The State and the Kingdom of God

 Introduction

In international relations, three theories provide contrasting analyses and perspectives on governance in general.  This essay will introduce each theory, discuss it further in terms of governance, and then conclude with some contrasting thoughts about the Kingdom of God.  To some readers' consternation, I will equate the Kingdom of God with the Church on the grounds that Christ's reign as Lord is through His 'body', the Church, 'the fullness of him who fills all in all' (Ephesians 1.22-23).  The essay is intended as a discussion of the relationship of Church and State.  The argument is that some forms of government are more amenable to the Church, but the Church, insofar as it represents the Kingdom of God on earth, is an alternative community to government that does not replace government but is constructively critical of it.

Realism

Realism has a variety of forms, but its key tenets are, according to Tim Dunne and Brian Schmidt, statism, survival, and self-help.[1]  While political theorists may prefer definitions and distinctions in international relations theory to be expressed in post-World War I developments, Dunne and Schmidt understand classical realism to originate in ancient Greece, as in Thucydides’ rendition of negotiations between the powerful Athenians and the weaker Melians (History of the Peloponnesian War 5.84ff).  Whereas the Melians attempt to appeal to the ideal of justice, the Athenians respond with straight-forward realism: they are the stronger and, as such, will do what they please and the Melians will be forced into submission.  The Melians appeal to fair play and just dealings, but the Athenians respond that the fight is not fair: the question is whether the Melians want to save their lives in the face of the more powerful force or not.  The Melians then suggest that the gods may look with favour upon them despite their inferior strength.  To this argument, the Athenians offer a realistic response, the safe rule in life that one should stand up to equals, show deference to superiors, and treat inferiors with moderation.  The Melians look to something outside the situation—outside the relationship between the two states: justice, the gods, and also the hope they place in having an ally, the Spartans.  The Athenian position demonstrates a unifying theme for realism: outside state relationships there is nothing to which one might appeal (outside states, there is in the international sphere only anarchy).  If so, the state does not exist because of some external authority but because of its own, internal power.  Thus, survival depends on a state’s looking to its own needs and defenses.  This, then, points realists to the need for self-help.  States should not rely on others for their own defense or thriving.  They should not rely on international institutions or allies, and they should not outsource their key industries to other nations or be overly dependent on others for their resources.

A key realist in the Enlightenment era was Thomas Hobbes.  Hobbes, writing in England during the Civil War, found the state of nature to be chaotic and dangerous.  Nature endowed individuals with an equality of body and mind as well as an equality of hope in attainment of our goals, but one could not locate politics in any natural bonds that draw humans into community (Leviathan, 13.60-61).  Indeed, this ‘equality of hope’ to attain our goals leads human beings to formulate ways and means to take from others what they want for themselves.  To protect against this, individuals band together, forming social contracts that they might provide mutual protection against aggressors.  Hobbes says that there are, in the nature of man, three principal causes of quarreling: competition, diffidence, and glory.  ‘The first, maketh man invade for Gain; the second, for Safety [the need for defense], and the third, for Reputation’ (13.62).[2]

Realism need not be considered an a-moral theory of international relations.  Realism is not synonymous with ‘might is right’, although that is the tenor of the Athenian argument with the Melians.  Hans J. Morgenthau argued with ‘Classical Realism’ that power is the medium for a state’s actions—it is what will permit them to (or obstruct them from) doing whatever they wish to do.[3]  This perspective was advanced with ‘Structural Realism’ (or ‘Neorealism’) in the Cold War period by Kenneth Waltz, when the bipolar balance of power between the superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union dominated international politics.[4]  Waltz argued that states were ultimately concerned with security, not simply power, which was the means to security.  Neoclassical realism since the end of the Cold War introduces the notion that the perceptions of leaders and internal, domestic politics also influence international politics.

The strength of realism is, simply, that it is realistic.  This comes across already in the response of the Athenians to the Milenians.  Ideals and theory aside, facts are facts, and the fact of the matter is that power wins.  The challenge for realists is not in the facts but in distinguishing the possession and use of power from ethics rather than intertwining them: might does not make right even if it does describe how international relations work.  Where, then, is a moral authority to be located if not in power?  For this, we turn to suggestions in a second theory: liberalism.

Liberalism

Liberalism, in the sense of international relations, arises after the religious wars of Europe in the period of the Enlightenment.  The term ‘liberalism’ is confusingly fluid and broad.  Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay say that the

main tenets of liberalism are political democracy, limitations on the power of government, the development of universal human rights, legal equality for all adult citizens, freedom of expression, respect for the value of viewpoint diversity and honest debate, respect for evidence and reason, the separation of church and state, and freedom of religion.[5]

Discussion here, however, is focused on liberalism as a theory in international relations.  Three thinkers might be considered from the Enlightenment period of the 1700s in discussing this view: John Locke (1632-1704), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832).  The tenets of liberalism might, however, be contrasted with realism, already discussed.

John Locke argued (Two Treatises 2) that natural law was an important reality that could and should be taken into consideration even when individual states may not have developed certain laws to punish wrongful behaviour.  Roman law was founded on the view that there were three types of law: the law of nature, the law of nations (international law), and the laws of specific peoples.  In Locke’s view, nations may agree that a law of nature has been broken and punish persons whether or not their countries had prescribed laws to do with some specific act.  Furthermore, punishment may be applied internationally where natural law has been broken, such as in the case of war crimes.  Locke advocated that natural law protected life, liberty, and property (amended to ‘the pursuit of happiness’ in the American Declaration of Independence).  Locke’s arguments highlight key contentions for liberalism: the notion that there is more than just the self-interest of individual states seeking their own ends; the notion of natural law; and the articulation of natural law in terms of universal truths.  These are key tenets of liberalism.  We might add one additional point from Locke that he held to be essential: the positive laws of a state are those that are based in natural law (Two Treatises 2.12).  If so, then the laws of a particular nation might be judged in light of the higher law of nature and—anticipating the discussion of constructivism—the laws of a nation are not to be established on the mere majority agreement of its citizenry.  Thus,

If the rule of law is ignored, if the representatives of the people are prevented from assembling, if the mechanisms of election are altered without popular consent, or if the people are handed over to a foreign power, then they can take back their original authority and overthrow the government (2.212–17).[6]

Natural law, then, stood over both domestic and international law and is a fundamental concept for liberalism’s holding the power of a state or of states to account.

Kant’s argument was that liberal states tended toward peace rather than war.  Three things, he argued, are necessary to foster peace.  First, a republican government—one requiring the consent of the citizens—would more likely deter countries from war than a monarchical government would.  Second, a league or ‘pacific federation’ with its own constitution would foster peace among the participant nations.  Third, Kant encourages a ‘cosmopolitan right’ that has to do with human good (cf. ‘human rights’).  One can easily see the outline of the later League of Nations and United Nations in the 20th century, the latter having a charter that describes various human rights.  Kant’s plan is not based on the independent rights of states but on the universalism of humanity across national boundaries.  The universalism of Kant, therefore, is key to his politics as it is to his ethics, in which the ‘categorical imperative’—a universal principle that what is right for one must be right because it is right for all—is fundamental.

Jeremy Bentham’s ethics is often contrasted with Kant’s in that he proposed, alternatively, the utilitarian principle for deciding moral actions.  This principle located ‘the good’ in the greatest good for the greatest number of people.  (Note that this definition still fails to define ‘the good’ and on what authority people have the right to determine it.)  As applied to international relations, Bentham, firstly, introduced the term ‘international’ to replace the Roman ‘law of nations’.  The latter term relied on custom and convention rather than agreement on law between nations.  Note that Bentham locates the law by which states might operate not in natural law, as did Locke, but in his equivalent for the law of nations. Secondly, he sought an agreement between nations that there is an equality of sovereigns.  This restricts a state’s justification of its use of power simply because it is the more powerful.  However, it does not locate the restriction in God’s authority over the nations.  Thirdly, he called for legislators and judges to seek among the family of nations the greatest happiness.[7]  While this utilitarian principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people is popular to this day, it is notoriously slippery in application. 

All three of these arguments from Bentham are attempts to locate an authority outside the power of a particular state apart from God or theology and involve a trust in the goodness of humanity.  The same might be said of Kant’s proposals.  Only Locke appeals to divine authority, even if only in vague terms.  It is God as Creator and Sustainer of our world rather than God as the revealer of moral law (as in the Mosaic Law) who holds an authority above the rights of nations in their use of power.  We might say that Kant and Bentham have bought the serpent’s argument with Eve in the Garden of Eden: men and women may become like God in their exercise of reason to know right and wrong.  Deists like Locke, however, contended that, just as nations require an external authority over the use of their power, so also humans need an external authority of their reasoning power as to what is right and wrong.

Constructivism

Upon the impending demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War and in an age of postmodernity, Nicholas Onuf proposed in 1989 that international relations are constructed.[8]  Another key proponent of constructivism is Alexander Wendt, whose article, ‘Anarchy is What States Make of It: the Social Construction of Power Politics,’ appeared in 1992.[9]  He writes, ‘identities and interests [not the ‘self-help’ interest of realism] of states are socially constructed [not ‘exogenously given’, as in neoliberal theories, but ‘endogenous’] by knowledgeable practice.’[10]  He redefines ‘self-help’ as a process whereby states develop their self-interests rather than respond to the anarchic forces of power-politics in international relations.  Also, Wendt notes that both realism and liberalism are rationalist in their seeking to change behaviour through reasoning rather than, as constructivism, seeking to change actual identity and interests.  They assume that ‘states are the dominant actors in the system.’[11]

This new theory holds that human association is, first, not primarily grounded in material forces but in shared ideas and, second, these shared ideas help construct the identities and interest of the actors in international relations.  Perceptions, social norms, actions, and interactions shape politics.  As Wendt says, ‘A fundamental principle of constructivist social theory is that people act towards objects, including other actors, on the basis of meanings that the object have for them.’[12]  If the object is perceived as an enemy rather than a friend, an individual or state will act differently.  Quoting Peter Berger, Wendt writes, “Identity, with its appropriate attachments of psychological reality, is always identity within a specific, socially constructed world.”[13]  Expanding on Berger’s and Luckman’s understanding of the interplay between individuals and society in the construction of the identity of both, they say,

Identity is a key element of subjective reality and, like all subjective reality, stands in dialectical relationship with society.  Identity is formed by social processes.  Once crystallized, it is maintained, modified, or even reshaped by social relations. The social processes involved in both the formation and maintenance of identity are determined by social structures.  Conversely, the identities produced by the interplay of organism, individual consciousness and social structure react upon the given social structure, maintaining it, modifying it, or even reshaping it.[14]

Along these lines, Wendt suggests that ‘an institution is a relatively stable set or “structure” of identities and interests.’[15]  So, ‘institutionalization is a process of internalizing new identities and interests, not something occurring outside them and affecting only behaviour.’  Given this, state relations are not merely about power and institutions.  A more dynamic and constructive view adds that they are also about expectations and understandings arising from the institutional identities and interests that participants in them form.  Thus, relations begin with agency (the agency of the body for individuals and the agency of the apparatus of governance for the state) and the desire to survive.[16]  States, like individuals, take their agencies and desire to survive into their encounters with others and produce identity and interests in the interactions and relationships that develop, whether friendly or hostile.[17]

Weaknesses in constructivism are likely not so much in their description of some aspects of relationships but in their failure to give an adequate account of identity and interests beyond agency and the desire to survive.  The description they offer is a sort of myth of origins that omits other key aspects of real relationships determined (not constructed) by history and religion in particular and of identity that includes some notion of morality—what is right objectively.  Islam, for example, makes no distinction between religion and the state.  Its identity is formed as an interpretation of Islamic Law, history, and goals to convert or dominate everyone else.  Its core identity is ‘submission’ in the sense of submission to Allah’s rule and therefore to Islamic rule living under that rule.  This view requires an understanding of relations that goes quite beyond agency and the desire to survive.  In the end, Thomas Hobbes’ realism that states form for survival against hostile forces (Leviathan) offers a better lens to interpret relationships with Islamic states.

The Kingdom of God

What lies behind constructivism’s failure in this regard is its denial of a moral order—the very thing that liberalism insisted on but increasingly did so only in terms of a European Deism and subsequent secularism rather than a Biblical worldview.  We might add here that African traditional religion also posited divinity behind and above interactions, but with so vague an understanding of this that it amounted to little beyond sacrifices (including human) to appease the spiritual forces. A Biblical perspective gives far more clarity and detail to divine rule and expresses what this means through the pages of Scripture.

Furthermore, constructivism has to deny any fundamentally evil principle in the world.  It may be true that institutions do not have to be the way they are but can be perceived and used according to human identities and intentions in relationships.  This view is fundamentally undermined, however, if there is an operative evil in the world whose agency is not amoral and whose desire to survive is a desire to survive as a force of lies, evil, and destruction.  If so, international relations are not limited to the self-help and survival of states (realism) or the self-making through agency and the desire to survive of states defining their identity and interests in relationships with others (constructivism).  They may be formed more fundamentally by powers beyond themselves, whether by God in His goodness or by demonic forces.  This was the view of the Greek and Roman world.  Jews and Christians added to this an historical perspective, or a narrative perspective with a beginning, middle, and end to the story.  What is happening now is part of a larger narrative of God’s salvation history.

One question the early Church asked was whether government was a demonic force.  It asked this for very good reason: its regular encounter with government was often negative.  The New Testament offers different answers to the question, since some governmental authority is God-ordained but government can and often does abuse its authority.  One thing was certain: government was not the Kingdom of God.  Several texts need to be considered to answer this question and to come to something like an early Church understanding of Church and State.

The first relationship between Church and State is Jesus’ famous distinction between things religious and things to do with the State: ‘render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ (Mark 12.17, ESV).  At one level, this statement makes room to pay required taxes and, by extension, to abide by the State’s laws.  At another level, this relativizes the State’s authority, declaring that it does not have authority in matters of Christian religion.  As Peter famously said to the high priest and the Jewish Council, ‘We must obey God rather than any human authority’ (Acts 5.29).  This Council held authority over religious and Jewish civil affairs in Jerusalem.  Peter’s response to the Council states more than the separation of Church and State.  He first contrasts God’s Law with any human authority, whether in the religious institution or in the State.  He second insists that God’s Law is above human authorities.

The second type of relationship between Church and State is found in Romans 13.1-8.  Paul affirms that the State has its purpose and authority from God.  He writes,

Romans 13.1-4 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God….  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.  Do you wish to have no fear of the authority?  Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good.  But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain!  It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.

In context, this passage follows Paul’s call on believers not to take revenge on their enemies but to do good to them, leaving vengeance to God (Romans 12.17-21, quoting Proverbs 25.21-22).  This perspective brings out a different nuance from the first.  The separation here is not so absolute, not so black and white.  God’s authority can work through human authorities; God can delegate His authority, as it were.  This understanding of government authority is that it brings order in an otherwise chaotic and sinful world.  We see God doing this already in creation in Genesis 1.1-2.3. The divine function of ruling is to bring order.  Similarly, 2 Thessalonians pictures the current situation in the world in terms of the restraint of lawlessness and rebellion—by which we should understand opposition to God’s Law.  The passages speaks of a future time when this restraint will be removed and the man of lawlessness revealed.  On this understanding, God sets in place what is needed, such as government, to restrain lawlessness—to hold back the chaos monster, as it were.  We might contrast a contemporary view of government that sees the State as the guarantor of freedom rather than the authority to restrain lawlessness.  The restraint of lawlessness is not a blanket approval of State authority, though.  ‘Lawlessness’ is understood religiously—God’s Law.  The State itself can be criticized if it sets its power in motion not to restrain but to promote what is opposed to God’s Law.  Thus, government stands under God.

The third, slightly different perspective is in 1 Timothy 2.1-8.  Paul affirms the traditional Jewish perspective that believers should pray for those in powerful and authoritative positions.  This is, however, not because they support the authorities but because prayer can lead to God’s purpose being worked through people in positions of authority.  In particular, the prayer is directed to God’s mission that all might be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (v. 4). 

The fourth perspective comprises all the book of Revelation.  In Revelation, the overly powerful State usurps divine authority and persecutes the Church.  The problem is not just that people do bad things, it is that the power of the State takes on an absolute authority of its own.  This is the situation that elicits apocalyptic literature like Daniel and Revelation.  These four perspectives are, to be sure, compatible.  They bring out different aspects of the relationship between Church and State.

There is a difference between ‘big government’ and government that wrestles away power from the people, although the two certainly go together.  We have seen in recent years a shift from concern about big government to a government of (over) rather than by the people.  A big government, it is well-argued, is a government that is at best clumsy for its bureaucracy.  It is often inefficient (or dangerously efficient in some things), expensive, ‘stupid’ for its lack of nuance, inattentive to local concerns, process-driven, legalistic, and operated by unelected officials who can and do establish a deep state.

The first half of the twentieth century saw fundamental disagreement over ideologies: communist, fascist, democratic (and still, to some extent, monarchic).  Such battles will surely reappear, but the current fracturing of civil society is occurring within the democratic option.  Democracy was long seen as the antidote to tyranny.  What has developed, however, is a democratic tyranny. This tyranny functions in two ways: (1) as the overreaching power of a democratically elected government; (2) as an oppression of the minority by the majority.  The American founding fathers anticipated this when instituting a democratic government, which is why they instituted an electoral college, a representational legislature in the Senate, a separation of powers, and various checks and balances.  This was the main concern in James Madison’s Federalist Paper No. 10, in which he contends that a republican form of government rather than pure democracy can safeguard against majority domination or unrepresented minorities.  The problem is no longer ‘big government’; it is now a powerful government that restricts individual freedoms.  The system of government was meant to protect citizens not only from the tyranny of the majority but also from the majority voting in a different system that would shut out minority voices and concerns.  Christians ought always to understand their presence in society is as a minority voice, and they should, therefore, be deeply concerned with governments that lack protection of and freedom for its minority groups.

Another dimension to Christian thought about government is the existence not of an alternative world government but of an alternative people, the Church.  The Church is the institutional alternative to government, but it can exist alongside of and independently from government because it is a different order altogether.  One of the fatal flaws of much Christian thinking about social justice is its thinking of what this means for government and society rather than, or more than, of what it means for the Church.  The Church is God’s people embodying His reign on the earth.  Christ Jesus reigns now over the Church as He will over everything in the future; the Church is Christ’s body in the present world, the present fullness of Him is filling all things with the presence of God.  What this meant for the early Christians is that their focus in social justice was in who they were—their identity and interests, which were formed in Christ and were, therefore, Christ’s identity and interests.  Being Christ in the world, the Church could illuminate the world with the light of God’s rule.

This answers the alternative theories considered here in international relations.  It does not answer them in the sense that the Kingdom of God is the right theory where these other theories are wrong because the Church is not a real alternative to government in the sense of intending to overthrow or replace it.  The Church gives up necessary actions in this present world that government performs.  Thus, the Church represents to government what God’s reign involves without itself becoming a government.  As Paul points out in Romans 12.17-13.7, the Church gives up the sword of retribution and punishment in pursuit of justice, but God empowers government to deliver order and justice in a sinful world.  This is no outright endorsement of any actual government, all of which are faulty.  It removes the sword from the Church.

Paul also offers a view of government in terms of God’s hand holding back the apocalyptic forces of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2.26-28:

26 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.  27 For the mystery of lawlessness mis already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.  28 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming (ESV).

A secular version of this would simply speak of ‘pariah states’ or ‘predator states’ that come and go, without a notion of this culminating in a final unleashing of evil.  There are states that are evil for impersonal, systemic reasons, but there are also states that are evil for the intentional, personal reasons of their rulers and those in authority.  The immense evil of the state could be equated with evil leaders and their henchmen.  If any passage comes close to a view of international relations like that of Thomas Hobbes, it is 2 Thessalonians 2, which simply reflects a deeply held perspective in apocalyptic Judaism.  1 Enoch 91.5-7 speaks of a state of violence that will intensify on the earth and then references a great plague on the earth, oppression, everything being uprooted, warfare, and the increase of sin, blasphemy, injustice, crime, iniquity, uncleanliness (cf. Jubilees 23.14-25; 2 Baruch 27).  In regard to 2 Thessalonians 2’s ‘man of lawlessness,’ Eugene Boring notes that the Roman general, Pompey, who ‘evoked apostasy, scattered the covenant people, and even entered the holy of holies,’ was called the ‘Lawless One.’[18]  F. F. Bruce suggested that the image of the man of lawlessness is built on Old Testament and Jewish notions of a wicked leader.  The most interesting of his suggestions is Isaiah 14.12-15.  The King of Babylon is said to boast that he will rise above the clouds to make himself like the Most High, but he will be brought down to Sheol.[19]  Greg Beale suggests, rather, that the man of lawlessness is based on Daniel 11.29-34,[20] which speaks of the return of Antiochus IV Epiphanes to attack Egypt but then turn to attack ‘the holy covenant’.  He will profane the temple and fortress, remove the regular burnt sacrifice, and set up the abomination that makes desolate (vv. 30-31).  He will seduce people to violate the covenant, while some would stand firm even though they will ‘stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder’ (v. 33).  God’s people will be ‘refined, purified, and made white’ with the stumbling of some (v. 35).

Conclusion

Some governmental forms are better than others, and some are more amenable to the Church than others.  Yet form is only one aspect of a larger discussion of Church and State.  Even better forms of government can be problematic.  The Church exists as a community with convictions, ethics, and activities that can support or challenge governments.  It is not itself a government.  It is high functioning within its own community and can be exemplary to the State as to what it ought to do.  The Church’s voice and nature of community ought to be a prophetic voice to the State.  Yet the State is not the Church, and there are things that the Church does that the State ought not to try to do (enforce religion, e.g.).  One of the matters distinguishing Church and State is that of power.  The Church—when it truly is the Church and not some misrepresentation of it—understands power through the cross of Jesus Christ.  It rejects the means of power of the State either by seeing it as a legitimate form of justice in a sinful world, with qualifications, or as an abusive aggression that needs to be challenged, just as the prophets of old would challenge the governments of Israel for their religious and social abuses.

The Church shares perspectives with realism, liberalism, and constructivism in international relations theory while remaining distinct—and critical—of each.  With realism, it acknowledges that the fall of humanity into sin is pervasive.  Government is necessary to hold back the powers of evil and chaos.  Self-preservation is legitimate, as are freedom and flourishing (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness).  Yet the Church agrees with liberalism in the sense that something does stand above the State that is universal and moral.  The classic Biblical text supporting this view is Psalm 2.  Enlightenment liberalism, however, pushes God further and further from identifying Him as what stands over the State, over the king, over government, over international relations, and over the morality of cultures.  The Church proclaims that there is One God over all and Jesus as Lord.  Finally, with constructivism, the Church recognizes that the current state of politics—before the return of Jesus to judge all people and nations—is not universal.  Cultures create identities, with their norms and laws.  This is one way of stating that the Church is not a State but a distinct community among other communities.  It operates internationally as an alternative community within and across state boundaries with a mission to the world that determines its own identities and expresses its own interests in accordance with its identity—an identity established by Holy Scripture, God’s authoritative Word, and exemplified, for better or for worse, in the Church.

[1] Tim Dunne and Brian C. Schmidt, ‘Chapter 8: Realism,’ in The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, 8th ed., ed. John Baylis, Steve Smith, Patricia Owens (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2020), pp. 130-144.

[2] Hobbes, Leviathan, rev. student edition, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought; Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 1991).

[3] See Ibid., pp. 136-137.  Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 4th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948).

[4] Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979).

[5] Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everything (Durham, NC: Pitchstone Pub., 2020).

[6] ‘Locke’s Political Philosophy,’ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (rev. 2020); online https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/#:~:text=Locke%20describes%20international%20relations%20as,in%20the%20state%20of%20nature.. See section 6.

[7] Tim Dunne, ‘Liberal Internationalism,’ in The Globalization of World Politics, pp. 103-114.  See p. 105.

[8] Nicholas Onuf, World of our Making (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989).

[9] Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,’ International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 2. (Spring, 1992), pp. 391-425. 

[10] Ibid.  The quotation is from the abstract of the article.

[11] Ibid., p. 392.

[12] Ibid., p. 396-397.

[13] Ibid., p. 397-398.  See Peter Berger, ‘Identity as a Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge,’ European Journal of Sociology 7.1 (1966), pp. 32-40.  The connection of constructivism to Peter Berger helps readers to see the larger picture: constructivism is an application of a sociology of knowledge that involves a variety of thinkers such as Berger and Michel Foucault.  See Reiner Keller, ‘The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD),’ Human Studies 34.1 (Spring, 2011), pp. 43-65.

[14] Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Allen Lane, 1966),  p. 194.

[15] Wendt, p. 399.

[16] Ibid., p. 402.

[17] Wendt offers a systemic diagramme to illustrate the interactions.  Ibid., p. 406.

[18] He references (Psalms of Solomon 17.11-22; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 14.71-72; Jewish Wars 1.152-153).  See M. Eugene Boring, I and II Thessalonians: A Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press), p. 273.

[19] F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Word Biblical Commentary, Vo. 45, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2017).

[20] G. K. Beale, 1 and 2 Thessalonians (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2010), p. 206.

Christian Mission as Prophetic Mission

Christian missions, if Jesus’ ministry is any indication (!), is not about offering a ‘soft’ message in order to be winsome.  His mission was, rather, a prophetic ministry.  Prophecy, if the Old Testament prophets offer us any indication (!), is justice-seeking according to God's Law.  If you wish to find missions in the Old Testament, you will find it primarily in the prophets.  The prophets were covenant enforcement officers, calling people back to obedience to God’s commandments, pointing out where they had gone wrong, and delivering harsh warnings of judgement to those who continued in their disobedience of God’s commandments—and even harsher warnings of judgement to those leaders who were leading people astray.  The essence of false prophecy is affirmation of people as they are, having no need of repentance and no need of God.

The prophetic character of missions sits so shockingly at variance with the expectations of our world today, with the popularity of seeker sensitive services, porous boundaries to welcome people without calling them to repentance, syncretistic versions of Christianity thought to affirm all cultures, and the like—to say nothing of the more extreme messages on tap in liberal and now progressive contexts.  ‘God Lite’ was not on John the Baptist’s or Jesus’ agenda.  Jesus told his disciples to present the message of the Kingdom and, if not accepted, to move on (Matthew 10.11-15).  There was no suggestion to repackage things in palatable ways to affirm cultures or spoon feed people with soft and tasty foods. Proclaiming the Kingdom of God was a prophetic call to a higher commitment to life under God's rule, with the consequence of narrowing, not widening, the gate of entry.  It was not the Kingdom of Kumbaya.

This may all sound ‘out there’ to anyone living in a Westernized society in our day, but try to think of a Biblical example of coddling sinners in their sins, working within a flawed, institutional religion, folding the Gospel into an existing culture to give it a dignity not its own, etc.  On the contrary, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians illustrates a direct challenge to a church soaking in the culture and distorting the truth.  Colossians is a letter undermining any syncretistic theology.  The book of Revelation begins with letters to seven churches to refuse enculturation where it undermined truth.  Galatians is Paul’s letter to insist that Judaizers seeking safety in the Law understand that Christ alone is their hope for salvation.  The New Testament is a prophetic mission making Christ Jesus the beginning, middle, and end to the exclusion of all else, calling all to drop what they thought to bring to God of their own and receive instead all that He offers by grace.  Only once one sees this and grants it can one then have the conversation about how evangelists can be positive, the church can be winsome, and the Gospel is good news.  It is all this to those who repent.  The problem is, for Western society, that tolerance and affirmation and acceptance and other nice sounding words are so dominant in the culture that the prophetic aspect of missions is treated like an old, outspoken family member who needs to be shunted away to the corner of the room with a spray can at family gatherings.

What can be said, and needs to be said, at the beginning of any such discussion is that Jesus’ Kingdom message was a message of welcome to sinners.  His culture, unlike that of Western society in our day, was a highly self-righteous society that excluded sinners.  He extended good news to those who were outcasts of every sort—Samaritans, Gentiles, demon-possessed, lepers, women, children, and sinners.  His inclusion of the various groups was not a preference for the marginalized but a statement that the Kingdom was for everyone.  His inclusion of sinners was not a softening of sin but a call to repentance.  The good news that the Kingdom of God was near meant that people should repent and believe (Mark 1.15).  Jesus did not respond to Pharisaic self-righteousness by saying, 'Lighten up!'  He responded by saying that they were hypocrites, limiting sin to laws and acts, not including the heart.  He pointed out the sin of every man and woman such that even Peter had to ask, 'Who then can be saved?,' and then He offered His own life as a substitutionary sacrifice for sin on the cross.

Jesus’ public proclamation contrasted with John’s in a significant way: he reserved his harshest words warning of judgement not for sinners but for religious leaders.  For sinners, Jesus had welcoming words; not that they were welcomed in their sins, but they were invited into God’s Kingdom once they repented of their sins.  Jesus did not ignore sin but made it possible through his own death for sinners to receive forgiveness.  His harsh words, though, were directed to the Pharisees, scribes, elders, chief priests, and Sadducees.  Why?

First, the religious leaders wished to exclude sinners rather than invite them to repent.  Jesus’ entire ministry was predicated on the narrative of Israel’s sin, exile, and restoration by God.  His ministry was a calling of people out of their exile in sin and into new life under God’s rule.  The religious leaders were trying to exclude these sinners from entry.  Jesus was angry at their exclusion of repentant sinners.

Second, the religious leaders recognized others as sinners but not themselves.  They thought that they were righteous.  The problem was that all needed to repent, not just the obvious sinners.  The religious leaders themselves needed to repent and to receive the sacrifice for sins that Jesus had come to make.  Jesus grew angry at their self-righteousness.

Third, the religious leaders spent their days reinterpreting the Scriptures so that what they were doing and teaching would not be considered sinful.  They were masters at this by drawing thin lines between the letter and the spirit of the commandments (cf. the antitheses, Mt. 5.21-48).  They came from an ancient tradition of false teaching: as Isaiah says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!’ (5.20). They squabbled over words (like ‘Corban’, Mk. 7.11), denied Biblical texts (Sadducees accepted only Genesis through Deuteronomy as Scripture/God’s Word), majored on the minors and minored on the majors (Mt. 23.15ff), called things acceptable that were sinful (Mt. 19.1-12), and were, after all this, hypocrites (Mt. 23.13, 15, 23, 27, 29).  Jesus let loose a tidal wave of words, as prophets do, to chastise these false teachers of God’s Word.  He was angry because they were dangerous and needed to be challenged.

Jesus’ mission and ministry involved welcoming words to repentant sinners, but harsh words to the religious false teachers of his day.  His harsh words were for those who remained unrepentant.  Being a sinner did not mean exclusion if one repented.  The coming of the Kingdom and God’s people’s mission to the world, as Ezekiel 37.9 and Genesis 2.7 (John 20.21-23), and Exodus 19.5-6 (1 Peter 2.9-10; Revelation 5.9-10) understand, mean the preparation of a pure people for God by God’s grace.  The coming of the Kingdom, as Isaiah 66.18-23 (Matthew 28.18-20) and Isaiah 49.6 (Luke 2.32; 24.47; Acts 1.8; and 28.28) understand, means salvation for a repentant remnant of Israel and repentant Gentile idolaters and sinners who receive Christ as their Lord and Saviour.  Jesus thereby moves the dividing line from Israel/Gentiles or religious/sinners to repentant sinners/unrepentant sinners.

Missions is not ‘intercultural studies’.  It is not religious ecumenism.  It is not dialogue.  It does not chase after an endorsement from the culture in order to be deemed acceptable in the pantheon of deities or the marketplace of ideas.  It is only good news when it has something of its own to contribute that nothing else does: singular devotion to the one true God and acknowledgement of Jesus as Lord and Saviour.  It is, therefore, challenging and confrontational; it is prophetic.  Only then is it good news to those who want and desperately need something other than all the failed remedies on offer in the pharmacies of falsehood.

Salvation by Healing Grace through Love: John Colet’s Lectures on Romans (1497)

Introduction

The following presentation of John Colet’s (1466-1519) lectures on Romans[1] covers his arguments in some detail for Romans 1-11.  Colet, an English priest and professor who advocated for Church reform, produced these lectures about the year 1497.  One can find in his work on Romans a basis for theological reform in his day, although he does not engage in contemporary theological discussion.  Nor does he engage much in standard Church teaching but determines to understand the Biblical text before him.  He turns to recently made available works on Plato or Platonic philosophy, but he does so in an attempt to explain Paul’s ‘inner man’ and ‘outer man’ teaching.  Colet is considered a humanist, acquainted with Erasmus and perhaps influencing him, and significantly affected, after studies in Florence, Italy by Renaissance scholarship and reforming preachers like Savonarola.[2]

Colet’s understanding of Romans focuses on God’s grace alone as the means of salvation, a discovery that Martin Luther would make as he began his lectures on Romans in 1515.  There is much in Colet’s interpretation of Romans that rings true with teaching from the later Reformers, which is why his earlier work is so interesting.  Also, his understanding of God’s grace did not focus on ‘justification’, although what he says about justification is in line with Reformation teaching.  Rather, he explicates grace as covering what I would call, for want of concise terminology, both forgiving grace and transforming grace.  Indeed, he devotes a considerable amount of his study of Romans 5-7 to an understanding of God’s grace as a healing of the soul.  One might wish he had spent more time on Romans 3.21-5.21—his coverage is all too brief—but his understanding of Romans 5-7 seems well in line with Paul’s points, and his focus on the power of God’s grace to transform, not just justify, the sinner, was something the Lutheran and Calvinist wings of the Reformation might have benefitted from in their exposition of Paul in order to oppose Roman Catholic teaching on works righteousness.  In this way, Colet holds justification and sanctification more closely together under the teaching of God’s grace.

As little interpretation or comparison as seems possible of Colet’s lectures on Romans will be offered here.  My purpose is to let Colet speak in his own words, transled by J. H. Lupton.

The Human Condition

Colet interprets Romans 7.7-25 in terms of the human condition, not the state of the Christian struggling with sin:

Now all the evil that man has, springs up from him out of that lower part of his nature, which may be called … the animal and bestial part of man (Chapter VII).[3]

Adam’s transgression was a revolt against God when he ‘chose to be the slave of his beguiling senses.’  His transgression ‘has born sway in man’s estate, and so to speak in the human commonwealth.’  Human sin is not merely like Adam’s but is a result of Adam’s sin.  It is not a debt passed on to subsequent generations but a condition that Colet describes as follows:

From its violence and tyranny the soul, that is, the poor inner man, being weak and powerless by reason of Adam’s unhappy fall, has been incapable, with all its efforts, of releasing and liberating itself (Chapter VI).

Slavery or Bondage, and the Work of Christ

Colet uses two images for this human condition: bondage and sickness.  The image of bondage comes from Paul himself (cf. Romans 6.16-18).  In Romans 6, Paul’s discussion of the human condition is not in terms of sin as a debt that needs to be repaid but in terms of a power that a master has over a slave.  From this power, believers are set free, says Paul, and they are now slaves of obedience leading to righteousness leading to sanctification leading to eternal life (vv. 16, 19, 22)[4] and God (v. 22).  Paul conceives of the Christian partly as being a free agent choosing to do the right thing.[5]  This is only possible once Christ has freed Christians from the rule of unrighteousness.  The human condition, however, is conceived more in terms of two types of slavery: to sin or to obedience.  Roman slavery was defined as ‘being in the power of another’.  The condition of slavery to sin as understood with reference to Adam in Romans 5.12ff was that his choice brought the human race into the condition of slavery to sin.  The condition of slavery to obedience was brought about by Christ, whose death was a death to sin whose (resurrection) life he lives to God (Rom. 6.10)—and we participate in his death to sin and resurrection to newness of life by being baptized into Christ Jesus (Rom. 6.3-4).

Returning to Colet, we note that his discussion of these matters in Chapter VI, with Romans 6 in view, focuses on the bondage under which fallen humanity serves and from which they have been freed to serve God.  When we conceive of the human plight as a debt that needs repayment, as the sinner’s need for justification before a righteous judge, we conceive of Christ’s death as the required payment on our behalf, or as a satisfaction.  This is true, but it is not the full understanding.  Indeed, Colet does understand Christ’s death in both ways.  He articulates the work of Christ as forgiveness and justification in Chapter VII in regard to Romans 7.24-25, where Paul asks, ‘Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?’  The answer is Jesus Christ our Lord (v. 25).  Colet writes,

For if Jesus Christ had not died, as a sufficient satisfaction for our state, and recompense for sin, then, without further delay, all the ungodly, each for his own transgressions, would themselves have perished, and been hurried away to death and punishment.  But Jesus alone suffered that to be inflicted unjustly on himself, which would justly have been inflicted upon all…. (Chapter VII).

He further says,

By the death of Christ, therefore, which was gone through for all, men are retained in life, by the marvelous grace of God; that their sins may be blotted out by the death of Christ, even as by their own, and that in all the rest of their life they may strive after virtue, and aspire until God (Chapter VII).

Another view he affirms is that Christ redeems humanity from the power of the devil (Chapter III).  But he also understands that the work of Christ was a healing from sin.  Colet does not follow only one understanding of Christ’s death, justification or satisfaction, redemption from the power of the devil, or the overthrow of the power of sin brought about through Adam’s sin.  He holds these together.  Nor does he separate salvation by grace from moral responsibility.  Christ accomplishes a blotting out of sins and a purification of men and a reconciliation to God—all that the Law in its powerlessness could not accomplish.  The Law could arouse ‘the soul to some faint light and knowledge of good, but did not also inflame it deeply with the love of goodness and of God.’  This God did through Jesus Christ.  A Christian is now, through Christ, able to burst ‘the bonds of his sins’, to

come forth free, and live in the presence of God; and regard the Law no more, which regarded sin; but trusting in God, hoping in God, and loving God alone, might finally be in terror of no condemnation at all [Romans 8.1], so long as he followed Christ, and fashioned himself to the best of his power after the pattern of his Master, and exhibited the form of Christ.’

Colet continues by saying, with reference to Romans 8.1 (that there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus), that we have an assurance that God will not condemn us.  Without drawing out the significance of this himself for his day, we might say that this was one of the key teachings that the Reformation would affirm.  Once justification was understood as God’s gift of grace and not human effort, one could have assurance of salvation.  Yet, the magisterial reformers would argue this on the grounds of Christ’s justification of the sinner—Martin Luther in particular.  Colet never separates Christ’s work of justification from His work of transformation.  In this, he follows Paul more carefully.

Thus, earlier in his commentary on Romans, Colet discusses the effect of God’s love and grace—in reference to Romans 5.1-11 (and also noting 1 John 4.10).  God’s gracious love of those not worthy of love, the ungodly and unjust, ‘is itself their calling and justification and glorifying’ (Chapter V).  Furthermore,

… when we say that by grace men are drawn, are called, are justified, are glorified; we signify nothing else than that men return the love of a loving God.  In this love and return of love consists the justification of man.  And this reciprocal love in us is joined with hope, and needs to be steadfast, as that which will not be made ashamed.  For we are beloved by God, that we should in turn love and hope in him; because, in the words of St. Paul, the charity and love of God is shed abroad in our hearts [Romans 5.5] (Chapter V).

Later reformers might be nervous about so close a drawing of human reciprocity into God’s work of grace, but Colet does not here advocate Aquinas’ view of an enabling grace that gives sinful humanity the boost it needs to do good works.  At least, it seems he is closer to Augustine’s fides quae per dilectionem operatur, faith working through love (cf. Galatians 5.6).  As Alister McGrath explains Augustine’s view, ‘faith alone is merely assent to revealed truth, itself inadequate to justify.’[6]  Using the parable of the Good Samaritan allegorically, Augustine held that ‘justification is a process of transformation by which sinners are healed and renewed within the community of faith.[7] Colet, like Augustine, is saying that the grace of God that saves us is also transformative, using the metaphor of healing.  It remains divine grace at work within us, a love of God shed abroad in human hearts.  He notes that there was a force in sin and that there is a ‘greater force and power in grace, for quickening men, and restoring them to an entire and sure salvation’ (Chapter V).  For Augustine before him, justification was ‘both the event of justification (brought about by operative grace) and the process of justification (brought about by co-operative grace).[8]  In sixteenth century Protestantism, these two aspects of justification would be distinguished more sharply in an effort to counter a ‘works-righteousness’ theology.  Augustine, however, not only considers justification as a process but also as an eschatological judgement by God based on the believer’s good works.  These works are effected in the believer by God; they are His works in the believer and so are ‘imputed’ (inputantur) to him or her (De civitate Dei XXII, 30).[9]  Later Reformation theology would speak of imputed righteousness in the sense of Christ’s righteousness being imputed to the sinner.  Augustine’s view is that righteousness is inherent in the believer, since justification entails God making the believer righteous.  McGrath writes,

Justification is therefore essentially a ‘making right’, a restoration of every facet of the relationship between God and humanity.  Iustitia is not conceived primarily in legal or forensic categories, but transcends them, encompassing the ‘right-wising’ of the God-human relationship in its many aspects: the relationship of God to humankind, of humans to their fellows, and of humans to their environment.[10]

This Augustinian view, while not referenced in Colet, appears to help us to understand Colet’s interpretation of grace in Romans.

Christ the Healer

As already noted, to capture this understanding of grace, another metaphor than slavery or bondage is helpful: the metaphor of disease and health.  As Alister McGrath says,

The idea of Christus medicus—Christ as the authentic healer of the human soul—was used extensively by Ambrose: ‘We have found shelter with the Physician, who has healed our former wounds. We have received the great medicine of His grace; for great takes away great sins’.[11]

This metaphor was typical in Greek philosophies, for they sought to provide the medicine necessary to heal the soul from its debilitating desires and appetites.[12]  Christ’s work was not simply a forgiveness of sins and a justification of the sinner but a life-giving healing of the sinner.  Colet says,

… whatever grew from one sin, for destruction (and there did grow sin manifold and infinite), when the tale thereof was all made up, and the virulence of the disease, as it were, at fever height, then at the same time all-powerful grace, by its prevailing and marvellous force, dispelled it, and destroyed all the sin….  Sin is indeed a violent and aggressive thing; but the glorious power of sweet and pleasant grace, that works softly and marvellously, and with a secret and wonderful effect, nothing can resist.  Wherefore we must believe that grace, which reconciles to God, has far more power in the world than sin, which estranges from God.  And hence, that the righteousness and obedience of Christ has far more power to recall to God men who are to be recalled, than the sin and disobedience of Adam had to call them away from God (Chapter V).

Still with Romans 5.12ff in view, Colet writes,

And so, as sin grew and gathered strength, it was needful, for the healing of mankind, that saving grace should then much more increase and abound; that men, being justified by it, might be able through Jesus Christ to attain eternal life (Chapter V).

Later, he calls sin the sickness and grace the medicine:

…but once for all, according to the will of God, had medicinal grace been given in the death of Christ for healing the disease of sin (Chapter VI).

The Law

This metaphor of sickness and healing explains Colet’s understanding of the Law, the failure of Judaism, the work of God’s grace through Christ, and the transformation of persons receiving God’s grace.  Colet says that the Law, instead of bringing healing, ‘exposed and aggravated the disorder’ (Chapter VI).  He says that ‘Christ, however, brought healing, making any further taking of the medicine of the Law unnecessary.’  The metaphor of disease explains, for Colet, the limitation of the Law and how Christ’s work was a healing of the soul to ‘liberty and goodness’.  This lengthy quotation offers a full use of the metaphor to explain sin, the Law, grace, and sanctification (the last word not being used here):

As with sick persons, whom a dangerous disease has long been weakening, and whose life has been despaired of, it profits not to apply a medicine to expel the disease, but does them much more harm, though the medicine be a most approved one, because through their weakness they cannot bear it; so also with the Jews, the Jewish Law profited them not; not because it was not good in itself, but because the Jews were bad, and on account of their inveterate malady of disobedience, unfit to obey good precepts.  And, as with sick persons, whose bodily strength has been almost wholly exhausted by a long disease, if there be any hope of recovery, it must needs be only in giving and increasing strength, to the intent that an invigorated system may escape from the bonds of disease; so was it with the Jews, when their weakness had been detected by the laws, through which they could not be roused to heal and justify themselves.  For the disorder did so gain strength more and more in succession from Adam, and the taint and foul contagion of the mischief did so deeply penetrate, that by human strength there could be no healing.  In this state, I say, in so great infirmity, the only hope left for the Jews, was this, that by grace their strength might be increased, and when increased and invigorated might quickly escape from its ills, and carry that inner man away from its bad and slavish condition to liberty and goodness.  And furthermore, just as the physician, who has applied a good and suitable remedy, is not to be accused, nor deemed unskilful, albeit his remedy has not healed; nor the remedy to be despised, although it has not restored health, the man being radically incurable; but rather the physician is to be commended, and the remedy approved, which has disclosed the greatness and peril of the disorder; that, warned by it, the man may betake himself to a more skilful physician;--so, assuredly, in the same manner, neither is God nor the Law of Moses to be taxed, although by it man has not recovered his ancient goodness and righteousness; but thanks are to be given to God and the Law, for that, admonished through it, men fly for refuge to a more efficacious remedy, even to God himself, and to his grace.  For thereby at length, being set free and restored to health, they may rest in saving grace alone, and think no more of the Law, now that the sinful character, to which it had regard, has been laid aside; nor deem that it concerns them, any more than the sick man we supposed, who has now by admirable skill been restored to health, deem that he has any concern with the remedy, which in his own case, by reason of his weakness, he found to be powerless and ineffectual.  For being released from the condition, on account of which the remedy was devised, he has nothing further to do with the remedy in question, since by other ways and means he has attained the object sought by it (Chapter VI).

In the same lecture, Colet explains that all healing is by God’s grace (and so not by works):

The Jews had the Law given them for the sake of pointing out their iniquity, that they might openly acknowledge both the greatness of the disorder under which they suffered, and their own natural powerlessness; and when at length they were healed by grace, might ascribe all to grace, and feel unmistakably that it was through grace alone that they had recovered health and life.  For it is God’s will that his lovingkindness and mercy and benefits should be acknowledged to proceed wholly and manifestly from himself; that men may have no room for either pride or idle questioning; but may own that nothing is of themselves, everything of God; and so, as St. Paul bids them, may joy in God [Rom. 5.11] alone (Chapter VI).

Justified by ‘the marvellous and wonder-working grace of God’ and not by the Law, there is no further reason to keep administering the medicine of the Law, which was meant for sinners.  Regarding Romans 10.4, which says that Christ is the end of the Law, Colet understands this both as bringing the Mosaic Law to an end and that Christ is the one to whom all that Moses wrote points.  That is, Christ is both the terminus of the Law and the fulfillment of the Law.  Also, this points to the coming of the law of Christ, the law (‘word’) of faith (cf. Romans 10.8 (Chapters IX and X).  Earlier, Colet affirmed a threefold purpose of the Law: to point out sin, to define boundaries, and to threaten transgressors (Chapter IV).  Grace, on the other hand, takes away the fault, ‘draws man out of his strait,’ and ‘graciously cherishes and sustains him,’ and so people are able to trust (put their faith) in God alone (Chapter IV).  Continuing his explanation of Romans 4, Colet says that the Jews, however, claimed happiness by virtue of being workers of the Law rather than imitating the faith of Abraham.  Moreover, the Jews rejected faith in Christ (Chapters IX and X).  (There is no indication that he derives this point by responding to the works-righteousness of Catholicism in his day; his view is drawn from the text of Romans and is, as Paul’s, a corollary of what is taught about divine grace.  Nor is there any thought in Colet that the problem for the Jews lay in their claim to a special covenant status that excluded Gentiles, as some ‘New Perspective’ interpretations have taught.) 

Predestination and Love

A key passage in Romans for later Reformers’ views on God’s work of salvation is Romans 8.28-30:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.  :29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

If salvation is by God’s grace and not works of the Law, is it not, then, wholly a work of God in the sense that those who are God’s are His because He has predestined them unto salvation and secured them eternally in it?  Such is the logic in later Reformed theology.  Later, regarding Romans 9, Colet says, ‘whatever you will and do is known by God [foreknowledge], and also whatever he has known and determined, that must needs be done [predestination]’ (Chapters IX and X).  God decrees people ‘to be faithful and believing’ (Chapters IX and X).  This means that God’s counsel and purpose are not dependent upon human will and deeds.  He reads Romans 9, then, as a defense of God’s sovereignty.  At this point, Colet emphasizes that humans are not in a position to understand this by virtue of God’s exalted position and our humble condition.

Colet seems, however, to say two things that, taken on their own, could lead to conflicting theologies.  First, Colet rejects an eternal security theology.  He says,

But if, neglecting the love and attractive influence of God (ensnared, it may be, by the allurements of the body or deterred by violence), they have fallen from God, and lived again after the flesh and fleshly appetites, which are opposed and hostile to God, and destructive to men themselves;--if, shame to tell it, there has been this inexpressible wickedness in any man, after God has loved him so greatly, then for certain will be deserted by divine grace, and fall headlong into a state far more miserable than before.

Second, however, Colet speaks approvingly of predestination.  How can this be?  The key appears to be his distinction between faith and love.  Faith can falter and lead one to reject God, but love is of a higher order.  Note that he does not simply locate predestination in a theology of God’s sovereignty, although he does affirm this.  Predestination is, however, especially related to the relationship of love between God and the Christian.  He does say, at the end of Chapter VIII, that ‘according to the purpose and voluntary predestination of God, and, as it were, by his immoveable decree, men are called by God himself to believe and trust in Him.’  Earlier in the chapter, he said that the Spirit of God ‘does not dwell in and enlighten all, but only those who are predestined by the divine counsel to be enlightened.’  The Spirit ‘works pleasantly and sweetly,’ and so forth.

With that so clearly stated as an interpretation of Romans 8, Colet’s greater attention is drawn to an explication of love.  Love is, indeed, important in the theology of Romans 8.28-39.  Paul says that nothing ‘will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (v. 39).  Faith leads to salvation, but love,

which takes possession of the soul along with Faith, and rarifies it, so to speak, and expands it, is that whereby, so far as can be done by man, God and his Christ are received and worshipped (Chapter VIII).

Faith and love are related.  Faith is a ‘more diffused love’, whereas love is ‘a more condensed and united faith.’  (He does not expand on what he means by this.)  With 1 Corinthians 13.13 in mind, Colet sees love as a power surpassing faith.  It ‘seizes on the soul of man, influence, disposes and forms it’ (Chapter VIII).  With reference to 1 John 4.7, he says that our love for God is kindled by God’s love for us.  He makes a further distinction between knowing God and loving God: the former is not completely possible, but one might love God in whatever capacity he is able to do so.  Thus, ‘it is beyond doubt more pleasing to God himself to be love by men than to be surveyed; and to be worshipped, than to be understood’ (Chapter VIII).  By this route of argument, Colet then comes to Romans 8.28: ‘And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.’  The relationship of love is sometimes missed in renderings of this verse, whereas Colet makes it the key factor.

Colet continues his emphasis on the priority of love by contrasting knowledge and love, saying, ‘…the soul is rendered divine, not from studying, but from loving God’ (Chapter VIII).  Indeed, he reasons, ‘…weak men know but as much of God as they can contain; which is little indeed: but they love, not only as much as they know and behold, but also as much of the divine goodness as they conjecture to remain over, which they cannot know’ (Chapter VIII).

The case of the Jews is a case in point (Romans 9-11).  They served as an example to all that humans cannot rise from the load of sins without divine grace (Chapters IX and X).  Perhaps still thinking of Romans 8.28, Colet says, ‘though not the cause of evil, [God] yet appeared as the marvellous author of good out of evil’ (Chapters IX and X).  The problem the Jews illustrate is not said to be pride in their covenant status (as advocated in the so-called ‘New Perspective on Paul’) or in their trust in their own good works (as advocated by the Reformers).  They illustrate the problem of sin.  Their problem is not pride in their covenant status or the effort of achieving salvation by works but their belief that they were not so sick with their sins as to need God’s saving grace in Christ Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross.

A qualification of a predestinarian theology—which Colet strongly affirms—nevertheless comes when Romans 11 is under consideration.  Colet says,

… as regards those whom He wills to recall to himself out of the whole lost race of men, to serve and believe in Him, those who are not yet called may be called, whilst those who are called, may still be rejected; that, in the wonderful dispensation of events, the Jews were suffered to wander away from God, that so by a just occasion grace might be offered to the gentiles…. (Chapters IX and X).

Regarding Romans 11.25-27, Colet takes ‘all Israel will be saved’ to mean that

God will draw to himself as many as shall be deemed sufficient….  he chooses out of the whole world and multitude of men, whom, and when, and how He will; and that He will accomplish all that he has fore-known and predestined touching the salvation of men and the number of the faithful… (Chapter XI).

Conclusion

John Colet’s lectures on Romans demonstrate a firm grasp on Paul’s theology of salvation by grace.  One might, perhaps, be able to explain his teaching as a ‘salvation by healing grace through love’ to give his primary points their due.  He also affirms justification by grace through faith, but the former phrasing of his theology seems to be where his primary focus lies.  Even his teaching on predestination focuses this doctrine not only on God’s sovereignty but also on God’s love.  His interpretation of Romans requires an understanding of Paul’s theology not in static terms but in dynamic terms: God’s salvation is not simply a transfer from one state into another but is far more a matter of a dynamic, divine power at work to make sick sinners healthy by curing the soul.  He further sees the problem with the Law to lie primarily in sin—in the inability of near-death souls to obey it.  Sin, not ethnic pride or works righteousness, is the main issue.  In much of Colet’s teaching, I would suggest, Colet has captured Paul’s teaching rather well.  (His understanding of predestination may be where I would part the most.)  This is especially true in his focus on God’s grace as an active power at work within a weak and sickly person languishing near death and not just a transaction by which the sinner is justified.



[1] John Colet, Dean Colet’s Lectures on the Romans, trans. J. H. Lupton (London: Bell and Daldy, 1873); available online at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/An_Exposition_of_St_Paul_s_Epistle_to_th/cZlJAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover.

[2] A more detailed biography can be found in the introduction of the translation used here (cf. footnote 1).

[3][3] This is a Platonic view of the human condition, as in Phaedro, where the charioteer (reason) struggles to control the two horses (passion and appetite).  Colet’s understanding of this comes through his reading of Plotinus, made available through Focino in 1492.  See Plotinus, Ennead I.1.  Paul’s ‘inner man’ and ‘outer man’ distinction is interpreted through Plotinus’ understanding of the animate—living organism—made up of the ‘couplement’ of the soul and body.  In I.1.12, Plotinus discusses the notion that the soul in itself is sinless, but insofar as it couples with the outer part it becomes sinful.

[4] Paul keeps adding to what this new service leads to in a progression laid out over these verses.

[5] He does urge believers to consider themselves ‘dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 6.11).  He next exhorts them not to allow sin to reign in their mortal bodies, to ‘obey its passions’, or present their ‘members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness’ (Romans 6.12-13).

[6] Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 4th ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020), p. 45.

[7] Ibid., p. 48.

[8] Ibid., p. 49.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid., p. 50.

[11] Ibid., p. 48.  See Ambrose, De Helia et ieiunio xx.75, CSEL 32.2.257-8.

[12] Martha C. Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, Rev. ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).

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