Because
John Frame took the time to answer my critique of his position on “person-revelation”
in the Introduction to my book, One
Kingdom: the Practical Theology of John M. Frame (xi-xii), I want to clarify
my comments. I do this because I really do not disagree with John completely. Rather,
I have questions. And it was my unanswered questions that kept me from fully
embracing John’s position on person-revelation, which I noted in the book as
follows.
[Frame] speaks of “human beings as
revelation.” That would seem contradictory to the biblical truth that the
apostles had authority as recipients
of revelation (Eph. 3:7-13; Gal. 2:8-9; Rom. 1:1-6) but not as sources of it.
John
begins his explanation of person-revelation in the context of divine communication
(2010:304). Following his Lordship triad: authority, control, and presence, he extrapolates
that “God reveals himself in events, words, and persons” (2010:304). Central to
his position is the fact that humans are created in the imago Dei; hence, all human beings reveal God and his attributes in
meaningful ways (Rom. 1:19-20; Psalm 8:3-4). I have no argument here. It is settled
dogma that all people are created in God’s image and are therefore means of
natural revelation.
It
is the next point in Frame’s syllabus on person-revelation that caused me pause.
He moves seamlessly from the role of the image of God as revelatory of the
Creator, to the place of the redeemed creature in helping us learn how we ought
to understand and live God’s word. For “if meaning is application, at least from
one perspective . . . then we cannot understand language without understanding
how its speakers apply it. Language is part of life” (2010:305). I glean from John’s
writing a three-fold approach to this understanding.
First,
“we should understand how God himself makes use of his word” (2002:305). John’s
principle example is God who calls us to “be holy, for I am holy (Lev. 11:4; 1
Peter 1:15-16)” (2010:317). In line with the
imitatio Christi, we see God’s holiness best expressed in the earthly life of the incarnate God: Jesus of Nazareth. (2010:317). Second, and in order of
importance, we have the lives of the Apostles who “place great weight on themselves
as person-revelation” (2010:318). Here John is referencing occasions in which
Paul, for example, encourages us to “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). And
third we need to keep an eye on how responsible Christians apply the word,
because “there is no better way to learn the application of the Word
than by seeing it applied by others who understand it well” (2010:317). Point
in fact, our human example need
not be redeemed for “we need to see examples of how fellow human beings use
God’s word—rightly and wrongly” (2010:305). “Wrongly?” Yes. For as John says
elsewhere, “Even sin, in one sense, images God, for sin is basically an attempt
to be God, to replace God on the
throne” (2010:316).
The
point of connectivity in Frame between understanding the Bible and how people
go about applying it is inspired mainly by his penchant for seeing all theology
as “practical.” However, it should be noted that this connectivity is also inspired,
in part, by John’s reading of Wittgenstein, who rejected the idea that the meaning of words is grounded in the God of all meaning. Wittgenstein instead held that the meaning of words is wholly dependent upon their use from culture to culture; from individual to individual. John certainly does not believe that words are
without absolute meaning save for their application. Still, Wittgenstein’s
language construct is seminal in John’s evolvement on person-revelation. We
learn the meaning of the word of God by how people use it.
As I
pondered the matter during the course of writing One Kingdom, two questions arose in my mind. “Does the Bible speak
of how people apply God’s word as 'revelation?'” And “If the Apostle’s
lifestyle is revelation, can we say the same of all people?”
There
ought to be little question that God’s own use of his word, certainly as Jesus
lived it, is revelatory. His miracles were deeds that revealed his identity. The
right use of God’s word as Paul lived it is also revelatory of Christ with the
caveat that Paul was not perfect. If the régime of the Apostles is to be a
standard for our behavior, then it must reveal something important to us about God
and his word. So I will call this revelation—“person revelation”—if you like.
On
the other hand, I do not find Paul referring to his walk as “revelation.” The
idea may be there, but it is not patent in the Pauline corpus. Nor does Paul extend
the idea to say that the lives of all
admirable Christians is revelation. But should this be the case, then at what
point is my brother or sister Godly enough to help me understand the meaning of
God’s word? Must he or she be like Paul? That is the inference in 1
Corinthians; a rather tall order I might add, one that I do not see in any of
my fellow believers including myself. Furthermore, as John has said, if even wrong behavior images God, I am compelled to wonder why Paul calls the Corinthians to repent of their bad behavior and model
his good behavior? John might reply that
wrong behavior is not to be modeled, but only shows our sinful desire to be
like God, which John has said reveals an aspect of God. But I’m not convinced
that sin images God. I’m not saying I disagree, but only that, as of yet, I am
not convinced. In fact, it is regular parlance in Reformed theology to say that
sin has defaced the imago Dei, not that
it images God and/or the meaning of God’s word from its own unique perspective.
I am not mocking these points. Theses are serious questions for me.
Then
I noticed that the two principle teaching points on person-revelation do not
seem to match. John teaches that all people—saint and sinner—image the Creator, whereby all give testimony to God's existence. There is no distinction between the two groups. But then note that
person-revelation becomes restricted. Although we can comprehend how God intends us to use his word even by those who use it "wrongly", John would have our attention focus mainly on mature Christians as the divine witness. At this
point, I began to wonder about the internal consistency of person-revelation
for theology. Perhaps the answer is that there are different categories within
person-revelation each with special nuances. I do not know.
These
are questions with which I still wrestle. And all of this is to say that my critique
of person-revelation in One Kingdom was
fostered more by unanswered questions than by principled disagreement. Again, I
am completely on board with person-revelation as an appellation for the
functioning capacity of the image of God to reveal him. It is the exploitation
of how well people in general (not just Jesus and Paul) practice God’s word
that leaves me with too many questions to feel comfortable with the thought—at
least for now. This is why I stated in my book that the idea of imitating
mature Christians might best be elaborated under the heading of the doctrine of
sanctification, with lateral reference to how Godlike behavior “reveals” God’s
will for our lives. In other words, person-revelation works better for me as a
subset of progressive sanctification than as a way to understand the doctrine
of the Word.
I will
continue to wrestle with the idea of person-revelation.
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