Underdog Theology

Of Nice and Men

2012-01-20T11:47:00.000+08:00

By virtue of the generosity of two men, namely, Dr. D. G. Hart and Dr. R. S. Clark, I present to you this article on a perennially relevant topic that once appeared nowhere outside of the Nicotine Theological Journal. The article was featured in the October 2005 issue.

Of Nice and Men

In a recent foreword to a book advocating Norman Shepherd's peculiar brand of covenant theology, John Frame attacks some of Shepherd's critics as "stupid, irresponsible and divisive." Apparently, someone complained about Frame's lack of civility, so he issued an apology, which the publisher slipped into the front cover of the book, a sort of moral errata sheet, saying that he should not have described those (including "official statements of two small denominations,") who say that Shepherd's doctrine denies the gospel as stupid. By way of mitigation, he appeals to Calvin, "who used such expressions rather freely." He says that he knows he is risking his reputation as a "peacemaker" by using strong language.

According to Frame, some of Shepherd's critics merit condemnation, because they have not met the "extraordinary burden of proof" warranting their charge that Shepherd's doctrine of justification denies the gospel. What is the burden of proof for calling someone stupid? Presumably, one must have some objective standard, such as unsuitability (e.g., drafting an elderly woman to be a major league shortstop) or unreasonable danger of harm (e.g., willfully standing in front of a moving truck). Frame does not either supply us with criteria or evidence beyond his implied syllogism: Shepherd is orthodox; intelligent people (such as Frame) can see that; ergo, those critics who question his orthodoxy must be stupid. The reader will be excused for doubting the soundness of the syllogism. The first premise is the very one in question.

Did Calvin meet Frame's "extraordinary burden of proof"? After all, in his commentary on Galatians, Calvin described the Roman doctrine of justification as "another gospel." Yet, official Roman doctrine affirms everything Frame has (and selectively quotes) Shepherd as saying on justification. Frame might object that Rome vitiates the good in their doctrine by what they add to it. Yes, and Shepherd does the same, hence the criticisms.

It is also interesting that Frame, writing as a private person, feels free to dismiss not one but two Reformed and Presbyterian denominations as "stupid, irresponsible and divisive." He mentions two grounds for this assessment: first, only two denominations have thus far spoken; second, they are small. This is not intended as a set up for a joke, but how many Presbyterian denominations must condemn Shepherd before Frame will reckon them as thoughtful, responsible and unifying? How large must a denomination be in order to warrant consideration? On Frame's rationale, Athanasius, who had considerably fewer supporters after Nicea than Shepherd has critics, should have been rejected. Imagine all the good the church might have done had they not spent so much energy wrangling over one iota.

Beyond the doctrinal aspects of this controversy are questions about the morality of Christian rhetoric. It is becoming increasingly difficult to have a vigorous, honest, and even, manly, theological argument anymore. Frame's apology is evidence of this trend. Remarkably, the foreword appears in a book published by theonomists, not noted hitherto for delicate prose. Why should Frame apologize? He obviously believes that some of Shepherd's critics are "stupid, irresponsible and divisive." He believes it but someone thinks he should not have said it, but why not?

The attempted bridling of Frame represents an unhappy trend in Christian speech. For St Paul, the greatest virtue is "love." For contemporary Protestants, however, the greatest is "niceness." They are not the same. As a matter of rhetoric, this trend is troubling. To begin every sentence of criticism with bromides such as, "That is a very interesting and challenging point, but. . ." is tedious and condescending. It is tedious because it replaces the genuine and serious with the insubstantial and sometimes insincere. I doubt that Augustine ever began a sentence, "Pelagius is a very creative and thoughtful theologian, but . . ." He did not say it because he did not believe it. Augustine thought Pelagius a threat to the welfare of souls and he said so (and no, I am not comparing Shepherd or Frame to Pelagius). Because of the power, truth, and passion of his criticisms of Pelagius – he called him "blind" and "deceitful"– they hold up and continue to command our attention. Phony chumminess hardly deserves attention now let alone 1,500 years from now.

Some would have it that Frame's language is immoral because it may damage the subject. More thoughtful thought police argue that such speech is wrong because it devalues the humanity of the subject. To the contrary, sometimes strong language actually affirms the humanity of the subject. It is because humans are made in God's image and endowed with a rational soul, that one expects certain things of them.

The sort of Protestant niceness operating now is morally problematic because it threatens to place the Christian above Christ and the apostles. As Frame himself indicates, rhetoric of the type so objectionable today is a part of the biblical pattern for dealing with doctrinal and moral error. Our Lord used quite pointed language about the enemies of the kingdom. Jesus attacked them as "hypocrites," (Matt 23:13), sons "of hell" (v.15) and "fools," (v.17), this from him who issued the command against calling someone a "fool" in (Matt 5:22). St. Paul warned the Philippians to "watch out for the dogs," (3:2), i.e., for the Judaizing legalists who were corrupting the gospel. What burden of proof did Paul meet before he wrote? (Hint: "Inspiration" is cheating.) Was he "divisive"? In Paul's context, "dog" was rather worse than "stupid."

It is uncertain exactly what Frame's burden of proof is, but I think the apostle has met a reasonable burden of proof. He already established that Christ is the ground of our righteousness (Phil 2:5-10). He justifies his description by contrasting the Judaizing arrogance with Christian trust in Christ's finished work (3:3). The attempt to supplement Christ's obedience with their own deserved an ironic rebuke. The Judaizers were "dogs." They made unclean (the justified) what was already clean. They considered the uncircumcised "unclean," but in reality they were corrupting the gospel, and so unclean and worthy of the denunciation, "dogs." Like the Judaizers, Shepherd has repeatedly and publicly rejected the biblical doctrine that faith justifies solely because it trusts Christ. It is hard to see why it is stupid to conclude that Shepherd denies the gospel.

Frame may not agree that Shepherd is teaching another gospel, but if a minister is convinced that Shepherd is indeed committing a grievous and harmful error (like that of Gal 1:7-9), he is duty bound to warn the church. If a minister fails to discharge his sworn duty before God and the church, he will be guilty of something worse than stupidity.

R. S. Clark

All Things Every Year

2012-01-19T14:25:00.002+08:00

I began last year, 2011, with some reflections on divine providence.

I was full of care at the time, especially in the area of material provision, but God saw us through. The piece of real estate that I was selling finally got sold to good people, and our youngest, Cauvin Caleb Antonio Cruz, was born in August, big and healthy. I even got promoted at work! The year ended with a big smile on my face.

This year, 2012, I expect divine providence to be no different.

Allow me to share with you this absolutely edifying piece from John MacDuff (1818-1895) entitled, The Greatest Gift:

"He who spared not His own Son — but delivered him up for us all; how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" Romans 8:32

These are amazing words! God — the Infinite God — identifying Himself (so to speak) with the experiences of human sorrow; silencing every murmur with the unanswerable argument "I spared not my own Son. I gave my greatest gift for you! Will you not cheerfully surrender your best to Me? Can you refuse to trust Me in lesser things — after this unspeakable gift of My love? My greater gift is surely be a pledge for My bestowment of all needed subordinate good!"

He promised to give "all things" — and these "all things" are in His hand. They will be selected and allotted by His loving wisdom: crosses — as well as comforts; sorrows and tears — as well as smiles and joys. Mourning one, this very trial which now dims your eye, is one of these "all things." Trust His faithfulness. He would as soon wound the Son of His love — as wound you!

"Will not God, who gave us His beloved Son — also give us all lesser things?" There is a "blessed impossibility," after the bestowment of the Gift of Gifts, that He will inflict one unnecessary trial, or withhold one needed benefit! Think of His love when He offered His beloved Isaac on the cruel altar. It is the same at this hour, infinite and immutable! Yes! We may well be reconciled, even to the denial of any earthly blessedness, because all is ordered by Him who gave Jesus to die for us! Lying meekly in the arms of His mercy, be it ours to say in filial confidence, "Lord, anything with Your love; anything but Your frown!"

"All things." The whole range of human needs and necessities is known to Him. The care He invites me to cast upon Him — is "all my care"; the need "all my need!" This is His own special promise. "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." He will give me nothing, and deny me nothing — but what is for my good! Let me not question the appointments of infinite wisdom. Let me not wound Him by one dishonoring doubt. Let me lean upon Him in little things — as well as in great things. After the pledge of His love in Jesus, nothing can come wrong — which comes from His hands! If tempted at times to harbor some unkind misgivings, let the sight of the cross dispel it. Looking to the Rainbow in the cloud gleaming with the words, "He loved me — and gave Himself for me!" be it mine to say:

Lord, though You bend my spirit low,
Love only will I see;
The very hand that strikes the blow,
Was wounded once for me.

Clement of Alexandria: Real Men Are Scruffy

2011-12-15T15:41:00.000+08:00

It pleases me to read of an eminent Early Church Father echoing my very same sentiments. :-)

To such an extent, then, has luxury advanced, that not only are the female sex deranged about this frivolous pursuit, but men also are infected with the disease. For not being free of the love of finery, they are not in health; but inclining to voluptuousness, they become effeminate, cutting their hair in an ungentlemanlike and meretricious way, clothed in fine and transparent garments, chewing mastich, smelling of perfume. What can one say on seeing them? Like one who judges people by their foreheads, he will divine them to be adulterers and effeminate, addicted to both kinds of venery, haters of hair, destitute of hair, detesting the bloom of manliness, and adorning their locks like women. "Living for unholy acts of audacity, these fickle wretches do reckless and nefarious deeds," says the Sibyl. For their service the towns are full of those who take out hair by pitch-plasters, shave, and pluck out hairs from these womanish creatures. And shops are erected and opened everywhere; and adepts at this meretricious fornication make a deal of money openly by those who plaster themselves, and give their hair to be pulled out in all ways by those who make it their trade, feeling no shame before the onlookers or those who approach, nor before themselves, being men. Such are those addicted to base passions, whose whole body is made smooth by the violent tuggings of pitch-plasters. It is utterly impossible to get beyond such effrontery. If nothing is left undone by them, neither shall anything be left unspoken by me. Diogenes, when he was being sold, chiding like a teacher one of these degenerate creatures, said very manfully, "Come, youngster, buy for yourself a man," chastising his meretriciousness by an ambiguous speech. But for those who are men to shave and smooth themselves, how ignoble! As for dyeing of hair, and anointing of grey locks, and dyeing them yellow, these are practices of abandoned effeminates; and their feminine combing of themselves is a thing to be let alone. For they think, that like serpents they divest themselves of the old age of their head by painting and renovating themselves. But though they do doctor the hair cleverly, they will not escape wrinkles, nor will they elude death by tricking time. For it is not dreadful, it is not dreadful to appear old, when you are not able to shut your eyes to the fact that you are so.

The more, then, a man hastes to the end, the more truly venerable is he, having God alone as his senior, since He is the eternal aged One, He who is older than all things. Prophecy has called him the "Ancient of days; and the hair of His head was as pure wool," says the prophet. "And none other," says the Lord, "can make the hair white or black." How, then, do these godless ones work in rivalry with God, or rather violently oppose Him, when they transmute the hair made white by Him? "The crown of old men is great experience," says Scripture; and the hoary hair of their countenance is the blossom of large experience. But these dishonour the reverence of age, the head covered with grey hairs. It is not, it is not possible for him to show the head true who has a fraudulent head.

"But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that ye put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man (not the hoary man, but him that is) corrupt according to deceitful lusts; and be renewed (not by dyeings and ornaments), but in the spirit of your mind; and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

But for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, to arrange his hair at the looking-glass, to shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them, how womanly! And, in truth, unless you saw them naked, you would suppose them to be women. For although not allowed to wear gold, yet out of effeminate desire they enwreath their latches and fringes with leaves of gold; or, getting certain spherical figures of the same metal made, they fasten them to their ankles, and hang them from their necks. This is a device of enervated men, who are dragged to the women's apartments, amphibious and lecherous beasts. For this is a meretricious and impious form of snare. For God wished women to be smooth, and rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane; but has adorned man, like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him, as an attribute of manhood, with shaggy breasts,--a sign this of strength and rule. So also cocks, which fight in defence of the hens, he has decked with combs, as it were helmets; and so high a value does God set on these locks, that He orders them to make their appearance on men simultaneously with discretion, and delighted with a venerable look, has honoured gravity of countenance with grey hairs. But wisdom, and discriminating judgments that are hoary with wisdom, attain maturity with time, and by the vigour of long experience give strength to old age, producing grey hairs, the admirable flower of venerable wisdom, conciliating confidence. This, then, the mark of the man, the beard, by which he is seen to be a man, is older than Eve, and is the token of the superior nature. In this God deemed it right that he should excel, and dispersed hair over man's whole body. Whatever smoothness and softness was in him He abstracted from his side when He formed the woman Eve, physically receptive, his partner in parentage, his help in household management, while he (for he had parted with all smoothness) remained a man, and shows himself man. And to him has been assigned action, as to her suffering; for what is shaggy is drier and warmer than what is smooth. Wherefore males have both more hair and more heat than females, animals that are entire than the emasculated, perfect than imperfect. It is therefore impious to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness. But the embellishment of smoothing (for I am warned by the Word), if it is to attract men, is the act of an effeminate person,--if to attract women, is the act of an adulterer; and both must be driven as far as possible from our society. "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered," says the Lord; those on the chin, too, are numbered, and those on the whole body. There must be therefore no plucking out, contrary to God's appointment, which has counted them in according to His will. "Know ye not yourselves," says the apostle, "that Christ Jesus is in you?" Whom, had we known as dwelling in us, I know not how we could have dared to dishonour. But the using of pitch to pluck out hair (I shrink from even mentioning the shamelessness connected with this process), and in the act of bending back and bending down, the violence done to nature's modesty by stepping out and bending backwards in shameful postures, yet the doers not ashamed of themselves, but conducting themselves without shame in the midst of the youth, and in the gymnasium, where the prowess of man is tried; the following of this unnatural practice, is it not the extreme of licentiousness? For those who engage in such practices in public will scarcely behave with modesty to any at home. Their want of shame in public attests their unbridled licentiousness in private.

For he who in the light of day denies his manhood, will prove himself manifestly a woman by night. "There shall not be," said the Word by Moses, "a harlot of the daughters of Israel; there shall not be a fornicator of the sons of Israel."

But the pitch does good, it is said. Nay, it defames, say I. No one who entertains right sentiments would wish to appear a fornicator, were he not the victim of that vice, and study to defame the beauty of his form. No one would, I say, voluntarily choose to do this. "For if God foreknew those who are called, according to His purpose, to be conformed to the image of His Son," for whose sake, according to the blessed apostle, He has appointed "Him to be the first-born among many brethren," are they not godless who treat with indignity the body which is of like form with the Lord?

The man, who would be beautiful, must adorn that which is the most beautiful thing in man, his mind, which every day he ought to exhibit in greater comeliness; and should pluck out not hairs, but lusts. I pity the boys possessed by the slave-dealers, that are decked for dishonour. But they are not treated with ignominy by themselves, but by command the wretches are adorned for base gain. But how disgusting are those who willingly practise the things to which, if compelled, they would, if they were men, die rather than do?

But life has reached this pitch of licentiousness through the wantonness of wickedness, and lasciviousness is diffused over the cities, having become law. Beside them women stand in the stews, offering their own flesh for hire for lewd pleasure, and boys, taught to deny their sex, act the part of women.

Luxury has deranged all things; it has disgraced man. A luxurious niceness seeks everything, attempts everything, forces everything, coerces nature. Men play the part of women, and women that of men, contrary to nature; women are at once wives and husbands: no passage is closed against libidinousness; and their promiscuous lechery is a public institution, and luxury is domesticated. O miserable spectacle! horrible conduct! Such are the trophies of your social licentiousness which are exhibited: the evidence of these deeds are the prostitutes. Alas for such wickedness! Besides, the wretches know not how many tragedies the uncertainty of intercourse produces. For fathers, unmindful of children of theirs that have been exposed, often without their knowledge, have intercourse with a son that has debauched himself, and daughters that are prostitutes; and licence in lust shows them to be the men that have begotten them.

These things your wise laws allow: people may sin legally; and the execrable indulgence in pleasure they call a thing indifferent. They who commit adultery against nature think themselves free from adultery. Avenging justice follows their audacious deeds, and, dragging on themselves inevitable calamity, they purchase death for a small sum of money. The miserable dealers in these wares sail, bringing a cargo of fornication, like wine or oil; and others, far more wretched, traffic in pleasures as they do in bread and sauce, not heeding the words of Moses, "Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness."

Such was predicted of old, and the result is notorious: the whole earth has now become full of fornication and wickedness. I admire the ancient legislators of the Romans: these detested effeminacy of conduct; and the giving of the body to feminine purposes, contrary to the law of nature, they judged worthy of the extremest penalty, according to the righteousness of the law.

For it is not lawful to pluck out the beard, man's natural and noble ornament.

"A youth with his first beard: for with this, youth is most graceful."

By and by he is anointed, delighting in the beard "on which descended" the prophetic, "ointment" with which Aaron was honoured. And it becomes him who is rightly trained, on whom peace has pitched its tent, to preserve peace also with his hair.

What, then, will not women with strong propensities to lust practise, when they look on men perpetrating such enormities? Rather we ought not to call such as these men, but lewd wretches (bataloi), and effeminate (gunides), whose voices are feeble, and whose clothes are womanish both in feel and dye. And such creatures are manifestly shown to be what they are from their external appearance, their clothes, shoes, form, walk, cut of their hair, look. "For from his look shall a man be known," says the Scripture, "and from meeting a man the man is known: the dress of a man, the step of his foot, the laugh of his teeth, tell tales of him."

For these, for the most part, plucking out the rest of their hair, only dress that on the head, all but binding their locks with fillets like women. Lions glory in their shaggy hair, but are armed by their hair in the fight; and boars even are made imposing by their mane; the hunters are afraid of them when they see them bristling their hair.

"The fleecy sheep are loaded with their wool."

And their wool the loving Father has made abundant for thy use, O man, having taught thee to sheer their fleeces. Of the nations, the Celts and Scythians wear their hair long, but do not deck themselves. The bushy hair of the barbarian has something fearful in it; and its auburn (xanqon) colour threatens war, the hue being somewhat akin to blood. Both these barbarian races hate luxury. As clear witnesses will be produced by the German, the Rhine; and by the Scythian, the waggon. Sometimes the Scythian despises even the waggon: its size seems sumptuousness to the barbarian; and leaving its luxurious ease, the Scythian man leads a frugal life. For a house sufficient, and less encumbered than the waggon, he takes his horse, and mounting it, is borne where he wishes. And when faint with hunger, he asks his horse for sustenance; and he offers his veins, and supplies his master with all he possesses--his blood. To the nomad the horse is at once conveyance and sustenance; and the warlike youth of the Arabians (these are other nomads) are mounted on camels. They sit on breeding camels; and these feed and run at the same time, carrying their masters the whilst, and bear the house with them. And if drink fail the barbarians, they milk them; and after that their food is spent, they do not spare even their blood, as is reported of furious wolves. And these, gentler than the barbarians, when injured, bear no remembrance of the wrong, but sweep bravely over the desert, carrying and nourishing their masters at the same time.

Perish, then, the savage beasts whose food is blood! For it is unlawful for men, whose body is nothing but flesh elaborated of blood, to touch blood. For human blood has become a partaker of the Word: it is a participant of grace by the Spirit; and if any one injure him, he will not escape unnoticed. Man may, though naked in body, address the Lord. But I approve the simplicity of the barbarians: loving an unencumbered life, the barbarians have abandoned luxury. Such the Lord calls us to be--naked of finery, naked of vanity, wrenched from our sins, bearing only the wood of life, aiming only at salvation. (Clement of Alexandria, Chapter 3. Against Men Who Embellish Themselves, The Instructor [Paedagogus])

What Consumes You?

2011-12-14T14:55:00.003+08:00

It's been a while since my last post and I have an inkling (as far as my knowledge of my own heart is concerned) as to the reason. You see, I recently acquired an iPod touch 4G and I haven't been able to put it down. It seems that Apple's reputation is indeed well-deserved! There's just something about the look, feel, and functionality of these gadgets that make you want to incessantly poke at them. LOL.

With that said, I want things to go back to the way they were. I want to get back to the raw and organic. To the shuffling of paper on my fingers, the digging deep into the thoughts of the Reformed thinkers whom I esteem, and to the reflection on the insights gained through the former via this blog.

These words by John Owen helped me rekindle the flames:

"The souls of men do naturally seek something to rest and repose themselves upon, — something to satiate and delight themselves withal, with which they [may] hold communion; and there are two ways whereby men proceed in the pursuit of what they so aim at. Some set before them some certain end, — perhaps pleasure, profit, or, in religion itself, acceptance with God; others seek after some end, but without any certainty, pleasing themselves now with one path, now with another, with various thoughts and ways, like them, Isa. lvii. 10 — because something comes in by the life of the hand, they give not over though weary. In what condition soever you may be (either in greediness pursuing some certain end, be it secular or religious; or wandering away in your own imaginations, wearying yourselves in the largeness of your ways), compare a little what you aim at, or what you do, with what you have already heard of Jesus Christ: if any thing you design be like to him, if any thing you desire be equal to him, let him be rejected as one that has neither form nor comeliness in him; but if, indeed, all your ways be but vanity and vexation of spirit, in comparison of him, why do you spend your 'money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not?'

You that are yet in the flower of your days, full of health and strength, and, with all the vigour of your spirits, do pursue some one thing, some another, consider, I pray, what are all your beloveds to this Beloved? What have you gotten by them? Let us see the peace, quietness, assurance of everlasting blessedness that they have given you? Their paths are crooked paths, whoever goes in them shall not know peace. Behold here a fit object for your choicest affections, — one in whom you may find rest to your souls, — one in whom there is nothing will grieve and trouble you to eternity. Behold, he stands at the door of your souls, and knocks: O reject him not, lest you seek him and find him not! Pray study him a little; you love him not, because you know him not. Why does one of you spend his time in idleness and folly, and wasting of precious time, perhaps debauchedly? Why does another associate and assemble himself with them that scoff at religion and the things of God? Merely because you know not our dear Lord Jesus. Oh, when he shall reveal himself to you, and tell you he is Jesus whom you have slighted and refused, how will it break your hearts, and make you mourn like a dove, that you have neglected him! and if you never come to know him, it had been better you had never been. Whilst it is called Today, then, harden not your hearts.

You that are, perhaps, seeking earnestly after a righteousness, and are religious persons, consider a little with yourselves, — has Christ his due place in your hearts? is he your all? does he dwell in your thoughts? do you know him in his excellency and desirableness? do you indeed account all things 'loss and dung' for his exceeding excellency? or rather, do you prefer almost any thing in the world before it? But more of these things afterward." (Of Communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost)

Calvin and the American Shorthair

2011-11-22T17:21:00.003+08:00

I recently got myself an American Shorthair. Animal-world.com describes it as "a natural breed of cat that is as American as baseball and apple pie."

The impetus behind the acquisition is rats! We've been seeing rat activity, and though our home is kept quite clean, still these pesky rodents always seem to manage to rear their ugly heads. The ASH is the perfect breed for the job. Originally bred as ratters, they are the consummate "working cat."

I got my male at 2 months old, and though he won't be doing rat-murdering any time soon, the fact that my wife and kids absolutely adore him now makes the waiting all worthwhile. Tom the Terrible also functions in the way John Calvin describes in the ff:

"It is evident that all creatures, from those in the firmament to those which are in the center of the earth, are able to act as witnesses and messengers of his glory to all men; to draw them to seek God, and after having found him, to meditate upon him and to render him the homage befitting his dignity as so good, so mighty, so wise a Lord who is eternal; yea, they are even capable of aiding every man wherever he is in this quest. For the little birds that sing, sing of God; the beasts clamor for him; the elements dread him, the mountains echo him, the fountains and flowing waters cast their glances at him, and the grass and flowers laugh before him. Truly there is no need for long searching, since everyone could find him in himself, because every one of us is sustained and preserved by his power which is in us." (Preface to Pierre Robert Olivetan's New Testament [1534], 59-60)

John Owen on the Priority of Justification

2011-11-17T18:59:00.000+08:00

The following by John Owen, in his work entitled The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, has been cited as proof of his holding to the priority of mystical/existential union as over and against the priority of justification:

"The foundation of the imputation asserted is union. Hereof there are many grounds and causes, as has been declared; but that which we have immediate respect unto, as the foundation of this imputation, is that whereby the Lord Christ and believers do actually coalesce into one mystical person. This is by the Holy Spirit inhabiting in him as the head of the church in all fullness, and in all believers according to their measure, whereby they become members of his mystical body. That there is such a union between Christ and believers is the faith of the catholic church, and has been so in all ages. Those who seem in our days to deny it, or question it, either know not what they say, or their minds are influenced by their doctrine who deny the divine persons of the Son and of the Spirit. Upon supposition of this union, reason will grant the imputation pleaded for to be reasonable; at least, that there is such a peculiar ground for it as is not to be exemplified in any things natural or political among men."

It is sound to consider the mention of imputation as referring to justification, as Francis Turretin himself states:

"Thus the imputation of righteousness is the foundation and meritorious cause of justification" (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, II.16.4.5).

But a preceding passage has Owen clarifying as to what aspect of union with Christ he was actually referring to:

"The first spring or cause of this union, and of all the other causes of it, lies in that eternal compact that was between the Father and the Son concerning the recovery and salvation of fallen mankind. Herein, among other things, as the effects thereof, the assumption of our nature (the foundation of this union) was designed. The nature and terms of this compact, counsel, and agreement, I have declared elsewhere; and therefore must not here again insist upon it. But the relation between Christ and the church, proceeding from hence, and so being an effect of infinite wisdom, in the counsel of the Father and Son, to be made effectual by the Holy Spirit, must be distinguished from all other unions or relations whatever."

In other words, Owen was stating that justification and its attendant benefits are the Christian's by virtue of their antecedent decretal (pactum salutis) and federal (historia salutis) union with Christ. He was really not referring to mystical/existential union, which is predicated upon justification by faith.

In another place on the same work, Owen further prioritizes justification:

"The plain truth is, the apostle speaks not one word of the necessity of our sanctification, or regeneration, or renovation by the Holy Ghost, antecedently unto our justification; a supposition whereof contains the whole force of this argument. Indeed he assigns our regeneration, renovation, and justification, all the means of our salvation, all equally unto grace and mercy, in opposition unto any works of our own; which we shall afterwards make use of. Nor is there intimated by him any order of precedency or connection between the things that he mentions, but only between justification and adoption, justification having the priority in order of nature: 'That, being justified by his grace, we should be heirs according to the hope of eternal life.' All the things he mentions are inseparable. No man is regenerate or renewed by the Holy Ghost, but withal he is justified; — no man is justified, but withal he is renewed by the Holy Ghost. And they are all of them equally of sovereign grace in God, in opposition unto any works of righteousness that we have wrought. And we plead for the freedom of God’s grace in sanctification no less than in justification. But that it is necessary that we should be sanctified, that we may be justified before God, who justifies the ungodly, the apostle says not in this place, nor any thing to that purpose; neither yet, if he did so, would it at all prove that the signification of that expression 'to be justified,' is 'to be sanctified,' or to have inherent holiness and righteousness wrought in us: and these testimonies would not have been produced to prove it, wherein these things are so expressly distinguished, but that there are none to be found of more force or evidence."

Michael Horton adds regarding the relationship of union with Christ to justification:

"Union with Christ is not to be understood as a 'moment' in the application of salvation to believers. Rather, it is a way of speaking about the way in which believers share in Christ in eternity (by election), in past history (by redemption), in the present (by effectual calling, justification, and sanctification), and in the future (by glorification). Nevertheless, our subjective inclusion in Christ occurs when the Spirit calls us effectually to Christ and gives us the faith to cling to him for all of his riches...Establishing the legal basis of this new relationship, union with Christ is first of all forensic...Taking root in the forensic soil of justification, from which it derives its effective power as well as its legal basis, union with Christ produces the life of Christ within believers, which bears the fruit of righteousness." (The Christian Faith, 587, 597)

Westminster Wednesday: Vos on the Priority of Justification in Mystical Union

2011-11-16T16:55:00.000+08:00

Couldn't be more black and white:

"Naturally the problem becomes most accentuated where it touches the center of Paul's teaching. This, we may still insist, is the doctrine of justification. Recent attempts to dislodge it from this position, and to make the mystical aspect of the believer's relation to Christ, as mediated by the Spirit, entirely coordinated with it—so that each of the two covers the entire range of religious experience, and becomes in reality a duplicate of the other in a different sphere—we cannot recognize as correct from the apostle's own point of view. In our opinion Paul consciously and consistently subordinated the mystical aspect of the relation to Christ to the forensic one. Paul's mind was to such an extent forensically oriented that he regarded the entire complex of subjective spiritual changes that take place in the believer and of subjective spiritual blessings enjoyed by the believer as the direct outcome of the forensic work of Christ applied in justification. The mystical is based on the forensic, not the forensic on the mystical" (Geerhardus Vos, The Alleged Legalism in Paul's Doctrine of Justification, The Princeton Theological Review 1:161-179 [1903]).

Francis Turretin basically echoes Vos here.

Liquid Tension Experiment and Michael Horton on Grace

2011-11-14T15:34:00.000+08:00

Liquid Tension Experiment's State of Grace.

Westminster Wednesday: Intrusion Ethics

2011-11-09T14:37:00.000+08:00

The Decalogue is Moral Law (henceforth, "Law"). It is the expression of God's moral will and is binding on every human being by virtue of the Covenant of Creation. When the reprobate is judged on the Last Day, he will be judged by virtue of his inability and failure to keep the Law perfectly, whereas the elect will be judged as righteous (keeper of the Covenant) by virtue of his union with Christ (the One who obeyed the Law perfectly for the elect and bore the penalty of their failure to keep it in the same way).

Given the binding nature of the Law (as an agent of damnation for the reprobate and as the means of manifesting existentially one's union with Christ through obedience for the elect), the particular instances in the Old Testament of seeming contraventions to it may cause confusion to some. What of the Canaanite genocide? Rahab's lie? Etc. Aren't these instances of the Law being broken, with God giving approval? This is where Meredith Kline's notion of "intrusion ethics" comes into play.

Developing on Geerhardus Vos' biblical theology (notably its deeply eschatological character) and Cornelius Van Til's ethics (notably "common grace"), Kline proposes that these instances of seeming law-breaking in the O.T. were actually in-breakings of the consummation (future kingdom) in the context of redemptive history that was functioning typologically.

So, in fact, the massacre of the Canaanites was a type of the future judgment and destruction of all the reprobate in hell.

Dr. Jeong Koo Jeon, in his essay entitled Covenant Theology and Old Testament Ethics: Meredith G. Kline's Intrusion Ethics, explains :

Kline's 'intrusion ethics' is certainly startling and innovative. He published his first landmark article on the subject in 1953.1 However, there has not been much subsequent discussion on this important issue since then. Greg Bahnsen, a Reformed theonomist, provides a brief but severe criticism of Kline's intrusion ethics.'2 But his criticism fails to penetrate and understand the exact nature of Kline's thought on this relatively complicated issue. Despite Bahnsen's criticism, Elmer Smick indicates that Kline's intrusion ethics is one of the most innovative aspects of his biblical theology. "Kline has written one of his most creative essays on the ethics of consummation in contrast to the ethics of common grace. He wisely warns about the danger of our assuming the prerogative of God to abrogate the principle of common grace."3 Recognizing disparate opinions, it is the present writer's hope to explain and evaluate Kline's biblical theological rationale for his notion of 'intrusion ethics' as revealed in Old Testament history.4

I will argue that Kline's 'intrusion ethics' is the proper way of understanding Old Testament ethics, which is based on redemptive historical hermeneutics. Examining Kline's intrusion ethics, we will let Kline speak in his own words, adding some clarifications alongside the critical evaluative interaction.

A. The Eschatological Kingdom and the Idea of Intrusion

Kline's baseline presupposition in interpreting the complicated nature of Old Testament religion and ethics lies in the idea that God's ultimate design for redemptive history is the consummation and bestowal of the eschatological kingdom. The means of attaining the eschatological glorious kingdom in the prelapsarian state was 'the covenant of works' (foedus operum), while in the postlapsarian state it is 'the covenant of grace' (foedus gratiae). In a sense, eschatological vision moves back to creation, and the first Adam stood under "a covenant of works," which was the door to reach eschatological blessing. Due to the entrance of sin, the attaining of the original eschatological vision through Adam's perfect obedience to the law was canceled. The fall, however, did not delay "the consummation" because "the prospective consummation was either/or" according to the conditions prescribed in the covenant of creation. "It was either eternal glory by covenantal confirmation of original righteousness or eternal perdition by covenant-breaking repudiation of it." A realization of the curse of the covenant might have followed the fall. A gracious God, however, introduced the antithetical way to the eschatological blessing, which is the redemptive covenant in which we find the biblical rationale for the delay of judgment. "The delay was due rather to the principle and purpose of divine compassion by which a new way of arriving at the consummation was introduced, the way of redemptive covenant with common grace as its historical corollary."5

It is important to recognize in Kline's biblico-covenant hermeneutics that the role of common grace is extremely crucial to the right understanding of the complicated nature of redemptive history after the fall. In other words, a distinction between the covenants of works and grace, and common grace and special grace, are closely connected to the unfolding mystery of the eschatological kingdom which is the ultimate goal of history. In this sense, we may identify Kline's biblical hermeneutics as covenantal eschatological kingdom hermeneutics.

One of the most distinctive contributions of Reformed theology and hermeneutics for the community of Christ's church is the bold recognition that there is a distinction between common grace and saving grace. In his presuppositional apologetics, Cornelius Van Til applied this crucial distinction as one of the essential ingredients of the Christian world view. However Van Til was not clear whether common grace was covenantally arranged after the fall. As a student of Van Til, Kline even correcting and advancing his view on the issue, utilized the distinction between the covenants of common grace and saving grace as one of the key biblical hermeneutical tools. Kline addresses and captures the importance of common grace in his analysis of redemptive history, especially with respect to the proper understanding of the covenant and the eschatological kingdom. Kline notices that after the fall a gracious God introduced the common grace covenant (Gen. 3:16-19) along with the redemptive covenant (Gen. 3:15). The consummated blessings of the eternal kingdom and the curse of an eternal hell are delayed by the principle of common grace introduced after the fall. In this sense, "the delay and common grace are coterminous." Certainly, there is "the positive contribution of common grace" to the redemptive eschatological program. Common grace as God's mercy and grace provides "the field of operation for redemptive grace, and its material too." The delay in relation to common grace provides a solid historical ground for "a consummation involving an extensive revelation of the divine perfections, a glorified paradise as well as a lake of fire." Therefore, the delay is not only "the delay of mere postponement but the delay of gestation." Kline sees the common grace order within redemptive history, and it will be terminated when the ultimate judgment comes. In that respect common grace is "the antithesis of the consummation, and as such it epitomizes this world-age as one during which the consummation is abeyant."6

According to Kline, from the perspective of eschatology, common grace is the means of its delay while from the vantage point of history common grace provides an important background for the continuation of human history as well as the application of salvation to the elect. Thus, the ultimate goal of redemptive history is the execution of divine judgment represented by the dual sanctions of the eschatological blessing and curse. Its delay, due to the divine introduction of common grace as the historical playground of the application of redemption, is the biblical theological background of Kline's 'intrusion ethics.'

From this concrete biblical-theological concept of the eschatological kingdom, Kline begins to elucidate the general picture of an eschatological intrusion phenomena in redemptive history, tracing it to the Old Testament. "The Covenant of Redemption all along the line of its administration, more profoundly in the New Testament but already in the Old Testament is a coming of the Spirit, an intrusion of the power, principles, and reality of the consummation into the period of delay."7 Kline shows that the intrusion phenomena of eschatological blessing and curse under the Old Testament is vividly manifested in types and shadows. In short, it is the manifestation of eschatological realism, typologically pictured in the history of the Old Testament, especially under the Old Covenant. This intrusion of the eternal kingdom blessing and cursing was an intrusion into the realm of common grace, which is the divine means of delay of the coming of eschatological judgment through blessing and curse.

Breaking through first of all in the Old Testament period, the Intrusion finds itself in an age which is by the divine disposition of history, or, more specifically, by the divine administration of the Covenant of Redemption, an age of preparation for a later age of fulfillment and finality. Its appearing, therefore, is amid earthly forms which at once suggest, yet veil, the ultimate glory. Not to be obscured is the fact that within this temporary shell of the Intrusion there is a permanent core. The pattern of things earthly embodies realized eschatology, an actual projection of the heavenly reality. It is the consummation which, intruding into the time of delay, anticipates itself [emphasis mine].8

The eschatological kingdom which is the ultimate goal of redemptive history is pervasive in the Old Testament. Indeed, Kline's eschatological understanding of the Old Testament is nothing but a flowering and maturing of the covenant hermeneutics developed and adopted in the Reformed covenant tradition under the rubric of the distinction between the covenant of works and covenant of grace (spanning creation, fall, redemption, and consummation as already indicated).9

Alluding to Hebrews 9:23-24, Kline argues that the role of typology is essential to the proper understanding of the eschatology of the Old Testament. There are two stages in the fulfillment of the types of the Old Testament. One stage was fulfilled at the first coming of Christ, and another will be fulfilled and fully realized in the Parousia. Kline notices that the New Covenant church is still under pilgrimage, which depicts the semi-eschatological stage. So, "the apocalypse of Jesus Christ and his kingdom is still in the category of Intrusion rather than perfect consummation." This is rather clear when we see that "the present age is still characterized by common grace," which may be identified as "the epitome of the delay." We are living in the semi-eschatological stage because we are still waiting for the coming of the exalted Son of Man. Old Testament types such as "the sacrifice of the Passover lamb" were fulfilled by the first coming of Christ. The visible possession of the promised land by the covenant people as the antitype of Old Testament type, however, will be realized only in the age to come. Kline observes that the theocratic kingdom of Israel is, in a limited sense, closer to the reality of eschatological kingdom than the church under the New Covenant. "While, therefore, the Old Testament is an earlier edition of the final reality than is the present age of the new covenant, and not so intensive, it is on its own level a more extensive edition, especially when considered in its own most fully developed form, viz., the Israelite theocracy."10

The Garden of Eden, according to Kline, was an earthly projection of the heavenly kingdom and the eschatological kingdom was offered as the reward of a successful probation by the first Adam. On the other hand, Kline notices that God revealed the concrete reality of eternal heaven and hell in the postlapsarian state, and that this is shown through types and shadows. The typological kingdom in the form of Noah's ark was a most vivid and visual manifestation of the eschatological kingdom in pre-Consummation history, along with the typological kingdom of Israel, shaped and maintained in the promised land. In this respect, that the theocratic kingdom of Israel intruded into a common grace world is a vital element in comprehending intrusion ethics. Kline elaborates that the theocratic kingdom of Israel was the intrusion of the eschatological heavenly kingdom in a typological manner.

Eschatological intrusion was a feature of premessianic times as well as of the present new covenant days, even though the advent of Christ inaugurated a distinctive epoch in the whole development. There was indeed under the old covenant a comprehensive (partly realistic, partly symbolic) projection of the heavenly-eschatological domain into earth history in kingdom form in the theocratic kingdom of Israel. Heaven came to earth in supernatural realism in the phenomenon of the Glory-Spirit revealed in the sanctuary in Israel's midst. The eternal cosmic realm received symbolic expression in the land of Canaan. As is shown by the sharp distinction between this holy, theocratic, Sabbath-sanctified kingdom of Israel and the kingdoms of the common grace world around it, the special Israelite manifestation of the kingdom of heaven was indeed an intrusive phenomenon in the common grace order. Appropriately, in connection with the symbolic kingdom-intrusion under the old covenant there were also in-breakings of the power of eschatological restoration in the physical realm and anticipatory applications of the principle of final redemptive judgment in the conduct of the political life of Israel, notably in the deliverance from Egypt, the conquest of Canaan, and the restoration from exile, though also throughout the governmental-judicial provisions of the Mosaic laws.11

Bahnsen's most serious critique of Kline's intrusion ethics necessitates interacting with him and others especially on the issues of theocracy, and covenantal continuity and discontinuity, which are crucial for interpreting Old Testament eschatology and intrusion ethics. William Barker and W. Robert Godfrey summarize succinctly the heart of the problem of theonomist hermeneutics in the following manner. "Particularly, we believe it [theonomy] overemphasizes the continuities and neglects many of the discontinuities between the Old Testament and our time."12 In short, it fails to provide a hermeneutical balance between the continuity and discontinuity in relation to the Old and New Covenants, exclusively emphasizing the continuity. The brilliance of classic covenant hermeneutics, however, as developed in the Reformed tradition, has endeavored to maintain a comprehensive balance between the continuity and discontinuity of the Old and New Covenants. As a result, covenant theologians have found the reality of the eschatological kingdom as one of the most concrete reference points both for the Old and New Testaments throughout redemptive history.13

Both Kline and Bahnsen claim the influence of Geerhardus Vos and Cornelius Van Til.14 Bahnsen appeals to Vos and others to emphasize the covenantal continuity without considering the covenantal discontinuity. Certainly, Vos emphasized covenantal continuity in respect to the unique way of salvation as the covenant of grace in the postlapsarian state, including the Old Covenant. Vos, however, put the emphasis on the covenantal discontinuity between the Old and New Covenants. The covenantal discontinuity was crucial to Vos's covenant hermeneutics in expounding the Old Covenant eschatology. Vos argued that the theocratic kingdom of Israel was governed and maintained by the principle of the law, administering blessing and curse, which points to the eternal heavenly blessing and hellish curse. The obedience of Israel was not meritorious because it was applied to the continuation of symbolico-typical national blessings and curses. Meanwhile, Kline locates the corporate obedience of Israel to the covenant of law under the Old Covenant, applied to the typological theocratic kingdom blessing and curse as meritorious. This is the difference between Vos and Kline. I think Vos's approach is more suitable to the understanding of biblical revelation because the obedience of Israel at its best was never perfect. Thus I limit meritorious obedience to sinless obedience of the two Adams though it was not performed by the first Adam due to the entrance of sin. The balanced understanding of the covenantal continuity and discontinuity in Vos's biblical theology was picked up by Van Til. Van Til applied this principle to Christian theistic ethics as T. David Gordon correctly argues.15

Vos identifies the organization of Israel under the Old Covenant as a theocracy. He emphasizes that the purpose of the theocratic kingdom of Israel was not to teach ideal government in the world but to teach an absolute ideal of heavenly religion and kingdom: "The chief end for which Israel had been created was not to teach the world lessons in political economy, but in the midst of a world of paganism to teach true religion, even at the sacrifice of much secular propaganda and advantage."16

The divine intention for the theocratic kingdom of Israel was to typify the eschatological kingdom of Heaven which will be consummated in Christ. In this respect, Vos develops Old Covenant eschatology in relation to the typological kingdom of Israel:

Nor was it merely a question of teaching religion for the present world. A missionary institution the theocracy never was intended to be in its Old Testament state. The significance of the unique organization of Israel can be rightly measured only by remembering that the theocracy typified nothing short of the perfected kingdom of God, the consummate state of Heaven [emphasis mine]. In this ideal state there will be no longer any place for the distinction between church and state. The former will have absorbed the latter . . . . The fusion between the two spheres of secular and religious life is strikingly expressed by the divine promise that Israel will be made 'a kingdom of priests and an holy nation' [Ex. 19:6]. As priests they are in, nay, constitute the kingdom.17

Van Til, following the footsteps of Vos's biblical theology, recognizes the typological and temporal nature of the theocratic kingdom of Israel. The presence of the theocratic kingdom of Israel, argues Van Til, justifies the eschatological interpretation of the Old Covenant. The theocratic kingdom of Israel is not a model for earthly nations, but a type of the eschatological heavenly kingdom.

Furthermore, if the severities of the Old Testament but establish the absoluteness of its ethical ideal, its concessions do not compromise it. In order to understand the nature of these concessions we must call to mind the distinction we have drawn between the ultimate and the more immediate goal that God has set before his people. The theocracy itself is only a stepping stone to a higher theocracy [emphasis mine]. Even if it had been fully realized, according to the ordinances of God given for it, it would have had, in the whole history of redemption, only a temporary significance. By that we do not mean an unimportant significance. We mean the significance that childhood has for maturity.18

Van Til's recognition of the typological character of the theocratic kingdom of Israel led him to read Old Testament theistic ethics with redemptive historical sensitivity and development.

What we do actually find then in the Old Testament corresponds to what we expect to find. We actually find that there is a gradual development in the clarity with which the final or ultimate ethical ideal is seen. There is a gradual development in the realization that the ethical ideal is absolutely comprehensive and that its final accomplishment lies in the far distant future . . . . God treats his children in an infinitely wise way. He sets before them at the early stages of the revelation of himself immediate objectives, without intimating clearly that they are but stepping stones to a higher and even to an ultimate ideal [emphasis mine]. This is a pedagogical measure only. If it were not a pedagogical measure only there would be a flat contradiction in Old Testament ethics.19

However, this redemptive historical understanding of the theocratic kingdom of Israel is generally lacking in theonomy, and in particular in Greg Bahnsen's thought. Bahnsen fails to read eschatology under the Old Covenant because he sees only continuity between the Old and New Covenants. This similar problem has been seen in Murray's biblico-systematic theology. John Murray tried to apply Vosian biblical theology to his systematic theology. However, he tried to revise the classic covenant theology in respect to the original covenant of works and the Mosaic covenant. His rejection of the covenant of works (replacing it as an "Adamic administration") and the exclusive emphasis on the covenantal continuity between the Old and New Covenants have provided great confusion to his followers.20

In this way, Bahnsen's theonomic vision is not compatible with Vos and Van Til as Gordon correctly realizes.21 Bahnsen's understanding of theocracy does not grasp eschatology under the Old Covenant because he does not see the uniqueness of theocracy, which is radically different from nations under the common grace realm. In essence then, he misses an important concept of redemptive historical understanding in respect to the typological kingdom of Israel.

In this prosperity that the gospel has been assured by God's sovereign word there is the indication that the Older Testament 'theocracy' is now a 'Christocracy' intended to become world-wide in its scope . . . . In its simplest form, a 'theo-cracy' would be the rule of God in a particular country that is, the moral rule of God (for in the sense of God's sovereign, providential government of whatsoever comes to pass in history everything would be 'theocratic,' and it would serve no useful distinction to use the word). Hence a 'Christocracy' would be the moral (i.e., Messianic, in distinction from sovereign or providential) rule of Jesus Christ. In this sense the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20) intends for the nations to become a Christocracy.22

Likewise, Bahnsen fails to understand the unique character of the typological kingdom of Israel in redemptive history which points to the eternal ideal kingdom. This hinders him from reading eschatology under the Old Covenant, which is crucial for a proper understanding of Old Testament ethics. In Bahnsen, the Old Testament theocracy becomes "a Christocracy with international boundaries" in the New Testament. Thus the theocracy of Israel does not prevent "the application of God's law to the civil magistrate today."23 Bahnsen's theonomic and postmillennial visions are the hermeneutical barriers, not adopting adequate typology, which is so crucial to redemptive historical hermeneutics represented in classic covenant theology and amillennialism. Although Bahnsen does not specify it, he is critical of the covenantal and amillennial hermeneutics, categorizing it as "the typologist."24 It is, however, the present writer's estimation that the most profound understanding of covenantal redemptive history has been demonstrated in the classic covenant theology and amillennialism, avoiding legalism through the proper adaptation of typology. Likewise, the sound recognition of the typological nature of the theocratic kingdom of Israel is a hermeneutical key to a better understanding of Old Testament ethics. In this regard, I agree with Gordon's analysis that Kline matures and advances Vos's biblical theology and Van Til's theistic ethics.25

Advancing Vosian biblical theology, Kline defines theocracy as a visible and external holy kingdom realm which is composed of King, land and holy people. As such, theocracy applies to "an external realm," and it does not describe "a spiritual reign of God in the hearts of his people by itself, but includes the geopolitical dimension."26 In this sense, it is a special and unique kingdom which separates it from common grace nations.

It is important to note that Kline maintains the uniqueness of the theocratic kingdom because that aspect is vital in understanding the typological character of the theocratic kingdom of Israel—a kingdom which foreshadows the eternal, heavenly and cosmic kingdom of God. It is interesting to observe that while Vos identifies the theocratic kingdom of Israel as a fusion between church and state, Kline, avoiding Vosian language, says that it is a unique cultic kingdom.

As seen in the original form of the kingdom of God in Eden, a theocracy is a cultic kingdom through and through. God is King of the entire realm; all of it has the character of a holy house of God. A theocratic kingdom is a holy nation, a kingdom of priests. Membership in the kingdom involves participation in the sanctuary of God, for the kingdom is God's sanctuary. To break covenant by unfaithfulness to the God of the sanctuary is to be cut off from the kingdom, for God is the King of the kingdom. It is this sanctuary identity of the theocratic kingdom that sets it apart in holy uniqueness from all the other kingdoms found in the postlapsarian world . . . . Theocracy is not a combination of church and state institutions. It is a simple unique institution [emphasis mine], a structure sui generis. It is the kingdom realm whose great king is the Lord, where all activity is performed in the name of the God-King enthroned, confessed, and worshipped in the cultic epicenter, whence theocratic holiness radiates outward, permeating all, so that the whole realm, land and people, is a sanctuary of the Creator-Lord.27

Having defined and understood Israel under the Old Covenant as a theocracy, Kline rightly identifies the theocratic kingdom of Israel as an intrusion which is a type of the eternal heavenly kingdom realm which will be consummated in Christ. Kline's intrusion ethics stands or falls together with the typological character of the theocratic kingdom of Israel. Indeed, Old Covenant eschatology is summed up in this typological kingdom through dual sanctions such as blessing and curse which were the pointers to the eternal heaven and hell. This eschatological motif under the Old Covenant was governed by the principle of the law which can be described as 'the covenant of law' (the foedus legale) in Kline's biblical theology. He notices that the reality of the eschatological kingdom blessing and curse intruded into Old Testament history through typological modes. This concrete historical reality is the presupposition and biblical-theological background for the discussion and development of intrusion ethics. "Perez makes the breach in the Old Testament; that is, the consummation intrudes itself there. This Intrusion has realized eschatology as its core, while its symbolic surface (the sacramental aspect thereof excepted) forms a typical picture of eschatology not yet realized."28 Thus, Kline establishes the biblical notion of the intrusion of the eschatological blessing and curse into the common grace realm throughout Old Testament history after the fall. Having defined and explained the intrusive phenomena into the realm of common grace, Kline guides us in a discussion of the relationship between eschatology and ethics.

B. The Intrusion and Its Implication for Ethics

Kline finds apparent problems when he surveys Old Testament history in respect to God's law and its application by divine sanction to many situations. It appears that a divinely sanctioned action is not "consonant with the customary application of the law of God according to the principle of common grace"29 on many occasions. This apparent discrepancy can be resolved, Kline suggests, by the application of the concept of the eschatological intrusion.

Having evaluated Charles Hodge's classification of the biblical laws30, Kline further states that biblical laws, including the Ten Commandments, have "multiple aspects of one law which may then have both a mutable and immutable aspect." As an illustration, Kline notices that "laws five through ten in the Decalogue" have both mutable and immutable aspects. Kline explains this double aspect as follows: "For they simply apply to specific cases the grand principle that man must reflect the moral glory of God on a finite scale. This principle is immutable because it concerns the relationship of man to God. On the other hand, the relations governed by this immutable principle are themselves mutable."31 Likewise, Kline suggests that the application of the law as a whole has both immutable and mutable aspects which are the reflection of redemptive historical sensitivity in its applications.

For an example, Kline proceeds to discuss the definition of our neighbors for the application of the fifth to the tenth commandments. According to Kline, the concept of neighbor must be viewed and understood from the vantage point of redemptive history, especially in reference to the eschatological kingdom. Under the New Covenant, according to the principle of commandments five through ten, we must "love our neighbor as ourselves." "The unbeliever is the believer's neighbor today; but the reprobate is not the neighbor of the redeemed hereafter" because God will set a great chasm between them. God, who hates evil according to his immutable nature, "withdrawing all favor from the reprobate," will himself hate unbelievers when the Parousia comes. Glorified believers, following the pattern of God's attitude to unbelievers, will change "their attitude toward the unbeliever from one of neighborly love to one of perfect hatred, which is a holy, not malicious passion." Because "the grand principle" of "laws five through ten is immutable," the implication of these laws has to be changed according to "the changes in the intracreational relationships for which they legislate."32

Thus, Kline suggests that the definition of neighbor must be determined by redemptive historical sensitivity. The grand principle of the laws is immutable in the sense that it is the imitation of God principle while the application of the laws is mutable in terms of the intracreational relationship. The glory of God is "a terminus ad quem" (an ultimate goal) of the laws.

Having clarified both mutable and immutable aspects of the law, Kline argues that the presence of the eschatological Kingdom in the Old Testament must be understood as the intrusive phenomena into a common grace world. And it anticipates the eschatological judgment characterized as eternal blessing and curse.

Now it appears that there was introduced in the Old Testament age a pattern of conduct akin to that found in prophetic portrayals of the kingdom of God beyond the present age of common grace. Our thesis is that this Old Testament ethical pattern is an aspect of the Intrusion. Included in it are both anticipations of God's judgment curse on the reprobate and of his saving grace in blessing his elect.33

Having explained the relationship between the idea of intrusion and its ethical application in redemptive history, Kline guides us into some specific examples. These examples are divided into the two categories of eschatological blessing and curse under the principle of the dual sanctions. Let us examine Kline's redemptive historical analysis of the examples of intrusion ethics in Old Testament history.

C. Intrusion of Eschatological Curse

The covenant community of the Israelites entered into the land promised to Abraham by the oath of God (Gen. 15). In the process of the conquest of Canaan, however, there was an ethical problem which puzzles average readers of the episode. Kline asks a question: How can we justify "the Israelite dispossession and extermination of the Canaanites over against the sixth and eighth words of the Decalogue?" To resolve this ethical problem, Kline suggests that we have to distinguish between normal or common grace war and holy war. Kline describes common grace war as follows.

The function of the ordinary state when, acting through its officers against criminals or through its military forces against offending nations, it destroys life and exacts reparations. The proper performance of this function is not a violation but a fulfillment of the provisions of common grace. For in God's dealing with mankind in common grace he has authorized the state as 'an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil.'34

However, the common grace war justified by God in international relationships, Kline argues, cannot explain the total destruction involved in the war between the Israelites and Canaanites during the conquest. The conquest of Canaan by the Israelites "before an assembly of nations acting according to the provisions of common grace" would not be justified as "an unprovoked aggression." Furthermore, the conquest violated the basic requirement to show mercy "even in the proper execution of justice."35

Thus, Kline argues that the conquest of Canaan was not a common grace war but a holy war which is an anticipation of eschatological judgment. God's command to the Israelites was clear not to make covenant with Canaanites, and show mercy to them during the conquest (cf. Ex. 23:22-33; 34:10-16; Deut. 7:1-10; 20:10-18). The holy war was the war of "total destruction" (cherem). Achan, who preserved some of "devoted things" against God's command, provoked God, and the Israelites could not defeat Ai until Achan and all the devoted things were destroyed (Josh. 7-8). When the covenant community showed mercy, making covenant with Canaanites in the midst of conquest, God rebuked them, pouring out covenant curses upon them (Jdg. 2).

It is clear that the conquest of Canaan was a type of eternal judgment which is a vivid manifestation of the eschatological curse. In short, there was an eschatological realism presented in the history of Israel. From the redemptive historical point of view, we must recognize, argues Kline, that the requirements of ordinary ethics were abrogated temporarily and "the ethical principles of the last judgment" were introduced such that God's promises and commands to the covenant community of Israel in respect to Canaan and the Canaanites became their own. Kline goes on to say: "Only so can the conquest be justified and seen as it was in truth not murder, but the hosts of the Almighty visiting upon the rebels against his righteous throne their just deserts—not robbery, but the meek inheriting the earth."36

Kline further shows that the dispossession of the Canaanites by the Israelites during the conquest (also involving the temporary abrogation of the eighth commandment) was also related to the tenth commandment. According to Kline, the violation of the eighth and tenth commandments through the conquest was not sin because the neighbor concept under common grace was abrogated by God's command, intruding the neighbor concept of eschatological judgment.

Must we not, then, also regard the Hebrew man of faith engaged in the conquest as coveting the land of the Canaanites, at least to the degree that he was obeying God's battle charge from his heart and with understanding? Though that would ordinarily be to sin against one who was his neighbor, this was one of the instances where the neighbor concept operative under common grace was abrogated by divine ordering in favor of the neighbor concept of the final judgment and beyond, according to which God's enemies are not the elect's neighbors.37

The apparent violation of the tenth commandment by the covenant community through God's command, Kline argues, was an intrusion principle which had the divine purpose of establishing and maintaining the theocratic kingdom as a type of the eternal kingdom: "When the Old Testament believer, at the Lord's command, took his typical stand beyond common grace, to covet the property of the unbeliever was to be in harmony with God's purpose to perfect his kingdom."38

Kline traces the Psalms and finds imprecations in Psalms 7; 35; 55; 59; 69; 79; 109 and 137. The imprecations by covenant people such as David and Asaph are troublesome for many who face cruel elements of prayer and song against their enemies in the name of God. In the beatitudes, Jesus explains the attitude of the covenant community to their neighbor and enemy under the Old Covenant saying "love your neighbor and hate your enemy" (Matt. 5:43; cf. Lev. 19:18 and Deut. 23:6). However, he proclaims a radical new approach to his followers under the New Covenant, commanding "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:44; cf. Lk. 6:27-38). This apparent contradiction creates difficulty for Bible readers and interpreters. Kline argues that the best solution to this problem is to understand the imprecations from the perspective of redemptive history and eschatology.

Normally the believer's attitudes toward the unbeliever are conditioned by the principle of common grace. During the historical process of differentiation which common grace makes possible, before the secret election of God is unmistakably manifested at the great white throne, the servants of Christ are bound by his charge to pray for the good of those who despitefully use and persecute them. Our Lord rebuked the Boanerges when they contemplated consuming the Samaritans with fire from heaven (Luke 9:54; cf. Mark 3:17). We may not seek to destroy those for whom, perchance, Christ has died.

But in the final judgment the Lord will not rebuke James and John if they make similar requests. Then it will be altogether becoming for the saint to desire God's wrath to descend upon his unbelieving enemy. No longer will there be the possibility that the enemy of the saint is the elect of God. Then the grain harvest will be ripe for the gathering of the Son of Man and the clusters of the vine will be fully ripe for the great winepress of the wrath of God.39

As such, Kline understands the imprecations in the Psalms as the intrusive phenomena of the ethics of eschatological consummation, which is sharply different from regular ethics under the principle of common grace. So, he suggests that we have to distinguish the consummation ethics from common grace ethics because "the imprecations in the Psalms" are the unusual pattern of ethical conduct which informs "the ethics of the consummation." The intrusion by divine inspiration constitutes "a divine abrogation, within a limited sphere, of the ethical requirements normally in force during the course of common grace."40

Furthermore, Kline argues that the imprecations in the Psalms inspired by the Spirit of God were conducted within the typological kingdom of Israel which is the type and intrusion of the eternal kingdom. Therefore redemptive historical interpretation of the imprecations is a concrete hermeneutical principle which ought to be applied.41

Kline argues that ethical anticipation of the eschatological judgment of the reprobate is seen in the examples of Old Testament history "involving all the rest of commandments five through ten, excepting the seventh." The seventh commandment could not be altered in redemptive history. The reason, argues Kline, is explained by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. It is especially because "every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body"(1 Cor. 6:18).42

Under the principle of the common grace realm, Kline suggests that Rahab had a duty to obey "the civil authorities of Jericho." The civilian duty to the civil authorities is well taken and explained by Paul under normal circumstances (Rom. 13:1-7). But, Kline argues, Rahab was not in a normal circumstance when she encountered the spies and her own civil authority figures. Rather she participated in the shaping of the theocratic kingdom as a Gentile and became an agent of the judgment which was the type of the eschatological judgment. In addition, the inspired authors of Hebrews and James approve Rahab's action as faithful because biblical authors read her episode from a redemptive historical perspective.

When information was requested of her concerning the enemy spies, it was, according to ordinary ethics, her duty to supply it. Nevertheless, by faith she united herself to the cause of the theocracy and so played her part as an agent of the judgment-conquest which was typical of the final judgment, denying to the obstinate foes of God that respect for their authority which was their due under common grace. For so doing, Rahab receives inspired approbation (Heb. 11:31; Jas. 2:25).43

Thus, Kline directs us to think that Rahab's deception of her civil authority figures should be understood in light of the eschatological judgment. Certainly, at surface level, her deception was a violation of the ninth commandment. But at a deeper level, her deception should be justified because it was done for the benefit of the theocratic kingdom and the glory of God. When the Parousia comes, there will be ultimate judgment for those who have hostile intentions against the eternal theocratic kingdom. Although Rahab's deception was involved with the mutable principle of the ninth commandment, she was not violating the immutable principles of the first three laws.

The enemies of the theocracy lost the ordinary right to hear the truth as that is guaranteed by the ninth commandment. Insofar, therefore, as the theocratic agent did not deny God (or, to put it differently, did not violate the immutable principles of the first three laws of the Decalogue), he might with perfect ethical propriety deceive such as had hostile intent against the theocracy.44

Thus, Kline suggests that God approved Rahab's deception against the civil authority which displayed a hostile intention against the theocratic kingdom at that specific moment in redemptive history. This same understanding may be applied to the episode of the Hebrew midwives' deception against Pharaoh (Ex. 1:15-21) and Samuel's deception against Saul (1 Sam. 16:2).45

The penal sanctions regulated under the old covenant have been the object of serious debate between Bahnsen and Kline. For example, Bahnsen insists that the death penalty against the violators of the first four, fifth, sixth, and seventh commandments under the Old Covenant must be applied under the current state. Bahnsen's penology is a result of the lack of redemptive historical understanding on the penal sanctions and covenantal discontinuity.46

Kline suggests that the intrusion principle was applied against the members of the covenant community under the Mosaic or Old Covenant. The death penalty was applied to the violators of the first four commandments: "In the area of penal sanctions against offending covenant members, the Intrusion principle again manifests itself. It is especially significant that among the offenses for which the death penalty was prescribed are violations of the first four laws of the Decalogue (see, e.g., Ex. 31:14ff.; 35:2 [cf. Num. 15:32ff.]; Lev. 24:16; Deut. 13:5ff.; 17:2ff.)."47 Why do we have to see this ethical principle as an intrusive phenomena? That is the question Kline himself asks and he answers it. It is because such a violation cannot be a capital punishment under the New Covenant age either by the state or the church. Rather, it should be the subject matter of church discipline: "In the present age such violations are subject to ecclesiastical discipline, but the sword may not be wielded by either church or state in punishment of such offenders, according to the principle of common grace."48 In this respect, capital punishment against the violators of the first four commandments under the theocracy of the Old Testament was the intrusion of the final judgment against those who violated these laws from their heart.

In the consummation, however, the portion of those who do not obey these laws from the heart will be 'the second death.' It is then consummation justice that was intruded when death was prescribed for religious offenses in Israel, the kingdom where the consummation was typically anticipated. The Intrusion appears most vividly in those instances where the infliction of death was not the act of a theocratic official but of God (see, e.g., Num. 11:1f.; 16:31ff.; 2 Kings 2:24).49

So far, we have traced Kline's biblical-theological logic on the intrusion of eschatological curse. Now, we move on to some episodes of the intrusion of eschatological blessing in relation to the Old Testament ethics.

D. Intrusion of Eschatological Blessing

Kline argues that God's command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac confronted him with "a contradiction of previous revelation concerning human life, revelation later formulated in the sixth word of the Decalogue." It is "the Creator's prerogative" to designate such importance "to his creatures as he will," and it is man's responsibility "to accept the divine interpretation." "The more unaccountable to man" God's interpretation may be, "the better calculated" it is to highlight in man's heart "the necessity of thinking and living covenantally, that is, in the obedience of personal devotion to his God."50

Even though Abraham was faced with this striking command which was apparently contradictory to the sixth commandment, Kline suggests that "Abraham must not make an abstract idol out of the customary prohibition against human sacrifice but must listen to his Father's voice."51

Here, Kline suggests typology: Isaac was the type of Christ who was sacrificed by his Father as a substitute in the place of sinners. In that sense, God's command to sacrifice Isaac was "the ethics of the Cross, itself an intrusion of final judgment into mid-history, that was intruded into the Old Testament age in the divine command to sacrifice Isaac." However, "the provision of the sacrificial substitute" teaches us "the inadequacy of sinful human life for making atonement" after Abraham had demonstrated "the obedience of faith." God did not identify "Isaac's life as the life that was actually to be sacrificed as an atonement for sin." Meanwhile, Abraham's obedience to "the Intrusion's demand" demonstrated that he was the father of believers living by every word which came from the mouth of God.52

Kline interprets Exodus through Malachi under the rubric of the Old Covenant, which is patterned by the standing and falling of the theocratic kingdom of Israel. Under the theocratic kingdom, Kline argues that there was not a fusion between state and church but sui generis. However, Kline suggests that the present church age is radically different from the covenant community under the Old Covenant. In that sense, we have to distinguish carefully between church and state. And it is an adequate implication of the fifth commandment under the New Covenant.

Apropos of the fifth word, it is in this New Testament age not a legitimate function of a civil government to endorse and support religious establishments. This principle applies equally to the Christian church; for though its invisible government is theocratic with Christ sitting on David's throne in the heavens and ruling over it, yet its visible organization, in particular as it is related to civil powers, is so designed that it takes a place of only common privilege along with other religious institutions within the framework of common grace.53

However, at the consummation, the common grace order, and with it the common grace institution of the state, will be terminated and all things will be under the authority of the visible reigning of Christ. Likewise, the theocratic kingdom of Israel was the type of the eternal Kingdom.

It is quite otherwise in the consummation. Then every dominion and power in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, must do obeisance to the Christ of God. Moreover, it is this ultimate state of affairs that is found intruded into the Old Testament dispensation in connection with the Israelite theocracy, which typified the perfected kingdom of God.54

The intrusion of Christ's universal reign over the eternal kingdom was manifested in the famous cylinder of Cyrus king of Persia (2 Chr. 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-11).

While this typical kingdom of heaven was in existence, the other nations on earth stood in a peculiar relation to it. We are informed, for example, that 'the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout his kingdom' in which he professed to have received a charge from the Lord God of heaven to build him a house in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1ff).55

Furthermore, Kline adds that later a Persian king supported the rebuilding and maintaining of the temple. Moreover, they contributed "from government funds for its ritual." The famous Cyrus cylinder instigated by God reveals that Cyrus as a pagan king actively supported the theocratic kingdom of Israel. This process, argues Kline, "is obviously not normative for civil governments in the New Testament dispensation." This is an example of "Intrusion ethics in connection with the Israelite theocracy as a type of the heavenly kingdom into which 'the kings of earth do bring their glory and honor'" as that is revealed in Revelation 21:24.56

Kline evaluates the prophet Hosea's marriage with the harlot, Gomer (Hos. 1:3)57 within the historical reality of the Old Covenant which was directly applied to the covenant community of Israel. Accordingly, Kline argues that the Mosaic law prohibited prostitution which was a violation of the seventh commandment that resulted in expulsion from "the theocratic congregation"(Lev. 19:29; Deut. 23:17). In that sense, the marriage episode of Hosea, Kline suggests, is not an episode under the circumstances of common grace but an intrusion of the ethical principle of God's eschatological saving of sinners. "It was certainly implied in this that a harlot might not be espoused by a covenant member. Nevertheless, in contradiction of this ordinary requirement, the Lord commanded Hosea to marry the harlot, Gomer. In so doing, God was again anticipating an ethical principle entailed in his saving of the elect."58

Following the redemptive historical logic, Kline argues that Hosea's marriage must be understood in light of "the eschatological context of divine revelation." Thus it fits the pattern of intrusion ethics. Hosea's marriage is a type of the eschatological marriage between Christ and a church-bride that will include a multitude of forgiven sinners (Matt. 25:1-13; Eph. 5:22-33; Rev. 19:6-9). The glory of the eschatological kingdom marriage was vividly manifested in the episode. So Hosea as the prophet of Israel was not offended by God's striking command to accept Gomer as his wife, anticipating himself "in the great marriage celebration" of the eschatological kingdom Lamb. Likewise, the episode of Hosea's marriage provides the eschatological outlook that "the consummation of God's grace" will be realized when Christ as heavenly bridegroom welcomes "a church-bride composed of a multitude of defiled sinners to be his own."59

Conclusion

As we have traced and explained Kline's intrusion ethics, we have seen that it is simply an adequate application of covenant theology to the area of the Old Testament ethics. In fact, Kline as a classic covenant theologian flowers and matures covenant theology, developed and adopted in the Reformed tradition, applying its rich insights to the area of Old Testament ethics. Thus, Kline's intrusion ethics is an important contribution to our understanding of the application of covenant and eschatological kingdom ideas in resolution of some of the most difficult ethical issues revealed in Old Testament history. In conclusion, I may identify Kline's intrusion ethics as covenantal eschatological kingdom ethics, based on redemptive historical hermeneutics. I hope that scholars will further develop Kline's intrusion ethics through more discussion and research.

Columbia, Maryland

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1Meredith G. Kline, "The Intrusion and the Decalogue," Westminster Theological Journal 16/1(1953): 1-22. This important article can be found, with minor modifications, in The Structure of Biblical Authority (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997), 154-71. For a comprehensive and critical analysis of Kline's biblico-covenant theology in the light of modern criticism and the historical development of covenant theology as a whole, see Jeong Koo Jeon, Covenant Theology: John Murray's and Meredith G. Kline's Response to the Historical Development of Federal Theology in Reformed Thought (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999). The book is a slight revision of my 1998 Ph.D. dissertation at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

For a brief summary of Kline's contribution to Reformed systematic theology from a Klinean perspective, see Lee Irons, "Redefining Merit: An Examination of Medieval Presuppositions in Covenant Theology," in Creator, Redeemer, Consummator: A Festschrift For Meredith G. Kline. eds. Howard Griffith & John R. Muether (Greenville, SC: Reformed Academic Press, 2000), 253-68; Mark W. Karlberg, "Reformed Theology as the Theology of the Covenants: The Contributions of Meredith G. Kline to Reformed Systematics," ibid., 235-52. Mark Karlberg presents provocative arguments and statements on relevant issues of covenant theology against revisionist and radical revisionist background in his recent book, Covenant Theology in Reformed Perspective (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000).

2 Greg L. Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics: Expanded Edition with Replies to Critics (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1984), 571-84. A constructive criticism of theonomy from a Reformed perspective can be found in William S. Barker & W. Robert Godfrey eds., Theonomy; a Reformed Critique (Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 1990); Meredith G. Kline, "Comments on an Old-New Error" (review of Greg L. Bahnsen's Theonomy in Christian Ethics) Westminster Theological Journal (1978/1979):173-89.

3 Elmer B. Smick, "The Psalms as response to God's Covenant Love: Theological Observations," in Creator, Redeemer, Consummator: A Festschrift for Meredith G. Kline, 83.

4 Old Testament history covers the postlapsarian history of the Old Testament thus eliminating the prelapsarian state.

5 Kline, Biblical Authority, 154-55.

6 Ibid., 155. Cf. Jeon, Covenant Theology, 217-19; Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations For a Covenantal Worldview (Overland Park, KS: Two Age Press, 2000), 153-211, 244-62; Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1972); The Defense of the Faith (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1967), 151-78.

7 Kline, Biblical Authority, 156.

8 Ibid.

9 I have argued against the background of Kline's critiques that Kline is a true successor and consummator of Geerhardus Vos's biblico-covenant theology although I would require a minor revision of his thought. In fact, Vos's biblical theology is carefully enshrined and guided by hermeneutical principles such as the distinction between law and gospel along with the antithesis between the covenants of works and grace which Kline has defended and promoted through his entire career and writings. As such, we cannot promote Vosian biblical theology without these concrete hermeneutical reference points. In other words, if we want to promote the Vosian eschatological kingdom vision in redemptive history, the above mentioned hermeneutical principles must be presupposed. Cf. Jeon, Covenant Theology, 79-102, 279-334.

10 Kline, Biblical Authority, 157.

11 Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 158.

12 Barker & Godfrey eds., Theonomy: A Reformed Critique, 11.

13 Jeon, Covenant Theology, 1-102.

14 Kline dedicated The Structure of Biblical Authority to Van Til in the preface to the 1971 version: "Cornelius Van Til stands as the prince of twentieth-century Christian apologetics. He has had by far the most profound impact on my own thinking of all my teachers. His theological insight and prophetic witness have been a conscience, if not canon, and his warmly human and gracious godliness has been an inspiration for the life which is in Christ Jesus" (Kline, Biblical Authority, 15). In addition, Kline indicates that his biblical theology is an expansion and development of Vos's biblical theology in his magnum opus, Kingdom Prologue, 7: "More, specifically, biblical theology in the classic tradition of Geerhardus Vos has as its distinctive feature a concern with the historical progress of special revelation as disclosed in the Bible . . . . For Vos, then, delineating the progress of special revelation is broadly the same as expounding the contents of the several divine covenants . . . . What is in Vos's Biblical Theology the infrastructure, the particular historical pattern in which the periodicity principle gets applied, becomes here the surface structure." Meanwhile, Bahnsen recognizes the influence of Vos and Van Til in his thought: "Past authors such as Calvin and Fairbairn, as well as current writers like Kevan, H. Ridderbos, Cornelius Van Til, and especially John Murray, have been of great instructional value to me along the way to authoring this study" (Bahnsen, Theonomy, xxxiii). Bahnsen identifies with Vos when he emphasizes exclusively covenantal continuity between the Old and New Covenants (Ibid., 56-7, 86, 121-22, 218-20). But, I have endeavored to prove that there is a balance of continuity and discontinuity between the Old and New Covenants in Vos's biblical theology (cf. Jeon, Covenant Theology, 85-91). When Bahnsen provides biblical theological analysis and discussion, in general he is not reliable because he is not clear on the issues of the law and gospel, and covenantal continuity and discontinuity. Paradoxically, as a presuppositional apologist, he shows a comprehensive understanding of philosophical and apologetical issues as he lays it out in his magnum opus, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Philipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1998). This inconsistency may create a continuing confusion to Bahnsen's followers. In this sense, it is fair to say that Bahnsen as a theonomist does not follow the classic covenant tradition of Vos, who maintained a comprehensive balance of continuity and discontinuity between the Old and New Covenants, but a revisionist covenant tradition, represented by Murray, exclusively emphasizing a covenantal continuity. To be sure, Murray was not a theonomist as Bahnsen correctly recognizes. So, pushing himself in a theonomic direction, Bahnsen provides a critique of Murray's position that "the penal sanctions of the Older Testament law have been abrogated in this age" (Bahnsen, Theonomy, 458).

15 T. David Gordon, "Van Til and Theonomic Ethics," in Creator, Redeemer, Consummator: A Festschrift for Meredith G. Kline, eds. Howard Griffith & John R. Muether (Greenville, SC: Reformed Academic Press, 2000), 274: "Vos's discussion of the distinctive or particular contribution of each redemptive/revelatory era introduces an element of general discontinuity or development between the eras. For Van Til, it is this aspect of development which is critical for interpreting the Old Testament ethic correctly."

16 Vos, Biblical Theology, 125.

17 Ibid., 125-26.

18 Cornelius Van Til, In Defense of the Faith: Christian Theistic Ethics, vol. 3 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1980), 98.

19 Ibid., 93-4.

20 I have evaluated John Murray as a revisionist covenant theologian over against classic covenant theology, which firmly maintains the original covenant of works, and a balance of continuity and discontinuity between the Old and New Covenants. Murray, however, as an orthodox Reformed theologian, maintains the temporal and logical order of law and gospel, and law and grace not vice versa, which are the crucial hermeneutical tools for the proper understanding of the historia salutis and ordo salutis. Furthermore, the distinction between law and gospel or grace has been a vitally important hermeneutical key for the doctrines of justification by faith alone, the substitutionary view of atonement, sovereign grace in divine election, and the covenant of grace (cf. Jeon, Covenant Theology, 103-90). Unlike Murray, it is evident that Bahnsen moves in a radical revisionist direction in his view of law and gospel. Bahnsen's covenantal unity obscures the historical or temporal order of law and gospel as the means of eschatological blessing from creation to fall to redemption. What is important to him is 'persevering obedience' in all the divine covenants including the prelapsarian covenant: "Continued blessing for Adam in paradise, Israel in the promised land, and the Christian in the kingdom has been seen to be dependent upon persevering obedience to God's will as expressed in His law. There is complete covenantal unity with reference to the law of God as the standard of moral obligation throughout the diverse ages of human history" (Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, 203). Exegeting 1 Timothy 1:5-10, Bahnsen erroneously stresses that the law and the gospel are completely harmonious: "Paul urges Timothy to demonstrate that there is a complete agreement between the law and the gospel which he has taught" (Ibid., 196). "In Biblical perspective, grace and promise are not antithetical to law and demand. The law and the gospel both aim at the same thing" (Ibid., 183). Meanwhile, interpreting Galatians 3:10-21, Bahnsen appears to maintain that grace and law are antithetical in relation to the way of salvation: "Although the law is not against the promise of God (3:21)since they both aim at the same thing the fulfillment of the promise cannot be made dependent upon obedience to the law, for in redemptive history the law came after the promise (3:15-22). Grace (the promise) and law (the demand) cannot be mixed together as ways of salvation; the man who is saved by grace cannot have anything added to his salvation by law. The promise grants what the law could only aim at: righteousness and salvation" (Ibid., 132-33).

21 Gordon, "Van Til and Theonomic Ethics," 275: "It is this emphasis on the typological character of theocratic Israel, on her temporary character, that we perceive a difference in the way Vos influenced Van Til and the way he influenced Bahnsen. That the purpose of Israel was 'not to teach the world lessons about political economy' seems to us incongruent with the perception of theocratic Israel espoused in the Theonomic view. For Theonomy, the civil precepts of the Old Testament 'are a model of perfect social justice for all cultures, even in the punishment of criminals,' a 'model to be emulated by non-covenantal nations as well.' For Vos and Van Til, the theocracy and the theocratic legislation are viewed in terms of being 'stepping stones to a higher and even to an ultimate ideal.' The theocracy is a 'model' of the perfect Kingdom in glory; for Theonomy, the theocracy is a 'model' for all other earthly governments. This difference influences the respective ethical programs of Van Til and Theonomy."

22 Bahnsen, Theonomy, 427-28.

23 Ibid., 432.

24 Ibid., 455-58.

25 Gordon, "Van Til and Theonomic Ethics," 278: "Van Til's ethic is in fact best preserved in the writings of one of Theonomy's most notorious critics, to whom this volume is dedicated. Meredith G. Kline had advanced the position of Vos and Van Til not only in the realm of ethics but in the realm of biblical theology more generally considered. In the writings of Meredith G. Kline, one finds not only agreement with Vos and Van Til regarding the Theocracy, but one finds this agreement to be programmatically significant. For those interested in knowing what Vos and Van Til would have written in the areas of biblical theology and ethics had they each lived another generation, we can think of no better recommendation than a reading of Kline."

26 Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 49.

27 Ibid., 50-1.

28 Kline, Biblical Authority, 158. Likewise, a proper application of typology in relation to the exposition of the development of the eschatological kingdom motif through redemptive history is crucial as well. The brilliance of covenant hermeneutics developed in the Reformed tradition lies in the fact that covenant theologians carefully applied typology in their understanding of the eschatological kingdom idea especially under the Old Covenant. For the significance of typology in biblical and systematic theology, see Jeon, Covenant Theology, 6-8.

29 Kline, Biblical Authority, 158.

30 Charles Hodge categorizes biblical laws into four areas. (1) The laws based "on the nature of God" belong to "the command to love God supremely." These laws bind "all rational creatures, angels as well as men." The principle of these laws is "absolutely immutable and indispensable." (2) The laws based on "the permanent relations of men in their present state of existence." These laws concern "property, marriage, and the duties of parents and children, or superiors and inferiors." (3) The laws founded upon "certain temporary relations of men, or conditions of society, and are enforced by the authority of God." Many of "the judicial or civil laws of the ancient theocracy" belong to this category. (4) These are the positive laws which come from "the explicit command of God" such as "external rites and ceremonies, as circumcision, sacrifices, and the distinction between clean and unclean meats, and between months, days, and years." Hodge argues that the laws of categories 2,3, and 4 are mutable while the laws of category 1 are immutable. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 3:265-70.

31 Kline, Biblical Authority, 159.

32 Ibid., 159-60.

33 Kline, Biblical Authority, 160. Recognizing a possible misunderstanding of intrusion ethics, Kline emphasizes several points to consider carefully. (1) The demands of intrusion ethics in the Old Testament cannot be "a lower or laxer order." (2) The concept of intrusion ethics is not "prejudicial to the permanent validity" of Mosaic moral law. The distinction is not "one of different standards but of the application of a constant standard under significantly different conditions. It is evident that such a distinction must be made between the period of common grace in general and the age of consummation." So, there was "an anticipatory abrogation of the principle of common grace during the Old Testament age." (3) The presence of intrusion ethics in the Old Testament does not interrupt "the unity of the Covenant of Redemption" revealed and begun in Genesis 3:15 which has been known as the protevangelium (Ibid.).

34 Ibid., 162-63.

35 Ibid., 163.

36 Kline, Biblical Authority, 163. For a fine discussion of the divine warrior motif in holy war throughout redemptive history from an evangelical perspective, see Tremper Longman, III and Daniel G. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995).

37 Kline, Biblical Authority, 166.

38 Ibid., 166.

39 Kline, Biblical Authority, 161-62. According to Kline, the covenant is "the Psalter's sphere of existence" since the temple was the central place for the religious and sacramental life of Israel and the psalms have a cultic orientation in general. "The psalms of praise" were "a continual resounding of Israel's 'Amen' of covenant ratification" as a means of "private and public devotion." Psalms such as 78, 105-106, 135-136 rehearsing "the course of covenant history" were "confessional responses of acknowledgment to the surveys of Yahweh's mighty acts" on behalf of Israel. So, when the covenant community of Israel used psalms extolling God's law, Israel made a new commitment "to the stipulations of the covenant." Furthermore, "plaint and penitential psalms" are closely tied to "interaction with the prophetic indictment of Israel in the process of the covenant lawsuit." It is quite natural then that the Psalter begins with an image of "the treaty blessings and curses and the declaration that judgment hinges on man's attitude towards the law of the covenant" (Ibid., 62-64). Likewise Kline suggests that we have to interpret the psalms from the perspective of the Old Covenant and its relation to the eschatological kingdom in redemptive history. Elmer Smick briefly summarizes and analyzes Psalms from the perspective of Kline's approach; see Elmer B. Smick, "The Psalms as Response to God's Covenant Love: Theological Observations," in Creator, Redeemer, Consummator: A Festschrift for Meredith G. Kline, 77-86.

40 Kline, Biblical Authority, 162.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid., 164.

43 Kline, Biblical Authority, 164.

44 Ibid., 164-65.

45 Ibid., 165.

46 Bahnsen argues that the justification of "theonomic punishment" is based on "the principle of equity, no crime receives a penalty which it does not warrant." Therefore, penal sanctions under the old covenant must be directly applied to contemporary civil law: "This comes to expression in the civil realm as just recompense (Heb. 2:2), as in the lex talionis (Ex. 21:23-25; Lev. 24:19-20; Deut. 19:21). Consequently the death penalty is to be viewed as the appropriate response of the magistrate to violations against the purity of the God-man relation (e.g., idolatry, witchcraft, etc.), the sanctity of life and its sources (e.g., murder, adultery) or authority (e.g., striking one's parents). In the areas of theft and property damage, then, full restitution or compensation is the standard of punishment (e.g., Ex. 21:22; Lev. 24:21) . . . . Knowing that God's standard of righteousness (which includes temporal, social relations) is as immutable as the character of God Himself, we should conclude that crimes which warrant capital punishment in the Older testament continue to deserve the death penalty today" (Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, 437, 439, 442).

47 Kline, Biblical Authority, 166.

48 Ibid., 166-67.

49 Ibid., 167.

50 Ibid., 168.

51 Ibid., 169.

52 Kline, Biblical Authority, 169.

53 Ibid., 167.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid., 168.

57 Hosea's marriage to Gomer as an illustration of intrusion ethics, according to Kline, depends on whether Gomer was a harlot when Hosea married her. Recently, Kline has moved away from his previous position that Gomer was a harlot before marriage. As a result, Kline does not consider Hosea's marriage any longer as an example of intrusion ethics. However, I am tracing Kline's biblical theological explanation if we consider that Gomer was a harlot at the moment of her marriage.

58 Kline, Biblical Authority, 170. Kline's approach to the prophetical books is quite profound. He suggests that the prophets be read in light of the Old Covenant and eschatological kingdom. The motif of covenant lawsuit is a vital part of the prophetic message based upon the Mosaic Covenant and was constantly applied throughout the history of Israel. The message of judgment characterized in dual sanctions such as blessing and curse is thoroughly reflected. "The peculiarly prophetic task was the elaboration and application of the ancient covenant sanctions. In actual practice that meant that their diplomatic mission to Israel was by and large one of prosecuting Yahweh's patient covenant lawsuit with his incurably wayward vassal people. The documentary legacy of their mission reveals them confronting Israel with judgment . . . . Manifestly, then, these writings of the prophets are extensions of the covenantal documents of Moses. They summon Israel to remember the law covenant of Moses commanded at Horeb (Mal. 4:4) and to behold the eschatological future whose outlines were already sketched in the Mosaic curse and blessing sanctions, particularly in the covenant renewal in Moab (Deut. 28ff.) . . . . While relating the prophetic office to covenants in general, all such literary and technical parallels pointing to the political sphere of suzerain-vassal relationship as the formal background for the prophetic office serve also as another link, even if indirect, connecting the prophets with the covenants of Moses, inasmuch as the form of the latter, too, derives from that very same background of covenantal statecraft" (Ibid., 57-62).

59 Ibid., 170.

A Reformation Day Review: The Quest for Comfort (The Story of the Heidelberg Catehchism)

2011-11-01T00:05:00.012+08:00

First and foremost, I would like to offer my sincerest thanks to the author, William Boekestein, for being generous enough to send his little book to a virtual stranger like myself, pro bono. We've only known each other through the Internet for a short while, and I am both humbled and honored by his good gesture.

The thing about the book that hit me like a freight train was the new information that I received from it. I have indeed gone through the Heidelberg Catechism, and have been unanimously edified by the Gospel truths contained in it. However, I was not very well acquainted with its three authors, and this little biographical book has shown me that, once again (!), God has proved Himself to favor the Underdogs when it comes to the carrying out of the work of the Gospel! The Heidleberg Catechism was forged by Underdogs Caspar Olevianus, Zacharias Ursinus, and Frederick III.

The book starts off with Caspar Olevianus as a young man doing what most young men do—basically hang out and do nothing. LOL. But then a fork-in-the-road event happens, and Caspar finds himself in a situation not different from Martin Luther's lightning storm experience. The things is, one of his buddies in the group drowns while they were having a good time down by the river. The young guy who winds up dead is Frederick III's own son. The book does not explicitly state that the event is the primary instigator of Caspar's sudden decision to enter the ministry, but it does say that "Then and there Caspar decided to become a minister after he finished his studies in law." It appears the issues of life and death were suddenly thrust upon him by virtue of that heart-breaking event.

Caspar couldn't have had better theological training than he did, eventually being schooled under John Calvin. He then proceeded to minister in Treves, Germany. But like clockwork, the Roman Catholic authorities came down on him, and after refusing to vacate his position, he was then imprisoned. But if there ever was a perfect time to throw one's weight around, it was this, and Frederick III, as the top man of the Palatinate (a German state), used his political clout to secure Caspar's freedom and brought him to Heidelberg to preach and teach. Underdogs look out for each other for the glory of God!

The second key player in the story is Zacharias Ursinus. The books describes him as a "calm and shy person." Once again, I am reminded of another magisterial Reformer who had the same Underdog temperament, namely, John Calvin. Like Calvin, Zack preferred a life of quiet study, away from the pressures of public life. But then God's call comes (see Moses), and the comfort of "My power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9) hits home, and he is given to the denial of himself for the ministry of his Lord's sheep. In fact, Zack also suffered from the rejection of his congregation. The book describes the latter as "often rude to their pastor."

In the midst of his church troubles, one of his best friends, another eminent Reformer who shared his Underdog temperament, Philip Melanchthon, dies. This was the proverbial "last straw" and Zack flees to Zurich, Switzerland for relief. It was here that he received and accepted Frederick III's invitation to preach and teach in Heidelberg.

The last of the players is Frederick III. Fred was born into a noble, political family. Interestingly enough, it was his girlfriend, a German princess named, Maria, who introduced him to the Reformed faith.

The godly couple got married and built a godly family, albeit a family not exempt from the woes of living in a fallen world. As mentioned before, Fred's son, Herman, died of drowning, and a daughter, at the age of fourteen, was lost as well. Undoubtedly, these were devastating blows, blows that, far from weakening Fred's faith, undoubtedly deepened his Underdogism even more.

Upon being thrust into a position of political power at the death of his uncle, and witnessing the disarray of the church in Heidelberg (an example of which the book gives is the brawl that ensued between a minister and a deacon in the middle of a worship service over differences in opinion about the Lord's Supper!), Fred set in motion the plan to further reform the church in Heidelberg through the acquisition of the two aforementioned men. The Heidelberg Catechism was born!

Fred, being the catholic Reformed guy that he was, had the document inspected and reviewed by many pastors and teachers. No less than John Calvin gave approval and lauded Fred as the "most illustrious prince" for his "labor to cherish and promote true religion."

Besides the edifying revelation that "the most influential of all the Reformation catechisms" was planned and penned by Underdogs, the artwork done on the book by Evan Hughes is superb. The book is a feast for the eyes, as well as the heart and mind.

Joel Beeke, in a sermon entitled "Calvin on Marriage and Family" stated:

"Family worship is the most powerful means for child-rearing. The Puritans believed that the most important thing you do in this world is engage in daily family worship."

and

"The Puritans believed that family was a gift of God. They believed that how we handled family was really an index of our sanctification."

This little book is a book for the family. It is meant to foster in our children the love and deep appreciation for the truths of Scripture confessed by the Reformation and put into writing by men who suffered and loved much. It will inspire them to do the same, and in the process hasten the sanctification of both the catechizer and the catechumen.

The Underdog Scales and Plumbs

2011-10-28T18:52:00.001+08:00

Simplicity has often been associated with humility, and this is not without viable cause. However, in the area of the Scriptures and its study, this same criterion has paved the way for much disguised pride.

There is overweening hubris in the distaste for deep, theological reflection. The proud man contents himself with the simplicity of "moralistic, therapeutic, deistic" chaff, whereas the Underdog, with profound affection for God and His revelation, seeks to scale the heights and plumb the depths of the wheat of His Word.

Francis Turretin observes:

For we unhesitatingly confess that the Scriptures have their adyta ("heights") and bathe ("depths") which we cannot enter or sound and which God so ordered on purpose to excite the study of believers and increase their diligence; to humble the pride of man and to remove from them the contempt which might arise from too great plainness. (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, I.2.7.4)

So humility, in fact, is not manifest in the resignation to ignorance but in the passionate pursuit of the knowledge of God, which gives us an antithesis: the proud stupid and the humble knowledgeable.

Westminster Wednesday: Luther's Underdogism

2011-10-27T18:11:00.001+08:00

Martin Luther first made mention of the theology of the cross (theologia crucis) in the Heidelberg Disputation. In it, he listed the following theses:

1. The law of God, the most salutary doctrine of life, cannot advance man on his way to righteousness, but rather hinders him.

2. Much less can human works, which are done over and over again with the aid of natural precepts, so to speak, lead to that end.

3. Although the works of man always appear attractive and good, they are nevertheless likely to be mortal sins.

4. Although the works of God always seem unattractive and appear evil, they are nevertheless really eternal merits.

5. The works of men are thus not mortal sins (we speak of works that apparently are good), as though they were crimes.

6. The works of God (those he does through man) are thus not merits, as though they were sinless.

7. The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.

8. By so much more are the works of man mortal sins when they are done without fear and in unadulterated, evil self-security.

9. To say that works without Christ are dead, but not mortal, appears to constitute a perilous surrender of the fear of God.

10. Indeed, it is very difficult to see how a work can be dead and at the same time not a harmful and mortal sin.

11. Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work.

12. In the sight of God sins are then truly venial when they are feared by men to be mortal.

13. Free will, after the fall, exists in name only, and as long as it does what it is able to do, it commits a mortal sin.

14. Free will, after the fall, has power to do good only in a passive capacity, but it can do evil in an active capacity.

15. Nor could the free will endure in a state of innocence, much less do good, in an active capacity, but only in a passive capacity.

16. The person who believes that he can obtain grace by doing what is in him adds sin to sin so that he becomes doubly guilty.

17. Nor does speaking in this manner give cause for despair, but for arousing the desire to humble oneself and seek the grace of Christ.

18. It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ.

19.That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things that have actually happened.

20. He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.

21. A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the things what it actually is.

22. That wisdom that sees the invisible things of God in works as perceived by man is completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened.

23. The law brings the wrath of God, kills, reviles, accuses, judges, and condemns everything that is not in Christ.

24. Yet that wisdom is not of itself evil, nor is the law to be evaded; but without the theology of the cross man misuses the best in the worst manner.

25. He is not righteous who does much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ.

26. The law says "Do this", and it is never done. Grace says, "believe in this" and everything is already done.

27.Actually one should call the work of Christ an acting work and our work an accomplished work, and thus an accomplished work pleasing to God by the grace of the acting work.

28. The love of God does not find, but creates, what is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through what is pleasing to it.

Carl Trueman offers some edifying insights on the foregoing, which I see as the theology of the cross speaking to the three main legs of philosophy, namely: metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.

No one could have expected that the Reformation would be launched by Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses against Indulgences in October 1517. The document itself simply proposed the framework for a university debate. Luther was arguing only for a revision of the practice of indulgences, not its abolition. He was certainly not offering an agenda for widespread theological and ecclesiastical reform.

Indeed, he had already said much more controversial things in his Disputation against Scholastic Theology of September 4, 1517, in which he critiqued the whole way in which medieval theology had been done for centuries. That disputation, however, passed without a murmur. Indeed, humanly speaking, it was only the unique combination of external factors—social, economic, and political—that made the later disputation the spark that lit the Reformation fuse.

The Heidelberg Disputation

Once the fuse had been lit, however, the church made a fatal error: she allowed the Augustinian Order, to which Luther belonged, to deal with the problem as if it were a minor local difficulty. There was to be a meeting of the Order in Heidelberg in April 1518, and Luther was asked to present a series of theses outlining his theology, so that it could be assessed by his brethren. It was here, then, that the relatively bland Ninety-Five Theses gave Luther an important opportunity to articulate the theology that he had expressed in his September Disputation.

The Heidelberg Disputation is significant for two things. First, there was at least one other future Reformation giant present. This was Martin Bucer, the Reformer of Strasbourg, who would end his days as professor of divinity at Cambridge. A man of vast intellect and wide ecumenical vision, Bucer was to have a profound influence on a generation of Reformers, not least John Calvin. And his first taste of Reformation thinking was provided by Luther at Heidelberg in 1517. Yet, while Bucer left the disputation marveling at how Luther had attacked what the church had become, he missed the theological core of what Luther was saying. This is the second point of importance: the theology of the cross.

The Theology of the Cross

Toward the end of the disputation, Luther offered some theses which seem (in typical Luther fashion) nonsensical, or at least obscure:

19. That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened [Rom. 1:20].

20. He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.

21. A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.

22. That wisdom which sees the invisible things of God in works as perceived by man is completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened.

These statements actually encapsulate the heart of Luther's theology, and a good grasp of what he means by the obscure terms and phrases they contain sheds light not just on the doctrinal content of his theology, but also on the very way that he believed theologians should think. Indeed, he is taking Paul's explosive argument from 1 Corinthians and developing it into a full theological agenda.

At the heart of his argument is his notion that human beings should not speculate about who God is or how he acts in advance of actually seeing whom he has revealed himself to be. Thus, Luther sees God's revelation of himself as axiomatic to all theology. Now, there probably is not a heretic in history who would not agree with that, because all theology presupposes the revelation of God, whether in nature, human reason, culture, or whatever.

Luther, however, had a dramatically restrictive view of revelation. God revealed himself as merciful to humanity in the Incarnation, when he manifested himself in human flesh, and the supreme moment of that revelation was on the cross at Calvary. Indeed, Luther sometimes referred enigmatically to Christ crucified as "God's backside"—the point at which God appeared to be the very contradiction of all that one might reasonably have anticipated him to be.

The "theologians of glory," therefore, are those who build their theology in the light of what they expect God to be like—and, surprise, surprise, they make God to look something like themselves. The "theologians of the cross," however, are those who build their theology in the light of God's own revelation of himself in Christ hanging on the cross.

Implications

The implications of this position are revolutionary. For a start, Luther is demanding that the entire theological vocabulary be revised in light of the cross. Take for example the word power. When theologians of glory read about divine power in the Bible, or use the term in their own theology, they assume that it is analogous to human power. They suppose that they can arrive at an understanding of divine power by magnifying to an infinite degree the most powerful thing of which they can think. In light of the cross, however, this understanding of divine power is the very opposite of what divine power is all about. Divine power is revealed in the weakness of the cross, for it is in his apparent defeat at the hands of evil powers and corrupt earthly authorities that Jesus shows his divine power in the conquest of death and of all the powers of evil. So when a Christian talks about divine power, or even about church or Christian power, it is to be conceived of in terms of the cross—power hidden in the form of weakness.

For Luther, the same procedure must be applied to other theological terms. For example, God's wisdom is demonstrated in the foolishness of the cross. Who would have thought up the foolish idea of God taking human flesh in order to die a horrendous death on behalf of sinners who had deliberately defied him, or God making sinners pure by himself becoming sin for them, or God himself raising up a people to newness of life by himself submitting to death? We could go on, looking at such terms as life, blessing, holiness, and righteousness. Every single one must be reconceived in the light of the cross. All are important theological concepts; all are susceptible to human beings casting them in their own image; and all must be recast in the light of the cross.

This insight is one of the factors in Luther's thinking that gives his theology an inner logic and coherence. Take, for example, his understanding of justification, whereby God declares the believer to be righteous in his sight, not by virtue of any intrinsic righteousness (anything that the believer has done or acquired), but on the basis of an alien righteousness, the righteousness of Christ that remains external to the believer. Is this not typical of the strange but wonderful logic of the God of the cross? The person who is really unrighteous, really mired in sin, is actually declared by God to be pure and righteous! Such a truth is incomprehensible to human logic, but makes perfect sense in light of the logic of the cross.

And what of the idea of a God who comes down and loves the unlovely and the unrighteous before the objects of his love have any inclination to love him or do good? Such is incomprehensible to the theologians of glory, who assume that God is like them, like other human beings, and thus only responds to those who are intrinsically attractive or good, or who first earn his favor in some way. But the cross shows that God is not like that: against every assumption that human beings might make about who God is and how he acts, he requires no prior loveliness in the objects of his love; rather, his prior love creates that loveliness without laying down preconditions. Such a God is revealed with amazing and unexpected tenderness and beauty in the ugly and violent drama of the cross.

The Key to Christian Ethics and Experience

Luther does not restrict the theology of the cross to an objective revelation of God. He also sees it as the key to understanding Christian ethics and experience. Foundational to both is the role of faith: to the eyes of unbelief, the cross is nonsense; it is what it seems to be—the crushing, filthy death of a man cursed by God. That is how the unbelieving mind interprets the cross—foolishness to Greeks and an offence to Jews, depending on whether your chosen sin is intellectual arrogance or moral self-righteousness. To the eyes opened by faith, however, the cross is seen as it really is. God is revealed in the hiddenness of the external form. And faith is understood to be a gift of God, not a power inherent in the human mind itself.

This principle of faith then allows the believer to understand how he or she is to behave. United to Christ, the great king and priest, the believer too is both a king and a priest. But these offices are not excuses for lording it over others. In fact, kingship and priesthood are to be enacted in the believer as they are in Christ—through suffering and self-sacrifice in the service of others. The believer is king of everything by being a servant of everyone; the believer is completely free by being subject to all. As Christ demonstrated his kingship and power by death on the cross, so the believer does so by giving himself or herself unconditionally to the aid of others. We are to be, as Luther puts it, little Christs to our neighbors, for in so doing we find our true identity as children of God.

This argument is explosive, giving a whole new understanding of Christian authority. Elders, for example, are not to be those renowned for throwing their weight around, for badgering others, and for using their position or wealth or credentials to enforce their own opinions. No, the truly Christian elder is the one who devotes his whole life to the painful, inconvenient, and humiliating service of others, for in so doing he demonstrates Christlike authority, the kind of authority that Christ himself demonstrated throughout his incarnate life and supremely on the cross at Calvary.

Great Blessings through Great Suffering

The implications of the theology of the cross for the believer do not stop there. The cross is paradigmatic for how God will deal with believers who are united to Christ by faith. In short, great blessing will come through great suffering.

This point is hard for those of us in the affluent West to swallow. For example, some years ago I lectured at a church gathering on this topic and pointed out that the cross was not simply an atonement, but a revelation of how God deals with those whom he loves. I was challenged afterwards by an individual who said that Luther's theology of the cross did not give enough weight to the fact that the cross and resurrection marked the start of the reversal of the curse, and that great blessings should thus be expected; to focus on suffering and weakness was therefore to miss the eschatological significance of Christ's ministry.

Of course, this individual had failed to apply Luther's theology of the cross as thoroughly as he should have done. All that he said was true, but he failed to understand what he was saying in light of the cross. Yes, Luther would agree, the curse is being rolled back, but that rollback is demonstrated by the fact that, thanks to the cross, evil is now utterly subverted in the cause of good. If the cross of Christ, the most evil act in human history, can be in line with God's will and be the source of the decisive defeat of the very evil that caused it, then any other evil can also be subverted to the cause of good.

More than that, if the death of Christ is mysteriously a blessing, then any evil that the believer experiences can be a blessing too. Yes, the curse is reversed; yes, blessings will flow; but who declared that these blessings have to be in accordance with the aspirations and expectations of affluent America? The lesson of the cross for Luther is that the most blessed person upon earth, Jesus Christ himself, was revealed as blessed precisely in his suffering and death. And if that is the way that God deals with his beloved son, have those who are united to him by faith any right to expect anything different?

This casts the problem of evil in a somewhat different light for Luther than, say, for Harold Kushner, the rabbi who wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People. They happen, Luther would say, because that is how God blesses them. God accomplishes his work in the believer by doing his alien work (the opposite of what we expect); he really blesses by apparently cursing.

Indeed, when it is grasped that the death of Christ, the greatest crime in history, was itself willed in a deep and mysterious way by the triune God, yet without involving God in any kind of moral guilt, we see the solution to the age-old problem of absolving an all-powerful God of responsibility for evil. The answer to the problem of evil does not lie in trying to establish its point of origin, for that is simply not revealed to us. Rather, in the moment of the cross, it becomes clear that evil is utterly subverted for good. Romans 8:28 is true because of the cross of Christ: if God can take the greatest of evils and turn it to the greatest of goods, then how much more can he take the lesser evils which litter human history, from individual tragedies to international disasters, and turn them to his good purpose as well.

Luther's theology of the cross is too rich to be covered adequately in a single article, but I hope that my brief sketch above will indicate the rich vein of theological reflection which can be mined by those who reflect upon 1 Corinthians 1 and upon the dramatic antitheses between appearance and reality that are scattered throughout Scripture and marshaled with such force by Martin Luther. An antidote to sentimentality, prosperity doctrine, and an excessively worldly eschatology, this is theological gold dust. The cross is not simply the point at which God atones for sin; it is also a profound revelation of who God is and how he acts toward his creation. (Luther's Theology of the Cross, New Horizons [October 2005])

To the 2-Yr. Old Chinese Girl Left Without a Neighbor

2011-10-24T09:58:00.001+08:00

I didn't watch the video. I couldn't bear the heartache. My knowledge of the incident is second-hand, delivered by this blog post by my pastor.

At any rate, I dedicate this Neal Morse song to her, and to all the little children who have been left without a neighbor.

Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani's Epistle

2011-10-21T17:56:00.001+08:00

A letter, translated from Farsi, sent by Yousef Nadarkhani to his flock:

Dear brothers and sisters, Salam

In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I am continuously seeking grace and mercy to you, that you remember me and those who are bearing efforts for his name in your prayers. Your loyalty to God is the cause of my strength and encouragement. For I know well that you will be rewarded; as it's stated: blessed is the one who has faith, for what has been said to him by God, will be carried out. As we believe, heaven and earth will fade but his word will still remain.

Dear beloved ones, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of a few verses, although you might know them, So that in everything, you give more effort than the past, both to prove your election, and for the sake of Gospel that is to be preached to the entire world as well.

I know that not all of us are granted to keep this word, but to those who are granted this power and this revelation, I announce the same as Jude, earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints.

We are passing by special and sensitive days. They are days that for an alert and awake believer can be days of spiritual growth and progress. Because for him, more than any other time there is the possibility to compare his faith with the word of God, have God's promises in mind, and survey his faith.

Therefore he (the true believer) does not need to wonder for the fiery trial that has been set on for him as though it were something unusual, but it pleases him to participate in Christ's suffering. Because the believer knows he will rejoice in his glory.

Dears, the "judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"

Therefore those who are enduring burdens by the will of God, commit their souls to the faithful Creator. Promises that he has given us, are unique and precious. As we've heard he has said: "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you"

How can it be possible for a believer to understand these words? Not only when he is focusing on Jesus Christ with adapting his life according to the life Jesus lived when he was on earth? As it is said " O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail."

Have we not read and heard: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Many attempt to flee from their spiritual tests, and they have to face those same tests in a more difficult manner, because no one will be victorious by escaping from them, but with patience and humility he will be able to overcome all the tests, and gain victory.

Therefore in the place of Christ's followers, we must not feel desperate, but we have to pray to God in supplication with more passion to help us with any assistance we may need.

According to what Paul has said: In every temptation, God himself will make a way for us to tolerate it.

O beloved ones, difficulties do not weaken mankind, but they reveal the true human nature.

It will be good for us to occasionally face persecutions and abnormalities, since these abnormalities will persuade us to search our hearts, and to survey ourselves. So as a result, we conclude that troubles are difficult, but usually good and useful to build us.

Dear brothers and sisters, we must be more careful than any other time. Because in these days, the hearts and thoughts of many are revealed, so that the faith is tested. May your treasure be where there is no moth and rust.

I would like to remind you of some verses that we nearly discuss everyday, (Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.) but as long as our human will has priority over God's will, his will will not be done.

As we have learned from him in Gethsemane, he surrendered his will to the father, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

What we are bearing today, is a difficult but not unbearable situation, because neither he has tested us more than our faith and our endurance, nor does he do as such. And as we have known from before, we must beware not to fail, but to advance in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, And consider these bumps and prisons as opportunities to testify to his name. He said: If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

As a small servant, necessarily in prison to carry out what I must do, I say with faith in the word of God that he will come soon. "However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

Discipline yourself with faith in the word of God. Retain your souls with patience. For there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly.

May you are granted grace and blessings increasingly in the name of Lord Jesus Christ.

Yusef Nadarkhani
Lakan Prison in Rasht

Westminster Wednesday: Refreshment for the Weary

2011-10-19T16:43:00.003+08:00

The Lord's Day assembly is the day, the place and time, when the Christian hears from the Lord, "You are in My favor, My child. My Son, your Lord and Savior, has satisfied My covenant requirements. Be comforted, and live in the benefits that He has purchased for you through His fulfillment of the mission that I had placed upon Him. Walk in My ways for therein is life, and life truly."

Sadly, one would be hard-pressed to find such an announcement coming from the pulpits of most churches today.

J. Gresham Machen observed:

Whatever the solution there may be, one thing is clear. There must be somewhere groups of redeemed men and women who can gather together humbly in the name of Christ, to give thanks to Him for his unspeakable gift and to worship the Father through Him. Such groups alone can satisfy the needs of the soul. At the present time, there is one longing of the human heart which is often forgotten — it is the deep, pathetic longing of the Christian for fellowship with his brethren. One hears much, it is true, about Christian union and harmony and co-operation. But the union that is meant is often a union with the world against the Lord, or at best a forced union of machinery and tyrannical committees. How different is the true unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace! Sometimes, it is true, the longing for Christian fellowship is satisfied. There are congregations, even in the present age of conflict, that are really gathered around the table of the crucified Lord; there are pastors that are pastors indeed. But such congregations, in many cities, are difficult to find. Weary with the conflicts of the world, one goes into the Church to seek refreshment for the soul. And what does one find? Alas, too often, one finds only the turmoil of the world. The preacher comes forward, not out of a secret place of meditation and power, not with the authority of God's Word permeating his message, not with human wisdom pushed far into the background by the glory of the Cross, but with human opinions about the social problems of the hour or easy solutions of the vast problem of sin. Such is the sermon. And then perhaps the service is closed by one of those hymns breathing out the angry passions of 1861, which are to be found in the back part of the hymnals. Thus the warfare of the world has entered even into the house of God. And sad indeed is the heart of the man who has come seeking peace.

Is there no refuge from strife? Is there no place of refreshing where a man can prepare for the battle of life? Is there no place where two or three can gather in Jesus' name, to forget for the moment all those things that divide nation from nation and race from race, to forget human pride, to forget the passions of war, to forget the puzzling problems of industrial strife, and to unite in overflowing gratitude at the foot of the Cross? If there be such a place, then that is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive the weary world. (Christianity and Liberalism [1923], 180-81)

The Priests of Success Don't Sleep

2011-10-18T15:43:00.001+08:00

"It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2).

Modernism and the industrial revolution have left us not only with conveniences that have made life much easier but, as I've argued elsewhere, an unthinking breed of men. Another offshoot of this is the undue quality of virtue that has been stamped upon workaholism. Wide-eyed adulation is heaped upon the man (or woman) who can work long hours, who has the mettle to forego personal relationships and amusements, all on the altar of the workbench.

Enter SAP India CEO, Ranjan Das. By all accounts, the SAP India head honcho was a health nut. He ate right, exercised regularly, and was even an avid marathoner. But at the unripe, young age of 42, Das drops dead of a massive heart attack. The reason? Sleep deprivation!

Ranjan Das was a poster boy for modernism and industry. He was one of its priests, and he sacrificed his life for sacred success.

I don't know about you, but that's certainly no way to live! Nor die.

John Calvin has some words to say on the matter:

It is vain for you in hastening to rise early. Solomon now expresses more plainly that men in vain wear themselves out with toiling, and waste themselves by fasting to acquire riches, since these also are a benefit bestowed only by God. The more effectually to move them, he addresses himself to every man in particular. It is, says he, in vain for you. He particularizes two means which are thought to contribute in an eminent degree to the amassing of riches. It is not surprising to find those growing rich in a short time who spare no exertion, but consume night and day in plying their occupations, and allow themselves only scanty fare from the product of their labor. Solomon, however, affirms that neither living at a small expense, nor diligence in business will by themselves profit anything at all. Not that he forbids us to practice temperance in our diet and to rise early to engage in our worldly business; but to stir us up to prayer, and to calling upon God, and also to recommend gratitude for the divine blessings, he brings to nought whatever would obscure the grace of God. Consequently, we shall then enter upon our worldly avocations in a right way when our hope depends exclusively upon God, and our success in that case will correspond to our wishes. But if a man, taking no account of God, eagerly makes haste, he will bring ruin upon himself by his too precipitate course. It is not, therefore, the design of the Prophet to encourage men to give way to sloth, so that they should think upon nothing all their life long, but fall asleep and abandon themselves to idleness- his meaning rather is, that, in executing what God has enjoined upon them, they should always begin with prayer and calling upon his name, offering to him their labors that he may bless them. The expression, the bread of sorrows, may be explained in two ways, either as denoting what is acquired by hard and anxious toil, or what is eaten with disquietude of mind; just as we see parsimonious and close-handed persons, when they have scarcely tasted a bit of bread, pulling back their hand from their mouth. It is of no great importance which of these senses is adopted; for we are simply taught that parsimonious men profit nothing — no not even when through their own niggardliness they grudge to eat as much as nature requires.

For thus will he give sleep to his beloved. The inspired writer intimates that the blessing of God, of which he has spoken, is actually seen in his children and servants. It will not suffice to believe this doctrine — that whatever, men attempt is to no purpose; it is necessary that the promise be added, in order to their being led with assured hope to perform their duty. The sentence may be read either — he will give sleep to his beloved, or, he will give in sleeping; that is, he will give them those things which unbelievers labor to acquire by their own industry.....He indeed speaks as if God nourished the slothfulness of his servants by his gentle treatment; but as we know that men are created with the design of their being occupied, and as in the subsequent Psalm we shall find that the servants of God are accounted happy when they eat the labor of their hands, it is certain that the word sleep is not to be understood as implying slothfulness, but a placid labor, to which true believers subject themselves by the obedience of faith. Whence proceeds this so great ardor in the unbelieving, that they move not a finger without a tumult or bustle, in other words, without tormenting themselves with superfluous cares, but because they attribute nothing to the providence of God! The faithful, on the other hand, although they lead a laborious life, yet follow their vocations with composed and tranquil minds. Thus their hands are not idle, but their minds repose in the stillness of faith, as if they were asleep. If it is again objected, that God’s people are often agitated with distressing cares, and that, oppressed with pinching poverty, and destitute of all resources, they are anxiously concerned about the morrow, I answer, that if faith and love to God were perfect in his servants, his blessing, of which the Prophet makes mention, would be manifest. Whenever they are tormented above measure, this happens through their own default, in not resting entirely upon the providence of God. I farther add, that God punishes them more severely than unbelievers, because it is profitable for them to be agitated by disquietude for a season, that at length they may attain to this peaceful sleep. In the meantime, however, God’s grace prevails, and always shines forth in the midst of darkness, in respect of his cherishing his children as it were by sleep. (Commentary on Psalm 127:2, italics original)

Moses the Meekest

2011-10-14T15:11:00.006+08:00

"Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth." (Numbers 12:3)

It does seem oxymoronic for Moses to refer to himself as the humblest human being in the world. But there is more here than meets the eye.

Firstly, Moses does seem to be possessed of an inherently underdog nature. Reared in the royal courts of Pharaoh, Moses could've lived life in the lap of luxury. He had the American dream down. But when he saw a fellow Israelite being bullied by an Egyptian, he didn't think pragmatically, counting his set life as a deterrent to doing the noble thing. He shed Egyptian blood and left easy street for a life of obscurity in the desert, becoming a good son-in-law in the tending of sheep. Imagine the lowliness of mind and self-estimation required for such a transition!

Also, Moses appears to have been afflicted with stuttering. As a stutterer myself, I know firsthand how humbling that can be!

Secondly—and this is perhaps the weightier point in the understanding of the passage—"meek" here can mean "miserable" or "burdened." God's call upon him signaled the beginning of a life of carrying the burden of the people of God. So when Moses refers to himself as the meekest man on the planet, what he's really saying is that his role in redemptive history is such that the weight of care and trouble that this mandate brings far exceeds that of anyone else's "stresses." Considering the fact that Moses is a type or shadow of Christ, it does make perfect sense.

A fuller discussion here and here.

Van Til on Driscoll

2011-10-13T17:23:00.001+08:00

Mark Driscoll's rejection of the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son of God (declared in ecumenical creeds and Reformed confessions) is discussed here (Part 1), here (Part 2), here (Part 3), and here (Part 4).

It appears Cornelius Van Til was on the mark once again when he said:

It is sometimes contended that ministers need not be trained in systematic theology if only they know their Bibles. But "Bible-trained" instead of systematically trained preachers frequently preach error. They may mean ever so well and be ever so true to the gospel on certain points; nevertheless, they often preach error. There are many "orthodox" preachers today whose study of Scripture has been so limited to what it says about soteriology that they could not protect the fold of God against heresies on the person of Christ. Oftentimes they themselves even entertain definitely heretical notions on the person of Christ, though perfectly unaware of the fact. (An Introduction to Systematic Theology [New Jersey: P & R, 2007], ed. William Edgar, 22)

Westminster Wednesday: Some Big Van Tillian Words

2011-10-12T18:14:00.002+08:00

References:
(Bahnsen = Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1998).

Frame = John M. Frame, Cornelius Van Til: an Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1995).

VT= Van Til)

Absolute Personality: VT's basic characterization of God. Unlike any non-Christian view, the biblical God is both absolute (a se, self-existent, selfsufficient, self-contained) and personal (thinking, speaking, acting, loving, judging). See Frame, 51ff.

Ad hominem: Argument that exposes deficiencies in the arguer rather than deficiencies in the proposition under discussion. Thus, a logical fallacy. But often ad hominem argument is appropriate. See Bahnsen, 116ff, 468, 492, Frame, 153.

All-conditioner: VT's characterization of God in "Why I Believe in God" (see Bahnsen, 121-143). God is the one who ultimately influences all reality, including our own thinking and reasoning about him.

Analogy, analogical reasoning: (1) (Aquinas) Thinking in language that is neither literally true (univocal), nor unrelated to the subject matter (equivocal), but which bears a genuine resemblance to that subject matter. (2) (VT) Thinking in subjection to God's revelation and therefore thinking God's thoughts after him.

Antithesis: The opposition between Christian and non-Christian thought. See Frame, 187ff.

Apologetics: That branch of theology that gives reasons for our hope. VT saw it as involving proof, defense, and offense.

A priori: Knowledge acquired prior to experience, used to interpret and evaluate experience. Contrasted with a posteriori knowledge, knowledge arising out of experience. See Bahnsen, 107n, 177.

Authority of the expert: Submission to the knowledge of someone better informed, rather than absolute submission to God as the very criterion of truth. To VT, this is the only kind of authority the unbeliever will accept.

Autonomy: The attempt to live apart from any law external to the self. To VT, this is the paradigm attitude of unbelief. See Bahnsen 109, n.

Blockhouse methodology: An apologetic approach that begins with beliefs supposedly held in common between believers and unbelievers, then tries to supplement that common ground with additional truth. VT finds this methodology in Aquinas's distinction between natural reason and faith, and in other forms of "traditional apologetics." See Bahnsen, 64, 535f, 708f

Borrowed capital: The truth known and acknowledged by the unbeliever. He has no right to believe or assert truth in terms of his own presuppositions, but only on Christian ones. So his assertions of truth are based on borrowed capital.

Brute fact: (1) (in VT) fact that is uninterpreted (by God, man, or both) and therefore the basis of all interpretation; (2) objective fact: fact not dependent on what man thinks about it.

Certainty: (1) Assurance of one's beliefs (also "certitude"). (2) The impossibility of a proposition being false. VT emphasized that Christian truth is certain and should be presented as a certainty, not a mere probability, q.v.

Chance: Events that occur without cause or reason. See Bahnsen, 728.

Circular argument: (1) argument in which the conclusion of an argument is one of its premises; (2) argument assuming something that would ordinarily not be assumed by someone who didn't believe the conclusion. See Bahnsen, 518ff, Frame, 299 ff.

Common Ground: That which believer and unbeliever have in common, making it possible for them to engage in apologetic discussion. See "point of contact." VT sometimes denied that Christians and non-Christians had any beliefs in common. But his actual view was that they would not have such common beliefs if each were fully consistent with his presuppositions. See Bahnsen 276, 420-24, 730.

Common Notions: Beliefs that Christians and non-Christians have in common. VT sometimes denied there were any of these. But see "Common Ground," above.

Contingency: (1) Dependence on something else for origin and/or continued being; the opposite of necessity. (2) Chance.

Correlative: Mutually dependent. For VT, the unbeliever holds that God and the world are correlative.

Creatively Constructive: What unbelieving thought attempts to be on VT's view. It attempts to be the original standard of all truth, as opposed to Christian thought, which is "receptively reconstructive" (= analogical in the second sense).

Deductivism: (1) Trying to deduce the whole of theology from one "master concept," (2) drawing deductions from one biblical concept that are incompatible with other biblical concepts. See Frame, 166.

Determinism: (1) The view that every event in the world has a cause. (2) The view that every event in the world has a finite cause. VT might be considered a determinist in sense (1), but not in sense (2). However, determinisms of both kinds often presuppose impersonal causation as ultimate. In that sense, VT rejected determinism and pointed out that it is equivalent to chance.

Eminence: Reasoning that God must possess the best qualities of creatures in infinite degree. One of Aquinas's three means of knowing God, the others being causality and negation. Van Til believes that this method, if not governed by Scripture, yields a finite God, only somewhat larger than creatures.

Epistemology: Theory of knowledge.

Ethics: Theory of behavior.

Evidence: (1) the facts used in an argument to establish a conclusion; (2) statements of such facts. See Frame, 177ff.

Fact: A state of affairs in the real world, governed by law.

Fideism: Belief that God is known by faith and not by reason. VT is sometimes accused of fideism, but he repudiated it frequently. See Bahnsen, 77-82.

Full-bucket difficulty: God is all-glorious; no glory can be added to him. Yet he calls on creatures to glorify him. VT said, therefore, that glorifying God was like trying to add water to a full bucket.

Implication: (1) The act of deriving a conclusion from a premise or premises. (2) The conclusion derived from the premises. (3) (In Idealist Philosophy): a method of thinking that employs logic with an understanding of the psychological workings of the mind in its situational context. VT sometimes speaks of his approach as a "method of implication" in the third sense, something more than mere deduction or induction, but including both of them. See Bahnsen, 172-73.

Incomprehensibility of God: (1) Our inability to know God exhaustively, (2) The lack of identity between any human thought and any divine thought. (1) is the more common meaning in theology; (2) was the subject of the Van Til/Clark controversy.

Indirect Argument: a synonym for reductio, q.v.

Irrationalism: Belief that human reason is inadequate to discover truth. VT believes that unbelievers are both irrationalistic and rationalistic at the same time. See Bahnsen, 717ff, Frame, 231 ff.

Limiting (or supplementative) Concept: Concept of something (like an actual infinity of objects) that doesn't exist (or cannot be proved to exist), but which can serve a useful purpose in thought. Kant believed that the concepts of God, freedom, and immortality were limiting concepts. On his view, we should live "as if" these existed. VT holds that some theological concepts (e.g.: the idea that sin can destroy the work of God) are not literally true, but can be affirmed on a similar "as if" basis. See Frame, 165-69.

Metaphysics, ontology: (1) A general view of the world, a world-and-life view. (2) The fundamental realities that exist.

Monism: Belief that reality is all of one kind; hence, denial of the creator-creature distinction.

Negation, remotion, via negativa: Way of knowing God by ascribing to him the opposite of creaturely qualities that are perceived as limits. One of Aquinas's three means of knowing God, the others being eminence and causality. In VT's view, when this method is used apart from Scripture, it yields a god who is a "pure blank," a mere negation of finite reality.

Neutrality: Trying to think or live without making a religious commitment or ultimate presupposition. In VT's view, this is impossible. Attempting it presupposes a commitment against the true God.

Noetic effects of sin: The effects of sin on human thought, reasoning, knowledge. In VT: the sinner knows God, but represses that knowledge (Rom. 1)

Objective Knowledge, Truth: Knowledge or truth whose truth does not depend on what man thinks.

One-and-many Problem: Knowledge involves uniting particulars into universal categories. But if every particular belongs to a universal category, then some particulars are no longer particular. But if some particularities cannot be described by universal categories, then they can't be known, or they have no nature. The same problem can be described in terms of the relation of logic to fact, and of that of subject to object. See Bahnsen, 706, Frame, 63ff.

Point of contact: A belief held in common between two people that enables them to reason toward further agreement. In VT, particularly the point of contact between believer and unbeliever. For VT it is found, not in a common world view, but in the true knowledge of God that the believer has, and the unbeliever also has, but suppresses. See Bahnsen, 105, n.

Predication: attaching a predicate to a subject; hence, making an assertion. VT says that only the Christian world view makes predication possible.

Presupposition: (1) a belief that precedes other beliefs; (2) a belief that governs other beliefs; (3) ultimate presupposition: the belief that governs all other beliefs, or the most fundamental commitment of the heart.

Probability: The degree to which a proposition approaches certainty. VT believed that Christianity was certain, not merely probable, and that for an apologist to claim mere probability is to deny the clarity of God's revelation.

Proof: An argument that establishes the truth of a conclusion. VT believed that there was "absolutely certain proof" of Christian theism by way of his transcendental argument. See Bahnsen, 78-82.

Qualitative/Quantitative Difference: In the Clark Controversy, these terms designated different views of God's incomprehensibility, q.v. Clark denied holding a "merely quantitative" view (that God knows more propositions than we), because he held that God knows the world by a different mode from man. Van Til found Clark's view of the difference to be insufficient, but he refused to state precisely the difference he referred to as "qualitative."

Rationalism: (1) Belief that human reason (seen as the whole apparatus of human thought, including sensation, memory, etc.) is the ultimate arbiter of truth and falsity. (2) Belief that human reason (as opposed to sense experience) is the road to knowledge. VT believes that all unbelievers are rationalistic in the first sense---and also irrationalistic, q.v.

Reductio ad absurdum: A form of argument in which, rather than directly prove a conclusion, the arguer reduces the contrary conclusion to an absurdity. Hence it is also called "indirect argument" or "argument from the impossibility of the contrary," VT believed that all transcendental arguments must take this form. Frame disagrees.

Self-attestation, self-authentication: In any system of thought, the ultimate authority justifies itself. For VT that ultimate authority is God, especially when speaking in Scripture. See Bahnsen 209-219, 715.

Sense of deity, divinity (also, sensus deitatis, divinitatis, semen religionis): Calvin's way of describing the knowledge the unbeliever has, but suppresses.

Starting point: In VT, synonym for "presupposition." Therefore, it doesn't necessarily refer to a beginning point in time, but rather to a belief that governs other beliefs.

Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re: Gentle in manner, strong in substance. VT's description of an ideal apologetic presentation. See Bahnsen, 441.

Supplementation: In apologetics, presenting Christian truth as something merely additional to what the non-Christian believes already. See "blockhouse methodology."

System: One's attempt to express his world view in a coherent set of thoughts.

That and What: VT criticizes some apologists for trying to prove that God is, without considering what he is. Frame emphasizes that you can never prove God's entire nature in one argument, so the what is a matter of degree. We cannot actually mention everything. But an apologetic argument be consistent with everything the Bible says about God. See "unit." See Bahnsen, 217, 708.

Transcendental argument: an argument that seeks to show the necessary conditions for the possibility of rational thought or meaningful discourse. VT believed this was the only kind of argument appropriate to a Christian apologetic, since the biblical God is the author of all meaning and rationality.

Unit, Whole (Defending Christianity as a): Defending the particular elements of Christianity with an awareness of the connection of each element with the overall system of truth. Not proving everything at once, though VT sometimes seems almost to demand that of apologists he criticizes. See Bahnsen, 26, 103n, 511.

Univocal: (1) (Aquinas) Language that describes its object literally. (2) (VT) Thinking autonomously rather than analogously (q.v.), as if one were divine.

World view (also, world-and-life view): A philosophy, particularly a metaphysic. A way of understanding reality that governs all thought and life.

Source: A Van Til Glossary by John Frame (IIIM Magazine Online, Volume 2, Number 35, August 28 to September 3, 2000).

The Pagan Roots of Homosexuality

2011-10-10T13:31:00.006+08:00

First order of business: definition of terms.

What is paganism?

"I would suggest that the essence of paganism can be usefully described as monism, the belief that one principle defines and unites all of reality. Thus all is one, humanity is one divine reality, and all religions are ultimately many expressions of the one monistic truth. At the heart of this theoretical religious paganism lies a particular and powerful mystical experience of oneness. Indeed, it is often claimed in today’s syncretistic age that at the core of all religions, beyond and behind their distinctive doctrines, is the same mystical encounter." (Peter Jones, Androgyny: The Pagan Sexual Ideal, JETS 43/3 [September 2000], 446)

What is the historical association of paganism and homosexuality?

"Throughout time and across space, the pagan cultus consistently, though not exclusively, holds out as its sexual representative the emasculated, androgynous priest." (ibid., 448)

Pagan religion, with virtual unanimity, "believed that homosexuals 'were vocationally mediums.' They also, with a certain logical consistency, held that heterosexual intercourse impaired the mediumistic talent" (ibid., 454).

However, "this is not to suggest some scarlet, conspiratorial thread connecting the dots. The connection is logical, theological, and inevitable. A monistic view of existence will work itself out in all the domains of human life, and especially in the domain of sexuality" (ibid., 457).

What is the religious significance between paganism and homosexuality?

"Therefore homosexuals are—though some unconsciously or only partially—true pagan monists, who have succeeded in translating spiritual theory into physical reality." (ibid., 462)

"The physico-theological mechanism seems to function as follows: androgynous persons, whether homosexual or bi-sexual, are able to express within themselves both sexual roles and identities. In the sex act they engage both as male and female, equally as penetrator and penetrated, the 'hard' and the 'soft'—and thus taste in some form or other both physical and spiritual androgyny." (ibid., 463)

Read the whole article here.

Steve Jobs Was Both Right and Wrong

2011-10-06T16:21:00.003+08:00

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it." (Steve Jobs, Commencement Address at Stanford University [June 12, 2005])

The statement above by the late, great Steve Jobs is both true and false.

It is true in the sense that physical death was never part of man's telos as indicated by the fact that the everlasting life that is the heritage of the saints is a physical life to be lived out in a physical New Earth, and arguably, the damned shall be tormented in hell in a state of physicality as well.

But it is also false in the sense intimated by Paul in the following verses:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better (Philippians 1:21-23).

Steve Jobs had the best medical treatment that money could buy, and yet here we are now mourning his passing.

The message that is crystal clear is that not a single one of us holds our lives in our own hands, in an ultimate sense, regardless of the size of our pocketbooks. This is cause for fear and consternation on the part of the rebel, but comfort and solace for the humble in Christ:

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:28-31).

Westminster Wednesday: G. I. Williamson on the Offices in the Church

2011-10-05T13:47:00.001+08:00

After meticulous consideration, he favors the 3-office view.

I want to begin this article by frankly admitting that I've long hesitated on this issue. The fact that Paul only speaks of elders and deacons in 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 1:5-9 has always seemed to me to have some weight in favor of the two-office view. At the same time, however, I've always thought that 1 Timothy 5:17 clearly proves that—in the established churches of the Apostolic age—there was a marked division of labor among those who were called elders. All elders ruled, but there were some elders who, in addition to ruling, were especially marked out to "labor in word and doctrine" and this undeniable fact always seemed to me to lend some weight to the arguments of those in favor of the three-office view.

I've read just about everything that I could put my hands on to resolve my hesitation, but never seemed to quite get beyond a two and-a-half-office view. But then one day it 'hit' me. Now I wonder why I never thought of it before. I'm even more astonished that no one else seems to have thought of it either (at least I am not aware of any, and I've been looking into this issue for the past 40 years). So here I am tentatively setting forth what seems to me to be the amazingly simple solution to this difficulty.

I now see that it is not really correct to say that Paul only lists the qualifications for two offices: the elders and the deacons. No, it is more accurate to say that he lists the qualifications for three offices: (1) the deacons, (2) the elders who rule but do not labor in the word and in doctrine, and (3) the elders who not only rule but also labor in word and doctrine as their vocation. What I mean is that the qualifications for (1) and (2) are clearly set down in chapter three of First Timothy. and in the first chapter of Titus. But the qualifications for category (3) are not only to be found in the portion of these passages that speaks of the general qualifications for elders, but also in the entire content of First and Second Timothy and Titus.

It is very clear that Titus and Timothy were men who preached the gospel. And it is equally clear that the Apostle Paul—for this reason—gives many specific instructions to these men that pertain precisely to their "labor in word and doctrine?" In 1 Timothy Paul charges Timothy to be particularly vigilant to refute unsound doctrine (1:3-11). He gives a special charge to him (1:18). He urges him to "instruct the brethren in these things" as "a good minister of Jesus Christ" (4:6). He is urged to give himself "to reading, exhortation and doctrine" (4:13). He is exhorted to "preach the word...in season and out of season" (2 Tim. 4:2). And other specifics could easily be added—things not required of those other elders who did not labor in word and doctrine. These specifics are such as to clearly mark out the teaching elder—the preaching elder—as a man charged with specific duties that are above and beyond the call of the ruling elders. I take this to be the reason why Paul speaks of such men (in 1 Tim. 5:17) as especially worthy of double honor if they are faithful.

Why, then—it might be asked—does he use one word (presbyter or elder) as a name for both in 1 Tim. 5:17? Why does he insist on speaking of both those who do and those who do not labor in word and in doctrine as elders? I think the reason is simply this: to avoid even the slightest tendency toward hierarchical thinking. The apostle John wrote of a certain man named Diotrephes who loved "to have the preeminence" (3 John 9). We also know from the New Testament account that the Apostles themselves were not immune to this temptation (Luke 22:24-26). One of the great principles clearly stated in the Dordt Church Order is that no office-bearer is to be allowed to Lord it over any other office-bearers (Art. 84). I suggest that it was because of this constant tendency in our sinful nature that Paul did not give any higher sounding title to the preaching elder than to the elders that only rule. And we do well to take this lesson to heart. Yet this should in no way diminish our ability to recognize that which is special in defining this office.

With respect to those who labor among us Paul says that we should "esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake" (1 Thess. 5:13). This is especially true of the minister of the word if he really does labor in the word and in doctrine. In my own ministry I've tried to discourage both ministers and so-called lay-people from too much concern about titles (Dominee, Reverend, Doctor etc.). It is also my observation that emphasis on such titles is counterproductive. God's people are usually quite willing to esteem those who do faithfully preach the gospel to them. So there is no need for some artificial status elevation for ministers, as if the mere possession of a title qualifies them to a position or status above others.

The need of the hour is not status, but a generation of men who can truly say "woe be unto me if I preach not the gospel." Ministers who lust after status and titles will do nothing for the advancement of the true church. Those who humbly labor in the word of God with diligence and perseverance, and then preach it with power will neither need nor desire these artificial things.

I'm not saying that labels have no importance at all. I am only saying that what really matters is what is under the labels. The apostle Paul put it like this: "If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed." (1 Tim. 4:6).

It is enough to be—and to be called—a minister of the Word of God (that is, a faithful minister after the pattern of Timothy and Titus). For, as our Lord himself put it, that makes the minister the bottom man on the totem pole (to speak in colloquial terms), not the man on the top if it. "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called 'benefactors.' But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves." (Luke 22:25.26)

Paul put the issue precisely when he wrote this to Timothy: "Let no one despise your youth"—but then immediately added—"but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in charity." So we have every right to defend the intrinsic importance of our office, but we should not try to do it by artificial demands based on mere titles. Rather must it arise from credible evidence of our own faithfulness as we labor in word and in doctrine.

So I am finally driven to the conclusion that the three-office view is really what the Scriptures teach. But I also see that recognition of this in no way implies—in the slightest degree—any hierarchical status for ministers. As John Murray points out in his Commentary on the Book of Romans, Paul "considered himself 'less than the least of all saints' (Eph. 3:8) but he did not allow this estimate of himself to keep him from asserting his high prerogatives as an apostle and minister of Christ. Among believers he is the noblest example of what he here (Rom. 12:10,11) commends and of the sobriety of judgment to be exercised 'according as God hath dealt to each a measure of faith.'" (p. 130).

Blessed indeed is the minister of the Word who can keep these two things in proper order and balance. (G. I. Williamson, The Two- and Three-Office Issue Reconsidered, Ordained Servant — Vol. 12, No. 1, 5-6, emphases original)

The Pastor: What He Is and What He Is Not

2011-09-30T16:17:00.007+08:00

The news of Yousef Nadarkhani, an Iranian pastor facing possible execution, has made the headlines. A good treatment of his case can be found here.

Now compare him with the brash and insolent Perry Noble:

Noble, who claims to be a pastor, doesn't want to spend time with the people of his pasture (they make him uncomfortable) and abhors the idea of doing hospital visitations while the sick person is still alive (he might agree to visit when they're dead!).

Square that with the words of the Lord Jesus Christ (the One Noble claims to serve!):

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." (Matt. 25:31-40)

Can you come to grips with the idea of Noble being willing to die for his faith? I certainly cannot by any stretch of the imagination! If mere association with Christ's sheep rubs him wrong, then to claim love for the sheep owner is a blatant lie. In fact, "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen" (1 John 4:20).

By now it must be pretty obvious what a real pastor is, and that Perry Noble does not measure up (not even an inch). If not, then the following lectures from Sinclair Ferguson should bring home the point pretty well, i.e., the pastor is called to give his life for his Master's sheep.

Mere Christianity: The Appeal to a Heterodox Past

2011-09-29T18:49:00.003+08:00

It is often lamented that modern (or postmodern) evangelicalism does not look to the past for the foundations of its faith and practice. While this is certainly true in a strict sense, there is no escaping the universal truth expressed in Ecclesiates 1:9 and the fact that evangelicals today owe a lot to the legacies of those who've pandered a notion of mere Christianity in the past.

Claiming to get at the kernel and leaving behind the husk, these seemingly "radical" innovators are actually no more than current expressions of a rebellious individualism that has marked heretics of a bygone era. Tradition is stiff, "new measures" are where the Spirit's at, doctrine divides, and a host of other meaningless catch phrases comprise their rhetoric.

In fact, "Christian liberalism" is mere Christianity and this is what J. Gresham Machen fought against, not liberalism per se.

To C.S. Lewis fans this little snippet from Dr. Carl Trueman has much to say:

Now, when one approaches the major texts of postmodern evangelicalism and asks what they are saying, the answer is exciting: they claim they are opening up radical new directions for theology; but when one approaches the same texts and asks what they are doing, the answer is somewhat more prosaic. Far from pointing to new ways of doing theology, these texts are on the whole appropriating an admittedly new idiom, that of postmodernism, in order to accomplish a very traditional and time-honored task: they are articulating a doctrinally minimal, antimetaphysical 'mere Christianity.' Like pouting teenagers in pre-torn designer jeans and Che Guevara tee-shirts, they look angry and radical but are really as culturally conformist and conservative as a tall latte from Starbucks.

Any historian worth his salt can see that this 'mere Christianity' agenda has a well-established pedigree in Christendom. At the time of the Reformation, Erasmus, writing against Luther, used a combination of Renaissance skepticism, intellectual elitism, and contemporary Catholic teaching on church authority to argue for a Christianity which was essentially practical in orientation and minimally doctrinal in content. In seventeenth-century England, Richard Baxter adopted a linguistic philosophy suggestively akin to that of his contemporary Thomas Hobbes in order to undercut the traditional metaphysical basis of Christian orthodoxy and offer a minimal account of the doctrines of the faith. In the early nineteenth century, Friedrich Schleiermacher responded to Kant's critical philosophy by fusing pietism, Romanticism, and a post-Kantian antimetaphysical bent to reconstruct Christian doctrines as statements about religious psychology, not transcendent theological truths. And evangelicalism, from its roots in revivalism and pietism, through its development in the pragmatic, anti-speculative culture of America, to its current existence as a more-or-less amorphous, transdenominational coalition, has historically embodied in its very essence an antipathy to precise and comprehensive doctrinal statement. To make the point of immediate relevance in a Westminster context, it was this kind of evangelical position, and not really true liberalism in the technical sense, against which Machen was fighting at Princeton prior to 1929. Therefore, it would seem at least arguable from the perspective of history that the evangelical appropriation of certain aspects of postmodernism is not really a radical break with the past. It might simply be a co-opting of the latest cultural idiom to give trendy and plausible expression to a well-established and traditional ideal of 'mere Christianity.'

Let me interject a clarification at this point lest I be misinterpreted as saying that mere Christianity is something wrong in itself, a matter to be despised. That is emphatically not what I am saying at all. Salvation does not depend upon the individual's possession of an elaborate doctrinal system or a profound grasp of intricate and complex theology. Yet this is not my point. What I am claiming is that mere Christianity, a Christianity which lacks this doctrinal elaboration, is an insufficient basis either for building a church or for guaranteeing the long-term stability of the tradition of the church, that is, the transmission from generation to generation and from place to place, of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. What is disturbing is that the advocates of postmodern mere Christianity are not debating how much one must believe to be saved; they are actually proposing a manifesto for the life of the church as a whole, a somewhat more comprehensive and ambitious project. It is the validity of this that I question. (Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light, WTJ 70 [2008]: 4-6)

To Love Is to Know

2011-09-29T12:25:00.003+08:00

To know in Scripture can entail the idea of factual knowledge or intimacy (often the marital kind). The latter mode is impossible without the former, and yet we often hear of "loving Jesus" divorced from the idea of theology. In such a case, the lover is infatuated with the idea of love rather than the object of love and is really quite in the throes of self-delusion.

Dr. Michael Horton has some words to say: