The Most Dangerous Man in England

Whoops. That title should be "The Most Dangerous Man in Tudor England."

Melvyn Bragg has produced a documentary on William Tyndale, with that title. He writes about Tyndale in the Telegraph.

What a genius of the word, that Tyndale was. Never one for using multi-syllables when just one would do, Tyndale's Bible translation could have been re-titled, How to Launch a Homespun Phrase into the English language For Eternity.

What a life Tyndale lived. He was the James Bond of Reformation theologians. Except unlike James Bond, the baddies killed him.

What kept him going? He lost his life that the plough boy might know the Bible in his indigenous language. In short, and still relevant to Christianity today, Tyndale stood up for the Bible as God's revelation and for the importance of readers accessing it according to the greatest possible accuracy in communication.

Apropos of Anglican matters in our day, Tyndale stands for the importance of God's voice being heard through Scripture, with the volume of the voice of tradition turned down as low as possible.

UPDATE: Catholicity and Covenant takes a different line to me above. I think it nonsense and have said so in a comment!

Boundless Informant on Global Anglican Surveillance

UPDATE: Are cracks appearing in the story of the whistleblower? Is the journalist he talked to, Glenn Greenwald, reliable? Check here.

ALSO: Edward Snowden should not have broken his vow to keep a secret. But should the Director of NSA have told the truth rather than a direct lie? Read here.

ORIGINAL: Before anyone outs me, I confess. Barack and me have got this thing going, keeping an eye on global Anglican affairs with the aid of a nifty iPhone app called Boundless Informant.

However there are limitations.

"Current technology simply does not permit us to positively identify all of the bloggers or locations associated with a given communication (for example, it may be possible to say with certainty that a communication traversed a particular path within the internet. It is harder to know the ultimate source or destination, or more particularly the identity of the person represented by the TO:, FROM: or CC: field of an e-mail address or the abstraction of an IP address)"

Also, Barack and I admit that some Anglican gossip permeating the internet has affected the course of blog discussions:

""The continued publication of these allegations about highly classified issues, and other information taken out of context, makes it impossible to conduct a reasonable discussion on the merits of these programs.""

PS You are safe posting comments here. Only 5000 workers in the NSA know where you live and what secrets your computer holds :)

PPS This is the bloke who blew the whistle on the little surveillance op Barack and me had going.

Submissive Marriage

+Kelvin Wright, Bishop of Dunedin, has published a report on a Marriage Hui held there recently. I have now had three reports of the event, none quite agreeing with the other. But then the Dunedin Diocese claims some street cred  'diversity'. One example being their diocesan submission to the Ma Whea Commission - though oddly +Kelvin's post heading is 'My submission ...'. Still, L'etat est moi and all that.

I think the submission makes a good point: diversity can hold together in one group. There is also a nice subsidiary point about leadership :)

Reading Available Light prompts me to link to the Latimer Fellowship submission (co-signed by me as a v-p), and to put up my own submission to Ma Whea:

"A Submission to the Ma Whea Commission, 31 May 2013

From: Rev Dr Peter Carrell. This submission is in a personal capacity as a priest of ACANZP. For the sake of transparency about context I am currently: Director of Education in the Diocese of Christchurch, Director of Theology House, Christchurch, [contact address] , as a stipended role in the church; a Vice-President of the Latimer Fellowship as a voluntary role; and a regular blogger on Anglican Down Under.

I submit with specific reference to the following term of reference of the Commission:

A summary of the biblical and theological work done by our Church on the issues surrounding Christian ethics, human sexuality and the blessing and ordination of people in same sex relationships, including missiological, doctrinal, canonical, cultural and pastoral issues;

Dear Commission,

I wish to make an observation, doing so because, in my experience, this observation is generally not made.

Preamble: Our church is considering formally making change to aspects of its life otherwise spoken to by liturgy and/or canon, that is, to the ‘status’ of same sex partnerships, with specific reference to blessing of relationship and to acceptance of partnered gay persons for ordained service.

Such change would involve the church making an authorization and raises the question of the authority of the church as an authorizing agent on behalf of God. Do we have the authority to, say, approve the divine blessing of same sex relationships or to change the definition of marriage from a man and a woman to any two people?

My observation: Many questions are raised about what Scripture and tradition says about human sexuality. A question is often raised about the relevance of a law in Leviticus to life today. Or a question is raised about whether the silence of Jesus on homosexuality is a sign of divine tolerance for same sex relationships. Answers to such questions may be given (e.g. many laws in Leviticus continue to be relevant to life today; Jesus was not actually silent about homosexuality because he fulfilled the law of Moses). But these counter-responses are then argued against.

The end result of such questioning and debate needs careful assessment. Let us say we doubt the relevance of Scripture and tradition to a changing world. What does that amount to?

I suggest that it only amounts to the existence of doubt about relevance. But in some minds it appears to amount to sufficient grounds for the authorization of change by the church.

This is an unfortunate assessment as it could mean the church arrives at a position where it makes a false promise to its members. The false promise being that it has the authority to perform certain blessings when it has no basis for making the claim. To doubt the relevance of divine prohibition of same sex partnerships is not equivalent to confidence that the opposite is so.

I thank the Commission for considering this. I do not feel a need to explain myself verbally."

Unsuitable tradition?

Reflecting on whether the Spirit of truth is liberal or conservative, I drew no conclusion to the actual question. And no one commented on that omission. (If pushed for an answer I would say, Anglicanly, "Both.") But in recent comments here (see below) some debate emerged about tradition.

Tradition is a funny thing, is it not? When we Anglicans want tradition we keep it. When we don't, we ditch it. Stuff (unsuitable) tradition!

Let's think about what is going on in the Church of England at the moment. There is a vigorous argument for women being bishops. Yet no one is arguing for the abolition of bishops. Bishops being a tradition we want to keep. There is also a vigorous argument going on for same sex couples being able to be married. Apparently marriage being about a man and a woman is not a tradition many want to keep.

In ACANZP we have our own version of keeping what we want and discarding what does not suit. We want to keep an episcopal church but we do not want to do the hard yards on being one church of multiple cultures, so we have ditched aspects of church unity in favour of a three tikanga model. But in each of the tikanga we are utterly faithful to tradition concerning bishops.

Of course some make a similar play about Scripture. Even accusing me of following Scripture when it suits and not when it does not. Me? How dare they!

Cue removal of faux-outrage. The serious issue here is the question of truth. What is the truth God has revealed to us? If tradition (or a banner being towed behind an aeroplane) tells us the truth, we should abide by it. Scripture also.

If tradition does not tell the truth, we should ditch it, tell it to get stuffed. It is no use. Like a dead parrot.

So hard work continues to lie before us as Anglicans. The catholic bit of us respects tradition enough to check it out rather than ditch it automatically. The reformed or Protestant bit of us questions tradition enough to retain nothing which is not true. We are not bound by tradition but we are bound to seek the truth. We are having a debate about gay marriage in some parts of the Communion, and about women bishops in some places, precisely because the catholic part of us wants to retain tradition and the reformed part of us is willing to change it. But what is the truth of these matters?

It is lazy thinking to appeal to tradition (whether 'tradition' or 'Tradition', whether to an accumulation of the church's understanding of Scripture or to an equal source of revelation besides Scripture) because tradition is no sure authority in itself. Our true authority lies in the truth. Tradition is sometimes handed down truth (affirmed by us when we received the traditions we deem to be Holy Scripture) but often it is handed down speculation, dreamy thoughts, pious legends, habits and practices of the church. These truth claims need checking out.

It can be lazy thinking to appeal to Scripture. 'Scripture' is, after all, a shorthand for 'a complex body of texts, some of which are reinterpreted by other texts in the body (principally the Old Testament texts in relationship to the New Testament texts). But it is always potentially good to appeal to Scripture because Scripture is the received, accepted and ever after affirmed revelation of God.

In that sense, Scripture is always greater than what the church deems to be tradition. It stands as judge over tradition. Even where we reckon 'tradition' to be the interpretation of Scripture accumulated in the collected wisdom of the church, that interpretation is subject to checks and balances, to the TMO (Third Match Official) which turns out to be, Scripture (re-read, searched, dug deeply into).

The church has privileged Scripture in this way. Made a decision that Scripture is true truth. That does not mean the church owns Scripture, like a publisher owns the copyright of a book and can exercise an authority to later change the contents so a new edition is published. Rather the church has recognised that it has a lord and master while on earth. Its recognition and reception of Scripture is a submission to Scripture owning the church. Not the other way round.

Rightly we read Scripture in our worship, use the words of Scripture in the content of our worship and appoint one of our number to preach to the rest of us, Sunday by Sunday.

In this way we continue our submission to Scripture and remember that we ceded power to Scripture when we recognised that there lies the truth that God has given and we must live by.

OK. That leaves the question of who decides, when difference arises, the answer to Pilate's question, "What is truth?" There also lies a lot of current Anglican angst. But there is an answer. As I shall reveal exclusively here soon. I just need to complete transcription on some stone tablets of the revelation I have received ...

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Remarks made about tradition/Tradition: I cite them for handy reference (without attribution, as far as I can tell it doesn't matter who made these remarks). They are numbered (in no order of priority) for possible ease of future reference:

1. the view that Tradition is the Church’s accumulation of interpretation and commentary on Scripture
2. Eastern Orthodoxy. Their practice of Tradition is again sui generis. It is neither Roman nor Anglican. It does not align itself with the view that Tradition is the Church’s accumulation of interpretation and commentary on Scripture, the view that prevailed well into the second millennium, and normally called “single source”. Nor is it Tridentine, as you point out. Yet to affirm “Holy Tradition completes Holy Scripture” suggests Scripture is not “sufficient”, in direct denial of Article VI.
3. And as for 'sola scriptura', it's a rather circular argument, it seems to me. Where in scripture is the list of books that comprise the scriptures? Answer: nowhere. It's in the tradition.
4. The two-source being the dominant position developing since the Middle Ages. We should have noted as we walked that track, past Trent’s definition, “Any disjunction between Scripture and Tradition such as would treat them as two separate ‘sources of revelation’ must be rejected. The two are correlative…Holy Tradition completes Holy Scripture….By the term Holy Tradition we understand the entire life of the Church in the Holy Spirit.” [Agreed Statement Adopted by the Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Commission, Moscow, 1976: 84]
5. The function of the Christian canon was to separate the apostolic witness from the ongoing tradition of the church, whose truth was continually in need of being tested by the apostolic faith
6. might the notion of the Great Tradition itself have a cut-off date parallel somewhat to the Bible's own canonization? Not a question I've had to put so sharply before. Or is Tradition just some ever rolling stream - that permits even changes of the degree now sought by so-called revisionists and their blessing of SS marriages?
7. OR, is Scripture - without Tradition - the sole reference point for faith in Christ? If so, one wonders how the Faith grew before the New Testament was written and codified.
8. only after such things as “two source theories of revelation” come seriously into play thanks to 14th C canon lawyers and then Trent, do we have the grand “majority Christian position”

All theology is economic theory

I have always had a slight soft spot for Karl Marx. The pure Marx, unmixed with vile Leninism or evil Stalinism or stinky Maoism (Mao didn't bathe) is a romantic creed. Each man as good as his master (Marx wrote before feminism). Socialise the means of production so that streets do not have impoverished workers living in slum housing at one end of the street while the factory owner lives in unparalleled luxury at the other end. What is not to like? It is pretty much the kingdom of God, articulated in the British Museum. Why wouldn't a Christian support Marxism? Many have, but many others have also recoiled at Marx's treatment of 'religion', his atheism and his unimaginative materialism.

The realist in me these days easily suppresses the romantic. So I am capitalist rather than Marxist. The socialization of the means of production is a disastrous way to ensure distribution of wealth. In reality it is likely to produce less than capitalist ownership and so the poor still suffer. The standard of living for the poorest still rises in capitalist economies, but governments do need to raise a dollar or two through taxes to assist the process. One of the great questions of our day is what a 'fair' tax rate might be, where 'fair' is both about how much one might take from the wealthy and how much the government might take in total without wrecking the 'production' of wealth. It is a question which is tearing American politics apart.

Marx in my view is an important thinker because, whether we love him or loathe him, he reminds us that the material conditions of life are integral to life itself. We are not pure spirits. Our bodies matter and thus where we find (say) food cannot be disconnected from where we find (say) spiritual nourishment. Theology is economic theory! Any theologian worth her salt should be able to spell out the material difference her arguments make to the world.

Thus two articles catch my eye this morning. One is an analysis of the actuality of Obamacare re cost of medical insurance for Americans, an analysis which includes this intriguing line:

 "Who's right?  At some level, this is a theological debate, not a technical analysis.  I am going to argue that rate shock does matter, for a number of reasons.  Then you can decide for yourself which aspect matters more."

In fact Megan McArdle doesn't mean anything like what I have been saying in the previous paragraphs. By 'theological debate' she means 'debate about principles, values, and commitments of protaganists and antagonists in that debate'. For readers here, for whom many debates exhibit high degrees of 'technical analysis', I suggest McArdle poses both a false alternative and a poor understanding of true 'theological debate'.

The other article, much more to the taste of a theological interest in economics, is Paul Krugman saying something I find myself, surprisingly, in great agreement with. His post is about a Ben Benanke speech which addresses economic theory in society. Here are the (bad pun) money paragraphs:

"OK, this is, whether BB realizes it or not (he probably does) basically a Rawlsian view of the world, in which you think of life as a kind of lottery in which you draw a ticket that includes things like your genetic endowment as well as the wealth of your parents. And what you’re supposed to do, ethically, is support the economic and social system you would choose if you had to enter that lottery not knowing what ticket you were going to draw — if you were making political choices behind the “veil of ignorance”. 

As soon as you portray the choice that way, you’ve introduced a strong presumption in favor of redistribution. After all, if you should happen to end up as a member of the top 1 percent, an extra dollar at the margin won’t mean a lot to you; but if you should happen to end up as a member of, say, the bottom quintile, an extra dollar could make a lot of difference. So you should, other things equal, favor a system of progressive taxation and generous aid to the poor and unlucky. 

So why not favor complete leveling, America as Cuba? Because for many reasons, both economic and political, we favor a market economy in which people make decentralized decisions about working, saving, and so on. And this means that incentive effects become important; you can’t levy 100 percent taxation on the rich, or completely insulate the poor from any consequences of low income, without destroying the incentives you need to make the economy work. 

The question then becomes one of numbers. In particular, how high should we set the top tax rate?"

You will need to read the whole post to find out what that rate should be. I note the neat way in which he deals with the possible Marxist (i.e. Cuban) implications of where his argument leads.

Meantime my body needs breakfast and my family needs me to earn a dollar or two ... tomorrow, hopefully, it is back to some Anglican theological concerns. Should we say, "Stuff tradition"?

PS I agree with paying the top rate proposed in the Krugman post in the sense that, if I am ever paid that much, I am happy to be taxed at that rate :)

Is the Spirit of truth liberal or conservative? (3)

Picking up the conclusion to the previous post:

"In this way the revelation of 'all the truth' which Jesus promises through the Spirit is not a revelation of new truths (as many take it, so we now have new truths about slavery, about women, and, today, about homosexuality) but a revelation of the full extent of the truth already revealed by Jesus.

Indeed John's Gospel itself is a fulfilment of this promise. But let's stop there for today and come back to that matter another day."

The Spirit of truth takes us deeper into Jesus, the revelation he has made to us about the love of God and the God who is Love, and into the cost of that love, a love which asks us to die to self in order to live completely to God.

John's Gospel as a fulfilment of this promise concerning the Spirit

John's Gospel is a cheeky gospel. Virtually all scholars agree that by the time his gospel was completed, the other gospels had been composed. Whether circulating widely or not, it is reasonable to assume that John had an idea of their contents (not least because parts of his gospel betray knowledge of their contents, or, at least, of the traditions which informed those contents). Yet John publishes his gospel, knowing it is different to the way the gospel is being told elsewhere. It is a cheeky offering to the church. "Yeah, yeah, I know others tell it differently, but here is my version."

What gives him confidence to do this?

I suggest two possible answers. One is enshrined in his gospel and one is enshrined in church tradition.

The latter is that this is the gospel of the apostle John, the son of Zebedee. Who better to have authority to author such an alternative account that one of the apostles, even better one who (according to all gospels) was very close to Jesus (though, according to this gospel, closest of all as 'the Beloved Disciple'). Whether the apostolic John actually wrote the gospel matters little, on this line of thought, since what matters is the authority which commends this gospel to the church. The confidence that the apostle John approves this gospel, indeed 'lends his name' to this gospel is enough.

The former is that the Spirit of God has led the author to write this gospel as a true testimony to Jesus. What is written, on this line of thought, is the Spirit of God leading the church into all the truth about Jesus, the guarantee of which function of the Spirit is given in the words of Jesus about the role of the Spirit of truth. On this line, it matters little whether the apostolic John has any connection with the gospel, since the Spirit of truth is a much greater authority.

Nevertheless the two possible means of confidence for the writer of the gospel are compatible. If both prove true then the confidence is doubled!

In this context, one implication of understanding the Spirit leading into all truth is that this is not about 'new truths', to be revealed through future history, but about the Gospel of John itself. Alternatively, it could be about the gathering of all authentic and authoritative testimony about Jesus into the canon of Christian Scripture (of which, it turns out, John's Gospel is likely the last written document).

Revelation of God's love affects our understanding of human love and its obligations

Nevertheless, it is appropriate to ask whether an implication of the Spirit of truth leading us deeper into the truth of the love of God is that we are also led into new dimensions of understanding humanity or who we are as people. In Johannine thought, especially in the context of 1 John, the love of God is always connected to our love for one another (e.g. 4:10-12, 19-21).

Thus in a comment to the previous post, Roger Harper makes this observation:

"You make a distinction between the fuller truth of Jesus, of the love of God, and the new truth of slavery, women in leadership etc. I can't see the basis for such a distinction. The 'new' truth that Christians are not to own slaves is a fuller expression of the truth of Jesus that the love of God means that we are to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. It is even a fuller expression of the even older truth that our God liberates slaves, not only from Egypt. So it is in both your categories. The classic Biblical example and authoritative paradigm is the 'new' truth that some of God's people can eat pork. This is a fuller expression of the love of God for humanity, as well as of Jesus saying that what goes into the mouth does not defile. Also fitting well into both your categories. I hope you will include a consideration of the Council of Jerusalem etc. as an important part of what it means for us to be Spirit-led into all truth, including truth we could not bear before now.

Yes, Christians, have made terrible mistakes by not distinguishing between the spirit of the age and the Holy Spirit. That does not mean that we give up on being led by the Spirit and fall back to living under Law, Torah."

Let me both defend myself (a little) while also agreeing (a lot) with this observation.

Defend: In the context of John's Gospel, which has virtually no interest in ethics, in the day to day decisions of believers as to how they will live, it seems to force the text in an un-Johannine direction to take the promise that the Spirit will lead us into all truth to mean that over time a detailed agenda re slavery, women and homosexuality will be attended to by the Spirit, with specific revelations on each matter unveiled for future generations.

This is to say nothing of quite a lot of questions about the Spirit's rationale for, e.g. attending to slaves before women; presiding over the subjugation of slaves for centuries before finally enlightening us;  making some matters clear and agreeable to all (say, the equality of women with men) while not making other matters clear to all Christians (say, the ordination of women).

Then there is also the matter of truths which are hard to bear being the ones which will later be revealed: is the eating/not eating of pork one of those truths?

A final point here is whether on the specific matter of the issues of slavery, women and homosexuality, we need some kind of new guidance of the Spirit beyond that already found in Scripture which is very clear on anthropology (men and women made in the image of God), justice, and kindness. A new revelation of the Spirit is not needed to end slavery as a maltreatment of fellow human beings, to end oppression of women as second class humans, and to treat homosexuals kindly and fairly. To the extent to which slavery (to take just one matter) was a means of society having a class of people to undertake basic work, we remain a (now global) society which has a class of people undertaking basic work and for which we have much to do to improve conditions. The improvement of those conditions does not require a new revelation of the Spirit.

Agree: It is unquestionable that Christians pursuing with the Spirit's guidance their understanding of the height, depth, width and length of the love of God must, in time, confront the matter of what this means for human conduct in society, of obligations of discipleship in the kingdom, and of relations between brothers and sisters in the life of the church. It would have been - indeed! - too much to bear to have had some kind of detailed compendium of all future issues and their resolution presented on that night before Jesus died.

Nevertheless, to make this observation does not take us too far. It leaves us with the question of how the Spirit guides us into all truth, and the question of how we know what the guidance of the Spirit is for the church today?

As we work our way through the New Testament, we do see instances of the Spirit speaking to God's servants. Roger Harper draws our attention to the Council of Jerusalem which confronted an issue on which the earliest church was not clear in its own mind, informed as it was with the memory of Jesus' teaching and challenged as it was through special revelation to Peter and to Paul. On this matter the Council came to a common mind and issued a Spirit-led judgment which remains binding on the church to this day. Or does it? (Incidentally, for further comment on Listening to the Holy Spirit, by Roger Harper, go here).

An intriguing observation about the Jerusalem decision is that it is utterly clear about the general inclusivity of Gentiles into the gospel people of God without requirements to also become Jews. But it is not so clear in respect of the specific details re 'abstention' requirements (see any commentary). Indeed Paul himself in 1 Corinthians 10:27-29 would appear to take a more 'liberal' line on the eating of food offered to idols than the line implied in Acts 15:20.

Further lack of clarity exists on relations between women and men (Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:16 acknowledges that there might be other ways to approach the matter than the one he has just argued). In 1 Corinthians 7, discussing marriage, on one point Paul notes that he speaks without the authority of the Lord (7:12) and thus, logically, has no specific guidance from the Holy Spirit.

Incidentally, we cannot pass on from Acts 15 without a remark about the role of Scripture in the guidance of the Holy Spirit: the Council in its determination that the Holy Spirit had spoken found corroboration in Scripture (Acts 15:15-8 = Amos 9:11-12; Jeremiah 12:15; Isaiah 45:21).

In sum: in some situations it is clear what the Spirit is saying to the church, in other situations it is clear that the Spirit is offering no specific guidance for the church, while there is a third set of situations in which the guidance of the Spirit is yet subject to further consideration, even debate as to its specific applicability in the life of the church.

How do we know which is which situation? To reiterate the questions above:

How does the Spirit guide us into all truth?

How do we know what the Spirit is saying to the church today?

In Johannine terms, the Spirit guides us into all truth through recalling for us what Jesus has taught. We know the Spirit is speaking to the church today when we are called to belief in Jesus, to remain faithful to Jesus when opposition arises, that is, when we are drawn by the Spirit to die to self in order to share in the risen life of Jesus.

The best we can say beyond that on issues of the day could be this:

Where the church unites in discernment of the guidance of the Holy Spirit (compare the Council in Jerusalem, Acts 15), uniting both in what it hears the Spirit saying and in determining that this is corroborated by Scripture, the church is so guided.

Where the church is not united in discernment of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it may be that the matter is not important (i.e. adiaphora, indifferent). In Johannine terms we could think of the remarkable conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21 where it does not matter that Peter's future as a disciple is different to the future of the Beloved Disciple.

Or, it may be that the matter is not yet resolved.

Is the Spirit of truth liberal or conservative? (2)

In pursuit of the question of what John 16:12-14 means I proposed that 'the truth' which the disciples cannot now bear but which the Spirit will guide them into concerns the love of God and the God who is Love. I concluded the previous post:

"In John's Gospel disciples keep falling away from Jesus because his teaching is too tough for them. In 1 John the Christian community of love is torn apart through sectarian division.

No. We need to think a little about the love of God, the truth of which we cannot bear now but the Holy Spirit can guide us into it gently. What is the Spirit of truth telling us about the love of God?"

One of the trickier parts of the John's Gospel to understand is the reaction of some of the disciples to Jesus' teaching on the bread of life. 'When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?" (6:60). What is tricky to understand is what gives offence. Is it Jesus words about eating his fleshing and drinking his blood? (6:53) Or, is it the differentiation Jesus makes between the manna in the wilderness which sustained God's people and the living bread come down from heaven? (6:48-51) Or, is it the implication that for Jesus' flesh and blood to be heavenly food, he will have to die? Either way, Jesus makes an extraordinary and wonderful promise concerning eternal life. Yet some are not attracted by it. They find it 'difficult'. They cannot 'bear' what Jesus has to say.

Or we might delve into John 8. In the midst of a tense argument there is somewhat surprising information that 'many believed in him' (8:30). To these believers Jesus says,

'If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.' (8:31-32)

Brilliant!

Except these new believers then appear to walk back on their belief. They react badly to what Jesus has just said, denying they have ever been slaves (8:33) and resorting to counter-argument to Jesus (8:34-59). They cannot bear what Jesus has to say.

In each of the two examples above, Jesus offers a way into a deeper experience of the love of God: eat and drink me, continue in my word, thus receive eternal life and freedom. But this is too difficult for some. Why?

The answer, ultimately, lies in a moment in John's Gospel when what is said intersects precisely with Synoptic Gospels' teaching on discipleship.

'The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.' (John 12:23-26a; cf Matt 10:39; Mark 8:3; Luke 9:24; 14:26).
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True disciples die to themselves.They crucify their selfish, sinful, ego-centric way of life. Metaphorically (and sometimes literally) they die with Christ on the cross and rise to eternal life. This is demanding, uncompromising, and difficult.

The love of God draw us to God, who is revealed not to have love as an attractive attribute but to be Love itself (or, better, Love himself). But this love is not about us as though God is saying 'Have some love. Your life will then be complete.' That is the way advertisers sell new TVs, holidays in the tropics and beauty enhancing products. God is a little different!

God's love is about God. His love for us is not a gift to us to enhance our lives. His love for us is a gift to himself because it draws us into himself who (it turns out in the fullness of the revelation of God) is  Father Son and Holy Spirit, One in love. Eternal life is inclusion in the Godhead of love through Christ.

This drawing into God involves death to self. 'Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.' This is the hardest truth, the reason why the disciples who found Jesus' teaching difficult turned away.

What then does Jesus mean when he says, 'I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now'? These things are about the character of discipleship in relation to the love of God. The gospel is a message which is simultaneously a No and a Yes. A No to self and a Yes to God. It will always be opposed and often rejected, and the disciples with it. A hard road lies ahead for those sent by Jesus as the Father has sent him (John 20:21). The Spirit of truth's revelation of those things which 'you cannot bear now' includes 'the things that are to come' (16:12). The future of discipleship is suffering. Jesus mercifully spares his disciples the details as they struggle to absorb the impact of their master's own impending departure as the grain of wheat which falls to the ground.

In this way the revelation of 'all the truth' which Jesus promises through the Spirit is not a revelation of new truths (as many take it, so we now have new truths about slavery, about women, and, today, about homosexuality) but a revelation of the full extent of the truth already revealed by Jesus.

Indeed John's Gospel itself is a fulfilment of this promise. But let's stop there for today and come back to that matter another day.