Category: Theology

I thought this section by Dr. O Palmer Robertson on the meaning of the death of our Lord Christ to be particularly edifying and enlightening. I hope you find it as comforting as I did.

“The second major moment in which Jesus personally explains the meaning of His death is at the Passover meal. Jesus takes the remnants of the Passover and institutes the ‘Lord’s Supper.’ The Passover lamb was given in substitution for the life of the firstborn male of every Israelite household. Jesus now connects the two rituals by saying, ‘This is my body given for you’ (Luke 22:19). He then took the remnants of the Passover wine and said, ‘This is my blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Matt. 26:28; cf. Mark 14:24).

What is Jesus doing? He is explaining by word and by the symbol the meaning of his death. He positions himself in the place of the covenantal sacrifice represented in the Passover celebration.  The entirety of redemptive history up to this point he interprets as fulfilled in His death. As Abraham ‘cut the covenant’ at God’s command witnessed the two theophanies ‘pass[ing] between the pieces’ (Gen. 15:17), so Jesus will allow His body to be torn apart as recipient of the curses of the covenant. As Moses ‘cut the covenant’ at Sinai and sprinkled the people all altar with the blood that opened the ‘new and living way’ into the Most Holy Place (Ex. 24:6-8; Heb. 10:19-20).  As Jesus had earlier presented himself as the ‘ransom for many’ (Mark 14:24; Matt. 26:28). The covenant sacrifice has moved from an animal, to a prophesied ‘servant of the Lord,’ to the Son of God in his sacrificial body. The words of Jesus at the supper reflect once more on the ‘many’ for whom he gave his life as a ransom, the ‘many’ for whom he poured out his life unto death (Isa. 53:12-13).

What more do we need, what more could we ask, to enable us to understand the meaning of the death of Jesus? In these two critical passages of the Gospels, Jesus himself explains the meaning of His death. He points directly to the focal elements of the redemptive processes of the old covenant Scriptures. In the ransom price for the redemption of ‘many’ as well as in the blood of the Passover lamb as the climatic covenant sacrifice for the ‘many’ — in these old covenant images along with his explanatory words, Jesus declares the intent of his death. In the context of the dynamic perspective of the progression of redemptive history, we are not talking in the lingo of a stagnant dead theological system. We are wondering and marveling at a divine plan for the redemption of many, many, sinners from every nation, tribe, and tongue. We are speaking of the crux, the cross, the crucifixion, the consummation of the ages at Calvary. That ‘place’ at Mt. Moriah, solemnly marked  even before Israel’s national arrival as ‘the place’  by Abraham’s offering of his ‘only beloved son’ (Gen. 22:1-2); that ‘place’ mentioned repeatedly in Deuteronomy as the ‘place’ where Israel would offer its sacrifices for decades, even centuries, to come (Deut. 12:5-7, 14, 18, 21, 26; 14:23, 25; 16:2, 7, 11, 15-16; 17:8, 10; 10; 26:2; 31:11); that identical ‘place’ of Mount Moriah where David offering his atoning sacrifice to stop the plague (2 Sam. 24:18-25; cf. 2 Chron. 3:1); that very same ‘place’ where Solomon built and Ezra rebuilt the temple for perpetual sacrifice (2 Chron. 3:1; Ezra 3:8-13); that hallowed ‘place’ ‘outside the city wall’ — it was the very ‘place’ where our Lord was crucified (Hebrews 3:12).

As the poet, though imperfectly, says it:

In the cross of Christ I glory,
Tow’ring o’er the wrecks of time.

And again;

God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Gal. 6:14 KJV)

And again;

I determined to know nothing about among you
except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. (I Cor. 2:2 NASB) …

Do you see the centrality of the cross of Christ? All history flows toward it, and all history flows from it. Give God the glory for the cross of Jesus Christ. From eternity past He planned it. In ancient days he moved all history toward it. From the moment of Jesus ransoming sacrifice for ‘many’ he has advanced history.”

O Palmer Robertson
A New Testament Biblical Theology; Christ of the Consummation – The Testimony of the Four Gospels Vol. 1  – pg. 137 – 139

Federal Vision teaching is an error that arose in conjunction with the New Perspective of Paul teaching. A good deal, but not all, of the errors of Federal Vision can be traced back to N. T. Wright and behind him to chaps like E. P. Sanders and James Dunn.

Rich Lusk is one such minister who pushes for the Federal Vision. He belongs to a denomination (CREC) that has been a nest of Federal Visionists.

The errors of the Federal Vision crowd are subtle and clever and it is because they are so subtle that they are difficult to catch for the average layman or clergy. The Federal Vision chaps can sound quite orthodox until one goes under the hood and begins to play with the engine.

One more thing about the FV blokes is the interesting observation that their movement arose (at least in popularity) just about the same time that the Radical Two Kingdom error arose in popularity. I have written elsewhere on Iron Ink that these two errors are mirror errors making opposite but corresponding mistakes. FV gives up Justification in light of their emphasis on Sanctification while R2K gives up Sanctification in light of their errant teaching on Justification.

Below, I interact somewhat with something that Lusk posted on X and then end with a quote from 18th Century Scottish Covenanter Ralph Erskine.

Rich Lusk (RL) writes,

“Many will argue that the gospel must sound antinomian if it to be kept pure of legalism. Indeed, sounding antinomian is a test of orthodoxy. For example, Robert Godfrey, following Martyn Lloyd-Jones, says “If no one ever comes to you after you preach the gospel and asks ‘So should we sin so that grace may abound?’ you have probably never preached the gospel.”

BLMc responds,

We know we are on FV ground here given the complaint above. FV constantly insists that “faith works” (with which I agree) and in that emphasis ends up denying that in Justification faith does its proper work when it rests in Christ for all.

Second, anyone who had read Lloyd-Jones knows that Lloyd-Jones repeatedly emphasized works but only in their proper place. Another thing is that like the Apostle Paul, all Christian ministers immediately reject, as the Apostle Paul did, the idea that “we should sin that grace may abound.” The problem between Lloyd-Jones and Lusk is not on the matter of works but on the matter of the role and place of works. (Godfrey being R2K is another story.)

RL writes,

But the Godfrey/Lloyd-Jones point is really an exercise in missing the point.
The objection of Romans 6:1 (“Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?”) is not raised after the gospel has been preached; it is raised in the middle of preaching the gospel. In other words, the antinomian objection is not a sign that you have preached the gospel; rather, it is a sign that you have not yet finished preaching the gospel. Paul’s presentation of the gospel does not end in Romans 5:21; Romans 6 is pure gospel as well. Thus, the gospel is not preached in full if union with Christ in his death to sin and rising to new life are ignored (Rom. 6:2ff). The gospel is not preached in full unless a call for obedience to all of Christ’s commands is issued (Matt. 28:20). The gospel is not preached unless the promised gift of the Spirit, given to enable us to put to death the misdeeds of the body (Rom. 8:13), is included in the offer. The gospel is not preached unless there has been a summons to repent (Acts 17:30).

BLMc responds,

1.) Let’s make some necessary distinctions here.

First, St. Paul often arrange his Epistles so that duty will follow doctrine. In Romans the first 11 chapters are heavy with Doctrine and in chapter 12 forward the Apostle segues to the Christian’s duty. As such, Romans 6 is indeed part of the preaching of the Gospel and in terms of Justification is pure Gospel.

Second, there is a narrow sense of the word “Gospel” and a broad sense of the word “Gospel.” When used in its narrow sense, Gospel is a good news proclamation/declaration of all that has been accomplished in Christ for sinners who close with Christ. The Gospel, in this narrow sense, is not dependent upon our behavior or our works. It is the proclamation/declaration that we have been released from being imprisoned because another has born our penalty for us as in our place.

2.) However, there is a broad sense of the word “Gospel” as well that stands in for the idea of the Christian faith as a whole. One thing FV does is it gloriously confuses these two usages. This is clearly seen when Lusk writes above;

The gospel is not preached in full unless a call for obedience to all of Christ’s commands is issued (Matt. 28:20).

Here Lusk has, in a startling fashion, clearly confused law and Gospel. The call for obedience to all of Christ’s commands is required indeed, but it is required as the demands of a law that no man can keep. It is these demands of the law that cause us, by God’s grace alone, to see our peril and desperation so that we, by the Spirit’s work, cry out, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.” A Gospel message preached that includes a call for obedience to all of Christ’s commands as if those commands could be kept by the supplicant who realizes the demands of the law is no Gospel at all. Lusk as confused terribly Law and Gospel.

3.) Lusk cites Mt. 28:20 where Christ commissions His Apostles to teach the nations all that Christ has commanded them. But the kicker here is that “the nations” referenced at this point assumes that they are Christian nations because they have been Baptized. The making disciples of all nations can only occur once those nations are Christian and the nations can never be Christian until they are convicted that there is no command keeping on their part which can satisfy the demands of the law.

The order of Christian evangelism is not Glawospel as Lusk would have it. The order of Christian evangelism is Law (which convicts of sin) and Gospel which pronounces pardon. Then, as the Puritans noted, the Cross sends us back to the law to answer the question; “How Shall We Then Live.”

4.) The Christian does indeed need to be taught the law but only as a guide to life (so called third use of the law) once they’re in Christ. Before they are in Christ it is heretical error to tell the non-Christian that in order to be a Christian they have to keep Christ’s commands as if they could. Our pressing of the law upon those outside of Christ should be met not with “I will do that,” but with a “I can’t (not able) to do that.”

5.) Of course we agree that there is a summons to repent. However, surely Lusk does not think that the unbeliever, though responsible to repent is able to repent? Responsibility does not imply ability Rich.

RL writes,

The pure grace of the gospel is not threatened by a call to obedience. Indeed, the gospel, properly preached, understood, and embraced, demands and promises obedience. In the Scriptures, heralds of the gospel essentially interchange faith and repentance as appropriate responses to the message (cf. Acts 2:38 and 16:34). In other places, Scripture speaks of “the obedience of faith” and calls hearers to “obey the gospel” (Rom. 1:5; 2 Thess. 1:8). In still other texts, faith and obedience (cf. Rom. 10:16) as well unbelief and disobedience (Heb. 3:18-19) are interchangeable. The basic gospel confession is, “Jesus is Lord” (Rom. 9; 1 Cor. 12:3) – which is to say, “He has given himself for me, and I now owe him my allegiance.” In the gospel, we find that God’s righteous requirements are not legalistic impositions, but gracious gifts he promises to work in us (cf. Rom. 8:1-4).

BLMc replies,

1.) The pure grace of the gospel, in its narrow sense, is indeed threatened by a call of obedience if that call for obedience is understood as being contributory in any way to relief from the law’s demand. The pure grace of the gospel in its narrow sense does emphasize obedience but it emphasizes the obedience of Christ in our place. It emphasizes the obedience of Christ as our surety and declares that God accepts the incarnate Son’s obedience in our stead. The pure grace of the gospel in its narrow sense tells the deflated and hopeless sinner that though his obedience will always be as filthy rags there is hope for him because the obedience (an alien obedience) of another has been vouchsafed for him. Christ’s obedience is our obedience and the Father is pleased with the repentant sinner.

Now here we must interject something that is not in Lusk’s scribblings. That something is that many of the FV guys repudiate the idea of Christ’s righteousness being imputed to us (reckoned to our account). Given this denial of Christ’s righteousness to us, it stands to reason that at least some FV guys would place this kind of emphasis on our obedience as necessary to Justification because without Christ’s righteousness imputed to us there is a need to build up our righteousness before God with our own righteousness. I don’t know if Lusk falls in this camp of denying double imputation but it sure sounds like it given the way he reasons here.

2.) Of course faith and repentance are called for as the proper response to the Gospel message but all Reformed Christians insist that what God requires He must first give. It is not as if faith and repentance are being auto-generated in our fallen state and are being traded up for Justification. To think like that would turn faith and repentance into our good works offered up to earn Justification. This would then be a denial the Justification is a completely gracious act of God whereby He declares the sinner righteous in Christ because Christ has had imputed to Him the sinner’s sin and in turn has imputed to the sinner His law keeping obedience. In point of fact the sinner’s repentance and faith are only received because they are imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

3.) As we noted earlier, we agree that St. Paul can speak of “obedience to the Gospel,” but that is in the broader sense of being obedient to the Christian faith and demonstrates that there is a close relationship between Justification and Sanctification but not in the way that Lusk is suggesting. Lusk, by emphasizing obedience the way he does is, whether he intends it or not, is giving us a Justification that is dependent upon Sanctification. This is back asswards and works to make the gracious Gospel not gracious but legal.

4.) Note how Lusk brashly includes our obedience in the definition of the Gospel. He calls it “our allegiance.” Now, of course our allegiance/obedience is requisite to the Christian life but that is an allegiance born of gratitude and not as contributory to Justification or the Gospel in its narrow sense. Our owed allegiance is not unto the attaining of a yet unsure forgiveness but rather the consequence of a certain forgiveness. Our allegiance is the response to the Gospel and not a condition of the Gospel.

RL writes,

The only kind of faith that justifies is a faith that lives – that is to say, a faith that loves, obeys, repents, calls, and seeks. Thus, faith can be seen (cf. Mark 2:5) and demonstrated (Jas. 2:18); it is embodied and embedded in outward action. True, at the moment of initial justification, faith has not yet done good works. But the kind of faith that lays hold of Christ for justification is a faith that will issue forth in obedience, not because something will be added to that faith a nanosecond after its conception (as if faith had to be “formed” by additional virtues, ala Roman Catholic teaching), but because that faith already carries within itself the seeds of every virtue.

BLMc responds,

Or course faith must be living. Who could disagree? However this living faith does its proper work in Justification in resting in Christ for all. Then this living faith does its proper work in Sanctification in working out all that Christ works in me unto love and good works.

It is true that faith is demonstrated but what it demonstrates is that our justification is justified. James does not teach that works are part of our person’s being justified but rather James teaches that our good works justify our claim to being justified. When Paul speaks about Justification he is commonly speaking as to how our persons are justified. When James speaks about Justification he is commonly speaking as to how it is we justify our Justification (by good works). There is a profound difference here.

Note here Lusk mentions the phrase “initial justification.” I wonder if in Lusk’s “Gospel” if all those who are initially justified are also all those, man for man, who will be finally justified? I ask this because a number of FV types will talk about folks who are initially justified who fall away and will not be finally justified, thus denying God’s preserving power.

RL writes,

The faith God works in us, in order that we might be justified by faith, simultaneously begins the process of transformation by faith. Faith never exists on its own, even at its inception. The kind of faith God gives his elect is a living, working, penitent, persevering faith. It is a faith that is inseparable from repentance and obedience. When faith grasps Christ, it grasps the whole Christ, so that he simultaneously becomes Savior and Lord. Indeed, given that faith is a gift of God, its presence in us is proof that the Spirit has already begun his work of transforming us.

BLMc responds,

Here Lusk is pinning imputation (what God does outside of us) upon impartation (what God infuses into us by the pouring out of the Spirit). This is expressly what the Reformers fought against. Calvin wrote against it in his Institutes when he took on Osiander’s view of Justification. Nobody, among the Reformed who was orthodox has ever suggested that what God does outside of us is dependent upon what God does inside of us. Quite to the contrary of Lusk’s claim the Reformers talked about this thing called “Faith Alone.” The Reformers abominated the Roman Catholic idea that Justification was affected by “faith working through love.” This is what Lusk is trying to sell and it is a false Gospel that is no Gospel and it explains why I am so adamantly opposed to Federal Vision. It is Roman Catholicism brought into the Reformed Church. It is a lie from the belly of hell and it smells of sulfur.

And these guys get away with their subtle nonsense because so very few people can recognize what they are doing.

RL writes,

Works, then, are the public manifestation of faith. When Paul describes the life of faith, in union with Christ, he immediately turns to how we re-pattern the use of our bodies (Rom. 6:12-13). Faith redirects and reorients the way we use the body. We put to death the body’s misdeeds and begin to embody future resurrection life even in this present mortal existence (Rom. 8:1-17). While faith is certainly a matter of the heart, and renews the mind (Rom. 12:1-2), it has an inescapable communal, even political/cultural, dimension as well. The person acting in faith offers his body as an instrument of righteousness (Rom. 6:13); he becomes a holistic slave of God, even as he was previously a slave to sin (Rom. 6:19). Faith gives us a new posture, a new way of “leaning” into all of life.

BLMc responds,

Here though Lusk is talking about the Faith that Sanctifies. The faith that sanctifies does all this but it is all done not as contributory to Justification … not as required in order to be brought from death to life. Faith does all this as the glad response of one who was brought from death to life. It is done by one who has been made alive by grace alone … it is not all done by one who is seeking to become alive. Faith does all this as the consequence of being Justified and not as a working towards Justification.

RL writes,

The faith/obedience nexus is a critical aspect of biblical theology. The key thing to note here is that the gospel is bigger than merely the offer/promise of forgiveness; it is also the offer/promise of a changed life. God accepts us as we are, but he doesn’t let us stay that way. The necessity of obedience is not bad news tacked onto an otherwise antinomian gospel message. People need (and should want) transformation and freedom from sin’s enslavement, every bit as much as they want pardon and release from the burden of sin’s guilt. A gospel that did not ultimately aim at and guarantee the complete destruction of sin in our lives and the complete renovation of our humanity would actually be mediocre news at best, not the good news of Jesus Christ. Every demand God makes is also a promised gift in the economy of grace. It is good news to hear that God not only desires to clear us from sin’s penalty, but also re-humanize us so that we can begin to enjoy the kind of life we were designed to live.

Here I will let Ralph Erskine rebut Lusk;

Ralph Erskine

Lately the doctrine of the Penal Substitutionary Atonement of the death of Christ has been being assaulted online by various Arminians, Provisionists, Amyraldians, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics. All of them have in common the idea that Christ’s death was hypothetically universal. That is to say they all believe that Christ died for all men everywhere without distinction. Thus, there are numerous people, according to this thought system, for whom Christ died but without efficacy so as to accomplish what was intended inasmuch as not all men are saved.

All of the above mentioned must reject the Penal Substitutionary theory of the Atonement since the Penal Substitutionary Atonement explicitly teaches that Jesus Christ most certainly did not die for all men without distinction, but rather only died to the end of substituting for and so saving a distinct people (called the elect).

A few notations on this matter;

1.) A complaint is often issued that Calvinism teaches “Limited Atonement,” but in point of fact this teaching is not unique to the Biblically Reformed. Indeed, all who believe in hypothetical Universalism (the doctrine that the intent of the Atonement was potentially for all men though it is recognized that all men are not saved), teach a limited atonement. However, there is a difference inasmuch as while the Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement teaches that God, in election, limits the atonement, those who advocate for a hypothetical atonement teach that it is man who limits God’s desire for all men, without distinction, to be saved.

2.) This teaching that Christ died for all but some frustrate God’s design and intent is contradictory. If Christ died for all then the death of Christ paid for all the sins of all men. If all sins of all men are died for by Christ’s death on the Cross then not even the sin of unbelief in Christ’s death can be excluded as a sin for which Christ died and if Christ’s death includes the payment for sin, it includes the payment of sin that refuses to believe in Jesus Christ. The options here for the hypothetical universalist is to either drop the “hypothetical” part and so become full blown universalist or drop the universalist part and leave Christ’s death a hypothetical that applies to everyone in general but to no one specifically.

3.) We should also note that the denial of the Penal Substitutionary Atonement with the embrace of hypothetical universalism means that not only does the death of Christ apply to all men potentially, it is also the case potentially that the death of Christ would not apply to anybody. The doctrine of hypothetical makes it possible that all men can potentially be saved but guarantees that no men will be saved.

4.) Clearly, this denial of the Penal Substitutionary Atonement also is a denial of justification by grace alone. With the doctrine of hypothetical universalism the Cross doesn’t justify but only provides the opportunity to be justified. This opportunity to be justified can only be cashed in on if fallen man adds his faith consent. In such an arrangement faith becomes a work that man contributes so as to put the machinery of justification into motion. With hypothetical universalism faith becomes a working organ that contributes the energizing that makes the cross effective to the end of justification instead of an organ that does it’s proper work when it doesn’t work but instead rests in Christ for all.

5.) With the doctrine of hypothetical universalism Christ propitiates (turns away the just wrath of God against the sinner) against the sinner while at the same time saying that propitiation is provisional upon the basis of fallen man’s acquiescence to being propitiated for. In other words, in hypothetical universalism the turning away of God’s wrath is conditional upon fallen man’s consent to Christ propitiating the Father’s just and reasonable wrath against sin. It begins to be clear who is really the agent of justification here. Christ dies for all. All are not saved. The difference lies in those who are justified as opposed to the one who does the justifying. Is justification really to God’s glory alone in this arrangement?

6.) The same is true of the doctrine of reconciliation. The doctrine of reconciliation teaches not only that man is alienated from God but also that God is alienated from man. In Penal Substitutionary Atonement Christ is the alone mediator who alone reconciles man to God and God to man with and in His atoning and reconciling death on the Cross. However, in hypothetical universalism Christ does not Himself reconcile but only makes provision for reconciliation. The real provision for reconciliation comes when fallen man makes the machinery of reconciliation operative by buying in. Again, here it is not really Jesus Christ and His cross work that reconciles, rather, the reason why some men are reconciled to God and others are not lies in the fact that some fallen men via their faith work made the wheels of the cross efficient.

7.) The same can be said of expiation, redemption, ransom, sacrifice, substitution, and all the other doctrinal streams that flow into the river we call Atonement. The denial of the Penal Substitutionary Atonement is the denial of Biblical Christianity with the corresponding embrace of a horizontal man-centered auto-soteriology. The denial of Penal Substitutionary Atonement is also the denial that man is totally depraved in favor of partially depraved. It is the denial of unconditional election opting for  man-centered conditional election. It is the denial of sovereign irresistible grace in favor of a common / prevenient grace that sometimes is successful and sometimes isn’t depending on the cooperation of fallen man to improve on grace. It is the denial of the perseverance of the saints favoring instead the falling away of the saints depending upon their will power.

But wait … there is more.

If the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement is not true then neither can be the doctrine of an Imputation that finds God reckoning the sins of the elect to Christ and Christ’s righteous to the elect. Remember, there is no elect in Hypothetical Universalism, when consistently held. There is only potentially elect and as such the potentially elect can only have an imputation that is likewise potential and not actual.

Further, if the doctrine of the Penal Substitutionary Atonement is not true and it is not the case that Christ pays the penalty as the substitution providing the atonement for a particular people then there is no reason to believe that Christ continues to pray as our Great High Priest, efficient to the end all that He secured in His sacrifice. If Hypothetical Universalism is true then it applies not only to Christ’s work as Priest, sacrifice, and altar as being only potential but it also applies to Christ’s continued work as our Great High Priest in praying for His people. If Christ did not have a particular people He sacrificed Himself for as their Great High Priest, then Christ can in no way pray for a particular people while at the right hand of the Father.

The denial of Penal Substitutionary Atonement ends in auto-soterism and if consistently held means the end of Biblical Christianity. Fortunately, there are countless numbers of people who are indeed among the elect who deny the necessary doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement.  All kinds of Christians are involved in felicitous inconsistency.