limitations.

Second, the power of God is a liberative power, seen through the patterns of exchange and reversal in synoptic narratives and NT epistles. When creatures try to resist God’s creative or eschatological blessing, God resists their resistance. This is seen most completely in the power of the Cross. The Cross is not an event of power or weakness in some absolute sense of the word. Neither does it tell us that, for God, weakness itself is power. Following the logic of the cross narratives, God’s power is hidden in weakness. For, it is as God in Christ goes to the place of human estrangement and weakness that God draws estranged creatures into relation with Godself. It is not pure powerlessness in weakness. If it were, the cross would accomplish nothing but the death of God in Christ and a pattern of death for those in Christ. Rather, reconciliation to eschatological life is established in an objective way in Jesus Christ. Creatures themselves have to be awakened to the objectivity of reconciliation as God draws them evermore into the flourishing life of the inaugurated yet not fully realized eschatological consummation. In this way God liberates human creatures to be for God, for themselves, and for their enemies.

Third, God’s power is holy. In the pattern of exchange in the canonical narratives of Jesus’ life, we see that God simply does not give up. To be holy is to resist human resistance to well-being and flourishing. This is God’s power in holiness and in judgment.

God’s power is not a “value-neutral potency.” It does not violate God-ordained creaturely integrity. Rather, God faithfully manifests God’s power through solidarity with estranged creatures—not simply for solidarity-in-weakness’ sake or even for reconciliation’s sake, but for reconciliation to eschatological consummation. God’s power works toward the good of creaturely flourishing in eschatological consummation without suspension. It is unfailing. It is for the sake of  the new yet final goal, the second eschatological blessing, that God works in Christ with grace for all that is not God.

So ends the blog summaries David Kelsey's 2011 Warfield Lectures. Thanks for following along!