Category: Theology

In part I of this series I introduced you to Mr. Mark Chambers. Mark is one of those rare laymen who, being epistemologically self conscious, continues to seek to be epistemologically self conscious. Mark is one of the sharpest laymen I’ve ever met. Indeed, he is sharper then 95% of the ministerial class I know.

In part II of this series I would like to introduce you to Joshua Butcher. Joshua is 20 something, has a beautiful wife and two young sons and is finishing up his Ph.D. work in Rhetoric somewhere in the Republic of Texas. Joshua, like Mark and myself (and many others) is a presuppositionalist, a theonomist, and as this article reveals, a supralapsarian reconstructionist.

Joshua, in this article, beginning with the counsels of God in eternity, connects the dots in a sweeping overview, between God’s exhaustive decretal sovereignty, Christ’s sufficient and efficient work and our necessary obedience to the Crown rights of King Jesus.

I don’t know if I’ve ever read a better concise overview of the necessary interrelation of God’s eternal decrees with the finished work of Christ with the inevitable and irresistible obedience that the Spirit of Christ calls forth from every member of God’s tribe.

Joshua’s blog can be found at,

http://anotherreadersreview.blogspot.com/

THE END OF A THING DETERMINES ITS BEGINNING

The phrase that heads this current post seems counter-intuitive in our present age. How can something’s end determine its beginning, see as how the beginning precedes it in time? It is such temporally determined thinking that prevents us from considering how it is that God works in the world, how it is that He makes good what is evil, how it is that we must see all things now are, though they have not yet been brought to pass in history.

From all eternity, in order to glorify Himself to the uttermost, God did determine to choose unto Himself an elect people to give unto His Son, with whom the mutual agreement was made to unite this people unto the Son, in an immaculate display of God’s perfection. As God is both merciful and just, as He is both gracious and wrathful, He decided it most pleasing to choose some upon whom His love He would place and some upon whom His wrath He would place, not according to any condition foreseen in these objects, but because of His own desire to magnify Himself did the God of Heaven make unto Himself objects of mercy and objects of wrath. Here is the first decree, the last to be revealed in history–for we do not yet see all who it shall be that God has confirmed as His people, or denied as rebellious.

Given that God did choose to elect unto Himself a people to Love by His grace and mercy and a people to Hate by His justice and wrath, God did determine to apply the benefits of His Son, by the Holy Spirit’s power, upon those who He would make unto Himself in love. The righteousness, holiness, goodness, long-suffering, peacefulness, and all the other communicable attributes of God He did decree to apply to the elect in Christ according to His electing love for them. To those whom He had determined to reprobate God withheld the merits of Christ by union with Him, instead passing them over in their unloved state. Here we see in history the calling out of God’s people through regeneration, whereby they are delivered from the curse of sin and raised unto life, which they now live for God until He shall bring history to its end.

Given that God did decree to apply the benefits of Christ to the elect, and to deny them unto the reprobate, it was necessary to determine how it would come about that Christ’s benefits would be applied to the elect. This salvation was to be according to the Law, which God decreed should be that standard according to which all men should be subject, and according to which they would be reconciled to God through the incarnation, obedient life, substitutionary death, and life-giving resurrection of the God-man Jesus Christ. The apparatus of God’s salvation is seen in history in the life and work of Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the elect, prophesied from the earliest ages and revealed at the appointed time.

Given that God did decree to bring about the salvation of the elect through the incarnation and work of the Son in history, it was necessary for Him to determine how it would be that men should come under the penalty of wrath and the need for redemption. Therefore God decreed that all men should fall under the penalty of lawbreaking in their federal representative, Adam. By this Fall the whole of Creation would be separated from the love of God and be subject to the effects of God’s wrath, including the curse upon the earth, and upon the subsequent generations of men propagated by natural generation. The means of bringing all men under the need of redemption was accomplished in history in the disobedience of Adam in the Garden of Eden, wherein he did take the forbidden fruit to the dishonor of God’s commandment to him.

Given that God did decree to bring about the Fall of men in order that the means of salvation in Christ might be provided, and the merits of Christ be applied to those whom God had chosen to elect in Him for His own glory, God did decree to create the world and all that is it in, including the federal head Adam in whom all humanity consists under the law and according to natural generation. The Creation of the world was the first act of history, and the last intention of God necessary to bring about His utmost glory.

The consistency of logical progression of God’s thought is the perfect reverse reflection of their temporal accomplishment. Understanding the character of God’s thought as such, we are called to consider our own lives and every event in them as determined by the ends for which God is doing all things–His own glory, and the brining to maturation all those elect who are the image of Christ, Who is the image of God, who has manifest His glory in just this way, and no other.

When, therefore, there is evil, let us praise the name of the Lord and work according to His express commands. When, therefore, there is good, let us praise the name of the Lord and work according to His express commands. When, therefore, there is doubt concerning what is our destiny upon this earth, let us praise the name of the Lord and look into His perfect Law and find all that we are in Christ, and all that we shall do in His name and by His power for the restoration of all things to the great glory of our God, Father, Savior, King.

End of part 1

I’m sure a few of you read the previous post, blanched at its abstract character, and pulled away thinking, “but what has such considerations of ‘logical’ order have to do with how I live in the world?”

A perfectly valid question. Consider the fact that if you are one of God’s elect, there is no moment in the history of your life, beginning to end, when God has not considered you in light of His loving purposes. That means that every circumstance, every sin, every success or failure: every single aspect of your existence is characterized by the love of God. Each sin, for example, brings not condemnation, but the opportunity for greater illumination and subsequent obedience. “Are we not then to lament our sins?” May it never be! That all things work to our good does not entail that all things we experience are praiseworthy! The breaking of God’s law is indeed a lamentable offense, yet because the elect have been accepted in Christ from eternity, his standing before God is as a son, and not as an enemy. What father would give a snake when the son asked for an egg? God conditions us by degrees into His very likeness, the express image of God that is Christ Jesus. Thus, every destination has its journey, and every step of that journey is characterized by the direction determined by that destination. God is the governor, guide, and goad–how could we, his sons and daughters, come out otherwise than He desires, if we are indeed His children?

I often hear Christians complaining of how great is their sin, how manifestly difficult it is for them to master, and how wonderful it will be when we are free from sin in heaven. While all of these considerations are true in one sense, they are profoundly misleading in another. Has not our sin been placed upon an even greater Savior? Has not our flesh been crucified, and our life that we now live, lived in the power of God Himself, the Holy Spirit? Has not the power of sin and death been buried with Christ in His death, in order that we may walk unencumbered by the sins that so easily beset us? We children of God, every one of us, struggle in our sin to the extent that we fail to understand our identity–we are not our own individual self, but we are the complex identity of Christ-in-us-and-we-in-Him. The commandments to be of one mind so often given in relation to our brothers and sisters in Christ is because we are first of all made of one mind with Christ Himself. We have the mind of Christ – 1 Cor. 2:16.

A further corollary consideration to our being identified completely with Christ is that we must know what it means to be Christ upon the earth. If Christ is our Head, and we His Body, then the sense of the analogy would indicate that the Head will use the Body to accomplish His will in the earth. But what standard has been given, or what orders been issued, that we may know not only who we are, but what we are to be about? Jesus Christ came to be about the will of His Father, and while we are not privy to the same tasks in every respect (which of us would profess to propitiate the wrath of God for the elect!?!?), we nonetheless are given in Christ a model of our true humanity. Christ fulfilled the Law by following the Law in every respect. Love God. Love your neighbor. Two very simple commands within which are contained the limitless directives for Christians in every age and in every circumstance. Yet there are those who claim that the Bible does not speak to every consideration. God has indeed been silent on a great many truths, but those are expressly concerning Himself and His particular reasons for what He does. What we must choose in each choice is profoundly determined by Scripture in every aspect. Even legitimate matters of Christian liberty are characterized by the requirements of the first word: they must be Christian; they must glorify God as Christ glorified God in every way.

But further, who can be so foolish as to think that the Eternal God of Heaven would leave us groping for direction in those affairs that bear the most direct impact upon what we shall learn and how we shall live!? I am speaking of our decisions about how to educate our children. I am speaking about our decisions about how to use our money. I am speaking about our decisions about how best to use our “free time.” The modern Church has so circumscribed the Law of God, if it has not thrown it out entire, that it cannot be said to be about much of anything concerning the Kingdom of God Almighty. We not only fail in knowing who we are, but in knowing how who we are impacts how we live, and not by some generalized platitudinous clichés tossed from our pulpits and in our parishes (where they still exist!). What use is the “power” of the “Gospel” when we know not what or how such “power” is to be used or what “good news” is to be spoken? What does it mean to “press the Kingdom” into our lives, really? How exactly is it that “seeing and savoring the beauty of Christ,” works itself out, day to day?

The most basic implication is that we must know God’s Law, Christ’s Law, and find out how to apply it where we are now. For example, it is not enough that one should avoid lying to one’s neighbor in order to fulfill the commandment against bearing false witness. One must also do all in one’s power to protect the good name of one’s neighbor. Do you gossip? Do you criticize on the basis of preference rather than principle? Do you not only wish no ill, but also wish the best for those around you? And no, the best doesn’t always entail avoiding confrontation and being polite, for the best is to be free from sin and to honor God. If you see a brother sinning, we are to point him to God’s Word for encouragement to repent, even as we must be prepared, with soft hearts, to accept the rebuke of a brother when confronted upon our sin – Hebrews 3:12-13.

But you will fail if you forsake the fact that your righteousness is not accomplished by your obedience to the Law, but rather, your obedience to the Law is accomplished because Christ’s righteousness has been applied to your account! The end of the thing determines its beginning. You obey because you have been bought, you were not bought because you obey. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, “Dogs bark because they are dogs, not because they bark.” It is in the nature of the Christian to grow in obedience, because his life is Christ’s life within, living out God’s particular purpose for that individual life in the grand drama of His glory. If you aren’t doing Christianity well, go think about what it means to be in Christ. Perhaps God will illuminate your mind to the knowledge of His Son, and thereby call you forth as son or daughter of the living God.

“I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . . [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong and beautiful principle.”

Michelle Bachmann
US Congressional Representative From the Third US District of Dispenistan
Speech to Republican Jewish Coalition

1.) Somebody needs to tell Michelle that God divorced Israel when they crucified Jesus. If God rejected Israel in AD 70 isn’t it acceptable to reject Israel in 2010 if and when they pursue policy that is not in our best interest?

2.) Israel didn’t become a nation until 1948. Were we not blessed as a nation until Israel became a nation?

3.) Genesis 12:3, wherein God makes the promise that in you (Abraham) all the families of the earth shall be blessed is a promise that refers to all the nations being blessed through Jesus Christ, whom, by the way, the Jewish people hate.

4.) When Christ haters come upon quotes like this you can hardly blame them for thinking Christianity is comprised of various fruit loops and assorted nuts. I’m not a Christ hater but I have to agree w/ the left when it mocks this kind of insane talk.

5.) There is no curse that comes into play for rejecting Israel anymore then there is a cures that comes into play for rejecting Scandinavia. The curse comes into play for rejecting Christ.

6.) The intellectual and theological havoc that dispensationalism has played with Western Christianity leaves me just this side of having to be committed to a rubber room. That this comic book theology can be taken serious by significant players in the political realm is a profound embarrassment to the cause of Christ.

7.) Think about this for a second. Do your really want this woman making political policy given her dispenstionalism? Will she try to pass legislation to make sure planes can fly w/o pilots that disappear in the rapture? Is she convinced that Russian must be resisted simply because they are the Gog and Magog crew?

“Perhaps most striking is the difference in emphasis on justification between Luther and Lutheranism on the hand and Reformed theology on the other. For the former, justification is central to the whole of theology. It is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls. It functions as a kind of critical methodological tool by which any aspect of theology, or theology as a whole is to be judged….However, there is hardly an instance in Reformed theology placing justification in the center. Not that Reformed theology opposed justification by faith alone, or salvation by pure grace. On the contrary, they saw salvation in its entirety as a display of the sovereign and free mercy of God. The explanation lay in the fact that, for Reformed theology, everything took place to advance the glory of God. Thus the chief purpose of theology and of the whole of life was not the rescue of humanity but the glory of God. The focus was theocentric rather than soteriological. Even in the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), where soteriological concerns are more prominent (one of its authors, Zacharias Ursinus [1533-1587] was formerly a Lutheran) the famous first question ‘What is your only comfort in life and death?’ is answered w/ reference to the action of the Trinity, beginning, ‘I am not my own but belong… to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.

Following from this was an attempt by Reformed theology to grasp the unity of creation and redemption. The whole of life was seen in the embrace of God’s revelatory purpose. With the covenant at its heart, the whole of life was to display God’s glory. Naturally, that included at its heart the restoration of sinners to fellowship w/ God. It also entailed, however the reconstitution of both civil and ecclesiastical affairs. Lutheranism, in contrast, showed less developed interest in the application of the gospel to political life and focused more narrowly on soteriology. Possibly this stemmed from Luther enjoying the patronage of his Elector, which freed him from having to safeguard the Reformation in a political sense in quite the same way as his Reformed counterparts. The net result was that while for Lutheranism justification by faith was the heart of theology, for the Reformed theologians it was subordinate to an overarching sense of the centrality of God and his covenant. Yet, for both, the underlying concern for the gratuitous nature of salvation, its objective reality extra nos, was the same.

Robert Letham
The Work of Christ — pg. 189-190

Another way to put the differences between Lutheranism and Reformed worldviews is that for Lutheranism salvation is for man and terminates on man, individually considered while for Reformed thought salvation is for God and serves the terminating end of a renewed cosmos dripping and saturated with God’s glory. For Lutheranism the teleology is man atoned for, whereas for Reformed thought the teleology includes but doesn’t end with man atoned for. For Reformed thought the teleology is the atonement as well as all the totality of corresponding and inevitable consequences that the atonement brings upon men who have been atoned for. Atonement for individual men is not the end product of Christ’s work. Atonement is the beginning and creating point of enlisting men into the cause of cosmic renewal for the glory of God. Men are not atoned for and saved for the sake of being atoned for and saved. Men are atoned for and saved to be put on a mission to take captive every thought and take dominion over every crevice of the cosmos to make all thoughts and all crevices obedient to King Christ. In Reformed thought, classical Lutheran thought is provincial and anthropocentric and is far to horizontally circumscribed and vertically nugatory.

Straight thinking Reformed folk don’t doubt that real live honest to goodness Lutherans or wanna-be Escondido Reformed Lutherans are part of God’s elect Church. We just think that their theology leaves them developmentally disabled — much like a child who has a rare disease that does not allow them to ever grow up.

Letham, says that the focus of Lutherans is soteriological while the focus of Reformed is theocentric. I think Letham is being diplomatic and kind there. In point of fact both theologies are focused on soteriology. The difference is that that Lutheranism focuses on a soteriology that has a anthropological terminal point whereas Reformed thought focuses on a soteriology that has a theological terminal point.

Clearly, in light of what Letham writes, the Reformed church is being invaded by Lutheran theology body snatchers. Clearly, there has been some cross breeding and pollination that is giving some flavors of the Reformed church a hybrid feel about it.

Let the Reformed church be the Reformed church!

I just received an e-mail from a friend asking me to help him pinpoint the problem w/ a post he found on another blog. Below is the post in question,

The blog writer tees up his quote by saying,

“When I first read this passage in 2000, I realized that I had for years been something close to a hypercalvinist, and I was committing some of the same fallacies as Hoeksema’s Protestant Reformed Church. Klaas Schilder knocked some sense into me and make me start to think covenantally. Steve Schlissel was the man who recommended him to me. This quotation was what did the trick:

“When I declare — and with the pretention of the greatest accuracy in a new binding — that election is the cause and fountain of our total salvation, then I run the danger of making someone, and later the whole church, think that if election is present then the fountain is bubbling, the cause is working, and the process is on its way. “No,” says Twissus [first prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, and a delegate at Dort], “nothing is going on yet.” He admonished the Arminians, especially Corvinus, three times not to confuse election with the execution of election. Decree and the realization of the decree are two different matters. Election is not the cause. With election, the decree is from eternity. When I merely decide to travel to Amsterdam, then nothing as yet has happened.

The cause of my coming to Amsterdam is that I finally did put on my coat, went to the railway station, and said goodbye to the silhouette of my residence.

When I decide to do something then this decision can still change for at first I did not make a decision at all, or perhaps I would have decided something different, for instance to travel to London. But in God all decisions are unchangeable, a decision or decree therefore does not change anything in Him. Nor in us. That which causes anything in us and which is thus cause and fountain of all salvation, is something which comes in time. The causes all work with and in time…

“Man, stop,” Twissus now says, “you are forgetting that the decree, strictly speaking, is not the fountain or the cause. We do not tell our children and our people, ‘you are elect, for that is what your baptism indicates and you may now conclude that the stream of God’s clear healing water has started to flow.’ No,” says Twissus, “you Arminians forget one thing. The doctrine of election is not a doctrine of causes or fountains. Causes and fountains only occur in history, in what God started in this world. For instance, and that certainly in the first place, the preaching of the Word is a cause and a fountain. That is where the fountain starts to spout water. There the cause is working…

Consequently we do not make people rely upon election, as ground and fountain, but upon the Word.”

Our earnest writer ends with this tag on line,

“I would only add, “and the sacraments” to the end of the last paragraph

Now, I take the time to examine this not only to help my friend who e-mailed me but also in order to get at some of that which drives the Federal Vision error. The following mentions some of the problems w/ the above quote.

1.) The primary problem here is that it confuses ultimate causation with proximate causation. In matters of salvation the ultimate cause is election but that reality doesn’t negate that Word and Sacrament are proximate causes in their own right.

2.) The decision illustration does not work. The beginning point is the decision to do something or not do something. All else results from that decision. If I decide to go to Amsterdam and then change my mind and go to London instead that change still was caused by a change in my decision. Now, the whole notion that we can somehow divorce God’s ultimate causal decree of election that ends with the elect being saved from the God’s decree that the proximate causal means to that end is Word and Sacrament is to divorce heat and light from the Sun. A trip to a Tulip Festival in Amsterdam has both the ultimate cause of making the decision to go and the proximate cause of actually going and continuing to go. Plainly speaking, such divorcing of decree from execution of decree which leads to a prioritizing over the execution of decree over the decree itself, as if the execution could happen w/o the decree, is stupid.

3.) It is not hyper-calvinism to believe passages like Ephesians 1:3-13. It is not hyper-calvinism to believe that what happens in time is pinioned on what God decreed. What is hyper-calvinism is to believe that the decree itself is the accomplishment of the decree. Now I freely admit that there are Calvinist out there who, pragmatically speaking, operate the way our blog writer speaks of but it does us no good to call the belief that time is conditioned by eternity hyper-calvinism.

4.) That which may be being reacted to by Twissus, and later Schilder, and still later by Schlissel and the Federal Visionists is the tendency by some Reformed people to treat predestination and election like Muslims treat Fate. There have been times when the Reformed have been properly referred to as the “frozen chosen.” There have been times in the Reformed Church when being saved meant having your “I’ve been baptized” Union card. But the cure to Reformed people treating predestination and election the same way that Muslims treat fate is not by suggesting that God’s decrees aren’t causal. The way to defeat Reformed views of predestination that end up getting translated as Islamic fate is by emphasizing that God works in history through His covenant people crafting and shaping history just as he has worked outside of history and that God, as He who decrees, is not divorced from God who rules, governs and sustains this world.

5.) If we teach that God’s decrees aren’t the ultimate cause of all that happens we cut the animating nerve between God’s commands and our compliance. For example, it is because of my certainty that God has decreed that all the nations will come to Christ and that the earth will flower again with the success of the Gospel that has me contending for just that. It is my certainty that God has decreed my increasing conformity to Christ that has me seeking to comply with God’s command for that and so finds me attending to the proximate causes for sanctification in Word and Sacrament.

In the end what we have here, once again, is the desire to over-react to a over-reaction. We don’t beat hyper-calvinism by embracing hypo-calvinism. We beat hyper-calvinism by meat and potatoes garden variety calvinism.

In the well known fairly tale, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Goldilocks is forever being presented with extremes. The porridge is either too hot or too cold. The chairs were either too big or too small. The beds were either too hard or too soft. Fortunately, at each juncture she found one that was “just right.” The Reformed Church in America is having a Goldilocks moment at this current point in history.

Federal Vision is too legalistic. R2Kt is too anti-nomian. Is there anybody who is just right? John Frame is too broad. Mike Horton is too narrow. Is there anybody who is just right?

I read Mike Horton’s Christless Christianity. I read most of John Frame’s critique of Horton’s Christless Christianity. All I can say is give me something “just right.”

Let me try to explain what I see going on here. Horton comes from a school that believes that the cult should be kept tight while Christians ought to be able to handle the culture in a pluralistic broad fashion. Frame, on the other hand, obviously believes that the cult should be a large tent — indeed so large a tent that Frame finds himself defending numb-skulls like Joel Osteen and Chuck Smith. To be honest if Frame’s model were to be followed the Church would be largely indefinable by virtue of how it would include almost everybody. Frame is just plain wrong in how he would define the parameters of the Church. Indeed, in a move that is more than odd for a Reformed theologian he seems to almost completely ignore the historic Reformed “marks of the Church” in his critique of Horton.

If Frame gives us the “too broad” characterization of the Church, Horton brings in our Goldilocks moment by giving us a “too narrow” version of the Church. Frame is correct when he faults Horton for his loose usage of Theology of suffering vs. Theology of glory. Horton and his R2Kt chums have a bad habit of even slapping this “theology of glory” pejorative even on Reformed people that don’t agree with their innovative and unique style of Reformed theology. Frame is also right when he points out Horton’s incipient Lutheranism in the way Horton frames the Law vs. Gospel dynamic. This Lutheranism is constantly seen in the R2Kt model that Horton would foist upon the Reformed Church. Often one wishes the R2Kt guys would just go to Wittenburg and be done with it. Frame is again correct when he faults Horton’s “Moralism” categories. I know what it means to preach Redemptive-Historical sermons. I really do get it and do often preach that way. But Horton and the R2Kt crowd end up suggesting that any sermon that is imperative oriented is “moralism.” This reverts back to their Lutheran mindset on the Law.

As I read Frame’s critique it was “Goldilocks and the Three bears” all over again except I can’t seem to find that damn third bear where everything is “just right.” Were we to follow Frame’s vision of the Church we’d be holding hands with Pelagians and Word Faith guys like Chuck Smith and Joel Osteen. Yuck … how disgusting is that? However, on the other hand were we to follow Horton’s version of the Church we’d be standing next to guys like Darryl Hart and R. Scott Clark who would refuse to hold our hands because we are stinky theonomists who are icky “theologians of glory.”

One more issue before wrapping up. I can’t help but get a chuckle out of John Frame who waxed eloquent about the dreaded character of the “Machen’s Warrior Children.” According to Frame we needed to get away from the Reformed tendency to always want to fight. And yet here is Frame in all of his warrior regalia fighting with other people in the Reformed Church. The irony is apparently lost on John but remains delicious to those in the know.

In the end Horton has many good points in his book “Christless Christianity” concerning the reality that the Church is missing Christ. The problem however is when Mike goes all Lutheran on us insisting that unless we become R2Kt we are missing Christ as well. Mike’s porridge is too hot. Frame has many fine observations regarding Horton’s hot porridge but the problem is that John’s multi-perspectivalism mitigates his ability to draw proper lines. John’s porridge is too cold.

And here I sit looking for some porridge that is “just right.”