The Red Sea As A Covenant Cutting Ceremony

I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. — Exodus 6:7

In the book of Exodus we have the record of the splitting of the Red Sea. In this splitting of the Red Sea, God’s people, in a covenant ceremony, pass through the beast that was cut in twain by God and so re-established Covenant with God. That God took the Red Sea covenant ceremony seriously, and took up the role of the Protector King over a vassal people, is seen in the fact that He saved His people through a judgment that spilled the life blood of Egypt.

The Red Sea was split. God’s covenant people passed through the parts. The blood that sealed the covenant was the Egyptians. God’s people, who all passed through the sea, were Baptized (sprinkled) into Moses who was a type of Christ.

In the Red Sea covenant ceremony God re-confirmed what He had said to Abraham long ago… “You shall be my people and I will be your God.”

The Magical Mystery Listening Tour — Part I

“Heavenly Shades of night are falling
It’s Twilight time”

Platters

Calvin was a low intensity drug user until the day he mixed some bad “Boomers” with some good Quaaludes. After what he saw on that binge he had a “come to Jesus” meeting and swore off drugs forever.

He sunk into the couch the same way he sunk into his hallucination. Slowly, conforming to both the cushions and the alternate reality, Calvin was one with both sofa and the wormhole. As the mist descended Calvin found himself driving into a Church that had two signs. One, a 1950’s version, was hidden behind the church as if it had been shamed for its overuse while the other was a top of the line Electronic gizmo. The signs were in a tug of war and a company of Wesen and long dead former church members cheered in opposing bleachers, each for their respective signs. If the old sign won it meant irrelevance forever for the Church. If the new sign won it meant Church growth and lots of conversions to Jesus.

Calvin wandered into the Sanctuary, where he heard strains of a “Boogie Woogie” Gospel as performed by a Lounge Lizard nightclub act. Veal and shuffleboard were being sold along with Jesus. It was hard to tell which or who was more popular. The patrons seemed to be enjoying themselves as they raised their hands and cried out “Bingo,” every time Andy Williams belted out, “Because He Lives.”

A few people milled in the Narthex while Tony Orlando and Dawn sang a medley of “Knock Three Times” and “Rock of Ages.” The people in the Narthex were the unhappy ones. Maybe they had also consumed the same toxic combination of Boomers and Quaaludes? An octogenarian grabbed Calvin’s hand and vigorously shook it while asking at the same time, “What the Hell is this?” Calvin didn’t know if the Octogenarian was referring to the shared hallucination or to the Lounge Lizard act. Either way, Calvin didn’t know the answer. Before leaving, the Old Saint added, with a sweep of his hand and in disgust, “JEEEE-SUS!”

Calvin, was suddenly in the sanctuary again where Dean Martin, martini and cigarette in hand, was speaking up the glories of “Joel Osteen.” Calvin was wondering how it was that Dean Martin listened to Joel Osteen. Calvin was more of a Herman Rodeheaver fan himself.

“Right before your eyes we pull laughter from the skies
And he laughs until he cries then he dies then he dies
Come inside the shows about to start
Guaranteed to blow your head apart.”

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

At this point the meeting started. The assembled crowd was appareled in everything from Tuxedos to beach shorts. Calvin briefly wondered if this was a scene from the last judgment. Where was the Great White Throne? A man in a bikini was holding hands with sewer worker from the Bronx. A Rastafarian from Cleveland was batting her eyes at a female Punk Rocker from Detroit. Calvin recognized Kathryn Kuhlman sitting next to Elizabeth D. Wright and Abraham Kuyper and Malcolm X sitting next to each other. For some reason Calvin wondered what offspring of such couples would be like, then he remembered that two people of the same gender can’t have children. But … maybe they could in this wormhole hallucination reality?

Roll call was made while in the background “When the Roll is called up Yonder I’ll be there” was serving as elevator music. Everyone was present unless they were gone and the Presbytery was declared officially constituted.

Someone from the balcony shouted … “A Song, A Song,” and the next thing Calvin knew he was singing,

Let their 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
Brothers all are we.
Let me walk with my brother
In perfect harmony.

He didn’t want the words to come out of his mouth. Calvin wasn’t even sure it was a real song. He was pretty sure it wasn’t real theology. But like the hallucination itself, Calvin had no control over what was happening. He was more spectator than participant.

The assembled, Elders, Elderettes, Deacons, Deaconesses, Ministers, and Ministerettes were now suddenly all wearing dresses. For some reason it struck him as the most sane part of the hallucination.

Reports were read while nobody paid any attention. Votes were held while the gathered ministerial potpourri and paparazzis grunted out various “yays” and “nays.” The Clerk and the Moderator, dressed as the Mad Hatter and Mad Max respectfully had the meeting well in hand.

“The magical mystery listening tour
Is waiting to take you away
Waiting to take you away.”

John, Paul, George, & Ringo

The Trip suddenly changed gears and Calvin found himself in a gymnasium. Or was it a fellowship hall? Or was it the place where Firing Squads plied their trade? He couldn’t tell. It looked like all those venues at the same time. People pressed the flesh and somebody official arose and said …“Let us have a listening tour. Let us listen.”

Everything went quite. It was silent. There they sat in silence for what seemed like days. Somebody finally screwed up the courage to offer that it wasn’t possible to listen unless somebody talked. Everyone agreed that this was a stroke of brilliance and as one the assembled magpie Elders, Elderettes, Deacons, Deaconesses, Ministers, and Ministerettes began to talk.

The official rose again and said, “Let us talk and listen about something official?” The assembled Elders, Elderettes, Deacons, Deaconesses, Ministers, and Ministerettes marveled at such a profound declaration. Instantly before Calvin there was a sheet of questions to spur official conversation.

The hallucination intensified as Calvin looked at the sheet and read the questions.

1. What are the pastoral priorities should a same-sex couple begin attending your church?

2. Why do they use Monkees to test for both HIV and cosmetics?

3. What do you need most from the CRC to help you navigate questions that arise in response to same-sex marriage?

4. Why would anyone put Mercury in a Vaccine and why would anyone take such a vaccine?

5. The survey the committee sent out is revealing very diverse perspectives within the denomination. What would you see as implications arising from this reality.

Calvin saw that he had been seated at a table of 8. Indeed, the room had been filled with tables of 8 as far as the eyes could see. It looked like tables of 8 going on for infinity. At Calvin’s table of 8 was the Octogenarian who had vigorously shook his hand earlier.

The Octogenarian leaned over and whispered in his ear, in between tongue thrusts, I’m a Universalist.”

Calvin responded, while dabbing at his saliva filled ear with a table napkin, “We are all Universalists now.”

The other 6 at Calvin’s table were Twiggy, and Calvin’s sodomite Uncle Lester “the Molester,” who had done prison time for fondling boys in the family. Also seated there was Bruce, one of Calvin’s sodomite college friends that he used to visit “gay” bars with, Smokey Bear sat catty-corner in one direction from him while kitty-corner in the other direction sat Marilyn Monroe. Next to her sat Zoe Saldana. Calvin regretted that his Boomers didn’t include Marilyn’s and Zoe’s ordination.

Up front were the two officials who were conducting and facilitating the meeting. Why Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers would be interested in leading a Church meeting only the Quaaludes knew. As the listening conversation rolled the officials paced about to observe.

One of the officials interrupted,

“A new Commandment I have for you, Thou shalt not reference your theology when discussing these questions. Theology is verboten in this magical mystery listening tour.”

All the participants immediately raised their hands to ask, Can you tell us what Theology is so that we make sure to avoid it.”

The discussions continued. The Octogenarian and Calvin were thumb wrestling while they each contended for their points.

With a thumb thrust to the left Calvin offered, “But what of Romans 1, I Corinthians 9, I Timothy 1, and Galatians 5? How can we support sodomy in any way given those passages?”

The Octogenarian countered Calvin’s left thrust thumb move with a up and under curl thumb riposte, “I knew a gay person once who was an excellent theologian and he wasn’t allowed to minister in the Church. Besides, two gay people come to the Church and want to get married and what does the Church tell them? What does the Church tell them? The Church tells them “no.”

Calvin went for the swooping head and shoulder fake thumb move, “Maybe the reason the Church tells them they can’t get married is because it is an ontological impossibility for two people of the same sex to be married. Such a thing is a surd. It defies reality. It is like asking for a woman to be her own mother”

At the same exact moment Calvin caught himself wondering at the irony of appealing to “reality” while participating in this drug induced haze. As he was thinking this through he heard Smokey Bear say that he wanted to talk about the Monkey and HIV / cosmetic question. Marilyn and Zoe were interested especially in the cosmetic side of the listening tour. Twiggy was furiously taking notes. It all began to bleed into one for Calvin.

The Octogenarian was the thumb wrestling champion of the Universe and he would not so easily be put off. He countered Calvin with a “But my Sister was a Transgender professional and he was a nice person.” The rest of the table began to chant, “So say we all.”

Someone at the next table sent a note that Zoe read saying, “Having to be right is poisonous.” It was written 10,000 times in chartreuse colored lipstick. Every time it was read the table of 8 genuflected and said “Amen.”

Calvin began to laugh the laugh of the demented.

End Part 1

Tales from the Ecclesiastical Post-Modern Crypt

Achilles had been trained has a minister in the flagship Seminary of APE (Apostolic Presbyterian Ecclesial) and had spent some 20 years in the Ministry. He was, by all accounts, well liked and successful as a Churchman and Minister.

Achilles had a standing appointment with his ministerial colleagues at the local pub. At the pub (named aptly “Haags Hall”) community ministers from liberal, yet diverse, backgrounds and denominational affiliations would show up to talk about their lives, their faith, and the times in which they lived. Usually matters were congenial. When hard disagreements did arise they were quickly followed by a shot and a beer which either made the various ministers gathered forget the disagreements or made them ready to fight. The ministers had a rule that if someone raised their voice in a discussion they would be forced to down a Boilermaker as discipline for their unseemly ministerial outbursts. This was supposed to keep hissing, clawing and pushing (what liberal ministers call “fighting”) at bay. Fortunately for all the ministers in attendance, ministers fight like Junior high girls and so little damage was done the very few times disagreements were raised to a level higher than what a Boilermaker could tame.

At this bi-monthly meeting Achilles decided he was going to probe the issue of gays in the church. He wanted to discuss, with his liberal counterparts, how it was that the Fundamentalists couldn’t see the necessity to accept the LGBTQ crowd into the Church. Achilles thought if nothing else the assembled clergy could have a good laugh at the way the Fundamentalist troglodytes read the Bible.

The Sherry, Margaritas and wine spritzers (the preferred drinks of liberal clergy) were flowing like the water off the head of a dozen baby baptisms. All assembled were in a good mood when Achilles tossed out the topic of conversation of “gays in the Church.”

The conversation went pretty much as expected. All the liberal clergy gathered drank to the health of gays. Many of them knew what good givers the LGBTQ crowd were at their local churches. They also knew that the quickest route to losing their positions was to stand up against the zeitgeist. And so they laughed and guffawed at their clumsy and backwards fundamentalist “brethren.”

After agreeing, over several rounds, at the nekulturny character of the fundamentalists Achilles piped up with a complaint about the few remaining old school Presbyterians that remained in his denomination,

“I think one of our problems in the Apostolic Presbyterian Ecclesial (APE) is that many of our Pastors belong to the intellectual class and they have this overwhelming necessity to be right. They sense that being right is of ultimate importance. They are always studying, always reading and so being right is important to them. And I think we must agree that is poisonous to the Church.”

All agreed but suddenly the waiter, who was serving up the girly drinks, couldn’t resist and asked,

“So, tell me Achilles, are you insisting that you are right about that observation you just made?”

This waiter was not unknown to the Liberal, Sherry-sipping clergy. This was the walking conundrum waiter they loved to tease good-naturedly. Christopher Roberts was an anomaly that the liberals couldn’t resist. They always insisted on his being their waiter. Christopher was a tent-maker minister who had no problem with an occasional stiff drink, salty phrase, or stinging pejorative. Christopher didn’t have a pietistic bone in his body and the only people he lampooned more than Fundamentalist preachers were the Liberal and “diverse” crowd that gathered twice a month during his shift.

Achilles was mute over Christopher’s question, and so he asked again, amidst the nervous laughter of the other assembled clergy.

“Achilles, you just noted that the problem with too many of the fundamentalist clergy in your denomination is that they insist on being right.”

“What I want to know Achilles, is if, whether or not, you are, as a non fundamentalist minister, insisting upon being right about the poisonous scourge that clergy are who have to be right?”

Achilles looked as if Christopher had just thrown a ice cold beer in his face.

All were looking on waiting for Achilles response.

Finally Achilles offered up,

“I don’t know.”

Christopher let out a booming laugh. The diverse and liberal clergy just stared at their waiter not getting the joke.

When Christopher looked at their puzzlement he doubled his laughter. Finally, upon regaining composure, Christopher, between continued intermittent peals of laughter, informed them,

“You liberals are hilarious. You can’t even see the delicious irony of Achilles answer. When Achilles says, ‘I don’t know,’ all you can hear is the idea that Achilles is being consistent with his statement on the poisonous nature of clergy on insisting on being right.”

“But,” Christopher continued, “the irony is that Achilles and all of you can’t see that Achilles and each of you, in the depths of your post-modern muck, can’t see the joke that you can’t even be certain in your decrying of certitude. You complain about Fundamentalists having to be right, but you can’t even own the fact that you are right in your complaint about them having to be right. You have to be uncertain of your claim on the wrongness of certitude. But are you even certain that you have to be uncertain about the claims of certitude?”

All stared up from their pretzel bowls and wine spritzer glasses with the look of a waitress that had just been goosed by an anonymous patron.

“And the really funny thing is,” Christopher continued, “is that all of you here are so dull that even after explaining this to you, you’re still either to dumb or to drunk on wine spritzers that you don’t have any understanding of what I just explained to you.”

“You complain about your Fundamentalist competition having to be right, but you can’t even be certain about your uncertainty … and yet you still have the moxy to complain, as if you were right, about the faults of other ministers, who you think, have to be right.”

“I could spend a week laughing at your idiocy, but other tables, who tip better then you guys do, are waiting to be served.”

“Let me know if you ever figure it out.”

Christ In The Psalms

Introduction

Christ familiarity with the Psalms

Psalm 31:5 —
Psalm 22:1
Psalm 69:21 , 22:15 — Echo “I am thirsty”
Psalm 22:31 — echoes “It if finished”

Also throughout his life we see familiarity with the Psalms

Psalm 6:8 — cited Mt. 7:23 — “Then I will tell you plainly, ‘I never knew you’ Away from me you evildoers”
Psalm 35:19, 69:4 — cited John 15:25 — “They hated me without reason.”
Psalm 118:26 — cited Mt. 21:13
Psalm 41:9 — cited John 13:18
Psalm 62:12 — cited Matthew 16:27

Christ was saturated with the Psalms. Today we want to look at the Psalms familiarity with Christ.

I.) Christ in the Psalms of Righteous Declaration

Psalm 24

Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who may stand in His holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
5 He shall receive blessing from the Lord,
And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Psalm 18

20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;
According to the cleanness of my hands
He has recompensed me.
21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord,
And have not wickedly departed from my God.
22 For all His judgments were before me,
And I did not put away His statutes from me.
23 I was also blameless before Him,
And I kept myself from my iniquity.
24 Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.

Here we note that while David might have been able to pray these Psalms in a comparative sense, given our understanding of our sin nature, and of our sin by habit which is taught in Scripture there is no way that David could have prayed these in a absolute sense. No man can. And so we hear these Psalms and we are immediately reminded of the Lord Christ. The Lord Christ alone is the one who can stand in God’s Holy place as the one who has clean hands and a pure heart and who had not not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He alone can declare that “I was blameless before God.”

The good news in all this is that we are united to Christ and what is predicated of Christ is predicated of His people because we are in Christ. We have had all this described perfection put to our account. And so, because of the Lord Christ we also are blameless. No … not in and of ourselves but as we are reckoned in Christ.

II.) Christ in the Penitential Psalms

7 Psalms known as “Penitential Psalms”

Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143

But there are other Psalms that have snatches of penitence within them,

Psalm 69:5 O God, You know my foolishness;
And my sins are not hidden from You.

Psalm 6

O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.
2 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
3 My soul also is greatly troubled;
But You, O Lord—how long?
4 Return, O Lord, deliver me!
Oh, save me for Your mercies’ sake!
5 For in death there is no remembrance of You;
In the grave who will give You thanks?

How shall we handle these penitential Psalms in light of the reality that we see and hear Christ in them? Is it really the case that the Lord Christ would need to pray these prayers? Aren’t we doing the Lord Christ a disservice by suggesting He, through David, prayed in such a penitential manner?

The only answer that can suffice is that in these Penitential Psalms the Lord Christ, in His humanity, is identifying with His people. In point of fact He is so identifying with them that He confesses sin, through David, as if it is His own.

So, closely does Christ identify with us as sinners that He confesses sin in these penitential Psalms. Now, we know that Christ is the spotless lamb of God and we know that He was at all points tempted as us yet without sin but here in the Psalms we find the sinless God-man confessing sin. Thus does he identify so closely with His people. Such is His tenderness towards us. In such a way Christ demonstrates He was and is our substitute.

It was not without reason that the Holy Spirit could write in the NT,

“God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Cor. 5:21). As Peter says, Christ suffered as the “just for the unjust.”

Here then in the penitential Psalms we see the love of God and His Christ for sinners. So closely does the Lord Christ identify with us that He confesses sins.

Jonathan Edwards offers here,

“His elect were, from all eternity, dear to Him, as the apple of His eye. He looked upon them so much as Himself, that He regarded their concerns as His own; and he has even made their guilt as his, by a gracious assumption of it to Himself, that it might be looked upon as His own, through that divine imputation in virtue of which they are treated as innocent, while He suffers for them.”

Horne in his commentary on the Psalms offers,

“… Christ in the day of his passion, standing charged with the sin and guilt of his people, speaks of such their sin and guilt, as if they were His own, appropriating to himself those debts, for which, in the capacity of a surety, had made himself responsible.”

Elsewhere, in yet another commentary E. C. Olsen affirms again this line of thought,

“I am particularly impressed with the 5th verse of the 69th Psalm where the Lord said, ‘O God, You know my foolishness; And my sins are not hidden from thee.’ For 2000 years no man who has had any respect for his intellect dared charge our Lord Jesus with sin. But some might as, What do you mean when you say our Lord is the speaker in this verse? Just this: the fact of Calvary is not a sham or mirage. It is an actual fact. Christ making atonement for sin was a reality. The NT declares that He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. As Christ restored that which He took not away, that is, restored to us a righteousness which we never had, so Christ had to take your sins and mine, your foolishness and mine. These sins became such an integral part of Him that He called them “my sins and my foolishness.” Our Lord was the substitute for the sinner. He had to take the sinners place, and in so doing, He took upon Himself all of the sinner’s sin. In the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, ‘Surely He has borne our griefs, And carried our sorrows; … yet the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’ The iniquity of us all was laid upon Christ. He bore our sins ‘in His own body on the tree.’ Can you fathom that? When you do, you will understand the mystery of the Gospel.”

In light of this great Love for His people, how can we, who are convinced of this love, ever violate such a compassion as was demonstrated by the Lord Christ towards us?

III.) Christ in the Imprecatory Psalms

We spoke some concerning the ability of God’s people to pray the Imprecatory prayers but we also must realize that it is first and foremost the Lord Christ Himself who prays the Imprecatory prayers.

The modern Church has this vision of effeminate Jesus. There he is in the Poster or a art sketch set against a backdrop of azure sky blue with fluffy white clouds around him in a long flowing white tunic with his shoulder length hair poofed perfectly and he is beckoning His people with outstretched hands. Or there he is at the door knocking … ever the gentle guest. A halo surrounds his head and you get the sense that the door knocking Jesus is so calm the door adores being rapped upon by Him.

The Jesus of the modern contemporary church poses no threat to sin or sinners. He constantly forgives in the face of epistemologically self conscious defiance and rebellion against Him and his cause. He forgives even in the face of being told that we have no reason to be forgiven. He is Jesus the effeminate wonder male.

We agree that the Lord Christ is gentle, meek, and forgiving, but He holds not those qualities without also being God who pursues God’s righteousness. He inveighs against the wicked. He holds the rebellious to account. In the Psalms, through the voice of David, the Lord Christ cries out for the blood of those who would oppose His Kingdom and His people. He is not God with whom we are to trifle.

Psalm 69:23-28

23 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see;
And make their loins shake continually.
24 Pour out Your indignation upon them,
And let Your wrathful anger take hold of them.
25 Let their dwelling place be desolate;
Let no one live in their tents.
26 For they persecute the ones You have struck,
And talk of the grief of those You have wounded.
27 Add iniquity to their iniquity,
And let them not come into Your righteousness.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living,
And not be written with the righteous.

J. H. Webster in his book, “The Psalms in Worship” has this to say

David, for example, was a type and spokesman of Christ, and the imprecatory Psalms are expressions of the infinite justice of the God-man, of His indignation against wrong-doing, of His compassion for the wronged. They reveal the feelings of His heart and the sentiments of His mind regarding sin.”

In Psalm 109

Let his days be few,
And let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless,
And his wife a widow.
10 Let his children continually be vagabonds, and beg;
Let them seek their bread[b] also from their desolate places.
11 Let the creditor seize all that he has,
And let strangers plunder his labor.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy to him,
Nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off,
And in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

This Psalm, throughout Church History became known as the Judas Psalm because it is quoted concerning Judas in the NT.

Professor Fred Leahy of Belfast Ireland wrote concerning Psalm 109

“… the view which limits Psalm 109 to David and one of his adversaries is altogether to short-sighted because it ignores the typical nature of David and His Kingdom and overlooks the interpretation of the imprecatory psalms in the NT, where their ultimate fulfilment is seen either in the judgment of Judas or in the apostasy of Israel (cf., Rom. 11:9-10),. In the Christian church Psalm 109 soon became known as the Psalmus Ischarioticus — the Iscariot Psalm.”

The modern contemporary Church in the West today needs to hear again Christ praying with these imprecations against those who have set themselves against the Lord and His anointed. The modern contemporary Church in the West today needs to be reminded that those with designs to cast off their chains and arise to the place of the most high will be thoroughly cast down.

And why would we insist that the Christ praying the imprecatory prayers must come forward again? First because we love the Lord Christ and desire to protect His reputation but also because we love people. We do those in rebellion to Christ no favors … we show them no love, if we do not warn them concerning the wrath of the Lamb of God. In point of fact if we refuse to speak of these realities we show our scorn and hatred of those outside of Christ. The love of Christ and love for those outside of Christ compels God’s servants to take up this hallowed theme, fully aware that we ourselves are only saved from the wrath of God because of the work of the Lord Christ to pay for our sins.

What we find here in the Psalms is what we find in the Revelation. The Christ speaking through David these imprecations is the Christ spoken of in the NT

Rev. 19:11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had[a] a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean,[b] followed Him on white horses. 15 Now out of His mouth goes a sharp[c] sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

Conclusion

George Horne, who wrote a commentary on the Psalms in the 19th century wrote,

“The Primitive Fathers … are unexceptional witnesses to us of this matter of fact, that such a method of expounding the Psalms (the Method of reading them Christocentrically) built upon the practice of the Apostles in their writings and preachings, did universally prevail in the church from the beginning. They, who have ever looked to St. Augustine, know, that he pursues this plan invariably, treating of the Psalms as proceeding from the mouth of Christ, or of the Church, or of both, considered as one mystical person. The same is true of Jerome, Ambrose, Cassidore, Hilary, and Prosper … But what is very observable, Tertullian, who flourished at the beginning of the 3rd century, mentions it, as if it were then an allowed point in the church, that almost all the Psalms are spoken in the person of Christ, being addressed by the Son to the Father, that is, by Christ to God.”

Connecting Providence to Meaning

The conviction concerning God’s overweening Providence yields to His people a unified working reality. Our conviction that God rules over the seemingly random particles of motes and atoms in every sunbeam carries over into our conviction that it is God’s providence that gives meaning to all of our labor, all of our language, all of our life. Were it not for God’s Providence we would live in a time + chance + circumstance world where meaning, sexualitiy, and truth would be random and shape-shifting. The God whose Providence orders the dance of the motes and atoms in a sunbeam is the God whose Providence gives stability and meaning to all of reality. God’s Providence is the only thing that makes this post makes sense.

Apart from the conviction of divine providence fallen man must concoct a human providence to replace divine providence. When man does this then man seeks to make his providence as sweeping as God’s providence and the result is centralization, command and control, and Tyranny.

Providence then is an inescapable category. Either we will submit and play in God’s providence or we will overthrow His providence for a humanistic providence that seeks to lock God’s exhaustive control out of His world.

God’s Providence … no hope without it.