The Pastoral Care of God the Father
[This is the third post in a series of five.]
Introduction:
The suggestion is being made in this series of five posts
that pastoral care can be guided by a pastoral theology based on Trinitarian
theology, Biblically explained. I am here interested in what we might
call the pastoral care of God the Father. The immediate purpose of this
abbreviated and only suggestive study is to lay out some Biblically
authoritative guidance for pastoral care.
The occasion for doing so is the Church of England’s
present interest in a ‘pastoral accommodation’ for homosexuals. The first
post suggested that this suggestion is actually disingenuous, although the need
for guidance in pastoral care is important and worth exploring further.
This is nothing new, of course: the Church has been at this throughout its
existence for all sorts of conditions of sinful humanity. These posts are
a very modest attempt to offer some thoughts at the present time that are
Biblically based. The second post noted that this discussion is part of a
larger concern: the pastoral care of sinners (as opposed to other sorts of
pastoral care—such as of the bereaved). This leads us to a Biblical study
of God’s pastoral care of sinners, beginning with the care of God the Father.
A Caveat
As we turn to the subject of the pastoral care of God the
Father, we need to be cautioned that distinguishing the work of the persons of
the Trinity too sharply can lead to theological error. Indeed, we come to
a theology of Jesus’ divinity precisely by realizing that what we can say about
Jesus is what we say about God. For example, in John 5 Jesus links the
Father’s work with his own, and Colossians 1.15-20 speaks of Jesus as the image
of God and states that all the fullness of deity dwells in him because of his
authority over all things, his divine work in creating the world, his divine
oversight over the creation, his being head of the Church, and his doing the
divine work of reconciling all things to God. Also, the early Church
regularly read ‘Lord’ in the Old Testament in reference to Jesus, thus affirming
that Jesus is included in the identity of the One God.
Thus, we cannot simply identify an activity or virtue or
characteristic uniquely with each Person of the Trinity. God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are One, and their unity is found in their
partaking of divine identity even if there is also a distinction of Persons in
the Trinity. There are, however, distinguishable roles in the
relationships and story of the Persons of the Trinity in Scripture. And
there is unity of purpose and work as well.
God the Creator: Order Out of Chaos
Thus we might say, without denying the role of Jesus and
the Spirit, that God the Father’s work in the world involves creating order out
of chaos (Genesis 1), establishing and maintaining covenant relationships with
his people (a view especially maintained throughout the Old Testament),
pointing out sin, bringing divine justice in a sinful world, and providing a
means of forgiveness, restoration, and reconciliation. This divine work
is, in broad outline, also the basis for pastoral care in the Church.
Creation is described in Genesis 1 as the separation of
things: light from darkness, heavens from the earth, water from land. In
the same way, God brings order to chaos. Distinctions have their purpose
for the whole of creation, and this point comes to a focus in God’s creating
male and female so that they can then come together as a unity with their
distinctive contributions that make unity possible and that serve the purpose
of being fruitful and multiplying on the earth. That is, two of exactly
the same kind cannot produce a unity. Two of completely different kinds
also cannot produce this unity. There is no fruitfulness without these
ordered distinctions in creation being maintained: male and female of the same
flesh.
God’s Law, in a similar way, is a revelation that
‘separates’ sinful acts from right acts. Thus the work of creation and the
giving of the Law are parallel divine activities. The relationship
between God’s work as Creator and His giving the Law to Israel is something
that Psalm 19 celebrates together. Indeed, the Anglican Communion is
facing total confusion in some quarters today precisely where it rejects both
God’s distinctions in creation and His commandments in Scripture. God’s
good intentions in creation included the distinction of male and female
(Genesis 1.27). His Law insists that this distinction be kept: ‘You
[males] shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination’
(Leviticus 18.22). The doors of the Church have been opened to the
diluvian chaos in Western culture. It has created division and flight,
and it has necessitated the establishment of new denominations (e.g., ACNA)
and/or alternative organizations (e.g., AMiE, Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans,
GAFCON) to cope with the crisis. A ‘pastoral accommodation’ does not
respond to the chaos but enshrines it. But pastoral care is needed.
Pastoral care for sinners involves helping them to reorder
the chaos in their own lives as they return to God’s purposes in creation and
to His commandments. Paul’s presentation of the work of God for sinful
humanity begins by noting the depravity of minds turned away from God’s
purposes (Romans 1.24-28) and concludes by affirming that the mind transformed
by God, no longer conformed to the futile thinking of a sinful world, is
restored to knowing God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will (Romans 12.2). The
chapters in between explain how it is that God works his plan of salvation to
bring sinful humanity out of the chaos of the depraved and deluded mind to the
ordered and obedient mind of one who does the will of God. Pastoral care
explains and extends that saving work of God to the one who would leave the
chaos of the sinful life and find peace with God.
God the Revealer of Righteousness and Judge of Unrighteousness
Pastoral care, too, is a sorting out of persons’ confused
and sinful lives. We all need this. Paul tells Timothy to devote
himself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation [obviously, an exhortation
in the Word], and teaching [again, of the Bible] in order to save both himself
and his hearers (1 Timothy 3.13, 16). The pastor is not offering his or
her opinions but stands in the role of shedding God’s light on a sinfully
confused situation through the ministry of Scripture.
The logical link between divine righteousness and divine
judgement has become difficult in contemporary times. No reading of the Old
Testament or New Testament could possibly lead to this confusion, but it is a
conundrum in many churches today. The problem arises when ‘righteousness’
is understood as God’s efforts to establish covenantal relationships through
his steadfast love and faithfulness without also seeing that divine
righteousness reigns down judgement on the unrighteous (cf. Exodus 34.6-7—a
passage that echoes throughout Scripture). ‘Righteousness’ often
means—and can be translated—‘justice.’ Indeed, Paul progresses from
saying that the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith to saying
that ‘the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness’ (Romans 1.17-18). We cannot speak of God’s righteousness
as covenant faithfulness without also speaking of it as God’s wrath against
‘ungodliness,’ which Paul continues in Romans 1 to explain in reference to
idolatry (Romans 1.19-23), then in terms of the unrighteousness of lesbianism
and male homosexuality (Romans 1.24-28), and then in terms of all sin and
affirmation of those who sin (Romans 1.29-32).
Pastoral care, too, involves pointing out from the
Scriptures what divine righteousness entails. The pastor, knowledgeable
in the Scriptures, is able to help a person to understand God’s revelation: ‘He
has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but
to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?’ (Micah
6.8). Similarly, Paul says to Timothy in his role as pastor that ‘All
scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God
may be proficient, equipped for every good work’ (2 Timothy 3.16-17).
Moses plays this pastoral role in Israel. He says,
Now this is the commandment-- the statutes and the ordinances--
that the LORD your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you
are about to cross into and occupy, 2 so that you and your children and your
children's children may fear the LORD your God all the days of your life, and
keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that
your days may be long’ (Deuteronomy 6.1-2).
Pastoral care, different from counselling, is not about
wisdom shared from the social sciences but wisdom shared from the Word of
God—even if there is much to learn from the social sciences about how to counsel and to overcome
psychological and social obstacles in the way of walking in the ways of the
Lord.
Judgement is a divine function extended to the church
gathered in the name of Jesus (cf. Matthew 18.18-20; John 20.23; 1 Corinthians
5.3-5; 1 Corinthians 6.1-11). The church steps into this role for several
reasons. First, it protects other believers from the influence of a
sinner’s presence: sin must be dealt with as a little leaven leavens the whole
lump of dough (1 Corinthians 5.6-7). Judgement, however, is also for the
sinner’s good: how else will the sinner realize that he or she needs to repent
if allowed to continue in sin (1 Corinthians 5.5)? Judgement opens up the
possibility for forgiveness, restoration, and reconciliation. Where there
is no judgement, none of this is possible. In the current situation
facing Anglican churches, this is particularly important. An urgent
matter of pastoral care for persons in any homosexual ‘relationship’ is for the
church to insist that the relationship stops. It is one thing to work
with persons struggling with sin; it is quite another to tolerate relationships
that entail continuing in sin—which is the exact situation in 1 Corinthians
5. If that is what some mean by ‘pastoral accommodation,’ they have left
Scripture far behind.
It is also important to emphasise that the path of
righteousness extends beyond judgement—we see this in 2 Corinthians 2.5-11,
where Paul urges the church to extend forgiveness and consolation to someone
who has been disciplined. This leads us to the next point.
The Love of God
One of the key passages in the Old Testament that helps us
to understand God as a God of love is Exodus 34:6-7. God reveals Himself
to Moses in this way:
The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed, "The LORD, the
LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast
love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for the
thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no
means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the
children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth
generation" (Exodus 34.6-7).
This passage echoes throughout Scripture as a major
revelation of God’s identity. Two things need to be said about the
passage. First, it occurs in a significant place in the narrative—after
the Israelites broke God’s Law while Moses received the Ten Commandments for
the first time and before God gives the Commandments a second time. God’s
self-revelation as one who is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in
steadfast love, faithful, and forgiving comes in the context of Israel’s own
‘revelation’ of her sinfulness. It comes as God’s decision not to wipe out
sinful Israel is revealed to Moses. It is followed by God’s graciously
giving Israel His Law a second time. All too often, people think that
love is just a matter of forgiveness or even less—just acceptance or
‘toleration of differences,’ or even affirmation. But God’s forgiveness
means not punishing the sinner so
that he or she might be given
a second or third or seventy-seventh chance (cf. Matthew 18.21-35) to live
according to God’s Law once again.
The second thing to say about this passage is that it links
God’s character of love with His character of not clearing the guilty.
Love is not expressed by lowering God’s standards of righteousness but by
making a path for sinners to continue with another chance. This point is
an essential message of the Old Testament: God gives Israel a second
chance—again and again. He does not write them off. After one of
the most devastating criticism’s of Israel’s sinfulness, Isaiah says that God
comes with both justice—a fearful thing for sinners—and redemption from
transgression by God’s Redeemer—a salvation from sin (Isaiah 59). The
Church, too, lives in this story of divine mercy and redemption.
This leads us to the New Testament, where the same
character of God is found in Jesus. A key passage to make this point is
John 3.16, which explains how God has shown his love for the world. In
John’s Gospel, the ‘world’ is most often a negative term, standing for sinful
humanity turned away from God. So, God’s love is shown to a people that
is turned away from Him—sinners. God’s revelation of His love to people
rejecting him comes before they turn to Him. As John says in his first
epistle,
In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and
sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved us so much,
we also ought to love one another (1 John 4.10-11).
Both John 3.16 and 1 John 4.10-11 speak of how God loved
sinners first, while they were still sinners (cf. Romans 5.8): by sending his
Son, Jesus Christ, to become a sacrifice for sins that helps sinners return to
Him. 1 John 4.11 extends the point for Christians: and this is how we
ought to love one another. The church is not to lower God’s standards of
justice through forgiveness but to use forgiveness to help sinners return to God.
It is not to accept or affirm the sin—in which case it could not forgive at
all: you cannot forgive something that is not wrong in the first place.
Forgiveness and mercy accept the standard. Christians are to uphold God’s
standards of righteousness, and one way they do this is by practicing God’s
forgiveness toward sinners.
Pastoral care of sinners involves the church extending to
sinners a second chance, showing them God’s mercy and forgiveness. But it
also involves declaring God’s standards of righteousness without
compromise. Anything else demeans Christ’s death on the cross to atone
for our sins (1 John 2.1-6).
The Mission of God: to Reveal His Glory
God’s ‘mission’ is, as Chris Wright has written (The
Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative), to reveal
himself—his ‘depth,’ his glory—in the world. His glory is not found in a
permissiveness toward sin but in an upholding of his holiness, righteousness,
and truth. Justification by faith, peace with God, and access into God’s
grace lead to a sharing in God’s glory (Romans 5.1-2). To be crucified
with Christ to the body of sin, buried with him in his death to sin, and
resurrected with him to walk in a newness of life is the climax of God’s own
mission of self-revelation (He reveals His glory in accomplishing all this!)
(Romans 6.4-10). It equally lays out a pastoral care of sinners for
ministers and the church, guiding them to confess sin, die to sin, and live the
new life in Christ. Paul follows his description of God’s pastoral care
of sinners with his own pastoral words:
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God
in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise
dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members to sin
as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have
been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments
of righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over
you, since you are not under law but under grace (Romans 6.11-14).
Thus, the mission of God is the self-revelation of His
glory in His (pastorally) redemptive work extended to sinners. That work
of grace brings forgiveness, restoration, and reconciliation to the
sinner. Pastoral care involves guiding the sinner into and through God’s
redemption. With St. Augustine’s language in mind, it has to do with
helping the restless soul find its rest in God. Or, with Paul’s language
in mind, it involves helping the sinner come to peace with God through
justification by faith in Jesus Christ (Rom. 5.1).
A Disordered Understanding of Pastoral Care
In light of the present crisis brought on by revisionist
theologians and ministers in mainline denominations—and now some confused
ministers in supposedly ‘Evangelical’ churches,[1] a contrast needs to be
made. The alternative perspective strangling the Church’s pastoral
mission involves:
(1) denying that certain behaviours are sin at all;
(2) returning to a world of ‘chaos’ regarding the distinction
between male and female in creation;
(3) denying God’s commandments that distinguish sin from
righteousness (and denying Biblical authority in matters of faith and
practice);
(4) affirming sinful behaviours as acceptable, even
(blasphemously) as desirable;
(5) denying a need for God’s grace, His redemption, and
Jesus Christ’s death on the cross for our sins; and, therefore,
(6) seeing pastoral care as a matter of helping people
affirm their own inclinations by celebrating inclusiveness and diversity so
that unity, love, and community can be achieved;
(7) ignoring the clear teaching of the Church through the centuries.
As a result, under the guise of affirming diversity,
humanity—applauded by false teachers in the Church (Romans 1.32)—returns to
primeval chaos that cannot distinguish male from female. As a result,
under the guise of inclusiveness and diversity, the Fall and sin are
denied. As a result, under the guise of unity, ‘separation unto
God’—holiness—is turned into a ‘no fault’ embrace of sinners’ sins by
God. As a result, under the guise of love, the narrative of redemption
through Christ’s blood shed on the cross becomes irrelevant, if not
embarrassing (‘would a loving God send His Son to the cross?,’ such people
ask). As a result, under the guise of community, Christ-centred
fellowship is considered exclusionary. As a result, peace with God is
seen as embracing every diversity rather than as justification of the sinner by
faith in God.
Conclusion
Thus, the Church is well-instructed in its pastoral care of
sinners by God the Father’s mission in and to a sinful world. We all know
this care—those of us who live under the cross of Jesus Christ—just as Israel
knew this care. The crisis facing the Church of England and many
Anglicans in the West is a pastoral accommodation of sin rather than a pastoral
care of sinners.
[1]
See Ruth Gledhill, ‘Leading Evangelical Bishops Call for Church to Change on
Gays,’ (16 June, 2016); online at: http://anglicanmainstream.org/leading-evangelical-bishops-call-for-church-to-change-on-gays/
(accessed 27 June 2016). Actually, two
bishops are calling to let the sin of homosexuality be given a pass: Bishop
Paul Bayes of Liverpool and Bishop Colin Fletcher of Dorchester. Is it a fulfillment of a bishop’s ordination
to proclaim, ‘We need to change the Church,” as Bishop Bayes has done? Joined by others (David Ison, David Runcorn,
Cindy Kent, and James Jones), this revisionist proposal is articulated in a
work ironically titled, ‘Journeys in Grace and Truth: Revisiting Scripture and
Sexuality,’ ed. Jayne Ozanne (Via Media Publications, 2016). One must ask, ‘Is it possible to be
Evangelical but not orthodox?’, meaning faithful to the Scriptures and in line
with historic Christianity. George
McDermott’s reply is well stated. See ‘Pro-gay
Evangelicals?’ (25 June, 2016); available at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/northamptonseminar/2016/06/25/pro-gay-evangelicals/
(accessed 26 June, 2016).
[to be continued]