A professor of "worship studies" reckons that God's glory is disclosed through humility and suffering

 

The Glory of God Revealed: Living the Resurrection

... many early Christian thinkers offered a striking insight: the glory of God is seen most clearly in His act of rescuing those in need. ... The glory of God, therefore, is not merely something to be observed, but something encountered in His gracious movement toward humanity. It is revealed in His willingness to enter the depths of human brokenness, to meet us in our need, and to act decisively for our salvation. In this light, glory is not diminished by humility or suffering but is disclosed through them. The God who is truly glorious is the God who comes near, who restores, and who redeems. In short, the God who is truly glorious is the God who rescues. ...

I don't mean to pick on this guy. What he writes sounds completely plain vanilla unobjectionable to the average Christian mind, which unfortunately is full of gooey sentimentality and dull humanitarianism. Except for the fact that none of those early Christian thinkers he speaks of, whoever they may be, are in the New Testament. You will be hard pressed to find lines there which endorse a preoccupation with glory disclosed through humility and suffering.

On the contrary, the New Testament evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the view that God's inestimable glory is robust, and still to be revealed in the future at Jesus' second coming, an acknowledgement that the crucifixion and resurrection most certainly did not constitute a convincing revelation of God's glory. If it had been otherwise, preaching the Gospel would not have been promoted everywhere by the New Testament because it would not have been necessary. The glory of God would have been self evident. The book itself would not have been necessary, because the revelation of the glory of God would have meant the end of the world.

The New Testament remains pregnant with unrealized eschatological expectation, in which the revelation of the glory of God is an explicitly future apocalyptic goal, because obviously the promised glory failed to be revealed the first time around for "all flesh" to see.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

-- Isaiah 40:3ff.

If the New Testament thought that God's glory had been disclosed through the humility and suffering of Jesus and actually had replaced Isaiah's, and John the Baptist's, vision, it ought to have said so. It is only its unworthy heirs who have done so.

The New Testament certainly does insist that God accomplished something through Jesus' suffering, but all flesh seeing the glory of God is not one of them. Only a select few "beheld his glory" (John 1:14). "Read my book" (John 20:31).

The revelation of the glory of God is yet future, and the not-yet is by no means comparable to it.

 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed [ἀποκαλυφθῆναι] in us.

-- Romans 8:18

But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed [ἀποκαλύψει], ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

-- I Peter 4:13

The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed [ἀποκαλύπτεσθαι]: 

-- I Peter 5:1

For who hopes for what he sees?

-- Romans 8:24 

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

-- Romans 5:1f.   

But these are written that ye might believe . . .

 That paltry story is untrue,

And forg'd to cheat such gulls as you. 

 

-- Samuel Butler, Hudibras 

A priest eschews AI confession for disembodying the Gospel, but misses how priests and sacraments started it all

 

The historical Jesus made forgiveness of sins a horizontal matter in a social relation of equals, and a predicate for divine forgiveness before the imminent end of the world foreclosed the opportunity.

The Christ of faith and early Catholicism turned forgiveness of sins into a vertical matter enclosed in a sacrament requiring elite intermediaries to administer it. 

But with a sacrament of confession to a priest the person actually wronged is simply bypassed and forgotten. Is there a better example of disembodying the Gospel? People who look for the origins of gnosticism and individualism should look here! 

The historical Jesus did not teach to confess one's sin to a priest, but to the person who was actually sinned against! Jesus' teaching everywhere stresses horizontal reconciliation without which there can be no vertical reconciliation.

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

 -- Matthew 5:23f. 

... And forgive us [ἄφες] our debts, as we forgive [ἀφίεμεν] our debtors. ... For if ye forgive [ἀφῆτε] men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you [ἀφήσει]: But if ye forgive [ἀφῆτε] not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive [ἀφήσει] your trespasses.

-- Matthew 6:12, 14f.

So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive [ἀφῆτε] not every one his brother their trespasses.

 -- Matthew 18:35

And when ye stand praying, forgive [ἀφίετε], if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive [ἀφῇ] you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive [ἀφίετε], neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive [ἀφησεὶ] your trespasses.

 -- Mark 11:25f.

Confess your faults one to another . . ..

 -- James 5:16 

Forgiveness [ἄφεσις] is the social imperative of eschatological time, of the fullness of time proclaimed by Jesus the eschatological prophet when the kingdom of God was "at hand".

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance [ἄφεσιν] to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty [ἐν ἀφέσει] them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

-- Luke 4:18f.  

This forgiveness is offered unconditionally, without the "ifs" and conditions for forgiveness of later tradition. And Jesus himself models that meaning of unconditional forgiveness even to the bitter end of his life.

Father forgive [ἄφες] them, for they know not what they do.

-- Luke 23:34

This is why the disciple compelled to walk one mile walks two (Matthew 5:41). This is why the disciple struck on the one cheek offers the other also (Matthew 5:39). This is why the disciple robbed of his coat gives up also his cloke (Matthew 5:40).   

But retaining sins, withholding of forgiveness, would have simply been anathema to the historical Jesus. That just represents the intrusion of business as usual, the mere continuation of profane time, whose time was up. 

  

A Disembodied Gospel

Jim Morin, The Lamp

 

... For Catholics, the ordinary way to receive forgiveness of sins is by individual sacramental confession to a priest. We believe that Christ instituted this sacrament when he said to his apostles, “whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” [John 20:23] But what is the reason which stands behind Christ’s decision to make forgiveness dependent on a direct interaction with a priest? One can give psychological motivations: confessing sins to another person promotes self-examination and sharpens awareness of sin; hearing spoken words of mercy gives experiential knowledge of forgiveness. One can also give ecclesiological reasons: reconciliation with God is simultaneously reconciliation with the Church, and besides, confessors are theologically trained to judge repentance, to resolve moral doubts, to answer spiritual questions, and so on. ...        

The irony of the essay is that this priest really does seem to grasp in his conclusion that "we need real human communion rooted in the love of the Incarnate Word". It just never occurs to him that he might be standing in the way of it, just like AI.

Yeah, the filioque is such a novelty, it took 'em centuries to think of it lol

 

 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

-- John 20:21ff.

Touch me not for I am not yet ascended, or Today shalt thou be with me in paradise?

 

The problem of the resurrected but not yet ascended Jesus telling Mary not to touch him but encouraging Thomas to do so in John 20 is hardly the only problem with John's death and resurrection narrative about Jesus. 

John never even gives us the promised ascension at all, despite all the talk in that gospel of the descending and ascending Son of Man.

The absence is not unique to John, however, which tells us that the thinking about all this was, if not fluid, at least not fully formed at the time.

Luke does not reconcile the ascension stories he himself tells in Luke 24:51 and Acts 1:9 with the words of Christ from the cross which he alone records, which imply that Jesus simply expected at death to go to heaven immediately, not to rise from the dead and ascend later, let alone descend into hell in the interim.

Compare Luke's Lazarus, who dies and goes to the bosom of Abraham, while the rich man who ignored him dies and goes to hell (Luke 16:22ff.). This is what is supposed to happen, right? There is no resurrection until "the last day", as Martha informs us (John 11:24). Everybody knows that! But then John's Jesus raises her brother anyway.

And like Matthew's I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (28:20), the resurrected Jesus in John 21 never really exits the world either. He can appear at any time and say Follow me. Even to one untimely born (I Corinthians 15:8).

Matthew's Jesus doesn't leave in an ascension. He is always present.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. 

-- Matthew 18:20

The ending supplied to Mark 16, however, agrees with Luke that Jesus ascended to heaven and sat on the right hand of God. Its fascination with signs done by those who believe echos the early Christian history recounted by Luke in Acts, and doubtlessly comes from that part of the tradition and is not originally Marcan. Mark's Jesus eschews signs absolutely (Mark 8:12).

 

And [the other malefactor] said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. 

-- Luke 23:42f.

Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: 

-- John 19:32f.

Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.  

-- John 20:17

Ross Douthat doesn't consider that the testimony of the eyes failed Mary Magdalene before it succeeded

 

 

 

 

 

 

. . . you have to go into the Gospels with a skeptical framework already to come away from them feeling that the core narrative isn’t deeply rooted in eyewitness testimony, in things that either the authors or their immediate sources really experienced and saw.

 More.

Was eyewitness testimony ever more unreliable than in the case of Mary, who we are told really did experience and see, according to the Fourth Gospel?

And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.

 -- John 20:14ff.

The idea that only prejudiced skeptics read the Gospels and come away doubting "eyewitness" testimony is quite the cope. Many former true believers have come to doubt what they once firmly believed to be true, their carefully constructed apologetic frameworks dismantled piece by piece until at length the whole structure imploded.

But Mary wasn't such a one. She did not believe in the resurrection promise in the first place, and her eyes utterly failed her when there it was, staring her in the face.

It's as if Jesus had never preached resurrection at all, so that "the apostle to the apostles" was from the beginning to the end as ignorant as they.