Category: Theology

“Therefore, whereas salvation in Christ, was formerly considered primarily a means to separate man from sin and the world, to prepared him for heavenly blessedness and to cause him to enjoy undisturbed fellowship w/ God there, Ritschl posits the very opposite relationship: the purpose of salvation in Christ is precisely to enable a person, once he is freed from the oppressive feeling of sin and lives in awareness of being a child of God, to exercise his earthly vocation and fulfill his moral purpose in this world. The antithesis, therefore, is fairly sharp: on the one side a Christian life that considers the highest goal, now and hereafter, to be the contemplation of God and fellowship w/ him, and for that reason (always being more or less hostile to the riches of an earthly life) is in danger of falling into asceticism, pietism, and mysticism; but on the side of Ritschl, a Christian life that considers its highest goal to be the Kingdom of God, i.e., the moral obligation of mankind, and for that reason, (always being more or less averse to the withdrawal into solitude and quiet communion w/ God), is in danger of degenerating into a cold Pelagianism and an unfeeling moralism. Personally, I do not yet see any way of combining the two points of view, but I do know that there is much that is excellent in both, and that both contain undeniable truth.”

Herman Bavinck
De Theologie van Albrecht Ritschl (Theologicische Studien VI 1888 — pg.397)
Nature & Grace in Herman Bavinck — Jan Veenhof

The Pietist dualistically separates nature from grace and lays all the emphasis on the human being as Christian and so calls the person to give up his humanity (nature) in favor of the pursuit of his Christianity (grace). This can express itself in the Anabaptist who considers the world of nature evil and who thus seeks to completely withdraw from the world or it can find Roman Catholic expression where nature only finds its meaning where it is brought under the canopy of grace. In such an expression nature only has value where it is superintended by the hierarchy of grace as found in the Church. A third way this dualism can express itself is in the R2Kt Kantian system where nature and grace remain cordoned off from one another. In such a dualistic system grace neither calls the faithful away from the world as with the Anabaptist dualism expression nor does it seek to bring nature under the canopy of grace as in the Roman Catholic dualism. Instead what it does is it allows nature to operate independently of and uninfluenced by grace in a common realm that is neither of the devil (anabaptism) or under the mediation of supervening grace (Roman Catholicism). In the R2Kt dualism there is no attempt to solve the dualism that one finds attempted both by anabaptists (nature is all evil) or Rome (nature is controlled by grace).

Bavinck points out however that there is another side of the coin that traditional liberalism falls into. Liberalism of the Ritschl variety tended to deny a supernatural realm of grace and as such the realm of grace was collapsed into the realm of nature, with the result that the nature/grace realm was the realm that must be rescued by deliberate activism. Since there is no unique supernatural grace realm to give a clear word as to what this activism must look like the result of Liberal activism was always autonomous and anthropocentric, and inevitably resulted in a kingdom building effort that, though pursued in the name of Christ, invariably led to Hegelian statist control structures where the representative of the State became God walking on the earth.

As a theologian Bavinck was not satisfied w/ these dualisms, nor was he satisfied with the how Ritschl and other liberals collapsed grace into nature. Bavinck’s contribution to Reformed theology was the attempt to find a way where grace could influence nature without collapsing grace into nature. Bavinck was not satisfied w/ either a nature-grace schematic where nature and grace were divorced from one another but neither was he satisfied w/ a nature-grace understanding where the distinctions between nature and grace were obliterated.

Veenhof in his book suggests that Bavinck limned a third way where grace could be seen to influence nature without either nature swallowing grace or grace swallowing nature. Such a solution is thus a threat to all dualisms and pietisms on one side as well as all autonomously inspired Kingdom projects on the other that lose grace in the putative pursuit of the Kingdom of God on earth which is in reality the Utopian search for the Kingdom of man.

Bavinck’s solution ends up making him the foe of just about all other contenders.

“First of all, Bret… just because one has a disagreement as to your “covenant theology” doesn’t make them less “covered by the blood” of Jesus. According to your theology, it doesn’t matter what they believe as to “who” Jesus is, because if they are the chosen “covenant” people they have a free passage into heaven anyway… looks to me like being a “Calvinist” is just a bonus… Oh wait, Calvinists are the only ones who get into heaven, right?

I’m not arguing that you actually have to read the Bible to find out how you are to be a follower of Christ… But what you fail to realize is that Jesus taught Old Testament Scripture, and without a firm foundation in that, you are paddling with one oar in the water just going around in circles.

And yes, Jesus calls us first… but we have to be willing to pick up the phone. When you look at the story of the prodigal son, the son had to come back on his own. The father didn’t go out looking for him, but waited for him to come back. That son had to make that decision to come back. Had he not have come back, he would have remained outside his father’s house…. See More

I have given countless Scripture stating that “if a righteous man turns from his righteousness, that none of his righteousness will be remembered” Ez. 18:24 and when you sin willfully you “trample grace underfoot” and “if you sin willfully, no sacrifice for sin is left” Hebrews 10:26-31… “‘… who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien, blasphemes YHVH, and that person must be cut off from his people. (31) Because he has despised the Lord’s word and broken his commands, that person must surely be cut off; his guilt remains on him.'” Numbers 15:30-31.

And yes, when it comes to the “idol Jesus” you refer to, He is the object of my worship as my Savior, so ya, you can call Him my idol. You on the other hand idolize your intellectualism and worship your own “ME” god, the god of your own design instead of YaHuVaH of Scripture.

You can sit perched on your little mustard tree and gaze at the centuries old olive tree that I am grafted into.

“Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off” Romans 11.”

Renee Stevens

Bret responds to these objections from Renee,

Renee,

You clearly have no idea of what you are talking about. No idea at all. Not even close.

1.) First, as to covenant theology, well, if people don’t embrace covenant theology then they are likely going to embrace a Jesus of their own making since the Bible is structured tectonically as covenant. Strip Jesus from the covenant context of the Scriptures and by default you must put Him in a context that is alien to who the Scriptures say He is.

Now, clearly, non-covenantal Christians can be saved but it will certainly be the case that their Christianity will be a blight to one degree or another upon the Christian faith while they are alive.

2.) Reformed Christians believe that the elect are chosen to believe in the Christ of the Bible. I challenge you to find a Reformed Theologian who ever taught that people can go to heaven living and dying while never knowing Jesus. Yours is a loopy accusation to try and discredit that Biblical theology which your desperately trying to stave off.

3.) Reformed Christians aren’t the only ones to get to heaven but those non-Reformed Christians who get to heaven will get their because the Reformed Jesus has saved them by the Reformed Gospel that was preached and that they embraced just enough of to be saved.

4.) The whole of Reformed theology is posited upon the Old Testament. I have no earthly idea why you would suggest otherwise.

5.) In the story of the prodigal, you’re forgetting that the prodigal was a son. The Son returned to what was always his. The prodigal son is a Parable Renee w/ only ONE overarching point. That overarching point is the willingness of God to receive repentant sinners. You are trying to turn it into a allegory. It is not an allegory Renee. There is a difference between allegory and parable. Look it up.

(See, it is these kind of mistakes on your part that end up putting your well intentioned but misguided interpretive efforts into the ditch.)

6.) When Jesus calls (internal call) His people, His people always pick up the phone. (and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed Acts 13:48). When Jesus issues the external call to those who aren’t His people they never pick up the phone because dead people can’t hear the phone ringing (John 10:26 “But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”)

7.) Ezekial 18:24 — CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT, Renee.

The book of Ezekiel as a whole speak of God’s sovereignty in salvation. Go to the chapters just before…go to Chapter 16 and see that sure destruction was upon Israel, and the Lord came by and said, “Live!” Then to 33 where your passage is repeated…then on to 34 where the Lord says that He will seek out His sheep. Then to 36 and 37 where God says I will give them a new heart not for their sakes…and 37 with the dry bones.

There is no good in proof-texting Renee, as you are doing for I suspect your simply going to do this to other passages to bend them to say what you want them too say.

Secondly, you seem to be assuming that the “he shall die” reference refers to eternal death when in point of fact the idea of dying may only refer to temporal death.

8.) Hebrews 10:26-31

First, it should be noted that Calvinists have taught that people can fall from the covenant of Grace. Noting this is important since the context of Hebrews 10:29 finds just a comparison being made between the old and renewed covenant. Here we find a lesser to greater argument. If one died without mercy for rejecting Moses’ law how much more grievous will be the penalty of one who tramples the Son of God underfoot. However, we need to hear the language of Hebrews here. In this context the hypothetical person being referred to was ‘sanctified’ (that is ‘set apart’) by the blood of the covenant. Now we must ask; ‘How is it that this person was sanctified (set apart)? The answer is by being put into the covenant. This is the same covenant that throughout the Scripture is characterized as having wheat and tares in it. Now in as much as Christ died for the Church, everyone in the Church (wheat and tares alike) can be said to have had a ‘sacrifice for sins,’ and so it is true that should the wheat, being externally but really related to the one covenant of Grace, sin willfully after receiving the knowledge of the Truth (and lots of people have a non-saving knowledge of the truth – cmp. James 2:19) there is no sacrifice for sins.

Now the reason may be asked why we read this text this way.

1.) We cannot read this passage the way that Renee desires and remain faithful to the book of Hebrews where elsewhere the perseverance of the saints is upheld by the teaching that, “Therefore Jesus is also able to save forever those who come to God through Him.” Also after Hebrews 10 we are taught that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. Now, if our faith doesn’t finish, then how can it be rightly said that Jesus is the finisher of our faith?

2.) We believe that the explanation above does honor to the covenant language of Scripture. Just as all of Israel was not of Israel, so all of the Church is not of the Church and yet, if a unregenerate person is a part of the Church then when speaking in corporate categories it is proper to say that Christ died for the Church and that includes all who are in the Church who are not of the Church. Just as on the Day of Atonement where the Sacrifice of the lamb was for all of Israel didn’t negate that ‘not all of Israel was of Israel’ so the Sacrifice of Jesus for the Church doesn’t negate that not all of the Church is of the Church. Just as there were those in the Old covenant who had a sacrifice preformed for them as being part of the covenantal whole that did not apply to them individually so there are some in the Church who had a sacrifice preformed for them as part of the covenantal whole at Calvary that does not apply to them individually. But of course we do not know who those are and so if some in our congregations were to sin willfully after they had received a knowledge of the truth we would have to warn them that there remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment.”

Numbers 15 works much the same way. You must simply wrap your head around the idea that the covenant has people who are only externally related to the covenant but who can genuinely said to be part of the covenant.

As for the last few paragraphs in your missive Renee … well, that is just you playing the role of the fish on the hook, thrashing about trying to avoid being reeled in. But the hook is set Renee and you are being reeled in.

I wrote the following in response to someone insisting that they don’t do Theology but rather just follow Jesus.

Can we just quit w/ the whole, “I just follow Jesus thing?” Nobody follows Jesus w/o having an understanding of who Jesus is. That understanding of who Jesus is the result of theology. The Jesus that we are to follow is the Jesus of Scripture.

The Jesus of Scripture said that “all that the Father gives Me will come to me.” This clearly teaches what Calvinism later came to call irresistible grace. The Jesus of Scripture said, “He who believes in me has everlasting life.” This clearly teaches what Calvinism later came to call “the perseverance of the saints,” for “Everlasting life,” by definition, is life that can not be lost once gained. If it could be lost it wouldn’t be ever-lasting. The Jesus of Scripture said that “No one can can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” This clearly teaches what Calvinism came to call “Total Depravity.” People can not come to Jesus unless they are irresistibly drawn to Jesus because they are dead in their trespasses and sins and are at war w/ God. Only God can makes those who are dead in sin alive. Some he makes alive and some He leaves in their sin that they so earnestly cherish and nurture. The Jesus of Scripture said, “you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all…” and “For you (Father) granted him (Jesus) authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” This clearly teaches what Calvinism came to call “unconditional election.” God has chosen His people for reasons known only to God and nothing can alter God’s choice. The Jesus of Scripture said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” When in context of the rest of John 10, “The Sheep” is a clear reference to those who are uniquely His people. Jesus only dies for His Sheep and not sheep that are not His. This clearly teaches what Calvinism later came to call “Limited Damnation.” Not all sheep who deserve to be damned end up being damned because God, in His great mercy, sent Christ to die to save some from the mass of damnation. Now clearly Calvinism is MUCH MUCH MUCH more then what I have laid out here but it is never less than what I have laid out here, and it is this Christianity 101 that people like Michael, Renee, and others are caviling against.

Now, you can choose to refuse the name of “Calvinism” if you like. It makes no never mind to me. However, if you reject and despise the doctrines of Christianity that Calvinism champions then you have rejected the Christian faith and the blood does not cover you anymore then the blood covers a Mormon or a Jehovah Witness who invokes the name of Jesus.

Finally, people did not have to wait for Calvin to be born in order to follow Jesus. Since Calvinism is exactly synonymous w/ Biblical Christianity they only had to read their Bibles in order to follow Jesus. Some of you are avoiding all of this material, choosing instead to say that you just “follow Jesus.” I would hazard to guess that you are employing this technique because you don ‘t want to deal with the Scriptures. Your avoidance mechanism looks to be just a means by which to keep your Idol Jesus that you follow from being challenged by the Jesus of Scripture.

Confused Christian is a Ph.D in New Testament and is a Dean of a Holiness Seminary in Indiana.

Confused “Christian” (CC)

“So I think almost anyone who would be reading this post believes that homosexual sex is wrong biblically. What do we do with this? Do we

1. Try to stop it from happening anywhere we can by trying to pass laws against it or even by resorting to violence against such people? This is Bret’s Christian reconstructionist position where you try to make the nation into Calvin’s Geneva.”

Bret responds,

You know, you might first want to do some reading up on Reconstructionism before you start pretending to be an authority on what they do or don’t want.

It is interesting that you talk about “resorting to violence against such people” as if violence visited upon violators of the law is a bad thing. Was God wrong for insisting that violence be visited upon people for their committing of Capital Crimes?

Not liking Calvin’s Geneva, I presume you would prefer Harvey Milk’s San Francisco?

We try to stop rape from happening anywhere we can by trying to pass laws against it and even by resorting to violence against such people? Why should sodomy be any different?

I notice you said that “anyone reading your post would believe that homosexual sex is wrong.” You did not say whether or not you think homosexual sex is wrong. Do you?

CC,

2. “Do we ‘hate the sin but love the sinner,’ let such individuals know we love them without waffling on our values but without trying to force them to stop? This at least seems more Arminian to me and in keeping with the way God deals with the world in general, wooing people to Him rather than forcing us to obey him. And, ironically, this approach seems more in keeping with our Constitution, which does not really allow for us to pass laws based on specific religious traditions that are not universally shared and do not involve basic harm of others.”

Bret

Do you do this all the time? Do you constantly pretend to know what you’re talking about in matters outside what is supposed to be your expertise? What do you know of Constitutional law? Where does the Constitution say that we are not to pass laws based on specific religious traditions that are not universally shared and do not involve basic harm to others? Having read the Constitution a few times I would dearly love for you to point that out. Secondly, on what basis are you suggesting that homosexuality doesn’t involve basic harm of others?

All laws, all the time, are passed based on some specific religious tradition. Indeed, law itself is dependent upon some notion of a lawgiver. Show me the law … and I’ll show you the lawgiver. Having shown you the lawgiver, I’ll show you the very specific religious tradition from which the law comes.

A question for you. Should we also love people who are polygamists w/o trying to force them to stop? Yep, that certainly sounds Arminian to me. It also sounds idiotic. But I repeat myself.

CC,

“The other question is one of motive. The insidious thing about preaching against sin is that, without diluting the badness of sin, it often gives us an excuse to sin by hatefulness. In other words, it is sinful to hate homosexuals, yet because we believe homosexual sex is wrong, it is easy to let yourself off the hook and self-justify evil in one’s own heart because you are preaching against sin. Preaching against sin when we are not preaching for someone is the kind of activity that most easily lends itself to sinfulness on the part of the preacher in this way.”

Bret,

Paul said in Romans, “Hate that which is evil, cling to that which is good.”

The Psalmist, speaking to God said, “Do I not hate those who hate you w/ a Holy Hatred?”

When we preach against sin we are automatically preaching for someone. The first someone we are preaching for is God. Let’s not forget him in all of our sensitivity and compassion for sinners. The second someone we are preaching for is the Sinner himself. Sin hurts people. It hurts them bad. Confronting them w/ Sin and holding out the Lord Jesus Christ as the forgiveness of sin and the cure for sin is the most loving thing you can do for someone.

Second, it is most certainly not hateful to hate homosexuals (or any sinner) when done for the sake of love, who are, through their respective sin of choice, seeking to pull God off His throne. Certainly we must communicate a sense of pity to those who are flipping off God and certainly our hatred of them must be a hatred based on love for them (an, “against the world for the world,” kind of thing) but if we love them we must hate them. Indeed true hatred of them would be a harlot love for them that did not resist them.

“The essence of human sin is the refusal to honor the Creator-creature distinction.”

Peter Jones
The God of Sex — pg. 143

Fallen mankind can find several ways to deny the Creator-creature distinction (hereinafter referred to as C-c/d) and upon first encounter and upon initial examination those different ways look remarkably different. However, when these different ways to deny the C-c/d are looked at closely the differences that putatively mark them off as being radically different begin to evaporate to the point that these different ways of denying the C-c/d begins to look overwhelmingly the same.

One thing we need to note here before we begin to examine the different ways that the C-c/d can be denied we must understand that this denial is a denial that is limited to the religious component of a people but rather the way any given culture denies the C-c/d ends up shaping the whole life expression of the people who are participating in any one given specific denial of the C-c/d.

The first way that the C-c/d can be denied is found in classical animism where we have a kind of hyper divine immanentism. In pagan religion and societies that are animistic what happens is that C-c/d is denied by folding the Creator into the creature with the effect that all of nature becomes divinized. In animistic cultures you find streams, trees, animals, bugs, sun, stars, and people all seen as being alive w/ divinity. Often in these cultures the more status one has the more divine being it is thought that they contain. As in all the genres of the denial of the C-c/d that we shall be looking at what this leaves is a monism where all of reality is thought of and seen to be one.

In religions and cultures that are animistic the way that this C-c/d denial manifests itself typically by the presence of rigid caste systems. As mentioned earlier the belief typically is that the more status that some group has the more divinity that group therefore has. As such their status is locked into place so that the wealthy and highborn are seen as gods while the impoverished and the lowborn are perpetually locked into that status. Very little concern is evidenced for the lowborn since it is believed that they are in that position rightly due to the fact that they have so little divinity in them. This leads to a political system that is tyrannically pyramided with those castes w/ the most ontological being at the top and being in despotic control while the rest of the castes who have less divine being serving the purposes of their overlords.

Animistic cultures also are supercharged with the supernatural since everything is divine. Typically, this leads to lives spent consumed with placating the sundry gods and as such central figures in animistic cultures is the shaman or witch-doctor who is seen as being a kind of figure who has special control over the supernatural forces that everywhere are pressing in on people.

The second way that C-c/d can be denied is found in what appears to be the polar opposite of animism w/ its hyper divine immanentism. Instead of a hyper divine immanentism what this religious expression offers is hyper divine transcendence. Religious and culture expressions where we find this are those such as Islam and Neo-orthodoxy. Indeed, Islam came to the fore as a severe reaction against the animism that was prevalent in times of Mohammad the Prophet and Neo-orthodoxy found its footing in the early 20th century as a reaction against the hyper-immanentism of 18th and 19th century liberalism.

Now on first blush it wouldn’t seem that hyper transcendence would be a denial of the C-c/d since there is such emphasis on the Transcendence of God. However the denial of the C-c/d comes in due to the reality that the Creator becomes so transcendent from the creature that there is no longer any contact between Creator and creature. When the Creator is made so transcendent that there is no contact w/ the creature what happens is, as in animism, the creature is the one who becomes the Creator and the C-c/d is once again lost. So, even though these two worldview concepts of God are seemingly radically different (and they do present themselves differently to the discerning eye) in the end they come out to a very similar place, functionally speaking.

This functional similarity is seen in the kind of political structures that cultures build who deny the C-c/d via the hyper-transcendent. These cultures, not having a God concept will inevitably build political structures like animistic cultures that are tyrannical. With the loss of the Creator and his sovereignty, denizens of cultures that are hyper-transcendent will typically turn the State into God and the god-State will have the responsibility for creating reality, along with the necessary distinctions that reality requires to exist.

A third way that the C-c/d is denied was established by modernity. Modernity has been the approximately 225 year attempt to pretend that God does not exist. With the advent of the enlightenment man gave God his divorce papers and being at war w/ God man has closed down God’s embassy on earth. Putatively, God is neither hyper immanent nor hyper transcendent. God simply isn’t, or is irrational or God is dead.

However, in such a profession, god or some god concept does not go away. Like the other C-c/d denials we have looked at this C-c/d ends up en-goding man. Modernity is the age that has given us the great formal totalitarianisms of Robespierre, Marx, Lenin, Mao, Hitler, Gramsci, and a host of other. So, the common thread that we have thus far seen as evidence of the denial of the C-c/d is upheld. Religions and cultures that deny the C-c/d by pretending as if God doesn’t exist typically simply transfers the sovereignty and Creator status of God to the State.

Now one common strand we’ve seen between these three different ways to deny the C-c/d is the the political top down structures they each tend to build. However the similarities do not end there. Remember the effect of denying the C-c/d is the denial of the most fundamental of reality distinctions. When this most basic of distinctions is denied the effect of this macro-denial, when teased out to its logical and inevitable conclusion, is the micro-denial of all other distinctions. When the distinction between the C-c is denied then all other God ordained distinctions can be and often are denied as well.

When the C-c/d is denied then obviously God has been locked out of his creation and the consequence of that will be the increasingly widespread denial of all other divinely imposed and sanctioned distinctions. Concretely this means that in a culture that is working out the implications of its C-c/d denial is the most aberrant of embraces. In these kind of C-c/d denial cultures (quite regardless of just exactly how the C-c/d is manifesting itself) what happens is distinction like male and female begin to disappear and homosexuality becomes an increasingly familiar phenomenon. Distinctions like the uniqueness of marriage as being monogamous vs. polymorphous, polygamous, or polyandrous begin to be increasingly denied. Similarly, when the C-c/d is denied the distinctions between men and women as it relates to the God designed distinctions in terms of their physical, psychological, emotional distinctions are denied so that men and women begin to be seen as interchangeable parts in a monistic machine. This of course leads to feministic oriented cultures where women are seen as being perfectly capable of being head over men. Distinctions like the qualitative distinction between man and animal are denied w/ the result that organizations that advocate that animals have human rights begin to proliferate. When the C-c/d is denied then all bets are off for all other distinctions being maintained because when the C-c/d is denied the basis for all other distinctions lose their credibility.

Finally, another key distinction that become a casualty of the C-c/d denial is the distinction that distinguishes one religion from another religion. Biblical Christianity especially becomes the victim of this denial since Christianity alone teaches a hard exclusivity. (Indeed, I would suggest where hard exclusivity is sacrificed in Christianity it is a sign that the eroding drip of the C-c/d is doing its work.) This denial of the distinctions between religions thus allows room for a multi-culturalism that gives just a bare lip service on differences between faiths that create cultures and allows one mono-culture to be created by the defacto faith created from the assumed unity of many faiths.

In brief the denial of the C-c/d leads to an inescapable monism that leads to the autonomous imposition of reality distinctions by human agents who have been en-godded. Naturally, it is the consistent outworking of this C-c/d denial that has the West where it currently is, with its rampant Statism, Homosexuality, Gender confusion, Animal rights, multi-culturalism, etc.

In the next entry on this subject we will look at other ways in which the C-c/d can be played with and the implications that often follow from that.