Morning Prayer In My Study

One of the wonderful things about saying morning prayer in my study is the freedom and possibility of being diverted during one of the lectionary readings into a little bible study.

This morning, reading Ezekiel 18:21-32, I decided to see what Calvin had to say about the passage in his commentaries. What resulted was a fascinating exploration of Calvin's understanding of the relationship between what are commonly called 'Total depravity' and 'Prevenient grace'.

For Calvin, this passage, with its commands to 'rid yourselves of all the offences' and 'get a new heart and a new spirit' (TNIV), can be misinterpreted as suggesting that humans have some power within themselves to 'Repent and live' as the final words of the passage put it. In a slightly, for my money, convoluted way, Calvin instead argues that this is simply an example of God accommodating himself to human language, while actually communicating the impossibility of humans having any such strength to turn to God lest it be provided by the Holy Spirit. Calvin refers to other Scriptures in which it is clear that the 'new heart' is not 'made' (ASV) by humans, but rather given by God himself. (cf Ez.11 & 36 'new heart' passages and also Jeremiah 31). Calvin's lengthy commentary on two verses (31 & 32) ends up being his theological argument for the rejection of anything resembling Pelagianism or Arminianism.

For myself, I think the Scriptural exegesis is stretched a bit far by Calvin. I'm not sure that the pericope will really do what he wants it to do. But, I am persuaded by the theological argument that Calvin wants to make. The nagging question for me in relation to predestination, total depravity and prevenient grace is 'What does it do to our missiology?' and 'Does Calvin's argument lend itself to an abdication of evangelistic responsibility by believers?'. The Church of England is usually described as being basically Arminian - so these are questions that I should try to address at some point...

I then turned to another bookshelf, and grabbed Barth's Church Dogmatics to see what he made of the passage in Exekiel. The index directed me towards III:4 and the section entitled 'The Protection of Life'. It turns out that Barth looks at this passage in Ezekiel in relation to the commandment 'Thou shalt not murder'. Barth is exploring what is sometimes described as 'justifiable homicide', and querying whether such a practise is permissible under Biblical witness. His conclusion is to recognize that while the Bible recognises exceptional cases - they remain 'exceptional', and he suggest that we be wary as to whether what we might want to describe as 'justifiable homicide' might actually be prohibited 'murder'.

Who'd have thought I'd be exploring all this before 10am!! Now to turn the the second reading: 2 Corinthians 12...