Titus 2:11-14: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
See how grace works here? It is the grace itself that “brings salvation”, “trains us”. Christ “gave himself” “to redeem us” and “to purify” us. It is God’s initiative that brings Christ in grace, and with Him, all these good things.
Later in that same letter:
Titus 3:3-6: For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior…
Again, we were not worthy at all, at which time the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, and he saved us, according to his own mercy.
1 Clement, as we shall see, while using some Paul-like language, sees grace merely as an “opportunity for repentence”.
The Letter of First Clement
Torrance introduces the letter of First Clement with these words:
There seems little doubt that in the early church huge numbers came over to the Christian faith not because they found in Jesus Christ a Gospel of Salvation but because they found there an authoritative word and a pure and lofty faith, before which their own cults simply crumpled up (44).
Thus, converts come part way, not all the way to Christianity (44).
All the evidence we have indicates that such was the case with the second century Christians. The Gospel was so overwhelmingly new that it was rarely grasped. [After the departure of the Apostles], Christianity came to mean primarily a faith in the Eternal God who was good and kind and just to all, and with whom there was no respect of persons. In fact, it was a kind of universalized Judaism, in which “the person of Christ is overshadowed and set into the background by the person of the Divine Ruler” (Torrance is here citing Bousset, Kyrios Christos, pg 292)
It is perhaps in this light that we may best approach the theological position of First Clement. Christ comes often into the purview of our author, and much more so than in The Shepherd of Hermas or the Didache, and moreover, there is some real warmth about his Christianity, but there is also manifest a real default in the apprehension of Christ as Mediator. Christ is certainly the Way to an immortal knowledge of God, but it is the immortal knowledge that is of ultimate significance (44-45).
At this point, where some may talk of “the voices of the Apostles ringing in their ears”, consider something that Thomas Robinson writes of Ignatius in 107 AD: “There probably were fourth-generation Christians” in Rome, in 96 AD. “The church was established there in the first decade of the Christian movement”, in the 30’s (see my comments on Andronicus), probably beginning about 65 years before this letter was written. If the Apostles who visited Rome died in the mid 60’s, we are still 30+ years down the road from that. And if this is the same Clement who was mentioned in Philippians 4:3, we are talking about a man who, if he was 20 when he knew Paul in 60 AD, is now in his 50’s. Life was brutally short for a lot of people in those days, and given that “Clement” isn’t even mentioned in this letter, it is definitely “not inconsistent” with these facts to think that we are talking with an entirely different Clement. It is certainly “not inconsistent” to think that there were third- and fourth-generation Christians both in Rome and in Corinth at the time.
Torrance points to 1 Clement 32:1-2 in a footnote here, and says, “Clement’s own summary of the letter is significant here (citing all of Chapter 62):
We have now written to you, brethren, sufficiently touching the things which befit our worship, and are most helpful for a virtuous life to those who wish to guide their steps in piety and righteousness. For we have touched on every aspect of faith and repentance and true love and self-control and sobriety and patience, and reminded you that you are bound to please almighty God with holiness in righteousness and truth and long-suffering, and to live in concord, bearing no malice, in love and peace with eager gentleness, even as our Fathers, whose example we quoted, were well-pleasing towards God, the Father an Creator, and towards all men (45).
Torrance continues, “From this chapter it is clear, in the words of Mackinnon, that ‘this supreme God and Father takes the chief place in his thought.’ It is consequently characteristic of Clement to emphasise the Almightiness and Majesty of God … Over against this background is the God-fearing life in which faith is a combination of knowledge, faithful obedience and humble fear, and in which salvation is coincident with knowledge of God which gives immortality”.
It may seem as if he is here splitting hairs, but citing commentators like Lightfoot and Moody, he says, “‘when the mind is absorbed in the thought of the true God as Creator and Provider, much that is of importance in the Christian religion is apt to be neglected or misconceived.’ That is what has happened in this epistle.”
Thus he says, “much use is made of Pauline expressions, and once Clement actually speaks of faith in Christ (22:1), but nevertheless there is no doubt that faith pertains “not so much to the person of Christ as to Christ’s precepts”, and the real object of faith is God alone. Accordingly, it is difficult to see any place for Christ in the Christian salvation beyond that of a preacher of the “grace of repentance”.
While allowing that 7.4 “reminds us of St. Paul”, Torrance says, “this seems to teach a doctrine of objective atonement, but the statement is very indefinite, and varying constructions have been put upon it with some degree of plausibility.” He continues that in this verse, “What Christ’s death is said to procure is not atonement, but an opportunity for repentance.”
1 Clement 22:1: “Take care, dear friends, lest his many benefits turn into a judgment upon all of us, as will happen if we fail to live worthily of Him and to do harmoniously those things that are good and pleasing in his sight”.
1 Clement 7:4: “Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ and understand how precious it is to his Father, because, being poured out for our salvation, it won for the whole world the grace of repentance.”
At the point at which “the grace of repentance” has been won for the whole world, there is something still left to be done, and it is incumbent upon Clement’s “dear friends” to avoid that “judgment” of God. Compare this, again with Titus (quoted above), in which “It is the grace itself that ‘brings salvation’, ‘trains us’. Christ ‘gave himself’ ‘to redeem us’ and ‘to purify’ us. It is God’s initiative that brings Christ in grace, and with Him, all these good things.”
The “divine initiative” is missing in Clement, and all is dependent upon the initiative of his readers. Clement virtually identifies μετανοίας χάριν [the grace of repentance, which is freely given] with μετανοίας τόπον [the place or opportunity for repentance, something in which “ye must…”]. He says that another writer is “doubtless right in arguing that his interest is no longer attached to the atonement made once for all, the justification in principle…” and further, is suggesting that it gives a ‘subjective and ethical turn to the Cross ‘going direct to the kernel of the matter, to the salutary impression of the death of Christ upon the human heart” (46-47).
In this usage, see 8.1, 8.5:
The ministers of the grace of God spoke about repentance through the Holy Spirit; … seeing, then, that he desires all his beloved to participate in repentance, he established it by an act of his almighty will.
It is a possibility. God wants you to participate; you must go get it.
Also, 30:3:
Let us therefore join with those to whom grace is given by God”.
I.e, it is incumbent upon “us” to take some action in order to get access to the “grace given by God”.
TDNT says of 1 Clement, “’grace’ is the saving result of conversion”. In other words, you convert, and only then do you get grace. “The Christian state is the ‘yoke of his grace’ (1 Cl. 16.17: “You see, dear friends, the kind of pattern that has been given to us; for if the Lord so humbled himself, what should we do, who through him have come under the yoke of his grace?”). TDNT says, “Instruction is given on how to achieve grace by right conduct, (1 Cl. 30.2)”. In this connection one may refer to the summons to unity on the basis of the one God, the one Christ, the one Spirit of grace, the one calling to Christ (46.6)”.
Torrance gives a number of examples of where Christ’s death is mentioned, including 12.7, 16.4, 21.6. But in each of these, he says, “the death of Christ is brought in as an example, that having His death before our eyes we may have an insatiable desire to do good, and to be humble before God. But He is more than our example. He is our representative, and stands before God as our Patronus, whose name we are entitled to bear, as a helper of our weakness” (Torrance, 47).
This is all well and good, but Clement misses the point: “Christ does not only show us the way, he initiates us in the true relation to God… in the last resort therefore Clement is unable to ascribe saving significance to Christ himself. That is further evidenced by the fact that Clement falls back upon the essentially Greek idea that salvation is knowledge. Jesus is thought of as the Teacher who by word as well as example calls men to God, “from darkness to light, from ignorance to the full knowledge of the glory of His name” (59.2). (Torrance 47-48).
More to follow, Lord willing.
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