No Theology without Doxology

How do you know if you are doing theology as it should be done? In one sense it could be by asking the obvious question as to whether or not it is orthodox. Is it in step with the historic creeds and confessions of the faith? That indeed must be requisite to all attempts to faithfully articulate the teaching of Scripture, but is there more to it? And the answer to that must be ‘Yes!’

If theology in its very essence is ‘a word about God’, then sound theology cannot be divorced from the God of whom it speaks. And since in its truest form it is never merely men’s words about God born out of their own speculation, but rather their words as they are shaped and directed by God’s word, then it can never be done in detachment from the God who has spoken.

The task of theology is utterly different from that of the second year medical student systematically dissecting a cadaver to understand human anatomy. It is reverent interaction with the God whose word cannot be detached from his presence or from the fact we must one day answer to him for the words we speak about him.

This immediately raises a question over much that has been done in the name of theology in the history of the church and indeed of all human thoughts about God in their widest expression. Too often theology has been akin to talking about God as though he were ‘not in the room’. And too often the manner in which it has been done – even at times in the name of Reformed theology – has been with an academic dryness that demeans the very nature of God himself. And sadder still is when such distortions of theology are found in preaching that conveys an impression of God which contradicts all he really is.

A crucial litmus test of the authenticity of our theology is where it ultimately leads us. Since God relates to us in the totality of our being – not merely as disembodied mind or spirit – then theology will always reflect those wider dimensions. God’s purpose for the church is that she may ‘be to the praise of his glory’ (Eph 1.12). And his purpose for his people individually is that they should display ‘the likeness of God’ (Eph 4.24). Therefore what we are as the people of God is intended for his glory. But, more than that, God’s purpose in salvation is that his people should ‘declare the praises of him who called [them] out of darkness into his wonderful light’ (1Pe 2.9). The truth of God expressed through theology must ultimately lead to full-orbed doxology.

At one level such praise and honour to God is presented formally through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. The book of Psalms has provided the church of the ages with a canonical songbook. And the best of hymns and paraphrases that comprise the church’s repertoire of sung praise, although not inspired worship, are nevertheless deeply shaped by God’s truth revealed in his word and confessed by his people. So when the people of God unite their hearts and voices in song (and prayer) they give God the glory that is rightly his.

There is, however, another dimension to this doxological response to God. One that is spontaneous and not rehearsed, but equally influenced by the impact of God’s revealed truth in the lives of those who receive it. We see numerous examples of this throughout Scripture, but we see it best in the letters of Paul. As the foremost pastor-theologian of the New Testament Church expounds the great doctrines of Scripture (and becomes the Holy Spirit’s agent of the fullness of God’s revelation found in Christ) he cannot do so without bursting into praise. In a way that is neither contrived nor rehearsed, he punctuates his letters with outbursts of praise.

The greatest of these doxologies comes at the great transition point in Romans at the end of the eleventh chapter. There, in words that reach to the highest heights of God’s glory and plumb the deepest depths of human wonderment, he erupts into what is perhaps the most eloquent acknowledgement of God’s glory found anywhere in the Bible:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable his judgments,

and his paths beyond tracing out!

³⁴ “Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counsellor?”

³⁵ “Who has ever given to God,

that God should repay him?”

³⁶ For from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be the glory for ever! Amen. (Ro 11.33-36)

Having just spent the last eleven chapters expounding the sheer wonder of the gospel – from the hopeless depths of human sin and helplessness, to the unimaginable lengths to which God has gone to save sinners – the only response he can make is to utter these breath-taking words.

It is a reflex action on Paul’s part. It was not as though he had to pause and think, ‘What should I say next?’ The weight of doctrine of the gospel he had been expounding triggers a spontaneous reaction from the very depths of his being. It was an utterly appropriate response on his part. Just as, after hearing a world-class symphony, an audience has no need of prompting to give a standing ovation, or for a climber to gasp at the beauty of panorama before him, so for the apostle as he gazes over landscape of divine truth he has just traversed.

However, this spontaneity in praise in no way short-circuits the truth to which it responds. As we listen to Paul’s words we realise, for the two central clauses at least, they are almost verbatim quotations of God’s already-revealed word. In other words, the doxology he offers is shaped by the doctrine God has already placed in his people’s possession. Paul knows God will be pleased with this expression of praise because it is an echo of what God himself has spoken.

Here is theology in its richest, deepest and purest form: words about God that lead to the heartfelt, spontaneous worship of God. When the people of God are confronted with the truth of God expounded from his word, it will lead to their being ‘lost in wonder, love and praise’ for this God who is so great and so good.