God's language: listening, communicating, acting
“I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.”
In the beginning, God spoke and things came into being. He created human beings with whom he could speak, but though they could understand him they failed to obey him. As human beings multiplied they had a common language; they spoke to each other and made plans to build a great tower. But because they had stopped listening to God’s language, the result was confusion, misunderstanding and scattering. This situation remains today.
The task of theology should be to learn and understand the language of God, so that we can communicate with him, live within the parameters of his intended structures of the universe, and engage with truth, love and hope with other people. Sadly however, the church is often characterised either by no theology, wrong theology or an intellectualised and irrelevant theology.
For example, the erroneous theological thinking behind the Church of England’s Living in Love and Faith project has been met in some quarters by a complete lack of theological engagement, and in others by a dry re-statement of orthodoxy without practical guidance in how to live and what to do in terms of the future of the church. This might be compared to Brits living in Spain and never having learned Spanish, or knowing something of the language but refusing to engage with and follow Spain’s laws and customs, or being interested in the details of syntax and grammar but never actually making friends and communicating with Spanish people.
Thankfully, just as there are some Brits living in Spain who know and use Spanish, so there are faithful Anglicans, clergy and laity, who are learning to think and speak the language of God, to communicate it to others, and to bring it to bear on contemporary vexing issues such as sexual ethics and safeguarding. Gafcon GBE have been at the heart of this process, working with CEEC and the Alliance, the Anglican Network in Europe, as well as global orthodox Anglican leaders in Gafcon and GSFA.
What’s it like to know the language of God? The amazing long poem Psalm 119 tells us, celebrating different facets of God’s communication with us. While it’s about one faithful believer’s relationship with the word of God, it’s ‘bigger picture’ than that. It expresses, with power and personal feeling, the biblical wordview: God exists, he has spoken, he has revealed, he calls for repentance, faith, love and obedience, graciously he saves and brings into an everlasting relationship which is sustained by him and his word. Psalm 119 presents the word of God as essential, instructive, morally perfect, trustworthy, and also enjoyable. Not just a complete nutrition, but a delicious feast.
Psalm 119 begins with a general principle, similar to Psalm 1: those who walk according to God’s law, and who keep his commandments are “blessed”. Then in verse 5 the author intervenes with an expression of emotion and personal application:
“Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!”
Similarly in verse 9 there is the objective principle (communicated in question-and-answer form), that a young person can stay on the path of holiness and purity by living according to God’s word. This is followed in verse 10 by the personal application:
“I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands”.
In these examples the writer sets out the standard of God’s word, and then engages with it personally:
- I feel unworthy and unable to live this way consistently! As the Psalm unfolds, this leads to marvelling in God’s grace and salvation.
- God’s precepts are not separate from personal relationship with him. As we delight in him, he helps us to obey and live in this way.
- Learning about God’s character and standards is never an end in itself; it should never be an academic exercise, or even just about personal enrichment.
- “I” can decide to do something, to hear and speak God’s language and put it into practice.
Further to this last point, the idea of the modern self wasn’t invented when Descartes said “I think therefore I am” in the 17th century.
The psalmist clearly has agency and a unique identity as an individual when he says in Psalm 119:14-15:
“I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.”
The “I” has been created by God, not to exalt myself as a mini god (the doctrine of “expressive individualism”), nor to suppress my individuality as a cog in the machine, an unimportant part of a corporate whole. The biblical doctrine is: “I have been created by God to be in relationship with him, therefore in him I am”!
Because theology involves the understanding and putting into practice of God’s word, so it means the inward activities of personal reflection, chewing over, feeling, and also the outward:
“With my lips I recount all the words that come from your mouth (v13)…I will speak of your statutes before kings” (v46).
At a time when God’s Word is being twisted and openly disobeyed in the church, and ignored in the world with disastrous consequences, we need to be those who are familiar with the language of God as our mother tongue, the thinking of our hearts – and those who will not be afraid to express these principles and specific communications to those around us, even those higher in social standing and/or supposedly more learned.
“In the beginning was the Word… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” John 1:1,14.
When we affirm that, ultimately, God’s communication to us is Jesus, we don’t mean what revisionist theologians often say – that Jesus is “the Word” but the Bible is unreliable! As Gafcon’s Jerusalem Statement reminds us, false theology “undermines the authority of God’s Word written and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of salvation from sin, death and judgement.” On the other hand, faithful theology rests on knowing about God, living according to his precepts, and union with Christ are indivisible. As the JS puts it:
“…the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it.”