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Dominion As Functional Image

January 17, 2013 in Theology with 0 Comments

Typically when the discussion regarding man as the Image of God begins the emphasis almost immediately falls on ontological categories. The Westminster Larger Catechism, when speaking about the Image of God begins with the ontological categories,

Question 17: How did God create man?

Answer: After God had made all other creatures, he created man male and female; formed the body of the man of the dust of the ground, and the woman of the rib of the man, endued them with living, reasonable, and immortal souls; made them after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness,and holiness; having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it, and dominion over the creatures; yet subject to fall.

However we want to note here that the WLC not only lists the ontological realities of man as the Image of God, but it also lists one of the functional realities. Man revealed himself as God’s Image by what he did. Man revealed himself as God’s Image bearer by having dominion over the Creatures.

The Scripture teases out this functional dynamic of man as Image bearer by saying,

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

The emphasis here, regarding man as the bearer of God’s Image, falls on functionality more then ontological correspondence. This is not to say that the ontological aspects of man as the Image bearer of God are not true. It is merely to say that the emphasis in Scripture (as we shall see) is on the functional aspects.

Adam and Eve were charged with reflecting God’s Image by “ruling” over the creation. In doing so they would be imaging God as the Sovereign Ruler over all. The rule of Adam and Eve, there in the Garden, was to be an ectypal shadow of which God’s rule was the archetypal reality. Just as God, in creation, subdued the chaos, exercised regency, and filled the earth, so Adam and Eve were to Image God, upon God’s command, by subduing, ruling, and filling the earth by being fruitful and multiplying.

Genesis 2:15 hits this theme again,

15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

The idea of dressing and keeping the garden would include the idea of serving and protecting it. The Garden thus becomes a kind of Temple Sanctuary in which Adam as a High Priest and Eve, as his help-meet, were placed in order to Image God in the pleasurable duties that were laid upon them as Image Bearers. That the Garden is a Temple Sanctuary is seen by God presence in the Garden and His communion with Adam and Eve.

Though not explicitly stated in the text, Adam’s failure as High Priest over God’s Temple Garden is seen in his failure to serve and protect the Temple Garden. With Adam’s failure to keep the serpent out of the Garden Sanctuary Adam’s is unfaithful to the assignment to serve and protect the Temple Garden. The immediate consequence of Adam’s failure to Image God was the loss of the woman, who was given to Adam to Image Adam. Adam’s failure in Imaging God led to the failure of the Woman to Image Adam. The Serpent, having eluded God’s covenantal ordering by eluding Adam’s serving and protecting role, seeks to continue to upset God’s covenantal ordering, circumventing Adam’s authority by eliciting Eve into joining him in creating a New World Order. Adam has failed in the Imaging task of Dominion to which he was called and in his failure he Images the Serpent. (The Serpent gained traction by way of deception and soon enough Adam is practicing deception by hiding from God and by blaming the Woman God had given him.)

Adam, as God’s functional Image bearer, has failed with his attempt to seize God’s place. Subsequently, Adam will reap what he has sown as seen in Eve’s curse to be always grasping for Adam’s position instead of being content as Adam’s Image bearer. (“Your desire shall be for your husband [i.e. -- for his position] and he shall rule over you.”) Because of this dominion, filling the earth by being fruitful and multiplying, and a reversal of the Serpent’s hold will have to be restored by another Adam who always is content to be the express image of His person.

Before pushing on here, let us note that this functional Image bearing of Adam was not divorced from his ontological Image bearing. Obviously Adam could not serve and protect the Temple Sanctuary, could not bear hegemony as God’s Steward King, could not be fruitful and multiply apart from true knowledge, righteousness and holiness, which characterized the ontological correspondence between Adam as the creature Image bearer and God as the uncreated Regent. Man cannot do (functionality) what he is not.

However, before the successful eschatological Adam arrives (that is, the Adam who is all that the failed 1st Adam was commanded to be) other Adam models arise and fail at being faithful functional Image bearers of God.

Observations

1.) Man is a Imaging being. Imaging is an inescapable concept. Man will either Image the God of the Bible and His Christ or he will Image some other false God (Idol). There is no neutrality.

2.) Failure in Adam’s Imaging God meant failure in Adam’s created Image (Eve) imaging Adam. Failure in the creature Creator relationship always means failure in the creature creature relationship.

3.) Lex Talionis (the punishment fits the crime).

Adam reaps with Eve (her constant desire for his position) what he sowed with God (a desire for His position).

Next Entry — Other failed Adam Image bearer models and the failure of Corporate Israel to be reflect God’s Image

Recapitulation In Matthew & Baptism Insights

January 15, 2013 in Kingdom of God, Sacraments, Theology with 0 Comments

The Gospel of Matthew gives us a great deal of recapitulation of the OT wherein Jesus is the Faithful Israel that answers to unfaithful OT Israel. One such example is the Baptism of our Lord Christ.

Just as Israel was led by Moses and had to go through the water at the Exodus to enter the the promised land, and just as the second generation had to do the same thing at the Jordan River under Joshua’s leadership, as a miniature second exodus, so again, now that Israel’s restoration is imminent, as led by one who is greater than both Moses and Joshua, true Israelites must again identify with the water and their anti-type prophetic leader in order to begin to experience true restoration and entry into the new creation.

And so, like Moses and Joshua, Jesus and His people are Baptized as on the cusp of entry into a new Kingdom.

Of course this has implications for the Church. Clearly Moses and Joshua and God’s people with them, were not immersed in their Baptism but rather they went through the water without going under the water. This would give strong circumstantial evidence that Jesus Himself was not immersed but as a true Israel passing through the Red Sea and later the Jordan was sprinkled. If this continuity holds this means that immersion is not Biblical as a mode of Baptism.

Another implication, if this observation about recapitulation is true, would be that Adult only Baptism (as practiced by Anabaptists) is also not Biblical. As infants and children were participants in those OT Baptisms of Moses and Joshua, together with all of God’s people, so this would mean that infants and children today should be identified with the Baptism of Christ just by virtue of belonging to covenant member parents.

Ephesians 2:10

January 15, 2013 in Devotional Grist, Exegesis, Theology with 7 Comments

10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

1.) The word “workmanship” is from the Greek word where we get our word “poetry.” We (the Church) are God’s poetry. We are His craftsmanship. We are his workmanship.

2.) The fact that we are created in Christ Jesus indicates to us that the workmanship (poetry) that we are is in relation to Redemption. As such the “created” that is being referred to here is not the created, as in being born, but the created as being re-born. The Church has been placed in the realm of the new creation. (Indeed, we are so part of the re-creation that St. Paul will soon say that God’s workmanship is already sharing in Christ’s ascension as we are now seated in the Heavenly places.) The thrust here is, because of God’s work in Christ, that the Church is now living in the already inaugurated “age to come.” That is the age of which we are now His workmanship.

3.) As now living in this “age to come” reality we now walk in a “age to come” fashion. The works that are produced in us and that we thus produce are consistent with the “age to come” we are living in.

4.) We were re-created for the end of good works. A Christian who has been re-created, who has been placed into the age to come, who has been seated in the heavenlies with Christ, can no more not produce good works then an apple orchard can not produce apples.

5.) Of course when St. Paul talks about our living in this current age of renewal he fixes Christ front and center. Christ, being the firstborn from among the dead, is the one in whom the age to come finds its existence. So, if we are in this age to come it is only because we are first in Christ Jesus, who is Himself the “age to come.” The King is tightly associated with His Land and His Rule.

6.) Note the tie between God’s eternal decrees (“Which God hath before ordained”), the completed work of Christ as being the instrument of the “new creation,, in which we now reside (“In Christ Jesus”), and our existential every day walk as Christians (“that we should walk in them”). There is a seamless web spun here by the inspired Apostle between Redemption planned, Redemption Accomplished, and Redemption applied.

All this to say that the idea of a Church that is conformed to this world is one of the greatest grotesqueries that could ever be conceived. Such a worldly church is the very opposite of what Paul is screaming at us in this passage. Having been united to Christ we are now living in a new age, with a new disposition and a new ethic. God ordained for us our Christ, our re-creation, and our walk.

Chit Chat on Justification, And Sanctification with Federal Vision

January 14, 2013 in Theology with 4 Comments

The following is a discussion with a good friend who is influenced by Federal Vision categories, even if he came by these categories quite apart from the Federal Vision movement.

HI writes,

“In any discussion about justification the phrase “faith alone” will generally be used to describe the idea that justification takes place without any contribution by the person being justified. That is, the idea of faith alone excludes any possibility of a works program that somehow earns privileges with God. St. Paul lays out this concept in his letter to the Romans.

However, there are some people — and I am one of them — who choose not to use the words faith alone to describe the idea that justification is God’s work without any additional activities from man to complete the process. Salvation is God’s grace alone. It is a ‘gift of God, lest any man should boast.’”

Bret responds,

1.) Note the seeming confusion here. The author roundly affirms that Salvation is God’s grace alone but he is uncomfortable with the idea that this Grace alone salvation should be characterized by a Justification that is by faith alone. Is it possible to have a grace alone salvation that doesn’t include a justification by faith alone? Are we to believe that grace alone Salvation is possible without a faith alone justification?

2.) That word “However” leading off the second paragraph is huge. With that “However” the author has informed us that he is going to take exception to the idea of “justification by faith alone.” Now, it is true enough that the author will insist that what he is offering instead is also gracious but keep in mind that every theology that excuses itself from “justification by faith alone,” also insists that their theology is gracious. I grew up and studied in the Arminian scheme of theology and they will tell you that their soteriology (doctrine of salvation) is gracious. They will speak of salvation by grace alone but when they finish defining their salvation by grace alone it is synergistic through and through. The same is true of Lutherans, Reformed Baptists, Roman Catholics and unfortunately even some Reformed folks. For all of them there is a point of synergism in their soteriology.

HI

When you read the Scriptures you only find the words faith alone together in one place, and that’s in the book of James (2:24): “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” Here you see the phrase is used negatively: you are not saved by faith alone.”

Bret

1.) Romans 4:5 teaches that faith alone justifies the person. James 2:24, in context, is teaching that works justifies a person’s claim to faith. St. Paul teaches that a living faith, that reveals it’s aliveness by resting in “Christ alone,” is the kind of faith that justifies. St. James teaches that a living faith, that reveals it’s aliveness by working out salvation in fear and trembling, is the kind of faith the demonstrates the presence of a living faith that has justified. What is not being taught by James is that our justification is contingent or dependent upon our meritorious or our non-meritorious works.

2.) It is interesting to note that all non Reformed people immediately run to the James passage to prove that “justification by faith alone” is not true. And that passage does prove that “justification by faith alone” is not true as long as you take it out of the context of Jame’s reasoning in that passage.

HI

“For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.”

Bret

Here is Calvin’s treatment of Romans 2:13 cited above,

13. For the hearers of the law, etc. This anticipates an objection which the Jews might have adduced. As they had heard that the law was the rule of righteousness, (Deuteronomy 4:1,) they gloried in the mere knowledge of it: to obviate this mistake, he declares that the hearing of the law or any knowledge of it is of no such consequence, that any one should on that account lay claim to righteousness, but that works must be produced, according to this saying, “He who will do these shall live in them.” The import then of this verse is the following, — “That if righteousness be sought from the law, the law must be fulfilled; for the righteousness of the law consists in the perfection of works.” They who pervert this passage for the purpose of building up justification by works, deserve most fully to be laughed at even by children. It is therefore improper and beyond what is needful, to introduce here a long discussion on the subject, with the view of exposing so futile a sophistry: for the Apostle only urges here on the Jews what he had mentioned, the decision of the law, — That by the law they could not be justified, except they fulfilled the law, that if they transgressed it, a curse was instantly pronounced on them. Now we do not deny but that perfect righteousness is prescribed in the law: but as all are convicted of transgression, we say that another righteousness must be sought. Still more, we can prove from this passage that no one is justified by works; for if they alone are justified by the law who fulfill the law, it follows that no one is justified; for no one can be found who can boast of having fulfilled the law

HI

In his disagreement with the Roman Catholic Church, Luther correctly saw that there was a problem with its view of justification. Selling indulges was just a crass, money-making program that effectively promised easy salvation as a consequence of doing very little. But it was a works-based system that required man’s active cooperation with God to make salvation complete. It had an implicit view that somehow sin would be forgiven because of the payment of money. Luther made sure the whole world knew this was a wrong view of what the Bible taught.

In his efforts to hold to the what he would later call “passive righteousness,” Luther was adamant the essence of man’s sin was the idea that he was somehow capable of saving himself, even if he did need a little help occasionally from God to make good. Luther would allow no contribution to the graciousness of God. All glory to him alone, and that glory could not be shared.

Now this is what most Christians say they accept as what the Bible teaches , but not all Christians agree on the best way to describe this theological position. Luther added the word alone following the word “justification” to his German translation of Rom. 3:28., but later it was withdrawn. By adding the word alone, Luther turned his translation at this point from a direct word-to-word (dynamic) translation to what is now called a “dynamic equivalent.” That is, the translation is an explanation of the text rather than a direct translation. Now that’s fine so long as you know the difference. The demand for a dynamic translation, however, required the word alone to be taken out of the text because it was never a part of the original language.

1.) It is true that not all Christians agree on the best way to describe the graciousness of grace. As one example, theologies that insist that Christ died for all men without exception, will talk about the graciousness of grace but the minute the question arises as to why Christ’s death is effective for some men’s justification and not effective unto justification for other men then suddenly we discover their understanding of grace is not so gracious.

2.) It makes no matter to me if one wants to say we are justified by faith alone, or if one wants to say we are justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Saying either is to say much the same.

HI

But this poses an important question. If St. Paul in writing his letter to the Romans (chapter 3) never used the word alone, what word did he use? Read his text and see what he does. Follow Paul’s argument very closely:

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Did you notice what he said in v. 27? “What becomes of our boasting?” What boasting is he talking about? The boasting that attributes justification to some worthwhile act of the justified person. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul claims, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”[1]

And so what you see in his letter to the Romans, Paul is eliminating self-aggrandizement in justification not by using the word alone, but by explaining the real meaning of the law, the Torah. The real Torah is a Torah of faith, not a Torah of works. Stern’s translation (Complete Jewish Bible) makes this clear when he translates “law of works” as “a law that has to do with legalistic observance of rules.” The alternative? “A Torah that has to do with trusting.”

Bret

1.) The solution offered here is merely semantic, or it might be called equivocation or redefinition. All that has been done is change the name, or redefined what it is that man must obey “in order to” gain justification. There is synergism here as there is no justification apart from the action of man. Even if that action required is labeled as “non-meritorious” the very fact that justification doesn’t happen without that act means in point of fact that there is something in our acting that is causative of justification. As such there is also here a tacit denial of depravity. Men who are dead in sin and trespasses do not fulfill any requisite law whether it be a Torah of works or a Torah of faith.

2.) What looks like to be happening here is that faith is being turned into a work. Is there a misunderstanding that faith, in justification, is totally receptive and not contributory in any sense? Is there a misunderstanding that we only have faith because that faith was won for those Christ justified in His Cross work 2000 years ago? Is there a misunderstanding that men are only justified in the present because justification was accomplished in the past and that that past justification was accomplished for elect sinners completely apart from their keeping the Torah of Faith? The point is that men trust (have faith) not in order to gain an otherwise uncertain justification but rather that men trust (have faith) because of a certain justification accomplished.

HI

A lot of people then — and now — held the view that if a person kept the Torah he would be justified on this basis. But Paul here, and in his letter to the Galatians, shuts the door on this possibility. In Galatians he says the Torah, given years after the promise, did not annul the promise. Salvation was on the basis of God’s sovereign promises, not on how well a person kept the law.

17. This is what I mean: the law, which came years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.[2]

Now how does Paul explain the real meaning of the Torah in his Romans letter? In answer to the question, “what becomes of our boasting,” he replied, “It is excluded.” Paul is adamant: there is no possibility that there are cracks in the idea of justification to allow boasting. It is excluded. How? Paul asks, “What kind of ‘law’ excludes boasting?” Does a “law of works” prohibit boasting? He does not even pause to answer that question. He jumps straight to his answer, that boasting is excluded by “the law of faith.”

Only now is he ready to make his grand conclusion: “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” Works of the law are out when it comes to justification. This is why there is no boasting. It is because justification is by faith.

1.) If I keep the “law of faith” that yields a non-meritorious contribution to my justification can I then boast in the keeping of that law? If the response to that question is that, “no you cannot boast because you only were able to keep the law of faith by grace,” my retort is that such a answer indicates that justification is being based on the renewal that happens within me as opposed to God’s declaration in heaven’s courts of my righteousness as imputed due to the finished work of the faith of Jesus Christ. It is because I have been justified, I am being sanctified. The arrangement that is being advocated by HI looks an awful lot like because I am being sanctified I will be justified.

2.) Works of the law are out when it comes to Justification but the works of faith are in when it comes to Justification?

HI

The initial recipients of St. Paul’s letter could now breathe a sigh of relief. Because earlier in his letter he had written, “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.”[3] What is that? Doers of the law justified? Does this mean Paul thought that works were a necessary component of being justification? If so, that would mean actions could somehow be “meritorious” and allow “boasting”. It would allow the sinner to say that if not all, at least a part of his justification was based on his own activities.

But now you can see how St. Paul shut the door on a works-based salvation. He did it not by saying “faith alone” but with his explanation of the law, contrasting the law of works with the law of faith. One of these Torahs allowed boasting; the other didn’t. One of these was the true Torah of God, the other wasn’t. Both Torahs required obedience because they were Torah — law. But one of them was drastically different when it came to justification.

In other words, St. Paul is saying “Only doers of the law will be justified” . . . but it is doers of the law of faith who will be justified, not doers of the law of works, because justification is by faith, not works. And faith, he is saying, includes the Torah of faith, that is obedience to the law of faith that allows no boasting.

St. Paul sees one of these Torahs he refers to as a Torah of merit, and the other a non-meritorious Torah. The non-meritorious Torah excludes boasting, but it still required: ”For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.”

Now that’s how St. Paul explains himself. And we are on very safe grounds if we stick with St. Paul’s argument.

1.) We are not on safe ground because what is being advocated here (via confusing and slippery language) is that our non meritorious works are contributory to our Justification. Now if our non meritorious works are contributory to our Justification then if those non meritorious works are not present then we can not be Justified and if we can not be Justified without our non meritorious works then Justification is synergistic and we are involved in self- justification.

2.) See above for Calvin’s treatment on Romans 2:13

3.) Do not miss that when HI says, “Both Torahs required obedience because they were Torah — law,” he is saying that our obedience is required in and for Justification. The only difference in HI’s mind is that the obedience required and rendered is an obedience that is of the non-boasting variety. Apparently, this kind of requisite obedience is like organic foods vs. processed foods. This kind of requisite obedience unto Justification is good for you because it doesn’t have that nasty food additive of “boasting.”

IH

Sanctification by Faith

But we are not finished with this concept of “faith alone.” For Protestantism, to escape the idea of a works-based justification, has used the word sanctification as an explanation of the ongoing life of the believer.

Now here the same question arises. Are we sanctified by keeping the law, and therefore sanctified to variable degrees based on how well we keep the law, or is sanctification really by faith alone?

Bret

1.) We are sanctified as the Spirit of God works in us to conform to Him who was the incarnation of God’s law. Sanctification is all of grace, and that grace is a grace that works in the believing elect to esteem God’s Law-Word as a guide to life. Regardless of how sanctified God is pleased to work in me, when all that sanctification is finally completed I will say, “I am a unprofitable servant who only did what I ought.”

2.) Note here the creeping conflation of Justification and Sanctification so that very little distinction between the two is allowed. There is a danger in the Church today as we are being pulled, pillar to post, between two camps who have it very wrong. One camp seemingly wants to conflate Justification with Sanctification so that we are unable to distinguish them. The other camp seemingly wants to divorce Justification from Sanctification so that we are unable to see the intimate relationship between the two.

HI

If we are not careful, we add into the Scripture a “law of works,” a law that allows boasting, thereby denying the law of faith, the law that denies boasting. Some people prefer to use the phrase “good works” rather than “law.” Is there a difference? Accepting the idea of “good works” is quite OK, but now we must ask, are our good works “good” because of how well we did them, or are they good because of of faith? In other words, are our “good works” meritorious or are they non-meritorious?

Bret

1.) Our good works in Sanctification are obviously not meritorious because there is nothing left to merit in terms of being right with God. Our good works in Sanctification are not a necessary condition for Justification but a necessary consequent to Justification.

2.) R. L. Dabney reminds us that “all the defects in evangelical obedience are covered by the Saviors righteousness, so that, through Him the inadequate works receive a recompense.” So, yes, we agree that since works are the consequence to justification they are normatively required for salvation, but we still insist that our good works are only good because they themselves are imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

HI

The Heidelberg Catechism (Q. 91) asks, “What are good works?” then supplies the answer. Good works are “Only those which proceed from a true faith, are performed according to the law of God, and to his glory; and not such as are founded on our imaginations, or the institutions of men.”

“Good” works only proceed from faith, according to the law of God. Are these works meritorious, like some kind of heavenly rewards program? No, and the framers of the Catechism had a consistent use of the phrase “good works.” Earlier in the catechism (Q.87), the door is shut on the idea that works can be meritorious.

This means that the “good works” required of the Christian are non-meritorious good works. Everywhere the Scripture shuts the door on merit and opens the door of grace, unmerited favor.

And this is the faith that has been handed down through the ages.

Bret

This is not the faith that has been handed down through the ages but instead is a advocacy, by use of confused language, and muddled categories of thought, of a faith that is of fairly recent vintage.

There is a lack of understanding here that in terms of Salvation, taken as a whole, works are a sufficient condition, but not an efficient cause, or as I said earlier, works are the necessary consequence of a Justification that finds Sanctification present.

HI

There are, of course, many well-meaning Christians who have trouble with the idea of non-meritorious works. But the Catechism is adamant that “good works” are necessary For some, it is “oxymoronic” to suggest that works can be necessary but not meritorious. For another, “if you don’t see works as meritorious it is you that have misrepresented yourself.” In other words, according to this view, works can only be meritorious and nothing else.

Yet that is the very notion taught in the Heidelberg Catechism on sanctification. And if “non-meritorious works” is valid in sanctification, it is just a valid in the idea of justification as well. How do we know? Because that is exactly what Paul is arguing in Romans chapters 2-3.

What has not been handed down is the “one explanation only” of this truth, the use of the words “faith alone” and it is quite appropriate to speak of “non meritorious works” just as it is appropriate to use the phrase “meritorious works.” What we cannot ever say is that our salvation or any part of it, justification or sanctification, is in any way based on meritorious acts of the believer. But in both justification and sanctification, works — keeping the Law, or Torah — are essential components.

Bret

Since justification happens outside of us and is about Christ’s work for us and His keeping of the law for us any performance on our part cannot and does not enter into the equation in any way when we are discoursing about Justification. Sanctification, on the other hand, is God’s renewal work within us wherein by the Holy Spirit He works in us what we work out by fear and trembling. This is why as Reformed people we NEVER EVER say that as “non-meritorious works” are valid in sanctification, they are just as valid in the idea of justification as well.

Such language, even though well intended, effects the shifting of our eyes from Christ’s meritorious works in our stead to our own non-meritorious works on our own behalf. In justification, even if the works that we do are non-meritorious, the outcome of such a “theology” that finds our own non-meritorious works necessary for right standing with God, is to take our eyes off of Jesus, the Author and FINISHER of our faith.

Public Opinion Polls, Historicism and Psychological Warriors

December 18, 2012 in Historigography, R2Kt virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology), Theology with 3 Comments

“Bernard Berelson was trained as a librarian but by the late 40′s was considered an expert in public relations and the manipulation of public opinion. One year after the publication of Blanshard’s book on Catholic power, Berelson co-edited ‘Public Opinion and Communication’ with Morris Jankowitz, one of the seminal works of communications theory, and a good indication of how the psychological warfare techniques refined during World War II were now going to be turned on the American public as a way of controlling them through the manipulation of the new media, i.e., radio and TV. Berelson establishes the book’s major premise in his introduction:

‘Growing secularization has meant that more and more areas of life are open to opinion rather than to divine law and to communication rather than to revelation. Growing industrialization has not only extended literacy; in addition, it has provided the technical facilities for mass communication.’

The goal of secularization was the reduction of all of life’s imperatives to ‘opinions,’ which is to say not the expression of moral absolutes or divine law. Once this ‘secularization’ occurred, the people who controlled ‘opinions’ controlled the country. Berelson is equally frank about where the new science of public opinion originated:

‘Research in the field was accelerated during WW II by demands for studies on the effect of communications upon military personnel, adjustment to army life and attitudes toward military leaders, enemy propaganda, and civilian morale. After the war this growing interest led to the establishment of additional university centers for the study of public opinion and communication by the methods of social science. Together with the continuing activities of industry and government, they now represent a large scale research enterprise.’

…. Berleson wrote also in 1950 that,

‘ there is a virtual pro-religious monopoly on communication available to large audiences in America today.”

Religious belief meant ipso facto the opposite of opinion, and therefore ideas not subject to the manipulation of the people who controlled the communications media. What needed to be done then was to move large areas of thought from the realm of religion to the realm of opinion if any significant breakthroughs in political control through manipulation of the media were to take place. Sexual morality was the most important area of religious thinking that needed to be moved into the realm of ‘opinion’ where it would be then under the control of psychological warriors like Berelson and those who paid his salary, namely, the Rockefellers.

And this is precisely what happened…

E. Michael Jones
Libido Dominadi

Notice that there was a designed and concerted effort, funded by the huge tax free Foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.) to drag public thinking away from the residual remains of Christianity in the public square to a thinking that was called “secular.” The problem, of course, is that this was not a case where the public square was being unclothed of religious presuppositions, (secularization) but rather it was a case where the public square was being stripped of what remained of Christian presuppositions in favor of presuppositions consistent with Religious Leftist humanism.

This is seen in Berelson’s drive to get rid of religious absolutes in favor of “opinion.” However, clearly the problem here is that directed and manipulated opinion would now be the new absolute. The new absolute exchanged for the idea of Christian absolutes was the absolute of no absolutes. Any humanist absolute (masquerading as “opinion”) would be accepted in the secularized public square over and above a religious absolute.

Note also in the quote above the ascendancy of public opinion. Public opinion is to moral guidance what Historicism is to Historiography. In both cases, the absolute being evacuated, the only place a transcendent constant can be found is in the immanent subjective realm of space and time. If there is no transcendent constant then in order to shape public policy is to create public opinion through putative scientific public opinion polls and then to reify those subjective numbers into objective transcendent constants so that direction can be given to public policy. This is the same thing that happens in Historicism. As Historicism allows for no fixed transcendent constant by which history can be known and evaluated, therefore History itself must become its own fixed transcendent constant. Public opinion polls serve as absolutes for the immediate just as Historicism serves as absolute in interpreting the past as a guide for the future.

However, in both cases of Public Opinion polls and Historicism the results they yield are only as good as the manipulator the psychological warriors operating them.

Without the God of the Bible, who alone can give us a fixed transcendent constant as well as the certainty that the transcendent has become immanent, (thus assuring that the transcendent isn’t so transcendent that it loses touch with our sitz-im-leben), we only have a word and world of flux where man is a being manipulated and controlled by the Psychological warriors named Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie.

Addendum

R2K plays right into this agenda quoted from Jones. R2K allows the public square to be cleansed of what Berelson called religious belief in favor of the manipulations coming from the cultural elites.

Caleb’s Baptism — Heidelberg Catechism Q. 22-24

September 19, 2012 in Catechism, Creeds & Confessions with 0 Comments

Caleb,

In the last question the catechism instructed us as to the definition of “true faith.” In the following questions the Catechism sets the table for a detailed examination of our undoubted Catholic Christian Faith. Because these next few questions are basically table setting questions for the following questions we will be able to examine more than one question today.

As the catechizers have established what true faith is, they next turn to the issue of what it is necessary for a Christian to believe. They have given us a definition of faith and now they turn to the truths upon which our faith must be anchored.

A couple of things to note briefly here before we turn to question 22.

First, as we have mentioned before, this emphasis that we find in the catechism on the issue of the content of our faith reminds us again that Christianity is the life of the mind. Question 22 asks, “What is then necessary for a christian to believe,” not, “What is necessary for a Christian to feel,” or, “What is necessary for a Christian to experience.” As we have said feelings and experience have their place in the Christian life but it is what we believe — what we embrace as truth — that is the essence of the Christian faith.

Second, we should note that “Faith” is an inescapable category. What I mean by this is that all men live by faith in something or someone. It is not as if only Christians have faith, or only religious people have faith. Every living breathing person you meet has some kind of faith. The humanists have faith. They have faith that man, by the use of putatively autonomous right reason, can arrive at true truth quite apart from any religious considerations. (Of course thinking that one can arrive at truth apart from any religious consideration is a religious faith consideration.) The Materialists have faith that everything happened by time plus chance plus circumstance. Since they were not there, there is no way they can know that their materialism is true. Besides, for the materialists, can there even be discussion about “true,” since “true,” for the materialist, is only the firing of random chemicals in our purely material brains? If the brain secretes thought the way the liver secretes bile can the materialist really speak about “truth?”

When it comes to faith the difference for the Christian and the pagan is that the pagan’s faith reduces to “faith in faith,” while the Christian’s faith is faith anchored in divine revelation.

Very well then, with that as preliminary the Catechism asks,

Question 22. What is then necessary for a christian to believe?

Answer: All things promised us in the gospel, (a) which the articles of our catholic undoubted christian faith briefly teach us.

As they ask what is “necessary” to believe, I understand the catechizers to be communicating that what they are about to give is the basics of Christianity. They intend to stick to the meat and potatoes of our undoubted Catholic Christian faith. The catechism is given as a basic Christianity 101. Now we might find that surprising given that it takes 129 questions in the catechism to give us the basics. We’re used to 30 second sound bites to get us up to speed on any given subject. We think that we can crash course almost any subject and get up to speed in almost no time. But the Catechism, in order to give us just the essentials gives us 129 questions and answers to digest, understand, and own. Of course what is discussed in the Catechism is just the bare essentials. A Christian, having this foundation will learn much much more throughout their whole Christian life and then when they are old and ready to depart they will readily admit that they are but a child in their understanding of their undoubted Catholic Christian faith.

It is interesting that what we are required to believe is all that is promised in the Gospel. This teaches us two truths.

1.) Our undoubted Catholic Christian faith is about grasping God’s promises. The Gospel is first and foremost about God’s promises to us. The Gospel is first and foremost what God has done for us. When we teach a Christian what is necessary to believe we are teaching them to rest in God’s promises. We are teaching them that God has done all the saving in Christ and that He promises to save all those who are weary and heavy laden if they will take God at His Word that “all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

2.) The “Gospel,” as we shall see, includes believing in doctrines that sometimes are, in our contemporary Church setting, not seen as being necessary to consider. For example, the catechism will be teaching us that it is necessary for us to believe in a robust supernaturalism. In order to believe the Gospel we are required to believe Divine creation, the virgin Birth, that our Lord Christ was resurrected from the grave and that He ascended into heaven. The authors of the catechism did not countenance a hermeneutic that allowed us to try to understand the Scripture apart from the Supernatural and where we find people in the Church who claim Christ but interpret the Bible in order to avoid the supernatural or who use semantic deception to diminish the supernatural there we find people who are out of step with the Catechism and Scripture.

That belief is necessary for the Christian is taught in John 20:31

“But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

In question 23 the catechism gives us the Apostles Creed as the statement that they will be breaking down in order to explain to us our undoubted Catholic Christian faith. This Creed comes to us from the life of the early Church and gives 12 affirmations regarding the nature and character of the catholic (universal) Christian faith. Often the Apostles Creed is used in Church services. In some of the branches of Christianity you might even find the Creed being chanted during the worship service. As you know we regularly recite the Apostles Creed whenever the Lord Christ invites us to His table (Eucharist).

Question 23. What are these articles?

Answer: 1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: 2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord: 3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary: 4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell: 5. The third day he rose again from the dead: 6. He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty: 7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead: 8. I believe in the Holy Ghost: 9. I believe a holy catholic church: the communion of saints: 10. The forgiveness of sins: 11. The resurrection of the body: 12. And the life everlasting.

Since we will be looking closely at each one of these 12 statements we allow the Creed to go uncommented on here.

Then in Question 24 they give a brief subdivision of the Apostles Creed.

8. Lord’s Day

Question 24. How are these articles divided?

Answer: Into three parts; the first is of God the Father, and our creation; the second of God the Son, and our redemption; the third of God the Holy Ghost, and our sanctification.

The whole statement of the Apostles Creed is broken down into three subdivisions. One subdivision for each member of the Trinity.

The work of God the Father is associated with Creation. Subsumed under His work of creation we will be looking into His work of sustaining, and governing. God’s Providence will be a matter we pay close attention to.

The work of God the Son is associated with our Redemption accomplished. The Son was set apart from Eternity to be the Representative and Savior for His people. As such we will be looking at matters like propitiation, reconciliation, atonement, and other doctrines associated with the Son’s work of Redemption.

The work of God the Spirit is associate with our Redemption applied. The Spirit, being sent by the Father and the Son, applies the work of Redemption to His people and possesses His people to the end that they go from Christ-likeness to Christ-likeness.

Even though we subdivide the Apostles Creed in these three parts we mustn’t be so wooden as to think that the particular work that is assigned to each member of the Trinity finds the other members of the Trinity uninvolved with that work. For example, even though we rightly ascribe Creation to the work of the Father, we can read in Scripture of the Son and Creation,

Colossians 1:16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Hebrews 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.

And Genesis speaks of the work of the Spirit in creation,

Genesis 1:2 The earth was [a]formless and void, and darkness was over the [b]surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was [c]moving over the [d]surface of the waters.

Similar examples could be given for each of the works that are properly ascribed to the members of the Trinity. So, while it is not wrong to think of the Father in relation to his Creator work, or the Son in relation to His Redemption work, or the Spirit in relation to His Sanctifying work it would be wrong to not realize that because of the intimate relationship between each member of the Trinity that when one member is involved in a particular work each member is involved in that work. Each member of the Trinity cooperates in each work.

Heidelberg Questions 114b – 115

September 16, 2012 in Catechism, Creeds & Confessions with 0 Comments

Question 114. But can those who are converted to God perfectly keep these commandments?

Answer: No: but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience; (a) yet so, that with a sincere resolution they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God. (b)

Re-cap — small beginning (Illustration — advance in an infinite ocean)

(b) Rom.7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

This teaching of the Catechism, following Scripture as it does, ought to put an end to all forms of antinomianism in the Church. Antinomianism is the teaching that the law has no role in the Christian’s life. The idea is that the believer has been saved by God from the law and so the law no longer has a role in their life and instead of the law as their standard for “how shall they then live,” the standard becomes the Holy Spirit, as abstracted or divorced from the law guiding them, or they will contend that it is love” that directs their behavior but again, it is a love that is more informed by their instinct then it is by God’s revelation.

The Catechism brings to the fore that, “that with a sincere resolution they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God.” And they lodge this observation in the teaching of Scripture,

Ps.1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

You see some folks want to pit the NT against the OT and so they will go to passages like

Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

And reading that they will then interpret it to mean that the law has ended for the Christian who trusts in Christ. But end in “R. 10:4″ means goal, purpose, or culmination and what it is teaching is not that the law no longer has a role in the Christian’s life but rather that Christ is the one who gives all that the law required.

So, our walking in the way of God’s law revelation is not a means to gaining something we do not already have (peace with God and God’s approval) but rather our walking in God’s law revelation is a manifestation that we are a people who are now, as Paul says in Ephesians, “light in the Lord.” Our walking in God’s law revelation is the placarding of the truth that Christ has redeemed us and made us a people unique unto Him. This is so true that if it is the case, by God’s grace that we make advance in this walking in God’s law revelation that announces that we are being conformed to Christ, that we glory in the Lord because we know it is the Spirit of Christ that causes us to go from Christ-likeness unto Christ-likeness.

And so because of that we pay attention to God’s Revelation as it teaches us how to walk as Disciples of Christ. We agree with the Apostle Paul,

2 So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

So, we understand that the experience of the Grace of God in our lives that finds us redeemed and set apart as God’s Holy people, in no way detracts from the permanence and authority of God’s law.

There is a long record in our history of trying to squeeze out the role of God’s law in the believers life as a rule of conduct.

In the 17th century one Robert Towne could say

“To faith, or in the State or things of faith, there is no obligation, nor use of the law.”

John Saltmarsh disliked,

those who say “that duties are to be done because commanded,” and in his book, “Free-Grace” he reveals his contempt for those whose Gospel preaching is ‘over-much heated by the Law, and conditions and qualifications,’ and who hold the believer in the poverty of spirit by keeping him ‘both under Grace and Law at the same time.” Saltmarsh said that to urge believers to ‘Repent … and walk according to the Law of God’ is a legal way of bringing comfort to the soul, and that preachers who do this give ‘rather something of the Law than Gospel,’ for ‘nothing but the taking in of the law … can trouble the peace and quiet of any soul.’

Saltmarsh continued,

“The Gospel is … a perfect law of life and righteousness … and therefore I wonder at any that should contend for the ministry of the law or the Ten Commandments under Moses. The believer is under grace, and there is ‘no Moses now.”

Now as we continue to consider we say again, that as Christians our “sincere resolution to begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God,” is a resolution that is born of gratitude for the righteousness and peace with God that we have because Christ is our acceptability before the Father. “Our sincere resolution to begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God,” is a sincere resolution that starts from being forgiven and not from trying to earn forgiveness by our behavior.

Well, the Reformed of the day had an answer for those who even those many years ago wanted to deny the role to the law as a rule of conduct for the believer,

John Sedgwick considered,

“The antinomian war-cries of Free Grace, Christ’s Righteousness, and Gospel Liberty, to be “Baits and Snares … to cast down Obedience, to keep Christians from their dutie to God,” and Sedgwick deplored the “Law destroying, Dutie casting down course of the Antinomians.”

Another Puritan minister, James Durham affirmed that this rejection of the principle of obligation was itself a breach of the 1st commandment.

Thomas Gataker defended the principle of obligation by reference to the Greek word in I John 2:6 and the occurrence of the same verb in Romans 7:12. Gataker could say,

“To deny the Moral law to be of any more use to believers, or to be so much as a rule of conversation, or that they owe obedience unto it in point of duty and conscience; this strikes at the very root, and cuts in sunder the knot, not only of Christian Charity, but even of all civil society.”

Now the reason I’m giving these quotes and going over this issue is because we have needs to see that we are not the first generation to deal with antinomianism. And we have needs to see that the objections that we might see today have been seen before and have been dealt with before. We can be confident that the Catechism is correct when it teaches us, following Scripture, that we begin to live not only according to some but all the commandments of God. And the catechism is correct to enjoin upon us the law as a rule of conduct for the Christian’s life.

And for this section, to underscore this, we will finish with a quote from 17th century Reformed Minister Samuel Rutherford,

“The Law is yet to be preached, as tying us to personal obedience, whatever antinomians say on the contrary … Antinomians judge that by the Gospel, Christ hath done all for us, which is most true in the kind of meritorious and deserving cause, satisfying justice, but they do loose us from all personal duties, or doing ourselves, or in our own persons, so as we should be obliged to do, except we would sin. We think the same law obligation, but running in a Gospel-channel of Free-Grace, should act as now as if we were under a covenant of works, but not as if the one were Law-debt, and the other wages that we sweat for, and commeth by law debt; Antinomians make all duties a matter of courtesy.”

He then goes on to point out that Antinomians ‘contend for a Christian liberty wherewhith Christ hath made us free, and we contend for the same, but the question is, wherein the liberty consisteth, in concerns us much that we take not license for liberty.

Well, I could go on with many more quotes. But you get the sense. The problem that we have in the Church today of antinomianism, is a problem that has been in the Church in the past. And yet our Catechism solves that problem by insisting that.

That while no Christian can keep God’s law perfectly and though even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience; yet so, that with a sincere resolution they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God. ,

And we would close this question by observing that it is precisely at this point why we will be hated by men. It was Christ’s keeping of the law and his exposing of God’s enemies false treatment of the law that found Him crucified. If we seek to walk in God’s law revelation as a rule of life, out of gratitude for a forgiveness freely given, we will be walking convictions to those who insist that the only law is that there is no law, or to those who live by other autonomously created law orders that are inconsistent with God’s revelation.

Well, then this takes us to question 115 and with this we finish up our look at the law.

Question 115. Why will God then have the Ten Commandments so strictly preached, since no man in this life can keep them?

Answer: First, that all our lifetime we may learn more and more to know (a) our sinful nature, and thus become the more earnest in seeking the remission of sin, and righteousness in Christ;

(b) likewise, that we constantly endeavor and pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may become more and more conformable to the image of God, till we arrive at the perfection proposed to us, in a life to come. (c)

Know our sinful nature

We preach the law the Catechism says so that we may know our sinful nature and find ourselves keep returning to Christ as our only righteousness.

Rom.3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

There are two dangers here.

1.) Knowing our sinful nature so thoroughly that we lament of God’s grace to us or we become so defeated because of our knowledge of our sinful nature that we become ineffective.

To those who fall into this trap we must remind them that God has forgiven them in Christ and that though they are sinners that ought not to stop them from attempting mighty things for God. They need to have impressed upon them and be reminded that even though they may be great sinners, Christ is a greater savior.

2.) The other danger here is that our sinful natures would lie to lightly upon us and so we would begin to think of ourselves more highly than we ought and in thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought we would fail to be impressed with Christ being our acceptability before the Father.

If the previous group of people need to be constantly taken back to God’s provision in Christ, this group of people need to be taken back to God’s absolute standard of righteousness. None of us have any reason to be impressed with ourselves. If we could for one second see our sin as it really is we would know in that one second why,

Our hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
We dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ name.

Paul understood how the law took men back to Christ,

Rom.7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Rom.7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now, as a minister, let me say that I far more often see contemporary Christians plagued with the second danger of having their sinful natures lie on them too lightly then I meet people who are plagued with the first danger of their sinful nature lying on them too heavily. I know my own danger is the former and not the latter.

The second reason they give for preaching of the law is that we “constantly endeavour and pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may become more and more conformable to the image of God, till we arrive at the perfection proposed to us, in a life to come.

Here they cite Paul from his letter to the Philippians on the importance of this pursuit of God

Philip.3:11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Philip.3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Philip.3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, Philip.3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

It is interesting that what the Catechizers are doing here with this answer is in the first reason they are emphasizing looking outside of ourselves to Christ who is our righteousness, while in the second reason they emphasize the aspect of increasingly becoming in our daily lives what we have freely been declared to be.

These always go together and in this order. The objective reality of who we are in Christ is the foundation from which we operate to increasingly become what we have been freely declared to be. The outward look creates and sustains our inward becoming. Much is wrong with the Church today in the West because we forget the necessity of both of these reasons for preaching the law or because we reverse the order of these reasons for preaching the law.

The Catechism, following Scripture, instructs that there is a connection between preaching the law and our conformity to the image of God. By putting it this way there is direct linkage made between the law and God’s image. The law is strictly preached that we may become increasingly conformable to God’s image. How is it that the strict preaching of God’s law could lead to our becoming increasingly conformable to God’s image unless it were the case that the law is God’s image?

Notice here though, that we are not thrown upon our own autonomous efforts. It is the case that we are looking to God for increasing conformity to His image. As the catechism teaches, we pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit that we might increasingly become more conformable to the image of God that is set forth by the strict preaching of God’s law. This is not “lift yourself up by your bootstraps and trust in your own efforts” sanctification. This is God’s grace from beginning to end.

Here we see a fantastic coming together of several themes. The strict preaching of God’s law, the reality that Christ is our righteousness, and the fact that our increasing conformity to the image of God is related to the strict preaching of God’s law, the reality that Christ is our righteousness and the place of the Holy Spirit and prevailing prayer in the life of the believer.

But that perfection we all desire … that being done with the sin that we are all too familiar with is not something that transpires in this life. Our perfection that is proposed to us is for the life to come. This keeps us humble and dependent upon Christ for our righteousness. This keeps us from being self satisfied. This keeps us always looking for the sin that needs to be put off in our own life, regardless of how far God has brought us in Christ. And finally, this makes heaven precious.

Sometimes disgust with myself makes me pine for heaven so I can be done with the sinful nature I carry around and see all too often. The thought of death scares me but the thought of heaven makes the thought of death tolerable because I know that once death is past, what lies in front of me is the perfection proposed. I will be done with the old man and the newness I already know as down payment and promise will be known in full.

Caleb’s Baptism — True Faith Defined — (Heidelberg Catechism Q. 21)

September 8, 2012 in Catechism, Creeds & Confessions, Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Question 21. What is true faith?

Answer: True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, (a) but also an assured confidence, (b) which the Holy Ghost (c) works by the gospel in my heart; (d) that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness and salvation, (e) are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits. (f)

Caleb,

Question 20 ended by giving us the distinction between those who are saved by Christ and those who are not saved. As you remember the distinction was given that “only those who are ingrafted into him, and, receive all his benefits, by a true faith,” are those who are saved. Those who are not ingrafted into him and so do not receive all his benefits by a true faith are without God and without hope.

As such, question 21 thus delves into the issue of how true saving faith is defined and what it looks like. We should say at the outset that by asking about “True faith,” and then by starting off their answer with “True Faith is,” the clear implication is that there exists such things as false faith or spurious faith and so they want to distinguish false faith from true faith. They give us a detailed answer on what true faith is but before we go into that we want to take a second to look at the whole idea of false faith.

We find false faith throughout Scripture. The most startling example is in Matthew 7

22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Here we see recorded people claiming faith, and knowing Christ but Christ claims he does not know them. Elsewhere in Jude and in 1st John we also see people claiming to have faith and so be part of the body of Christ and yet the Apostles in both of those letters warns the genuinely faithful against them. In Galatians we have a group of people (they were called Judaizers) who would have considered themselves Christians and yet had a false faith as seen in St. Paul’s treatment of them. In James we learn that there is a kind of faith that does not save,

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

The faith of the devils here is a faith with knowledge but no assent. The devils know the facts but they wage war against God. So we see that the kind of knowledge in faith that we are looking for is knowledge with assent. Some varieties of false faith may affirm certain matters as true but they do not assent to them. Indeed this idea of “assent” is so important that many scholars list “assent” along with “knowledge” as a element of faith.

In the last book of the Bible we find Christ warning against faithlessness among those who are supposed to be Faithful. False faith most often co-exists side by side with faith in a False Christ. People make Christ in their own image and then place faith in that self-created Christ. As such both their Christ and their faith is false.

Because false faith exists in such abundance the Catechism is precise in giving us the definition of true faith. However, we should say in setting out, that there is a danger in this issue of false vs. true faith. Some people, being so concerned with the nature, quality, and legitimacy of their faith have taken to spending so much time examining their faith that they have forgotten that their gaze needs to be on Christ more than their faith. Like every other virtue any of us might have been given it is simply the case that none of our faiths are perfect. The faith of the greatest saint who has ever lived was not saved by his perfect faith but by a perfect Christ.

We should see the relationship of faith to Christ as a bride to be sees the relationship of the prongs to a diamond as set in an engagement ring. Yes, the prongs holding the jewel in place must be sturdy and tight but she is not impressed with the prongs holding the diamond but rather boasts in the diamond and even more so in what that diamond represents (that she belongs to her beloved and her beloved is hers). So it is with faith in Christ. Faith must clasp and cling to Christ and we must make our boast in him and remember that though our faith might not be all that it should be, it is enough if it holds on to Christ. Weak faith saves just as completely as strong faith Caleb.

With that in mind we turn to the Catechism’s answer concerning what true faith is.

The Catechism gives us three essential elements of faith.

1.) Faith includes knowledge

23 This is what the Lord says:

“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
or the strong boast of their strength
or the rich boast of their riches,
24 but let the one who boasts boast about this:
that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,”
declares the Lord.

Now faith can not be reduced to just knowledge — some of the greatest heretics in Church History have been incredibly knowledgeable men — but faith includes knowledge. Another way to say this is that faith is never less than a certain knowledge but it is always much more than that. There is a tendency to go to two extremes on this matter. On the one hand there are those who seem to suggest that unless someone has the entire catechism memorized they don’t have enough knowledge to have faith. So, with these folks those who have little knowledge regarding Christianity are looked on with suspicion regarding their profession of faith. The other extreme is to suggest that Faith has no knowledge content so that anybody who mouths some kind of confession of faith, even if it is uninformed by Scripture or the confessions is seen as having Biblical faith. Neither of these extremes will do. Biblical faith must have knowledge of Christ and the Scriptures and yet one does not have to have a theology degree in order to have faith. This reminds us that even the youngest of the young can have faith.

The knowledge that the Catechizers say we must have is a knowledge that “has us holding for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word.” Now I won’t spend much time here because the next few questions in the Catechism go on to elaborate just exactly what knowledge we must have. Four brief comments though.

a.) Clearly this teaches us that Christianity is the life of the mind. There is a set content in the Christian faith that must be known, affirmed, and defended. Christianity is not primarily about emotions, experiences, relationships, (those are beautiful byproducts of the Christian faith) or opinions not anchored in the word. Christianity begins with knowing what we believe and why we believe it and what we don’t believe and why we don’t believe it.

b.) The Catechizers believe in objective truth. This is important to bring out in an age of postmodern philosophy and deconstructionst literary theory which denies objective True Truth and affirms that all truth is subjective (i.e. — person or people group variable).

c.) That objective truth of which they speak is tied to the Word (Scriptures). Because Biblical Christians through the centuries have believed this they have always taken people back to the Scriptures in order to give the explicit or implicit underpinning for what they believe.

d.) Do not miss that they assert that we know what we know by God’s revealed word. Christians believe that God’s Revelation is the means by which we know what we know. God’s Revelation is the beginning and ending point for our knowing. We do not know what we know by reason operating independently of Scripture. We do not know what we know by some kind of mystical intuitive experience. The beginning and ending of our knowing is God’s Revelation.

2.) Faith includes Assured Confidence As Worked by the Holy Ghost in Concord with the Gospel

One matter that is being emphasized here is that faith is a gift of God.

Eph.2:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Eph.2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Eph.2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. Eph.3:12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.

And not only Faith is a gift of God, worked in me by the Holy Ghost, in concert with the Gospel, but also the confidence that is a byproduct of being united to Christ and so having faith (one of those benefits mentioned in the previous question) is considered an element of faith.

And what does that confidence entail that faith brings?

That confidence entails Christ. That confidence entails the conviction that Christ has taken away my offense (sin) before God. That confidence entails the conviction that Christ has won for me a righteousness and salvation that can not be negated, overturned or reneged upon. That confidence entails that all the good that comes to me, come to me quite beyond my performance or just deserts but comes to me completely by God’s Grace (undeserved favor) as secured for me by the work of Christ for me in my place.

Note, that we are taught that all this is the work of the Holy Spirit.

John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Gal.5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

But the work of the Holy Spirit in concert with the Gospel. Word and Spirit are inseparably tied together.

Rom.10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

I can not savingly know the word without the Spirit and the Spirit will not work upon me apart from the Word. Long ago I learned that the Spirit always runs along the track of the word. The reason this is important to insist upon is that it keeps us from both the extremes of a spiritual enthusiasm on one hand that if it uses the word it uses it only as a talisman (a magic device that gives power) and on the other hand a dry arid rationalism that has no life because the Spirit is not in the rationalism. If we are to have faith that clings to Christ then we must be enlivened by the Holy Spirit in the context of the Gospel being proclaimed in some form.

Another fascinating aspect of this Question is that our faith is Trinitarian. If we re-read the question we see faith is in the Father’s revealing work, the Spirit’s enlivening work and the Son’s removal of penalty work. Our faith looks to God in both His Unity and His Diversity.

Finally, for this entry we close looking at how closely to home the Catechism brings this. The catechism, following Scripture, want us to understand that all of this good news is not just true in the abstract but that it is good news for me personally. The Gospel promises that we cling to by faith are not just true in a general sense but should be clung to as being true for each and every individual believer that God calls from every tribe, tongue, and nation. The Gospel promises are not only true but they are true for me, whichever me they come to.

Bavinck On The Difference Between Reformed and Lutheran … Behold R2K is Lutheran

September 6, 2012 in ecclesiology, R2Kt virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology), Theology, Windows Into Worldviews with 2 Comments

The difference seems to be conveyed best by saying that the Reformed Christian thinks theologically, the Lutheran anthropologically. The Reformed person is not content with an exclusively historical stance but raises his sights to the idea, the eternal decree of God. By contrast, the Lutheran takes his position in the midst of the history of redemption and feels no need to enter more deeply into the counsel of God. For the Reformed, therefore, election is the heart of the church; for Lutherans, justification is the article by which the church stands or falls. Among the former the primary question is: How is the glory of God advanced? Among the latter it is: How does a human get saved? The struggle of the former is above all paganism- idolatry; that of the latter against Judaism- works righteousness. The Reformed person does not rest until he has traced all things retrospectively to the divine decree, tracking down the “wherefore” of things, and has prospectively made all things subservient to the glory of God; the Lutheran is content with the “that” and enjoys the salvation in which he is, by faith, a participant. From this difference in principle, the dogmatic controversies between them (with respect to the image of God, original sin, the person of Christ, the order of salvation, the sacraments, church government, ethics, etc.) can be easily explained.

—Herman Bavinck
Reformed Dogmatics — Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Baker, 2003), 177.

This quote reveals how R2K is more Lutheran that it is Reformed. R2K is not concerned with how God’s glory is advanced in the common realm because God’s glory can’t be advanced in the common realm because the common realm is common. It is a realm where good and evil grow together and the only realm where the glory of God that is advanced happens in the Church. If R2K struggles against paganism / idolatry it struggles against it only in the Church. It is clear, per Bavinck, that R2K’s primary struggle is Lutheran in as much as it see’s works righteousness everywhere, especially in those of us who are not R2K. R2K does not think it is possible to make anything in the common realm uniquely subservient to God.

R2K is not Reformed. It is instead a mish mash of Lutheran thinking, and Anabaptist thinking, heavily seasoned with Dualism.

Caleb’s Baptism — Those Who Are Saved (Heidelberg Catechism Q. 20)

September 1, 2012 in Catechism, Creeds & Confessions with 0 Comments

Question 20. Are all men then, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ?

Answer: No; only those who are in-grafted into him, and, receive all his benefits, by a true faith.

Let’s briefly remind ourselves of the flow of the catechism’s flow of thought. In the last few questions and answers the catechism has been teaching us the character qualities and attributes that are required of any mediator who would rescue us from God’s just wrath and our sins. They have taught us that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who has these character qualities and attributes thus teaching us that there is no salvation in any other name but that of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, the Catechizers ask, in question 20, the very sensible question’ “Whether all men are saved by Christ.” It is sensible because it might be reasonable to assume that as all perished in Adam, so all would be saved by Christ. But the answer they give, following Scripture, is that relief from perishing is only had by those who have a true faith in Christ.

Notice several obvious matters here.

1.) The question presumes that all men are lost, or if you prefer, are in the way of perishing. If the descendants of Adam are to be released from the state of perishing that they are born under then they must have a true faith. If they do not have a true faith in Jesus Christ they will eternally perish.

That man outside of Christ is in the way of perishing is everywhere assumed by Scripture. Here are just a few verses,

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Notice in all those verses from John 3 that the presupposition of Scripture regarding man without Christ is that he is in the way of perishing, underneath the penalty of God’s just wrath. As we have noted earlier, the reason that man without Christ, is in the way of perishing, is that man without Christ has a sin nature and consequently sins and so is in high rebellion to God.

2.) The catechism negates any notion of Universalism. Universalism is the doctrine that teaches that all men through all time will go to heaven no matter their relation to Jesus Christ while on earth. To the contrary the catechism, following Scripture, teaches that not all men are saved. Jesus speaking could say,

Matthew 25:45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Of course the corollary of this denial of Universalism is the truth that God does not love everybody. If God loved everybody, with redemptive love, then everyone would be saved. However, as it is the case that not all people are saved, this means that God does not and did not love, with a redemptive love, those who are not saved and who are not in-grafted into Christ.

Now, being postmillennialists we believe that a vast majority of mankind will be saved because we believe Scripture when in Revelation John sees in heaven

Revelation 7:9 … a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

That great multitude is in keeping with God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants would be as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. So, we assert, with the catechism and with Scripture, that not all men will be saved, but also that the number of men that will be saved will testify to the greatness of God’s grace to save and the vast reach of God’s saving power in Christ.

3.) As the catechism, following Scripture, negates Universalism, that means by necessity it teaches particularism. This is only to say that the Scripture teaches that God saves only who He intends to save. God is particular in His choosing. All people who believe that there are those who go to Hell believe that there is a particularity in God’s grace. The difference is that some locate the reason for that particularity in the individual human’s sovereign choice while others locate the reason for the particularity that Scripture teaches in God’s sovereign choice. Biblical Christians, believing in God’s exhaustive sovereignty, follow the Scripture when it insists that God is the reason that Universalism isn’t true and God is the one who makes the decision as to who and who will not be saved (particularism). Either man is sovereign over salvation or God is. We see this particularism in action in Acts,

16:13 And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. 14 Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.

God opened Lydia’s heart while not opening the hearts of the other women who met there.

This particularity of God’s was even recognized by the Lord Jesus Christ,

25 At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

So, Universalism is not true. Not all men will be saved. And, those who will be saved are saved by God’s sovereign Particularism. Finally, God’s particularism is so vast that no man can number all those God intends to save via His sovereign particular choice.

4.) Heidelberg question 20 puts an end to the old liberal canard of “the Fatherhood of God over all men” and the “Brotherhood of all men under God.” Since Universalism isn’t true therefore it follows that God is not the Father of all men. God is nothing but an avenging Judge to those outside of Christ. The idea of the God’s Fatherhood of all men and so the Brotherhood of all men has often been used as a anti-Christ liberal ploy to force Christians to embrace people of other faiths as those who are our Brothers because God is the Father of us all. The nonsense of this idea has even made it into some of our hymnody.

Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be.
With God as our father
We are family.
Let us walk with each other
In perfect harmony.

When we embrace the idea of God’s universal Fatherhood and man’s universal Brotherhood the temptation for us is to compromise our Christian beliefs in order that we can all get along with all our putative Brother’s on the earth. It is precisely because God is not the Father of all, redemptively speaking, that we must not yield our beliefs to the siren song of a compromise that would promise a compromised peace. Also, such thinking of the Fatherhood of God over all and the Brotherhood of all cuts the heart out of evangelism. If we are all Brothers then what is the need to evangelize? In point of fact if God is Father of all and we are all Brothers than it would be insensitive and insulting to others to suggest that their faiths are sub-optimal by seeking to evangelize them.

5.) Notice the language about being in-grafted Caleb. The phrase, “only those who are in-grafted into Christ,” linguistically supports God’s sovereignty. We are passive until we are in-grafted. God does all the in-grafting and only after we are in-grafted do we have a true faith. This is just to say that in salvation God does all the saving and we only do our required all (repentance, faith, obedience) after God has done all, but God having done all we always respond by working out our salvation with fear and trembling. God initiates and we respond and when God initiates with saving intent the elect never fail to respond.

The language of grafting communicates the idea of being taken out of one place and put into another. In the way that the language is used here it communicates being taken out of our Covenant head Adam where there is nothing but death and being placed in Christ where there is abundant life. To be in-grated into Christ is to be united with Christ. Christ is our covenant head and represents us before the Father so that the Father has the disposition towards us that He has towards His Son. Further to be in-grafted into Christ means to be given the Holy Spirit so that we increasingly become what we have been freely declared to because we are in-grafted into Christ. Romans 11 speaks a little regarding this being grafted into Christ,

Rom.11:17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Rom.11:19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Rom.11:20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:

Being in-grafted into Christ we thus begin to desire what Christ desires, and we begin to conform to the likeness of Christ. In being in-grafted into Christ we receive the life of Christ and are sustained by that life, and over the course of time the graft begins to take on the characteristics of divine olive tree.

6.) The catechism speaks of receiving all of Christ’s benefits. The consequence of being in-grafted into Christ is that we receive all the spiritual blessings of Christ. This means that we have peace with God, which means not only the cessation of God’s just hostility towards us but also all the blessings that come by being favored of God. We no longer have reason to cower in fear before God. Receiving all Christ’s benefits means we no longer have to live with the guilt of sin and the misery of being without God and without hope. Receiving all Christ’s benefits means a boldness and confidence coming from knowing that the Sovereign God of the whole universe is ordaining all that comes into our lives for His advance and our profit. Receiving all Christ’s benefits means the end of temporal and earthly fear, for if God be for us, who or what can be against us? Receiving all Christ’s benefits means a profound sense of security and comfort because I know that I am not my own but belong to my faithful savior Jesus Christ. There are so many other benefits we could speak of that we receive. Death is no longer an enemy to us because we have the benefit of knowing to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We are increasingly given the ability to think God’s thoughts after him so that we confound God’s enemies. We are given the benefit of belonging to Christ’s body the Church so that we have precious fellowship with the Saints of God. We know that our Elder Brother, the Lord Christ, continues to plead our cause before the Father. We know that we shall finish our race here well because God who won us is able to keep us until the very end. We are given the benefit of having a continued affection for our High Captain the Lord Christ and a desire to defend His honor at every turn.

As we move through the catechism we will see many of these benefits up close in more detail.

The fact that we receive all Christ’s benefits in light of being united to Christ is seen in Ephesians,

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

7.) Answer 20 ends by noting the necessity of true faith. The idea that we must have a “true faith” implies that such a thing as false faith exists. We will talk more about that in the next question and answer that provides a biblical definition of faith. Suffice it to say here that not all professions of faith qualify as true faith.

I would like to end though by observing that a true faith in Christ can not be held apart from knowing the true Christ. I only bring this up because there are those who say that people can be saved by Christ even though they have never heard of him. These people will argue that if people who have never heard of Christ will just follow the good that they know then they will be saved by Christ. Some will even contend that well intentioned practitioners of other gods will have their well intentioned but misguided worship accepted as worship of Christ precisely because they were well intentioned. C. S. Lewis makes such a argument in his novel, “The Last Battle.” Such types of doctrine (and there are many nuances to this teaching I have not brought forth here) are nowhere found in Scripture. Only those who have had Christ placarded before them and so have embraced Christ in faith, in this life, will have the Lord Christ as their mediator. Scripture not only looks for a general faith in a known Christ but it also expects a intimate faith in a known Christ. We must not only believe in the Son but we must pay Him homage,

Ps.2:12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

If there are exceptions to the necessity to have faith in a known Lord Jesus Christ those exceptions would be the unborn, the newly born, and the mentally impaired. In such cases it is best for us to simply say, “Will not the Lord of all the earth do right,” though we can have complete confidence of their salvation if they were Baptized members of the covenant community.

Scripture clearly teaches that eternal life is pinned upon knowing the Christ of Scripture,

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

The fact that Jesus Christ requires the knowledge of Himself along with the Father, for eternal life, is a strong testimony to the deity of Jesus Christ.

Now couple that scripture with Jesus’ statement,

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

And you have the clear teaching that one can not be saved (have fellowship with the Father) except by a true faith in a known Christ.

Don’t let your faith be shipwrecked by those who insist on Universalism by appealing to a few texts in Scripture not properly read against God’s complete revelation.

I sign off by citing a few more Scripture that convey how important faith in Christ is,

Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Rom.3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

Heb.4:2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Heb.4:3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

Heb.10:39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

Heb.11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

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