My Journal

I answered this first time years ago in Stony Brook Sunday school - 当人种增加前，没有今天复杂的亲属观念。

There was no complication in human relations. Therefore, they were all viewed as Children of God, rather than just brothers and sisters in contrast to other relational ties (i.e. cousins, friends, etc.)

To teach this in Children's Sunday school, simply needs to allude the the teaching of Christ in Matthew 12:50 - that the view of siblings as God's children was as plain as today's view on believers as brothers and sisters in Christ.

This article will follow the investigation of whether Jesus raised Himself or not. So it is no question that God raised Jesus. The Father (Rom 8:11, Gal 1:1, Eph 1:20), The Holy Spirit (Rom 8:11) both played in the triune economy of Christ's resurrection. The strongest case for Jesus raising Himself, is found in Joh 2:19-20 & John 10:17-18.

The Holy Spirit as agency is not considered here as that would be require an entire new line of evidence (pg. 118 n4).

This was brought to my attention when I came across David Tong's FB posts regarding this matter. Post 1 (2/7/2023): On his reading of Gaffin's book Resurrection and Redemption pg. 63, Post 2 (2/8/2023): Using the latest OpenAI chatbot: ChatGPT which is getting a lot of hypes lately, even from Christian circle. And David's subsequent posts: 4/9/2023, 4/9/2023, 4/10/2023, 4/10/2023, 4/11/2023, 4/14/2023, 4/14/2023, 3/26/2024, 3/26/2024, 3/30/2024, 3/31/2024, 4/1/2024

(Side note: archive.org is really some free online library, they won't let you download but allow you to "borrow" online for limited time period, not mentioning any download hack, which does seem to exist, at this time, I'm just not as invested to deal with this hack as I used to, depending on time and zeal as a collector)

So David posted these:
Gaffin: “The notion that Jesus is active in his resurrection … is not supported elsewhere in Paul.” (Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption, 63).

Geerhadus Vos: “Nowhere is it said of Jesus that He contributed towards his own resurrection, far less that He raised Himself.” (Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 147n6, quoted in Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption, 64).

If I'm not mistaken, the idea is to suggest that Jesus did not raise himself. As verified in his [David Tong] second post using ChatGPT to confirm the fact that the AI does indeed "think" so.

However, I believe that Both Richard Gaffin Jr. and Vos were referring to Pauline eschatology, not the entire eschatology of the Bible. In other words, David Tong alone, not the others, missed the Johanine eschatology. However, I cannot say if Gaffin or Vos did not have the tendency to make their view to not just be Pauline but representing the entire New Testament as well. Both Gaffin and Vos were obviously focusing on the fact that it was God who raised Christ, God's power, God's authority, God alone, so that we understand that our resurrection likewise rest assuredly in divine hand, but Gaffin also indicated John Murray's stand as if unique "Murray, who wishes to hold open the possibility that there may be a reflection on "Jesus' own agency" in its usage, nevertheless rightly maintains: "To insist, however, that there is reflection upon the agency of Christ in His own resurrection, in such usage as we have now been discussing, is not warranted" ("Who Raised Up Jesus?" p. 116). Pg 64n91. (PS: This pursuit also taught me how to read citations like xxxn.xx = page number footnote #) Neither Vos nor Gaffin made reference to Joh 2:19-20 & John 10:17-18, which is why I assume they were only focusing on Pauline in particular and not the entire NT.

Stephen Tong in his 2022 preaching (復活節崇拜會 基督必要復活), emphasized: 四、 基督的死是主動性的死...因為耶穌的死是主動的，所以耶穌的復活也是主動的。I will add the entire sermon in the comment in case of broken link in the future. Basically, applying the knowledge of Christ's dual natures.

John Murray, a student of Vos, give the best explanation of all this in his WTS journal article: Who Raised Up Jesus? Which was later discussed by Reformed Forum in 2014. Murray basically said Jesus had a hand in raising Himself up, but in the economical triune sense. Which I will explain below in his 4 points.

Two primary Greek words used for resurrection/raised: ἐγείρω and ἀνίστημι (for some reason David Tong interpret it as only "standing up" and thus rejected the application of ἀνίστημι in this discussion).

The key to understand all this is the grammar in Greek: When passive voice is applied to ἐγείρω, one must understand if this is expressed in the passive of the transitive verb "to raise" or intransitive verb "to rise/arise". With transitive then you have God as the subject and Christ as the object.

Here is basically the summary from John Murray and his 4 points in the end:

Active verb implies God raised Jesus (for sure in transitive case) in the passages below:
ἐγείρω - Active verb ἤγειρεν:
- Acts 4:10, Acts 5:30.
ἀνίστημι - Active transitive verb ἀνέστησεν/ἀναστήσας:
- Acts 2:24, Acts 2:32, Acts 13:33, 34; 17:31
- Active intransitive verb ἀναστῆναι/ἀναστῇ/ἀναστήσεται/ἀνέστη:
- Mark 8:31; 9:9, 10, 31; 10:34; Luke 18:33; 24:7, 46; John 20:9; Acts 10:41; 17:3; I Thessalonians 4:14

Which persons of the Trinity are involved?
- Holy Spirit: Romans 8:11
- The Father: Galatians 1:1
- The Father: Ephesians 1:17-20
However, Murray wishes to argue in Romans 6:4, the ἠγέρθη though aorist passive, may be rendered "rose" as well as "was raised".
Thus, there is no doubt that the Father is the agent and Christ is the subject in the resurrection of Christ.

Active verb being appears to be uniformly used transitively (raise), with the exception of the present active imperative ἤγειρε [no example, must be a rare case]. Active voice: Jesus is the object and not the subject of the verb, except in John 2:19-20.

ἐγείρω

Passive verb ἐγείρονται/ἐγήγερται/ἐγείρεται/ἐγερθήσονται get complicated:
transitive = to raise: Matthew 11:5, Luke 7:22, Luke 20:37, 1Cor 15:15,16,29,32,35,42,43,44,52
Verses that appear transitive but could also be less awkward to be intransitive = to rise, to arise: ἠγέρθη/ἐγερθέντι/ἐγερθείς/ἐγήγερται/ἐγείρονται: Rom 4:25, 6:4,9; 7:4; 8:34; 1Cor 15:4,12,13,14,16,17,20.

Intransitive use of the verb but non-resurrection references ἠγέρθη/ἐγήγερται/ἐγέρθητι : Matthew 8:15, 9:25, 14:2; Mark 6:14,16; Luke 9:7, Luke 7:14
Thus, Murray promotes (though insisting such use is not warranted for the resurrection of others who could not have been resurrected by the exercise of their own agency or power prevents such insistence) the use of Passive Intransitive as Jesus' own activity in His resurrection in these ἐγείρομαι/Ἠγέρθη/ἐγερθῆναί/ἐγερθείς/ἐγερθέντι/ἐγηγερμένον: Matthew 27:63,64; 28:6,7; Mark 14:28; 16:6; Luke 24:6,34; John 21:14; 2Cor 5:15; 2Tim 2:8.

ἀνίστημι

As listed above with examples of its Active transitive & intransitive verses. When it is transitive, God is the agent and Christ the subject of the resurrection, Christ is the object of the verb; In instances (with Mark 9:10 as exception) of intransitive use, Jesus is the subject of the clause.

However, ἀναστήσας (active verb) in Acts 3:26 is not treated by Murray as resurrection. And some would argue that ἀναστήσας in Acts 13:32[-33] was referring to incarnation instead, but Acts 13:34 is explicit enough to conclude that verse 32[-33] is referring to the resurrection instead of incarnation. (pg. 117n2)

Also from terms other than ἐγείρω & ἀνίστημι consider Christ's resurrection in Romans 14:9 ἔζησεν/ζάω (active verb) & I Peter 3:18 ζῳοποιηθείς/ζῳοποιέω (passive verb), though not determinative. (pg. 118 n3)

Therefore, though insistence on activity of Jesus as agent of His resurrection is impossible (proven by the fact that such verb is used in the case of the resurrection of others who could not have risen by their own agency or power i.e. Mark 5:42; Luke 16:31; John 11:23,24; Acts 9:40 ἀνάστηθι; Ephesians 5:14 ἀνάστα; I Thessalonians 4:16 ἀναστήσονται), Murray seriously contemplated the possibility of Jesus' own agency in His resurrection.

So there is no conclusive evidence that there is allusion to the activity of Jesus in these cases of the use of either of these two verbs, despite there being possibility of that in the intransitive use of the passive of ἐγείρω and in the intransitive use of ἀνίστημι.

Now, possibility aside, here comes the Johannine proof of the affirmative justification that Jesus was active in His own resurrection. John 2:19-22 [a promise is more of an act rather than potentiality when spoken by Christ] & John 10:17-18 [though one such as David Tong would argue for potentiality instead of actual act here]. Even though other passages were inconclusive. To be continued - pg. 119

Conclusion:

The fun part for this entry was hours of labor finding resources cited in these works. For example, it was almost impossible but I did find Gaffin's footnote reference (page 64 n.90) that with Vos, the reason I wasted hours and couldn't find the quote Gaffin took from Vos: Nowhere is it said of Jesus that He contributed towards his own resurrection, far less that He raised Himself. (Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 147n6, quoted in Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption, 64) was because the version I downloaded of Vos' Eschatology had no footnotes in it, and 147n6 just happens to be at page 147, footnote #6 of the complete edition - now why would those making these public downloads remove footnotes or think these footnotes aren't important? Apparently Vos had written almost as much material in his footnotes than his main content of the book, mostly. I was almost convinced that Gaffin was mistaken in his citation. The other was from the same citation, referring to D. H. Van Daalen's article on "The Resurrection of the Body and Justification by Grace". This one is more of a challenge for finding rare resources on the internet. And while using the English part (Studia Evangelica Vol III) of the search did not get any result, I was able to get the entire article from Google Books using German/Dutch keywords: Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur Volume 88 1964. I managed make my own archive of all these except for Gaffin's book as well as Vos' COMPLETE Pauline Eschatology edition (with footnotes), I shall just virtually "borrow" these when necessary, for now. I've archived Van Daalen's article next to John Murray's article in the same folder on my drive.

Sunday School - Common Creation Questions - Lesson 5 Genesis 1

Previous discussion weeks have been focused mainly on Young Earth, but the pastor tried to be slightly open minded, though the go to against the opponents is always on the definition of death as well as evolution, which is to my view, shallow.

Tong: Death in Genesis 1-3 is not about bodily death (the day you eat shall die). It's the separation from God. Tong on 3 definitions of Death (not about stop breathing, etc.):
1. Cease of function of our body
2. Departure from the source of life
3. ？Spiritual?

On His "image". There's talk about how image is not just the attributes of God. I recall some from Pak Tong and Van Til:

Many theologians treat Likeness & image the same thing, using these interchangeably. But Tong disagrees slightly:
形象是原本的状态，样式是终久学习应当达到的果效。
Jesus said, 你们要学我的样式 Matthew 11:29 - no mention of image. 所以，原先被造的潜在能是神的形象 (image)；被造之后生活的果效是样式(likeness)。
因为我们有神的形象，所以我们应当像神；因为基督到世界上成为我们的样式，所以我们应当效法他的样式。
Therefore IMAGE (human ALPHA) => more about potentiality. LIKENESS (human OMEGA) => more about the teleological effect.

Van Til:

For Rome: Image of God brings reason and free will to Likeness of God.
Van Til: Image of God consists most basically of Natural Religious Fellowship (created already) with God at the moment of endowment of of the image. Rome wouldn't affirm.

On dominion/subdue over creation of God by man, what's lacking in the discussion was the Prophet, KING and prophet (which was briefly mentioned by Phil). Mostly just talking about the "ability to use not abuse, stewardship over" the creations.

Pastor's view on Eve's "don't touch it", God did not say. Tong like some also agreed:

那么夏娃如何回答蛇的呢？ 《创世记解经》唐崇荣牧师 著
【创3:3】 惟有园当中那棵树上的果子，神曾说，你们不可吃，也不可摸，免得你们死。
这里夏娃犯了两个错误：
1、修改了神的话语：神没说“也不可摸” (Calvin disagrees: Eve's showing piety)
2、修改了神说话的语气：神说“你吃的日子必定死”，不是“免得你们死”。(Calvin agrees)

所以我们看到，当我们添加或减少神的话语原文，或者修改神说话的语气时，我们就容易被撒旦骗。

Pastor: Desire is not sinful.
[Gen 4:7...but you must master it]

Bill brought good point, though the reaction was slower than I expected: Did Satan fell first or man?

[At this point, I'm reminded to questions like Why Satan's allowed to tempt? Did man actually no need to work, etc., the quote of Socrates - An unexamined life is not worth living!]

Decreed of God on the Fall was mentioned, as some has problem with it or to count in the cause and effect of why the Fall must happen which is to glorify God as the reason for the Plan, mentioned by Mary in the group. In my head I was yelling [Geerhardus Vos' "Eschatology precedes Soteriology"]. Now the question is how should I dumb it down.

This also reminded me of a FB comment I posted:
We cannot call God "author" of evil without assigning culpability to Him, hence the term: Decree. God decreed the Fall. God ordained evil. We do similar thing to many authors of fictional novels of good vs. evil.

As to the idea that WHAT IF Adam didn't eat of it. I am not sure if Tong dealt with this, I couldn't find it online. However, I would venture to fantasize this:
If Adam was truly (as this is debated: the particle with עמה could just mean a conjugal bond) there at the moment of Eve's demise (Gen 3:6), then it behooves him to respond to the serpent instead of Eve, and thus making Adam culpable. However, if Adam had been late, he would thus be given the chance to redeem Eve, even with his own life, in a way, he may not be culpable. In either case, Adam is the federal head, not Eve, and would be treated so in certain matter.

In his Daniel Servitude series, video 3, @36:47.

要紧：对象，内容，动机
不要紧：形式，日子，外表

对象 - 创造天地赐我五谷丰收的上帝来做感恩的祭，圣道的内容，纯正敬拜上帝的动机