in Christ: Andrew Fountain's blog

The Doctrine of God is usually approached using a systematic theology model, i.e. what we know about God from the Bible is classified into a logical system.

What follows is an alternative approach.

• Introduction: Explanation of the New Approach

1. God’s Power
2. God’s Faithful Love
3. God’s Justice
4. God’s Knowledge
5. God’s Holiness (video audio)
6. God who is Three in One (video audio)
7. God’s Creativity and Love of Beauty (video audio)
8. God’s Compassion & Grace (video audio)
9. God who Responds (video audio)
10. God who is Transcendent yet Humble (video audio)
11. God Who Offers Secure Attachment (video audio)

• You can view or print a pdf of the structure here: The Structure of John 12
• It contains my translation of the passage, highlighting key words and showing the structural features discussed below.

For a fuller notes, and a video of me teaching this in much more detail see:

• John 12 Video and notes
• or listen to the the audio on my podcast.

This passage forms a conclusion to what is commonly called the “Book of Signs” (John 1–12), matching the prolog in chapter 1.

In John 1, Philip introduced Nathaniel, an “Israelite in whom there is no guile” to Jesus, and here he introduces Gentiles.

But the most pointed parallel is with the ideas of:

• Jesus being the Word
• Jesus is the light, shining in the darkness
• He comes to his own, but his own receive him not.

Structural elements

The passage is highly structured, with both formal and informal chiasms. It can be broken down into seven segments, although the central ones are someone fluid:

1. Mary Anoints Jesus (1–11)
2. Large Crowd Welcomes Jesus on a Donkey (12–19)
3. Some Greeks appear—the hour has come! (20–26)
   • Notice the pattern of three statements, with the third taking us to a climax

The account of the man born blind has a very elegant structure, which greatly aids in seeing the purpose of the passage.

The basic structure is easily discerned by noting that Jesus is only present in the opening and closing verses:

Opening and closing

The dialogs with Jesus can be seen to break down into three parts, with an inverse parallel structure:

At this point we might expect the inner debate to neatly fit into the same kind of structure, but it does not seem to.

Did the young shepherd-boy David sit down under a tree one day, his sheep all around, and start to compose “The Lord is my Shepherd”? Or was it written at the end of his life as he contemplated God’s faithful care?

I like to think that it was both—the first draft composed as a teenager, and then as the years went by, more life experiences were woven in until the final word, “forever”.

In this talk I speculate about what events might have been the inspiration for each line. Check it out:

• Watch Video
• Listen to audio
• Subscribe to podcast

Part four in the series on The Theology of God.

God begins to reveal this attribute very early:

• when Adam and Eve try to hide in Genesis 3, God demonstrates that he knows where they are.
• And then a few chapters later we have a story that tells of God’s exact knowledge of the future as well:
• Abraham was old and had no children, but God foretells precisely what will happen:
  

Part three in the series on The Theology of God.

• A lot of people struggle with stories in the Old Testament of God’s judgement
  • Sometimes women and children are wiped out as well
  • How can a God of love do that?
  • Is the Old Testament God a different one, an angry God?
• This attribute of God is revealed in stages in the Old Testament. The most important ones contained in Genesis are:

1. The Fall: God responded with
   • Fairness—the punishment matched the crime
   • Consistency: they would die (immediately spiritually, and eventually physically)
   • But he provided for them both physically and spiritually
2. Cain
   • God is amazingly merciful to this murderer

Part two in the series on The Theology of God.

If Genesis 1:1 begins to reveal God’s power, then the second attribute that is revealed is that he is relational.

• We get the first hint of this in 1:27 where mankind are created in God’s own image.
• In 2:8–14 God lovingly creates Eden as a beautiful place for Adam to live.
• In 2:18 his compassion for Adam leads to the creation of Eve
• 3:8 implies that he had a daily relationship with them.
• At the heart of Genesis 3 is a damaged relationship and a promise of future restoration
  

The first part of the series on The Theology of God introduces the concept of this way of approaching God’s character and attributes, and begins the series by looking at God’s self-revelation of his power.

In addition to Genesis 1 & 2, the main texts are:

• Psalm 8: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place…”
• Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
• Genesis 15 links this revelation to the covenant with Abraham: “Gaze into the sky and count the stars…”
• In Exodus God’s power is revealed as being saving.
  

Traditional Approach

The Doctrine of God is usually approached using a systematic theology model, i.e. what we know about God from the Bible is classified into a logical system.

• God’s attributes are classified into headings, sometimes under headings like:
  • God Communicable and Incommunicable attributes (Reformed model)
  • God’s Greatness and Goodness (Millard Erickson)
  • What God is (Attributes of God) and What God does (creation, salvation etc.)

Alternative Approach

• While such an approach is very useful, it is not how God has chosen to reveal himself.
• Instead, God has chosen, for the most part, to use stories—historical accounts of his interactions with the universe and especially with human beings.
  • God’s attributes rarely found in the abstract, but usually as part of events that were recorded.
    (The closest we have to systematic presentations would be some of the Epistles, such as Ephesians or Romans.)
  • He reveals himself primarily through relationships (e.g. Adam, Abraham, Moses, Nation of Israel, David, and through Jesus).
  • Particular attributes of God are often revealed in each story. e.g. his faithfulness to Abraham in keeping his promise.
• If the traditional approach is known as Systematic Theology, then this alternative would be Biblical Theology.

The subject of Holy Spirit Baptism has been very divisive. Typically people are polarized into two camps:

1. At the moment you become a Christian you receive the Spirit.
   • “Baptism with the Spirit” happens at the point of conversion.
   • There may be later “re-fillings” but all Christians have the Spirit
   • Characteristic of non-Charismatic evangelicals and Third-wave Charismatics such as the Vineyard,
2. “Baptism with the Spirit” is a second experience after conversion (sometimes called the doctrine of subsequence)
   • There are two kinds of Christians, those who have been Baptized and those who have not.
   • Some groups, such as traditional Pentecostals, would say you must speak in tongues to be baptized.
   • Characteristic of Pentecostals and many Charismatics