Iron Ink

“The standard in the final judgment will in the first place be the gospel (John 12:48); but that gospel is not opposed to, and cannot even be conceived apart from the law. The requirement to beliveve, after all, is itself grounded in the law, and the Gospel is the restoration and fulfillment of the law.”

Herman Bavinck - Dutch Reformed Theologian
Vol 4 Reformed Dogmatics – pg. 700

“The Father gave the Son authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man (John 5:27). Eschatology, therefore, is rooted in Christology, and is itself Christology, the teaching of the final, complete, triumph of Christ and His Kingdom over all His enemies. In accord w/ Scripture, we can go back even further. The Son is not only the mediator of reconciliation on account of sin, but even apart from sin he is the mediator of union between God and His creation. In the Son the world has its foundation and example, and therefore it has in him its goal as well. It is created through him and for him as well (Col. 1:6). Because the creation is his work, it cannot and may not remain the booty of Satan. The Son is the head, Lord, and heir of all things. United in the Son, gathered unto him as their head, all creatures return to the Father, the fountain of all good. The second coming is therefore required by his first coming. It is implied in the first; in time, by inner necessity, it will proceed from the first; the second coming brings the first coming to its full effect and completion and was therefore comprehended in a single image w/ the first coming by Old Testament prophecy.”

Herman Bavinck
Reformed Dogmatics – Vol. 4, pg. 685

I want to say right up front that I am going to take this quote in a direction that would have horrified, the amillennialist, Herman Bavinck. Everything bavinck says in that quote above he see’s only happening w/ the arrival of Jesus swooping in on the end of History turning the defeat of the Church by the forces into a last second victory secured by His appearance on the scene.

I am not an amillenialist.

The first thing I want to note is pedagogical. We study doctrines thematically (Christology, Eschatology, Pneumatology, Ecclesiology, etc.) but we have not arrived at knowledge until we have a vision of how all doctrine is integrated and mutually inter-related. Nothing in Christian doctrine can be completely compartmentalized from any any other Christian doctrine.

Second, note how Bavinck reconciles nature and grace in this quote. He understands that the Kingship of Christ is of such a nature where redemption is His to sinners as they are collected and placed in the Church, but Bavinck also understands that the Kingship of Christ is of such a nature where, because of Christ’s role as Creator of the world – a Creator role that included the foreordaining of the world to pay Him all homage – the World would become an undisputed, inescapable, and undeniable theater of the magnificent glory of Christ put on firework display.

The dual function of the Kingship of Christ moves along parallel tracks. As Christ collects his people by the means of exercising his Redemptive Kingship for the Church, He at the same time exercises his Cosmic Kingship and collects what is owed to Him by a world that was created with the express goal of being a mirror for the splendor of His Kingship.

Where the amillennialist and the postmillennialist diverge here is that amillennialist insists that King Jesus’ work of improving upon His creation must wait until all hope of that improvement is seen to be vain. For the amillennialist all in history finally ends in ruin and revolt.

According, to the incontrovertible testimony of Scripture, the history of humankind, both in the case of culture-producing and of uncultured nations, rather ends in general apostasy and an appalling final struggle of a coalition of all satanic forces against God and His Kingdom.” – H. Bavinck

For my part I think the amillennialist has a Old Covenant eschatology. In the Old Covenant all was shadows and almost all was characterized by the eschatological “not yet.” The amillennialists misses that with the coming of Christ an eschatological change has occurred. The eschatological “now” that was suppressed in the Old Covenant now comes to the fore w/ the coming of the King. With the advent of Jesus the eschatological “not yet,” though still present, recedes into the background, and the result is that Kingdom goes from flowering unto flowering until the Kingdoms of the world become the garden of the Lord.

With the advent and triumph of Jesus God’s people seek to bring the Redemptive Kingship of Jesus to the nations so that the nations, being converted, might manifest the Cosmic Kingship of Jesus so that the world finds its goal of which Bavinck speaks so eloquently above. The triumph of Christ incrementally leaves a ever deepening impression upon not only the redeemed by virtue of His Redemptive Kingship but also upon the world by virtue of His Cosmic Kingship.

The amillennialist will object, “Your eschatology is far too over-realized.” But the postmillennialist responds by noting that this is something we would expect to hear from someone whose eschatology is far too under-realized. All the post-millennialist is suggesting is that as Christ, by the Cross, has definitively conquered all by the binding of the strong man, so God’s people are compelled to progressively and increasingly visit His victory everywhere. Christ has overcome the world. We are called to be over-comers, and this we do by heralding and placarding Christ Crucified … The Redemptive and Cosmic King of the World.

By such placarding we expect to continue to fill up the sufferings of our Beloved Christ. In the role of Herald we expect the enemy to hiss and spit and attack and kill. But we are the Happy Warriors for we know who is King and we fear not the prattling of the wicked.

Christ is Redemptive and Cosmic King and nothing will obstruct His intent to magnify His splendor either in the life of His Redeemed Church or in the shaping of the Cosmos to be His undisputed theater of Regency.

“For purgatory is not a mission center, no institution for conversion, no school of sanctification, but a place where only temporal punishment can be ‘paid off.’ So on the one hand, the ‘poor souls’ can no longer sin and take on new guilt, and on the other they cannot improve themselves either, for all improvement implies merit, and in purgatory the possibility of merit is excluded. Consequently, it is impossible for us to form any clear notion of the state of these ‘poor souls.’ If they are to be pictured as still more or less stained by sin, then in the Catholic view it is impossible to understand how they should not continue to sin and so again completely suffer loss of the grace they received. If this possibility is excluded, then the souls are inherently pure and holy and only still have to bear certain temporal punishments they could not bear on earth; but then it is again incomprehensible that the perfectly righteous could still be temporarily excluded from heaven and subjected to the torments of purgatory. In both cases it remains puzzling how purgatory can be a ‘purifying fire’ (ignis purgatorius); it is nothing but a fire of retribution (ignis vindicativus).

Herman Bavinck
Reformed Dogmatics Vol. IV – pg. 637

Dear Pastor,

This is a question regarding your Bayly Brother’s posts,

http://ironink.org/index.php?blog=1&title=the_monster_state_aamp_misguided_ministe&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

http://ironink.org/index.php?blog=1&title=the_monster_state_and_misguided_minisers&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

“I was wondering if by implication, since I pay Social Security taxes, am I too breaking the 8th Commandment?

If I owned a business (I don’t) and have a payroll that takes out SS taxes, would I be guilty of theft?

What about all of those “fees” on my phone bill that are simply masquerades for taxes? Are those legal? If not, should I stop paying?

I don’t get where the line gets drawn if everything is black and white like that. The 2K approach, at least to me, leaves room for the tension of being in this world but not of it.”

Matt S Holst

Dear Matt,

I think you need to remember that the context of this conversation started w/ the observation that the Bayly’s had an opportunity to legally opt out of the Social Security tax. I’m sure you would agree that to insist that there is theological warrant to legally opt out of Social Security when such an opportunity legally affords itself is quite different than insisting that those who can’t opt out of paying the Social Security tax, individually or as a business owner, are violating the 8th commandment.

Remember that historically, Reformed theologians have typically insisted that “lesser” magistrates must lead the way in resistance to “higher” magistrates. If God does not raise up “lesser” magistrates to thwart the evil designs of “higher” magistrates then we are, normatively, left with waiting to resist until such a time as God raises up those people.

The “R2K” approach has no tension because it only begins to resist against manifest evil when manifest evil is stupid enough to forbid private worship. In the R2K scheme the State gets all obedience in all areas (i.e. – Turn over all your Jews please) except if the State begins to intrude upon the Worship service.

In the “R2K” schema one is both not in the world nor of the world, or alternately one is in and of the world when in the common realm and not in and not of the world when in the spiritual realm.

Dear Pastor,

This week you preached from I Corinthians 11 and showed that this passage does not bar the table from small children. You even suggested that I Cor. 11, with its emphasis on the unity of the Body of Christ and the sin found in the Corinthians breaking that unity in the way they treated the poor in regards to the table, there is a reminder to us that we likewise should not break the unity of the Body of Christ in the way we treat our children in regards to the table by forbidding their presence.

In light of your sermon Sunday, my questions are this;

If the church should allow to children, on the basis of their place in the covenant, access to the table upon an age appropriate profession of faith, then what is to keep us from serving as a Elders or Deacons? I mean if it is wrong to restrict them from the table why isn’t it wrong to restrict them from all the privileges of the Church?

Dear Raul,

The reason we don’t allow children to serve in the office of Elders and Deacons is that they are not equipped or able to do so, not having the maturity required for such work. Now some, in protesting toddler communion, will insist that even so toddlers should not come to the table since they do not have the maturity required for the table.

Drawing that parallel though is making an assumption that I would not share w/ the person who draws such a parallel. Certainly, both the taking of the table and the serving in a Church office are each privileges but they are privileges of a different nature. In serving in a church office there is the privilege of rendering work unto Christ. However, in receiving the table the privilege is of receiving the grace of God. The privilege of serving in office is a privilege of a our work for God. The privilege of taking the table is a privilege of receiving God’s work for us. Children, as members of the covenant, should receive the privilege of grace. Children, as underage members of the covenant, should have the offices of Elder and Deacon closed to them.

I think the confusion here is that you are failing to see the difference between the table as a means of grace where God does all the doing and serving in a office where men are doing the serving in the strength of the Holy Spirit. By allowing toddlers to come to the table we are communicating that sacrament, as a means of grace, is a privilege that is passive. There is nothing that any of us bring to the Sacrament such as what must be brought to the position of a Church officer. At the table God is doing all the doing. By disallowing toddlers to serve in Church office we are communicating that Church office, as a privilege connected to obedience, is a privilege of service unto God.

There are those around who are suggesting that the sacraments should be seen as the dialogical principle between God and Man. In this schemata God initiates the conversation in Baptism, where man is completely passive and man in coming to the table, is active, and responds to God. However, I believe this turns the Eucharist into a Baptist Ordinance where the emphasis falls on Man’s doing. I would insist that as a Sacrament is a means of Grace, in the Sacrament God is doing the doing. I would insist that both in Baptism and in the Eucharist the emphasis falls on man’s passive receiving of grace. Similarly, in both Baptism and the Lord’s table man’s dialogical active response to God’s doing all the doing is gratitude. Even toddlers can understand gratitude.

Finally, on this score, I would note that to treat the table as if people have to do something in order to be qualified takers communicates that free grace isn’t free. If we require our children to present some high level of cognitive ability before we allow them to take the table aren’t we communicating that in order to receive grace we must first render up knowledge? With such a quid pro quo understanding of the table it seems to me that we destroy the idea of grace as completely gracious.

Now, certainly we should expect that the result of grace conveyed to our children is a increased hunger and thirsting for righteousness in them manifested, in part, by their desire to know what they believe and why they believe it and what they don’t believe and why they don’t believe it. Such growth in grace will qualify our sons for service in Church office, and our daughters to be pillars of grace.